Gladstone Fish Health Investigation 2011 - 2012 - Western Basin ...

Contaminants in Tissue of Fish and Crabs Collected in the Gladstone Areacomparisons are not possible. However, comparison between the reference and Gladstone sitesfound no significant difference in concentrations in silver (Table 9).Overall, these results indicate that the water and sediment quality that mud crabs are exposed to inGladstone is similar to that of other estuarine and near-coastal regions of eastern Queensland.Table 9 – Regional means for the metal and metalloid concentrations in mud crab hepatopancreas(mg/kg dry weight basis).Trip 1 Trip 2ReferenceGladstone SignificancelevelReferenceGladstone SignificancelevelAluminium 16.7 14.7 0.646 12.2 9.0 0.513Chromium 0.186 0.098 0.031 0.120 0.166 0.288Iron 273 188 0.057 187 418 0.000Nickel 3.22 3.16 0.938 1.48 2.43 0.306Copper 526 1127 0.004 621 294 0.139Zinc 103 195 0.002 209 242 0.275Arsenic 17.3 20.2 0.419 23.2 27.4 0.285Selenium 5.89 7.46 0.027 5.03 7.36 0.004Silver 4.80 3.67 0.401 4.91 3.18 0.251Cadmium 2.47 1.55 0.268 4.45 2.41 0.030Barium 1.55 0.68 0.021 2.25 0.97 0.003Mercury 0.283 0.245 0.349 0.416 0.155 0.000Lead 0.155 0.069 0.046 0.072 0.180 0.024Note: Blue cells indicate a significant difference between the metal or metalloid concentrations at the referenceand Gladstone sites, bolded cells indicate measured concentrations at pooled Gladstone sites were significantlyhigher.Page 13