Items of Interest:

Endocrine Disrupting Compounds Live Internet Broadcast Brings Students & Scientists to NYC’s Jamaica Bay Estrogenic Compounds in Urban Waterways: An Interview with Anne McElroy Jamaica Bay's Disappearing Marshes, Conference Proceedings, March 3, 2004

The New York Sea Grant College Program (NYSG) is one of 30 National Sea Grant College Programs. Created by Congress in 1966, Sea Grant combines university, government, business and industry expertise to address coastal and Great Lakes needs. Funding is provided by New York State through the SUNY and Cornell University educational systems and federally by the parent agency of the U. S. Department of Commerce, the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

The program focuses the talents of university scientists and extension specialists on research and the transfer of science-based information to a great variety of coastal user groups, which include businesses and industries, federal, state and local government decision-makers and agency managers, the media and the interested public.

Methods:

1) Measure expression of a suite of receptors, proteins, and hormones indicative of endocrine disruption in juvenile fish and adult fish. Gonads will be assessed for histopathology.

2) Spawn adults collected from the field in the laboratory to determine any gross developmental abnormalities, hatching success, early larval growth and survival and endocrine disruption during early development.

3) Examining these endpoints in fertilized embryos exposed to sediments from Jamaica Bay and control sediments dosed with 4-nonylphenol.

Rationale:

Extremely high levels of endocrine disrupting chemicals are present in the sediments of Jamaica Bay. If endocrine disruption is a problem for benthic estuarine fish, we would expect to see effects in Jamaica Bay animals. This study will provide information that managers of toxic substances, wastewater treatment, and fisheries resources can use to better protect ecosystem health.