Mercury Strategy for the Bay-Delta Ecosystem - CALFED Bay-Delta ...

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pace of scientific discovery and generation of new information in a mercury program of this
scale. Effective mechanisms for rapid sharing of interim results among teams and for
information transfer to managers, other stakeholders, and the public will be essential to ensure
that interim data and information are available to facilitate timely information synthesis, risk
analysis, and risk communication. To encourage the exchange of interim results, it is
recommended that ground rules be developed for the sharing of data among teams and for the
public release of data and findings. We recommend that interim data and products be
summarized on a protected website and that listings of existing and forthcoming products be
maintained to facilitate the synthesis of findings among teams.
An annual meeting of investigators and ecosystem managers should be convened to provide a
forum for sharing of data and interpretations, as well as discussion, formulation of manuscript
plans, and integration of interim results. A review of funded mercury investigations should be a
key feature of the annual meeting. It is recommended that an external science review panel with
at least five renowned specialists be established at the beginning of the funding period to serve
throughout the anticipated, 4-year effort. The panel should be technically diverse, with the
collective ability to critically evaluate work in each of the following topical areas: microbial
ecology, ecology and hydrodynamics of estuarine ecosystems, biogeochemistry and ecology of
wetlands, environmental biogeochemistry of mercury, bioaccumulation and ecotoxicology of
mercury, risk analysis, and risk communication. The external review process should provide
critical evaluations at both the project and multi-project (mercury program) levels. Another, less
structured meeting could be convened annually to coordinate future work among teams. Much
routine communication and information exchange can be facilitated with electronic bulletin
boards and web sites.
Several participants at the mercury strategy workshop expressed a desire for a formal process of
communication among scientists, engineers, and managers to implement adaptive management
(Appendix 2). Such a process could link decisions on ongoing restoration efforts to information
from ongoing or recently completed investigations. Moreover, it was suggested that resource
agencies involved with species of concern, restoration of fisheries, sediment supply, water
quality, land use, water management, and reuse of dredged sediments participate in the process.
Quality Control and Quality Assurance
Program Level. Procedures for programmatic oversight of quality assurance should be in place
at the onset of a funded mercury program to define the comparability of data from the
participating research groups and to aid responsible use of the information by managers and
stakeholders. Quality assurance is particularly important in a mercury program, because of the
overall difficulty in accurately quantifying relevant species of mercury, especially
methylmercury, in dilute media with concentrations at the sub-nanogram per liter (part-pertrillion)
level. Institutionalized oversight at the program level is needed to address two qualityassurance
challenges: (1) to establish confidence that the data produced by multiple laboratories
are comparable, and (2) to demonstrate the validity of data for future use and interpretation.
There are many potential components to a robust quality control and quality assurance program,
including inter-laboratory comparisons (blind, round-robin exchange of samples), analyses of
split samples from the field, on-site laboratory assessments, estimation of method detection
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