Contamination profiles and temporal trends of persistent organic pollutants in oysters from the gulf of Mexico

2012 by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC. Chemical contamination of the coastal environment has been an issue of concern for scientists and politicians worldwide for the last several decades. Growing urban areas and diversifying industrialization in many countries produce tremendous amounts of municipal and industrial wastes that are introduced into the aquatic system; in addition, significant amounts of chemical contaminants are added from non-point sources. The coastal environment is particularly at risk from the degradative effects of these contaminants that might result in changes that are deleterious, over the long term, to both the integrity of the coastal environment and to human health. In his editorial in Marine Pollution Bulletin, Professor Goldberg [1] emphasized that the world ocean continued to receive significant amounts of wastes while the implementation of many proposed global marine monitoring programs was delayed. Without a systematic attempt to assess the marine levels of known contaminants, Professor Goldberg called for a global marine monitoring program utilizing mussels.

Contamination profiles and temporal trends of persistent organic pollutants in oysters from the gulf of Mexico Chapter