FISHERY BULLETIN: VOL. 85, NO. 3 



Puyallup River, in Puget Sound's Commence- 

 ment Bay (Fig. 1). This dynamic area receives a 

 variety of anthropogenic and natural discharges. 

 For example, the river discharges approximately 

 5,500 kg/year of sediments in a seasonally vari- 

 able manner (Dexter et al. 1981). In addition, the 

 City of Tacoma releases primary-treated sewage 

 into the river at an annual flow rate of 0.9 m'^/sec- 

 ond (20.5 MGD) approximately 2.4 km upstream 

 from the river mouth (Tetra Tech 1981). A pre- 

 liminary survey conducted by the authors showed 

 that benthic invertebrate assemblages through- 



out much of the delta were dominated numeri- 

 cally by Capitella spp. 



Field sampling was conducted from 26 May to 3 

 June 1981. All three target species have spawned 

 by this time (Hart 1973) and, as typical of most 

 adult pleuronectids, are presumably feeding in- 

 tensely to replenish the energy used previously 

 for migration, overwintering, and spawning (e.g., 

 Moiseev 1953; Roff 1982). 



Sampling was conducted along two 300 m tran- 

 sects located at a depth of 32 ± 2 m (Fig. 1). This 

 depth corresponds to the upper boundary of the 



N 



/K 



CONTOURS IN METERS 



100 200 



100 



J YARDS 

 1 METERS 



200 



SAMPLING 

 TRANSECTS- 



/ 



50 



10 



PUGET SOUND 



TACOMA 



Puyallup 

 River 



Figure 1. — Locations of sampling transects and benthic sampling points (i.e., large dots) along 



each transect. 



472 



