Summary

Description

Located in Morris County, New Jersey about 25 miles west of New York Citys Time Square, the U.S. Fish Wildlife Services Service Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge GSNWR encompasses approximately 7,500 acres of which 3,660 acres are designated and managed as a National Wilderness Area. In many portions of the Great Swamp watershed, significant areas of native soils have been disturbed by development to the extent that the original soil profiles no longer exist. Developmentrelated activities such as grading, infilling, and compaction have adversely altered the native soils infiltration capacity and runoff potential and thereby have increased stormwater sediment loading into many of the watersheds streams. The purpose of this investigation is to conduct a 10year followup to a 1988 investigation USFWS 1991 characterizing ambient concentrations of metals, organochlorines, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons PAHs in GSNWR sediments, and metals and organochlorine in fish inhabiting the GSNWR. Moreover, data from the 1988 investigation were compared with 1999 data to determine whether ambient conditions have significantly changed. It is imperative that a monitoring program be implemented as a standardized GSNWR function with a specific and guaranteed annual commitment for contaminant monitoring.