ANTHROPOGENIC TRACE METALS IN TIDAL MARSH SEDIMENTS, SILVER SANDS STATE PARK, MILFORD, CT

Silver Sands State Park, a 47-acre recreational beach and salt marsh facility along Long Island Sound in Milford, CT, encompasses a series of restored and un-restored tidal channels of the Fletcher's Creek and Nettleton Creek watershed. The area had been a dumping site for local inhabitants since the 1920's, used by the town of Milford as an unregulated landfill since the end of World War II, and officially closed in 1977. Anecdotal information indicates that, in addition to regular household waste, hazardous materials including asbestos, lead paint, pesticides, oil, battery acid, freon, toluene, PCB's, and radioactive medical waste were discarded at the site.

During restoration of the Fletcher's Creek tidal marsh channel system in 1999, bedded debris from unregulated dumping was exposed at the surface in a debris field of 3.72 square kilometers, lying 242 meters south of the fenced-off landfill, and extending a minimum distance of 60-100 meters beyond the mapped '0' limit of landfill waste. Bedded debris exposed in channels occurs to an average depth of 2 meters.

X-ray fluorescence analyses of sediment from the debris field, within tidal channels in the restored part of Fletcher's Creek and in the poorly circulating Nettleton Creek system indicate elevated concentrations of heavy metals of probable anthropogenic origin. Select ranges include Sn=8-280 mg/g, Pb=111-802 mg/g, Zn=153-2760 mg/g, Cu=57-1847 mg/g. Concentrations were highest in the tidal channel immediately south of the fenced landfill, and at several sites close to Nettleton Creek; concentrations were lower in the strandline zone.