Habitat Development Field Investigations Windmill Point Marsh Development site James River,Virginia. Appendix E. Environmental Impacts of Marsh Development with Dredged Material:Metals and Chlorinated Hydrocarbon Compounds in Marsh Soils and Vascular Plant Tissues.

摘要

Soil and vascular plant tissue samples were collected in October 1976 from three freshwater marshes located on the James River in Virginia. One marsh known as the Windmill Point marsh development site had been constructed using dredged material during the 1974-75 maintenance dredging of the James River navigation channel. The two other marshes were natural marshes. The marshes studied were similar in their substrate characteristics. All were fine-textured silt and clay with volatile solids values between 10 and 20 percent, and contained about 50 percent water. Elevation and plant community characteristics were similar. Soil samples were collected from the same three elevation zones in each marsh. Arrow arum (Peltandra virginica) seeds, barnyard grass(Echinochloa sp.) seeds, stems and leaves, and roots, and cattail(Typha sp.) stems and leaves and tubers were also collected from each marsh. Soil and tubers were also collected from each marsh. Soil and plant tissue samples were analyzed for the metals nickel, zinc, chromium, lead, and cadmium and the chlorinated hydrocarbon compounds DDT, DDD, DDE, lindane, heptachlor, heptachlor epoxide, chlordane, endrine, dieldrin, Kelthane, Kepone, PCBs, and toxaphene. Plant stem and leaf tissue samples were treated before analysis to remove sorbed metal and chlorinated hydrocarbon materials. Marsh soil concentrations of chromium, cadmium, and lead were higher in the dredged material marsh; nickel and zinc concentrations were higher in the natural marsh. Low detectable levels of DDD, chlordane isomers, and Arochlor 1260 (PCB) occurred most frequently in dredged material marsh soils.