Formatted Title:

Key Highlights and Lessons Learned from the San Diego Regional Harbor Monitoring Program, San Diego County, California

Background/Objectives:

The San Diego Regional Harbor Monitoring Program (RHMP) provides a comprehensive survey of the quality of water, sediments, and aquatic life on a 5-year cycle in four southern California embayments in the San Diego region: Dana Point Harbor, Oceanside Harbor, Mission Bay, and San Diego Bay. These water bodies are collectively referred to as the San Diego Regional Harbors. The RHMP was developed by the Port of San Diego, the City of San Diego, the City of Oceanside, and the County of Orange to evaluate status and trends related to a variety of environmental condition indicators and to determine whether beneficial uses are being attained and protected in the four harbors. The RHMP is coordinated with the larger-scale regional Southern California Bight Regional Monitoring Program (Bight Program) managed by the Southern California Coastal Water Research Project (SCCWRP).

Approach/Activities:

Sampling areas for the RHMP are partitioned into five strata classified as either freshwater-influenced, marina, industrial/port, deep, or shallow regions for comparative assessments. Sampling of the water column and sediments has been performed at a total of 75 stations positioned using a stratified random sampling design. At 15 of these locations bottom fish and invertebrates have been collected and assessed by pulling and retrieving a trawl net from a research vessel. To determine whether the waters and sediments sustain healthy biological communities, a weight-of-evidence approach has been used that combines measures that assess the degree of human impact by measuring chemical concentrations and toxicity, along with the direct measures of biological communities that inhabit the soft bottom regions of the bay including small invertebrate species living in the mud (infauna), and bottom dwelling (demersal) fish and invertebrate communities.

Results/Lessons Learned:

A summary of the program highlights from monitoring efforts between 2008 and 2018 will be provided during this presentation with analysis of samples and data collected in 2023 currently underway. Measures of the water column indicate good water quality throughout the four harbors with only one chemical, dissolved copper, exceeding published water quality objectives for the protection of marine life, primarily within marinas and areas with heavy industrial activity. Integrated sediment quality results in 2018 (incorporating chemistry, toxicity, and benthic infaunal communities) found that 72% of the sediments throughout all of the regional harbors were considered to be unimpacted or likely unimpacted following the State of California Sediment Quality Objective (SQO) approach. Those areas that were considered to be possibly or likely impacted were generally found in those areas of the harbors most closely associated with human uses (i.e., the marina and industrial/port strata) as compared with areas that were less directly associated with anthropogenic influences (i.e., deep and shallow strata). Over the past 10 years sediment quality based on the integrated SQO approach appears to have remained relatively consistent with some improvement noted in the deep and marina strata. Demersal fish and invertebrate communities over the past 15 years have shown some variation in species composition but consistently comprise of healthy appearing individuals with minimal abnormalities.

Stuart Goong

Affiliation

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Key Highlights and Lessons Learned from the San Diego Regional Harbor Monitoring Program, San Diego County, California