those species captured by the trawls (see Table 4). These finfish were 

 typical of those found in demersal and near-bottom pelagic assemblages 

 along the Northeast Atlantic Coast from New York (Briggs and O'Connor 

 1971) through Long Island Sound (Warfel and Merriman 1944; LILCo 1980) 

 and the Mystic River Estuary, Connecticut (Pearcy and Richards 1962) to 

 Rhode Island (Mulkana 1966) . The patterns of fluctuations in the catches 

 of these fish over time, was generally seasonal (Fig. 5-6). The catch 

 of winter flounder varied seasonally, but in different ways at different 

 stations. Scup, on the other hand show similar seasonal patterns at all non- 

 riverine stations when they migrated into the Millstone area. 



Those species whose abundance levels might change due to the removal 

 of individuals by impingement or entrainment or whose geographical 

 distribution might be altered by the thermal effluent could be considered 

 potentially impacted. Since trawl-caught species are generally on or 

 near the bottom and since the thermal effluent is primarily a surface 

 phenomenon, this finfish assemblage would not be expected to be impacted 

 by the thermal effluent. A comparison of those taxa either impinged or 

 entrained to those recorded from trawls is given in Table 5. The most 

 abundant demersal fish, winter flounder, was the most important impinged 

 species in the time period. Of the remaining 11 selected 'important' 

 taxa, only scup, and searobins were neither entrained nor impinged in 

 large enough numbers to be considered potentially impacted. 



The trawl sampling program extant at MNPS sampled finfish typical 

 of the bottom and near-bottom habitats of the northeast Atlantic coast, 

 and provided both a long term and seasonal description of the fluctuations 

 that these assemblages experience. Additionally, potentially impacted 

 species were represented in these collections. The next step in this 



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