Results of the 1985 baseline study of contaminants in fish and shellfish

The Baseline Study was conducted to obtain a picture of the distribution and levels of certain contaminants in certain species of fish and shellfish in the North Atlantic and the environment from which they were collected. In the Northeast Atlantic, the Baseline Study was conducted in cooperation with the Oslo and Paris commissions, while in the Baltic Sea this study was conducted with the support of the Baltic Marine Environment Protection

Commission (Helsinki Commission). Sixteen countries participated in this Baseline Study, namely, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, the German Democratic Republic, the Federal Republic of Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom, the USA, and the USSR.

The contaminants measured in this study included the metals mercury, cadmium, arsenic, copper, lead, and zinc, and the organochlorine compounds hexachlorocyclohexane (HCH), hexachlorobenzene (HCB), op- and pp'-DDT, pp'-DDE, pp'-TDE, Dieldrin, and PCBs and individual chlorobiphenyls (CBs). The main species studied were cod (Gadus morhua), plaice (Pleuronectes platessa), flounder (Platichthys flesus), dab (Limanda limanda) and blue mussels (Mvtilus edulis). some data were also submitted for a variety of

other species; for some of the contaminants enough data were available for herring (Clupea harengus), Mediterranean mussels (Mvtilus galloprovincialis), and oysters (Crassostrea qiqas and ~- virqinica) to make assessment worthwhile.