Portland Harbor Benthic Invertebrate Growth and Survival 2004 - 2007 (NCEI Accession 0301784)

The lower Willamette River, between Willamette Falls and the confluence with the Columbia River, in Portland, Oregon has a long history of industrialization and contamination. The river has supported a major commercial shipping port and industrial waterfront for over a century. As part of this industrialization, numerous industries have released toxic contaminants into the waterway over decades. These pollutants include polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane and its derivatives (DDT), polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), and metals. As part of a Natural Resource Damage Assessment (NRDA) addressing historical pollution at the designated Superfund site the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reevaluated data from the risk assessment to advance the understanding of the magnitude of impacts to benthic invertebrates exposed to a mixture of contaminants in the Superfund site through the application of principal components analysis, mean probable effects quotients (mPEC-Qs), and dose response curves.