Research Areas > Contaminants > Mass Emissions

Research Area: Long-Term Status and Trends in Contaminant Mass Emissions to the Southern California Bight

Hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent by federal, state, and local authorities since 1972 to reduce contaminant emissions as required by the Clean Water Act (CWA). Much of the focus over the first two decades of CWA implementation has been on reducing emissions from point source discharges, such as publicly owned treatment works (POTWs), industrial facilities, and power generating plants.

SCCWRP Research

One of SCCWRP’s main functions is to compile monitoring and assessment data to make regional evaluations to identify areas for future research. To this end, SCCWRP has compiled data on mass emissions from a variety of sources at periodic intervals dating back to 1970. Estimates of mass emissions from large POTWs have been conducted annually for the last 30 years. Estimates from other sources, such as small POTWs, industrial dischargers, dredged material disposal, urban runoff, oil platforms, vessel discharges, and aerial deposition have been conducted at a lesser frequency, but approximately every five years. The goal of this research is to estimate trends is mass emissions from all sources over time and to use this information to inform future management decisions.
 

Main projects in this category include:

• Characteristics of Effluents from Large Municipal Wastewater Treatment Facilities
• Characteristics of Stormwater Mass Emissions to the SCB
• Comparative Mass Emissions to the SCB