The location of the three disposal mounds appears to 

 "straddle" regions of both Stage I and Stage I-III successional 

 seres (Figure 3-14) . Stage III seres occurred in three large 

 patches in the eastern, southern, and north-central portion of 

 the survey area. Comparison of Figures 3-14 and 3-13 reveals a 

 poor correspondence between Stage III seres and deep RPD's. This 

 pattern may indicate that a retrograde successional condition was 

 being caused by reduced rates of bioturbation (possibly due to 

 seasonal hypoxic conditions) . About half of the WLIS -survey area 

 stations and 70% of the WLIS Reference replicates exhibited a 

 Stage I assemblage. Again, this pattern suggests that, overall, 

 the WLIS Reference station was more highly stressed than the 

 active disposal area. In August 1985, the distribution of Stage 

 III seres was much less widespread in the eastern portion of the 

 region. 



Based on the results of past REMOTS® surveys, Organism- 

 Sediment Index (OSI) values of +6 or less are considered to 

 indicate that the bottom is stressed or has experienced recent 

 disturbance (erosion, dredged material disposal, hypoxia, or 

 demersal predator foraging) . The polymodal OSI frequency 

 distribution of the WLIS survey area (Figure 3-15) indicates a 

 mosaic of past disturbances (the major mode at 6 and 7, 

 subordinate modes at 3 and 9) . The WLIS Reference site had a 

 major mode at -3, and no values exceeded +5. OSI values for the 

 WLIS survey area were significantly greater than the WLIS 

 Reference OSI values (Mann-Whitney U-test, p < 0.001). Even 

 relative to the WLIS survey area, WLIS Reference appeared to be a 

 highly stressed region. The mapped distribution of OSI values 

 (Figure 3-16) shows a region of relatively high OSI's to the east 

 of the site and to the north and west of the disposal mounds. The 

 apex of disposal mound "B" exhibited relatively high, but 

 variable, OSI's. Mound "A" was bounded on the south by an area 

 of high indices. The center of mound "C" was associated with the 

 lowest mapped OSI value (-2) ; this illustrates the impacts of 

 recent disposal operations. The overall pattern of OSI values 

 consisted of high and low values in close proximity to one 

 another. This appears to reflect both the influence of disposal 

 operations as well as disturbance factors (unrelated to disposal) 

 prevalent in western Long Island Sound in general. 



3.3 Sediment Characteristics 



Results from the chemical analysis of the sediment 

 samples are presented in Table 3-1. Each individual result and 

 the means and standard deviations are presented for the Top and 

 Bottom sections of each core. The exception to this is PCBs for 

 which only one composite sample was analyzed from each station. 



Statistical tests were performed to determine if the 

 contaminant concentrations were different between stations. 



