Beach closures, shellfishing bans, health warnings to fisherman, waste discharges to the sea, ocean dumping, losses of wetland, accidental spills of oil and hazardous chemicals, marine mammal strandings, trash washing ashore, fish kills, blooms of harmful algae, and summertime oxygen depletions all arouse public concern over the quality of the marine environment. To assess the effects of human activities on the quality of coastal and estuarine areas throughout the United States, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) created the National Status and Trends (NS&T) Program in 1984. While not every untoward event in the marine environment is attributable to chemical contamination, NS&T has, to date, focused on monitoring trends of chemical contamination in space and time and to determine biological responses to that contamination. The primary goals are to quantify the extent to which chemical contamination is causing environmental harm and to determine whether contamination is decreasing or increasing.
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