Why protect estuaries?
As you have seen, estuaries are valuable natural environmental assets! Their health is vital to the proper functioning of ecosystem as well as environmental stability. Unfortunately, development and toxic compounds are poisoning many of the creatures who live here. Sodium hypochlorite found in household gel and liquids are toxic to fish and can bind with organic compounds in water to form organ chlorines, which break down slowly in the environment and accumulate in the fatty tissues of wildlife, especially in organisms that live in water and soil. Like Mussel, that begins life as tiny larvae that swim about freely and often end life on the dinner pale of many other creatures. Organochlorine compounds are extremely persistent in the environment and have the unique property of concentrating in sediment and in the fatty tissue of aquatic life (Ware, 1989). The increasing concentration of people is upsetting the natural balance of estuarine ecosystems. Stresses caused by pollution, overuse
