120 



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Apex . Most of the species favored are unimportant as 

 food for fishes. All of the species disfavored by waste 

 discharges are important sources of food for fish. Boesch 

 concludes, " ... it appears that the ability of the 

 Hudson-Raritan estuary and the Bight Apex to sustain living 

 resources harvested by man has been impaired." Swanson (16) 

 agrees with this conclusion. 



FISH AND SHELLFISH 



The health of fishes that reside in the Bight area has 

 suffered. Murchelano and Ziskowski in an NMFS study (15) 

 showed that 5.1% of winter flounder collected over the course 

 of seventeen months in the high carbon area of the Bight 

 Apex had fin rot. This was a level seven times as high as 

 fish collected outside of the Apex but still in the Bight. 

 Fin rot appears to be a chronic disease that may cause 

 mortality or decrease survival (16). 



Crabs and lobsters of the Bight suffer from blackgill, 

 a disease which may impair respiration and affect survival. 

 Blackgill is most prevalent in the most contaminated areas of 

 the Bight near the sewage sludge dumpsite (16). 



A large area in the Bight Apex has been closed to 

 commercial shellfishing for 9 years or more (17) (see Figure H) 



Sewage sludge dumping was undeniably a factor in the 1970 



2 

 380 Km closure (16). A 1971 study showed 100,000 coliform 



bacteria (MPN) per gram of sediment in the area surrounding 



the sewage sludge dumpsite (17). "When increasing bacterial 



