Abstract

 The Italian Ministry of Environment following the recent institution of the International Cetacean Sanctuary (Ligurian Sea) decided to develop guidelines for the dumping of harbour sediment. The Livorno Port Authority was invited to suggest an alternative option for the sediment management.
  With this aim, a big Confined Disposal Facility (CDF) was built up next to the harbour zone to be filled up with dredged material. Before the discharge into the CDF, preliminary analyses was performed to exclude the highest contaminated sediment. In order to safeguard the whole surrounding marine area and to monitor dredging activity ICRAM developed a specific Monitoring Plan. In addition to chemical-physical analyses, ICRAM Monitoring Plan includes sediment and water bioassays, bioaccumulation test and biomarker analyses on the mussel Mytilus galloprovincialis, and analyses of benthic biocenosis. These analyses need to be performed before, during and after the discharge activities. The requirement to carry out ecotoxicological tests arises due to the absence of definite rules based on chemistry; moreover they have a precautionary role in sediment and water quality assessment.
  The chemical analyses of heavy metal content (Hg, Cd, Cu, Pb, As, Cr, Zn, Ni) and biossays (with bacterium Vibrio fischeri, sea urchin Paracentrotus lividus and crustacean Corophium orientale) on sediments inside and outside the CDF before dredging activities have been carried out. Preliminary water quality results are reported. The heavy metal contamination was not significant in both inside and outside the CDF. Ecotoxicological tests showed the presence of toxicity mostly in long term experiments whereas acute toxicity was generally not detected. These preliminary results are useful as reference for comparison with data when the dredging and discharge activities are completed.