points per station per year or 104 points from October 1977 through 

 September 1981. 



SUMMARY 



1. The NUEL trawling program has provided both long term and seasonal 

 estimates of the kinds and numbers of finfish inhabiting the benthic 

 and near -bottom pelagic environs near MNPS. Their patterns of 

 abundance are now well documented. 



2. The program has provided information on trawl-caught species poten- 

 tially impacted by impingement and entrainment. 



3. The selected trawl -caught species data bases were characterized as 

 having highly skewed, non-normal distributions that approximated a 

 negative binomial distribution. Thus appropriately transformed 

 data could be used in parametric statistical tests. Using the In 

 (catch + k/2) transformed data, the program would be able to detect 

 large (2 0-50%) changes in demersal finfish populations which might 

 be the result of power plant impact. 



4. Time-series (forecasting) analysis were also found useful for 

 analyzing trends and should be continued as a powerful measure of 

 an intervention (power plant) effect. 



RECOMMENDATIONS 



1. It is recommended that the current trawl sampling program remain 

 unchanged. 



2. For detecting changes, the data collected since October 1977, 



appropriately transformed, should be used as the bases for detecting 

 potential changes related to three-unit operation. 



36 



