Four federal agencies now monitoring CNMI waters

Coastal waters of the Northern Marianas are now being monitored by four federal resource agencies to obtain sufficient data that would be included in the next National Coastal Condition Report that documents the condition of all estuaries of the United States.

This came soon after the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency disclosed that there is no overall coastal water assessment made for the Northern Mariana Islands, along with other U.S. territories, including Guam, due to limited data and reports gathered from 1997 to 2000.

But the EPA stressed that reports for Alaska and Hawaii were completed and samples are being analyzed. The result of these would be presented when the next National Coastal Condition Report is released in 2009.

Aside from the CNMI, the federal agency said it did not complete the reports for Guam, American Samoa, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

On its 2005 National Coastal Condition Report released Monday, EPA noted that estuaries across the United States are in fair condition overall but conditions are poor in the Northeast coast and Puerto Rico regions.

The report was compiled by four federal resource agencies once every four years. It was a collaborative report of the U.S. EPA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the U.S. Fisheries and Wildlife Services, and the U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with other agencies from different states and territories.

Although the report provides some condition data for Alaska, Hawaii, U.S. island commonwealths and territories, the U.S EPA said reports are not comparable with the data provided by other regions included in the NCCR documents issued.

The report further said that current monitoring for these areas including the Northern Marianas, Guam, Puerto Rico and U.S. Virgin Islands are being conducted in hopes that these would be included in the next coastal waters publication in 2009.

The NCCR II presents three main types of data: (1) coastal monitoring data, (2) offshore fisheries data, and (3) assessment and advisory data. The ratings of coastal condition in the report are based primarily on coastal monitoring data because these are the most comprehensive and nationally consistent data available related to coastal condition.

One source of coastal monitoring data is obtained through EPA’s National Coastal Assessment Program, which provides information on the condition of coastal estuaries for most regions of the United States. The NCCR publication, which is the second report released, relies heavily on NCA estuarine data in assessing coastal condition and uses NCA and other data to evaluate five indicators of condition, which include water quality, sediment quality, benthic community condition, coastal habitat loss, and fish tissue contaminants, in each region of the United States.

“New ecological monitoring programs will permit a comprehensive and consistent assessment of all of the nation’s coastal resources by 2006,” the report said.

The EPA also admitted that there were some shortcomings in the recently released NCCR publication since some of the territories were not included due to little information provided. This, the EPA added could not be comparable with all data provided by other 48 states and Puerto Rico.

“Alaska has very little information to support the kind of analysis used in this report. Nearly 75 percent of the area of all the bays, sounds, and estuaries in the United States is located in Alaska, and no national report on estuarine condition can be truly complete without information on the condition of living resources and use attainment of these waters,” the report reads.

Similarly, little information is available for Hawaii, the Caribbean, or the Pacific territories to support estimates of conditions based on the indicators used in this report. Although these latter systems make up only a small portion of the nation’s estuarine area, they represent a set of estuarine subsystems (such as coral reefs and tropical bays) that are not located anywhere else in the United States. These unique systems should not be excluded from future national assessments, the report added.

Based on the report, at least 529 or 29 percent of the 1,813 U.S estuaries had an advisory of closing the beaches in 2002 due to various reasons, including sewage contamination, elevated bacterial levels, and preemptive reasons. Major sources of contamination were stormwater runoff, sewerline problems, sewer overflows, and other unknown sources. The leading stressors resulting in these impairments are metals, pesticides, oxygen-depleting substances, toxic chemicals, PCBs, and dissolved solids.

The report’s primary goal is to provide a benchmark of coastal condition in order to measure the success of coastal programs over time. Also, federal agencies hope that the report would provide for potential trends. Coastal waters in the United States and territories include estuaries, coastal wetlands, coral reefs, mangrove, kelp forests, seagrass meadows and upwelling areas. (Edith G. Alejandro)