Bay Regional Monitoring Program
Projects Related to the Bay Regional Monitoring Program
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https://www.sfei.org/documents/2019-pulse-bay-pollutant-pathwaysDownload the Pulse of the Bay! This report from the Regional Monitoring Program for Water Quality in San Francisco Bay features articles on the four major pathways by which pollutants enter the Bay: municipal wastewater, industrial wastewater, stormwater, and dredging and dredged sediment disposal. Each article provides a basic introduction to the pathway and discusses the regulatory framework, recent findings, and future challenges. The report also includes some of the latest highlights from monitoring of important parameters such as nutrients, emerging contaminants, mercury, PCBs, and selenium.
![Photo: Shira Bezalel](https://www.sfei.org/sites/default/files/styles/portfolio_sm/public/projects/SBezalel-20181122-A7301974.jpg?itok=3apVjgBR&c=c0e9d9f30ca160c04443cf919702b389)
Plastics, in their various chemical composition and sizes, pose serious challenges to the vitality of California's ecosystems. Once escaped into the environment, plastic contamination persists for very long periods and breaks down into ever smaller pieces, becoming more readily available to wildlife and populations who live, work, and play in those same habitats.
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The Regional Monitoring Program for Water Quality in San Francisco Bay is an innovative collaboration of the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board, the regulated discharger community, and the San Francisco Estuary Institute. It provides water quality regulators with the information they need to manage the Bay effectively. The RMP produces two types of summary reports: The Pulse of the Bay and the RMP Update. The Pulse focuses on Bay water quality and summarizes information from all sources.
![Photo credit: Shira Bezalel](https://www.sfei.org/sites/default/files/styles/portfolio_sm/public/projects/Marsh%20by%20Shira%20Bezalel%20%281%29.jpg?itok=5b7tsZER&c=f4d097581d8fe3ca6a78ba488fee8df2)
Despite California's data-rich environment, there are still many obstacles when trying to access and understand pesticide data at the nexus of water quality, ecological effects, and human health. We recognize a need to fill data gaps, not necessarily by collecting new data, but by better leveraging information already technically in the public domain. The goal of this project is to bring pesticide reporting, occurrence, and toxicity data together in ways that yield insights and meet the expressed needs of stakeholders in clear, efficient, credible, and repeatable ways.
![PFAS Family Tree with precursor transformation pathways identified.](https://www.sfei.org/sites/default/files/styles/portfolio_sm/public/projects/PFAS%20FIGURE.jpg?itok=xnnbQmSz&c=b0f771f4b6d3d43b67666b8a9e0328ba)
A recent analysis of PFAS in the surface waters of SF Bay was conducted to understand the occurrence, fate, and potential risks to ecological and human health. Eleven of 40 PFAS were detected at part per trillions (ppt) concentrations in ambient water collected in 2021 from 22 sites in the Bay. Seven PFAS (PFPeA, PFHxA, PFHpA, PFOA, PFBS, PFHxS, and PFOS), were found in at least 50% of samples. Concentrations of PFAS in the Bay were generally consistent with similar studies globally for surface water. Sustained, multi-matrix monitoring of this important class of contaminants of emerging concern is a high priority for the RMP.
![Monitoring San Francisco Bay for microplastics - photo by Plus M Productions](https://www.sfei.org/sites/default/files/styles/portfolio_sm/public/projects/SFBayMicroplastics_research1_photo4_preview.jpeg?itok=uoR8ZrBA&c=28d207b7c5a0fd337098c4f5648226f4)
Plastic pollution is gaining global recognition as a threat to the resilience and productivity of ocean ecosystems. However, we are only just beginning to understand the scope and impacts of microplastic particles (less than 5 mm) on coastal and ocean resources, and the San Francisco Bay Area is no exception. A preliminary study of nine water sites in San Francisco Bay, published in 2016, showed greater levels of microplastics than the Great Lakes or Chesapeake Bay.
![RMP Annual Meeting](https://www.sfei.org/sites/default/files/styles/portfolio_sm/public/projects/Screen%20Shot%202021-09-08%20at%204.10.21%20PM.png?itok=-iStfpbQ&c=1cf0cddaddb8df94e3ea69b3b4a2706a)
The 28th RMP Annual Meeting was hosted on Thursday, October 14th, 2021. Fully virtual for the second year, the meeting included an excellent lineup with presentations from RMP staff and other invited experts. We heard about and discussed findings on Bay sediment supply, PFAS, tire particles and chemicals, and contaminants in Bay fish, among other topics. If you missed the meeting or any specific sessions, recordings of the meeting and presenter slides will be posted below shortly
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Contaminant Data Display and Download Tool or CD3 is an innovative visualization tool for accessing water quality data for the San Francisco Bay-Delta and northern montane regions. It is the primary tool for accessing and downloading the San Francisco Bay Regional Monitoring Program’s (RMP) long-term dataset and other project data stored in SFEI's Regional Data Center (RDC).
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More than 100,000 chemicals have been registered or approved for commercial use in the US. For many of these chemicals, major information gaps limit evaluations of their potential risks, and environmental monitoring of these chemicals has not been required by regulatory agencies. Nevertheless, researchers and government agencies have begun to collect occurrence, fate, and toxicity data for a number of these chemicals.
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The Archive Sample Tool provides a web interface that SFEI researchers can use to browse the RMP archives when considering using archive material for a study. The RMP has been collecting archive samples during each sampling event for sediment, bivalve, fish and birds since the early 1990's. These samples are available to SFEI researchers with RMP Program Manager approval, and can be requested directly from the tool.
Publications related to the Bay Regional Monitoring Program
The Institute has collectively produced more than 1300 reports, articles, and other publications over the course of its 24-year existence. The following list represents those publications associated with this individual program and its focus areas.
Year of Publication: 2016
2016 RMP Bivalve Retrieval Cruise Report. 2016 .
(441.8 KB) .
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2016 RMP Detailed Workplan and Budget. Richmond, CA: San Francisco Estuary Institue; 2016 .
(1.73 MB) .
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2016 RMP Multi-Year Plan. Richmond, CA: San Francisco Estuary Institute; 2016 .
(5.57 MB) .
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2016 RMP Sturgeon Derby Study Sampling & Analysis Plan. Richmond, CA: San Francisco Estuary Institute ; 2016 .
(250.62 KB) .
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2016 Updated ambient concentrations of toxic chemicals in San Francisco Bay area sediments. Richmond, CA: San Francisco Estuary Institute; 2016 .
(3.1 MB) .
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Contaminant Concentrations in Eggs of Double-crested Cormorants and Forster's Terns from San Francisco Bay: 2002-2012. 2016 . Report No.: 736.
(1.42 MB) .
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Effects of salinity on olfactory toxicity and behavioral responses of juvenile salmonids from copper. Aquatic Toxicology [Internet]. 2016;175. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0166445X16300911 .
Identifying and Addressing Contaminant Sources Impacting an Urban Estuary. 2016.
(1.49 MB) .
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Increases in Anthropogenic Gadolinium Anomalies and Rare Earth Element Concentrations in San Francisco Bay over a 20 Year Record. Environ. Sci. Technol. [Internet]. 2016;50(8). http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acs.est.5b04322 .
Microplastic Contamination in San Francisco Bay - Fact Sheet. 2015, Revised 2016. 2016.
(4.05 MB) .
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Microplastic contamination in the San Francisco Bay, California, USA. Marine Pollution Bulletin [Internet]. 2016;109. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0025326X16303976 .
Microplastic pollution is widely detected in US municipal wastewater treatment plant effluent. Environmental Pollution [Internet]. 2016;218:1045-1054. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0269749116309629 .
Optimizing sampling methods for monitoring pollutant trends in San Francisco Bay urban stormwater. Livermore, CA: Applied Marine Sciences; 2016.
(956.13 KB) .
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Pollutants of concern (POC) loads monitoring progress report, water years (WYs) 2012, 2013, and 2014. 2016 . Report No.: 741.
(2.58 MB) .
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