VII-1 



INTRODUCTION 



The preceding parts of this report represent in relatively brief 

 form the efforts of the National Estuarine Pollution Study, act- 

 ing on behalf of the Secretary of the Interior, to "assemble, 

 coordinate, and organize all existing [available] pertinent infor- 

 mation on the Nation's estuaries and estuarine zones ..." as 

 dictated by Sec. 5g of the Clean Water Restoration Act of 1966. 



The source information was obtained from many different sources, 

 constitutes a tremendously large mass of materials, and includes 

 published and unpublished material in the technical and scientific 

 literature. The quantitative data in the sources was abstracted and 

 consolidated in the form of the National Estuarine Inventory, de- 

 scribed in Part VI. 



In general the sources can be grouped into four categories -- trans- 

 scripts of estuarine study public meetings. Federal and State 

 profiles, estuarine study contractors' report, and the reference 

 collection. The sources are described, herein, only in general 

 terms because of the already voluminous nature of this report. 

 The preceding parts contain references only to those documents 

 which constitute an intergral part of the text. A list of all the 

 documents would unduly burden the report and the reader. 



TRANSCRIPTS OF PUBLIC MEETINGS 



During 1968 and 1969, the National Estuarine Pollution Study 



