





Q. When is this condition likely to reverse itself?








Sewage is one problem. Obviously, there's a lot of things that go into the Sound from those plants. Others are natural runoff, agricultural input -fertilizers and soils - and other things that flow into Long Island Sound.

The Sound has always been a drainage-system receptacle for the New England watershed. That's what made the Sound a nursery ground not only for lobster, but for flounder, crabs, cutters and blackfish.

Another situation to be taken into account is the loss of our salt marshes. In the whole mass balance of energy flowing through the system, possibly the sewage discharge compensated for the loss of those salt marshes, which are natural nutrient pumps. Actually, the real organic capacity of the Sound, to assimilate an artificial load, hasn't been determined, because we don't know how much decaying material the salt marshes put into the Sound.

Q. Are there any environmental factors that could have contributed to this condition?

A. There's a couple of factors. First of all, there have been few storms. Storms really push a system. They tend to increase the turnover rate of the water. Then, during the last few weeks, the tides have been relatively low. Now we're into stronger tides, which increase the flushing rate. That hot spell, with no real wind and low rainwater runoff, just a stagnating weather condition, could have enhanced that hypoxic condition. We're in a period when we've had few tropical storms. One good storm and you could clean it all up.

Q. Is hypoxia the biggest threat to the Sound or are there greater threats?