United States
                       Environmental Protection
                       Agency
                                                    Office of Research and
                                                    Development
                                                    Washington DC 20460
EPA620/R-01/001f
 September, 2001
vl'EPA     Coastal  Communications
                             National  Coastal  Assessment:
                                             Maine
                             ORD/RESION 1/OW/CBNEP
                                                                         Maine
                                                                NCA Design (2000-2001)
Background
The U.S. EPA's National Coastal Assessment (NCA), referred
to as Coastal 2000 during the first year of this program, is a
multi-year partnership among EPA's Office of Research and
Development (ORD), EPA's Office of Water (OW), EPA's
Regional Offices, all coastal states, and selected territories.
As part of this effort, ORD has developed a coastal
monitoring program with the state of Maine, EPA Region 1, and
the Casco Bay National Estuary Program (CBNEP) located at
the University of Southern Maine. This joint effort will
determine the condition of estuarine waters in Maine, and
permit comparison to other U.S. coastal areas. This effort is
being coordinated by the ORD National Health and
Environmental Effects Research Laboratory's Atlantic Ecology
Division in Narragansett, Rhode Island.

National Coastal Assessment Strategy
The National Coastal Assessment is a strategic  partnership
between EPA and the coastal states and other federal
agencies. Each state uses a compatible probabilistic design
and a common set of environmental indicators (see Table
below) to survey its coastal resources and assess their
condition. These estimates can then be aggregated to assess
conditions at the EPA Regional, biogeographical, and national
levels.  All final data will be made available for public access
on the internet. The map shows the coastal areas included in
the survey and the number of sampling sites intended for estuarine waters of Maine. Elements of the existing
Casco Bay National Estuary Program's water quality surveys have been integrated into the NCA activities.
                                                                                     Sampling
                                                                                     Sites *
Water Quality
dissolved oxygen
Salinity, temperature, depth
PH
Nutrients
Chlorophyll
Sediment Quality
Grain size
Total organic carbon
Sediment chemistry
Benthic community structure
Sediment toxicity
Biota
Benthic community structure
Fish community structure
Fish external pathology
Fish tissue chemical analyses

Further Information
For further information, please contact Diane Gould at EPA Region 1 at (617) 918-1569 or gould.diane@epa.gov: or
Lee Doggett at the Maine Department of Environmental Protection at (207) 287-7666 or lee.doggett©state.me.us:
or Jerry Pesch at the ORD National Health and Environmental Effects Laboratory's Atlantic Ecology Division at
(401) 782-3007 or pesch.gerald@epa.gov. Visit the coastal communications web site at
  D'7/www .eDa.gov/qed/crc.htm

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