Executive Summary

Figure 1 Warning sign discouraging coming into contact with contaminated area[1]

Sediment contamination is a serious problem. The contaminants affect small creatures that live at the bottom of the body of water. It also directly affects the creatures that are in direct contact with these contaminants as the sediments are resuspended into the water. These small creatures include worms, crustaceans, and organisms that larger animals feed on. These larger animals are then eaten by even larger animals, causing the contaminants to move up along the food chain. Some of these organisms cannot handle these contaminants and end up dying. The contaminants do not only affect ocean life; they also affect humans as well as other animals that feed upon these creatures. The United States Environmental Protection Agency states that “possible long-term effects of eating contaminated fish include cancer and neurological defects.”[2]

Figure 2 Warning sign about contaminated fish

Sediment contamination is a problem that affects a lot of ocean life as well as humans and needs to be cleaned up. There is an estimated total of about 294,000 hazardous waste sites that need to be cleaned up, and over the next thirty years, cleanup can cost as much as $250 billion.[3] Gathering data about the sediments and contamination is essential in coming up with an effective and reliable method of cleaning up these contaminants. This project sponsored by SPAWAR focused on the deployment of a live feed camera into the seabed in different locations of naval harbors. SPAWAR is the Navy’s Information Dominance systems command. The project’s motivation was to replace the existing method of gathering physical sediment core samples and analyzing them. This method of gathering physical sediment core samples requires a lot of time and money. The goal of this project was to rid this need for a physical sample, greatly reducing the amount of time and money spent to analyze the sediments. The solution to eliminating the need for a physical sample is to obtain a live feed video of the sediments. Using the video recording, analysts can greatly reduce the time and money it takes to gather the data as well as widen areas for long-term monitoring. The complete system consists of a camera, lighting, the housing that encases the electronics, and the Ethernet cable running from the boat to the housing. The housing includes a window for viewing the sediment and an angled tip with an optimal shape for penetrating the sediment and leaving the material as undisturbed as possible.

[1] http://oceanservice.noaa.gov/education/kits/pollution/media/pol012c_700.jpg

[2] http://water.epa.gov/polwaste/sediments/cs/aboutcs.cfm

[3] http://www.epa.gov/superfund/accomp/news/30years.htm