53 



During the November 1993 precap REMOTS® survey of the FVP mound, there was 

 a noticeable lack of Stage II and Stage III benthic infaunal activity. Although plans were 

 made to cap the historic UDM mound, no excess CDM was available from the New Haven 

 Capping Project to begin the placement of a sediment cap over the FVP mound. Another 

 series of REMOTS® photographs collected in September 1995 indicate an increase in Stage 

 III individuals within the surface sediments (Morris and Murray 1995). A total of ten 

 stations displayed evidence of Stage III assemblages, compared to the single replicate of 

 station 50W in 1993. However, the majority of those ten stations lie 200 to 300 m from 

 the center of the mound, correlating to previous observations regarding the patchy benthic 

 infaunal community near the center of the FVP mound. 



The original objective of FVP was to field verify existing predictive techniques for 

 evaluating the environmental consequences of dredged material disposal under aquatic, 

 intertidal (wetland), and upland conditions (Murray and Carey 1993). The mound is an 

 uncapped UDM deposit formed by the placement of Black Rock Harbor sediments placed 

 in the northeast corner of CLIS during the 1982-83 disposal season. Designed as a six- 

 year, cooperative research project between the US Army Corps of Engineers, Waterways 

 Experiment Station (WES) and the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the UDM 

 sediments have been monitored periodically for changes in benthic infaunal population and 

 contaminant content. 



Now that the WES/EPA experimentation has concluded, plans have been made to 

 cap the mound in order to isolate the UDM from the marine environment. Without the 

 deposition of cap material during the New Haven Capping Project, an opportunity still 

 exists to conduct a comprehensive physical, chemical, and biological assessment of the 

 experimental mound 13 years post-disposal. An intensive bioaccumulation study on the 

 invertebrate species inhabiting the sediments could determine the current amount of 

 chemical uptake within the benthic infauna, as well as explore the stress and susceptibility 

 levels of the organisms occupying the various domains of the mound. 



Monitoring Surveys of the New Haven Capping Project, 1993-1994 



