Deep-water dumpsite 106 is located over the continental slope and rise about 106 miles east of New Jersey (Fig. 1). From March 1986 to July 1992 approximately eight million wet metric tons of sewage sludge were disposed there per year (Robertson and Redford, 1992). Because of the potential impact of this dumping on deep-sea ecosystems, NOAA/NMFS contracted the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, College of William and Mary (VIMS) to make otter-trawl collections in and around DWD 106 in 1990 and 1991. Specific objectives of these collections were:
1. To sample the demersal megafauna, especially fishes;
2. To provide frozen series of dominant species of fishes and invertebrates to NMFS for subsequent heavy metal and organic analyses;
3. To provide a description of the demersal fish community structure in the area; 4. To compare these data with similar data collected from 1973 to 1978 from DWD 106 and an adjacent area to the south near Norfolk submarine canyon.
This final contract report summarizes the results of these studies
