Bioaccumulation and Tissue Distribution of Arsenic, Cadmium, Copper and Zinc in Crassostrea virginica Grown at Two Different Depths in Jamaica Bay, New York.

Historically, Jamaica Bay was a site of extensive oyster beds and shellfish culture leases that supported a significant oyster fishery in the New York area. The industrial and urban expansion of the early 1900's led to over-harvesting and a deterioration in water and bay sediment quality that coincided with shellfish decline and the ultimate disappearance of oysters from the bay. Over the past 50 years, efforts to arrest and reverse the pollution problems of Jamaica Bay have been undertaken but the area still contains metals and other pollutants at levels higher than NYS Water Quality Standards. Previous we showed that Crassostrea virginica seed transplanted to the bay had excellent growth and survival despite the bay's pollution problems. In this study we measured the one-year bioaccumulation and tissue distribution of four metals in C. virginica seed that were transplanted to the bay at two different depths: one foot from the surface and one foot above the sediment. Tissues of C. virginica were dissected, dried and digested in nitric acid. Arsenic, cadmium, copper and zinc levels were measured using electrothermal vaporization with deuterium lamp background correction in an atomic absorption spectrophotometer fitted with a THGA graphite furnace. Metals were distributed in the various tissues in μg/g dry weight amounts, which correlate well with published values for whole oysters grown in other polluted areas. Metal distributions were not homogeneous throughout the animals and in most of the tissues tested, oysters grown near the surface accumulated more metal than those positioned near bay sediment.