With increasing coastal population, the discharges of treated or untreated wastewater, or contaminated water into the ocean and its estuaries are an increasing concern. Two recent examples on differing scales are the plans to release treated wastewater from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant into the Pacific Ocean and the emergency discharge of effluent from the old Piney Point fertilizer stack into the Tampa Bay estuary. Each of these, as will other similar proposals or incidents, require timely responses from the scientific community to assess pollutant plume evolution and ecosystem consequences. Lessons learned from recent and previous multidisciplinary response efforts are very helpful in planning for new occurrences. We welcome preliminary research findings from the recent rapid response efforts as well as successful stories of previous similar work. Studies on pollutant effects on marine ecosystems are also welcome to contribute to this session.

• APHA: American Public Health Association -
• CGU: Canadian Geophysical Union -
• ESA: Ecological Society of America -
• JpGU: Japan Geoscience Union -