Selecting Human and Ecological Receptors

it is of short duration). There is a commercial fishery, winter flounder, which

results in a complete pathway to humans through ingestion of flounder. The

management area is too far offshore (5 km (3 miles)) to consider groundwater

discharge as a likely exposure pathway. Also, the management option does not

result in sediment exposures at the water surface as might be the case for an

offshore containment island.

Selecting Human and Ecological Receptors

Ecological receptors

The potential receptors in the management site include the invertebrate

community that lives on or in the sediments (the benthos), fish species that

inhabit the bay for part of their life cycle or as a foraging area, and the plankton

community of invertebrates, fish larvae, and algae that are suspended in the water

column and carried with the tidal currents into and out of the bay.

Based on the data available for the site, it is clear that the focus of the analysis

should be on animals that have direct contact with the sediments. These animal

communities (both invertebrate and fish) tend to reside longer in particular areas

than do plankton (carried with the currents) or fish that inhabit the water column

(e.g., blue fish). Specifically, the environmental receptors which are emphasized

in this analysis are the benthic invertebrate community and the demersal (bottom)

fish community.

Within the demersal fish community, this risk assessment uses the winter

flounder (Pseudopleuronectes americanus) as the representative species because

it is the most commonly occurring species in the area, supports a major

commercial fishery in the bay, and is a major predator on bottom dwelling

organisms.

Human receptors

The likely human receptors include consumers of winter flounder from the

commercial and recreational fishery.

Characterization of Ecological Receptors - Winter

Flounder

The winter flounder is a coastal demersal species with a primary range in

cold-temperate boreal waters. Winter flounder occur at depths from the intertidal

to 150 m and on hard or soft mud, clay, sand, or pebble bottoms of bays,

estuaries, and coastal waters (Bigelow and Schroeder 1953).1 Perlmutter (1947)

suggested the existence of many discrete local stocks based on several key

References are listed following the main text.

Appendix F Hypothetical Example