EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 

 The following is a summary of the work done by the staff of the 

 Northeast Utilities Environmental Laboratory. It includes an evaluation 

 of each portion of the environmental program from it's beginning to 

 present. Recommendations are offered where necessary to continue to 

 provide state-of-the-art techniques throughout the construction and 

 operation of Unit 3. 



EXPOSURE PANELS 1968 - 1982 



The objective of the exposure panels program has been to characterize 

 fouling and wood-boring communities at sites within and beyond the 

 thermal effluent. From 1968 - 1978, one long and one short term exposure 

 panel were collected monthly from each of six stations. Long term 

 panels were exposed for 12 months and short term panels were exposed for 

 one month. In 1979, the sampling approach was changed to six replicate 

 samples being collected at five of the original six sites. Instead of 

 making monthly collections, these panels were collected in four overlapping, 

 six month exposure periods. This program change resulted from recommend- 

 ations of Brown and Moore (1977) and Battelle (1978, 1979). In addition, 

 several minor changes in sampling procedures occurred from 1968 - 1981 

 to reduce losses of panels from storms, increase the similarity in 

 deployments between stations, improve the condition of specimens used 

 for identification, and generally improve our understanding of community 

 structure on exposure panels. 



This evaluation concludes that the present data base is adequate 

 for making quantitative comparisons with data to be collected after Unit 

 3 becomes operational. Species area curves indicate that four to six 



