The Southern California Bight Pilot Project: an experiment in cooperative regional monitoring

The Southern California Bight Pilot Project (SCBPP), a cooperative sampling effort by 12 agencies, was designed to provide synoptic information about the ecological condition of benthic communities in southern California as well as to evaluate the sampling design used by EPA´s Environmental Monitoring and Assessment Program (EMAP). EMAP´s statistical design was used to select station locations; local monitoring methods were used to collect and process the samples. Water quality, benthic invertebrate and fish assemblages, sediment characteristics including toxicity fish pathology and bioaccumulation and marine debris were measured in three geographic zones (north, central and south); three depth zones (shallow, middle and deep); and in municipal wastewater and stormwater discharge areas. Sampling was completed in the summer of 1994. Results for total organic carbon (TOC) in sediment are presented as an example of how data are analyzed