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Estuaries in NSW

Estuarine Water Quality

Organic Chemicals and Pesticides

Organic chemicals other than pesticides are often associated with industrial operations and find their way into estuaries via effluent discharge. Pesticides (including herbicides) can be carried into estuaries with rural stormwater runoff. To a lesser extent, urban runoff also contains pesticides.

Organic chemicals in general and pesticides in particular can present long and short-term hazards to people, animals and aquatic ecosystems. Chlorinated hydrocarbons are of great concern because of their persistent nature and their bio-accumulation in the food chain, often to toxic levels. The decline in Osprey populations in New South Wales estuaries, could be attributed in part to "eggshell thinning" caused by the build-up of chlorinated hydrocarbons in these animals. In New South Wales, the use of most chlorinated hydrocarbons is now either banned or restricted to very limited purposes.

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