Technical Report No. 31
ESTUARINE POLLUTION IN THE STATE OF HAWAII
Doak C. Cox and Lawrence C, Gordon Jr. VOL.1 STATE WIDE STUDY MARCH 1970
PREFACE
This report is the result of a one-year study of pollution of estuaries in the State of Hawaii undertaken by the University of Hawaii for the Federal Water Pollution Control Administration under contract no. 14-12-446. Estuarine pollution is both a local and a national concern. Among faculty members of the University of Hawaii concerns with the ecological effects of pollution in estuaries in general, and Kaneohe Bay on Oahu in particular, had been mounting for some time. There were also concerns with the growing problems of waste disposal and with the physical, biological, and economic implications of recently adopted Water Quality Standards. At the national level, the Federal Water Pollution Control Administration was authorized and instructed under the Clean Water Restoration Act of 1966 to undertake a National Estuarine Pollution Study. The study reported here grew out of initial correspondence begun in 1967, and particularly discussions held in December of that year, between interested faculty members and representatives of the FWPCA. Field work was initiated early in June 1968 with the interim support of the University’s Office of Research Administration and expanded rapidly following the approval of the contract by 29 June 1968. A progress report was submitted to FWPCA in December 1968 (Water Resources Research Center Memorandum Report No. 15). Field work was terminated 30 June 1969, when a first draft of this report was transmitted to the FWPCA. The study included two major projects, a statewide review of estuaries and their pollution based on already existing information, Vol. 1 of this report, and a special study of ecological factors and pollution in Kaneohe Bay, Vol. 2 of this report. It involved faculty from several units of the University and administrative assistance of the Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology and the Agricultural Economics Department as well as that of the Water Resources Research Center.