Will the Chesapeake Become a Dead Zone?

In the 45,000 square mile Chesapeake Bay, the country’s largest estuary, nitrogen and phosphorus from wastewater treatment plants, and urban and agricultural run-off is continuously suffocating marine life.

“What happens in the Chesapeake Bay is not only important to our residents, but it also impacts seafood industries, recreation and commercial anglers all along the Atlantic Coast,” says Allison Colden, a senior fisheries scientist at the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, an independent conservation organization.

Despite decades of clean up efforts, and evolving regulations from the Environmental Protection Agency, the bay remains in a critical state. To make matters worse, climate change is compounding the region’s problems. Increased rainfall, which flushes more nutrients into the bay, and warming water temperatures is making it harder to reverse the damage already done to the bay.

[johnhiggs]

The Chesapeake is where I grew up. It was my backyard, workplace, and refuge. I witnessed incredible natural events like mass spawning and bird migrations that filled me with wonder. I also saw little things like a pair of swans that raised a family every year and two huge snapping turtles that wrestled for territory where my boat was slipped. The old Tangier islanders’ stories of giant gar, the Oyster Wars, and smuggling adventures still fill my dreams 45 years later.

[robertspies]

As a retired marine biologist I can assure you that the restoration of Chesapeake Bay has been a big effort since the 1970s. There have been many commissions, plans and goals and it does not look like there has been precious little progress.

[l.mcmanus]

Waste from chicken poop running into the bay is also frustrating because it could be used as fertilizer if properly handled. Fertilizer prices have gone way up I recent years and this seems like an untapped resource that could turn something harmful into something beneficial. Also, adding ditches besides fields and creating ponds for runoff to pause in can help remove those nutrients from the water it would reach the bay.

[Drakeblood]

As a former personel at a certain WWTP in the Baltimore area I got to see first hand how neglected these facilities are and what the actual pollution data looked like. These facilities are truly crumbling down inside and out. Entire sections of the plant are rendered inoperable due to excessive buildup of fats and sludge. Frequent pipe bursts inside the building, non-functioning A/C in the summer, etc.

[Lightlinefisherman]

as a fisherman that lives in md literally all my life this hurts so much to hear and actually confirms some of the fears I have had going to the popular fishing piers of chesapeake bay like matapeake. what a shame. we need change now.

[ajax]

The Back River treatment plant under control of Baltimore, has been neglected and spewing untreated waste into the bay for years now. I don't want to hear another word about chicken waste until this is fixed.

[ronkirk]

Man-made eutrophication is killing many of our water bodies. When we apply so much fertilizer to our agricultural lands that only half of the fertilizer applied is actually taken up by plants and the other half winds up in ground and surface waters, you can't help but cause an ecological disaster.

[mkbrangan]

This is such a well produced video - I want more people to watch it. The aerial shots are beautiful. Hopefully awareness of the problem will help people work towards more solutions to keeping the Bay healthy

[Busto]

It is infuriating that whenever some industry misses an EPA deadline, they just push it back a bit. There was a reason the original deadline was what it was. We can't just move the goalposts when it comes to averting ecological collapse

[rtqii]

I grew up there. I sailed a dingy (dinghy) all over the bay. I saw massive fish kills back in the 60's during the Vietnam war. I ate a lot of crab, striped bass, clams and oysters out of that water. Back then there was raw sewage going into the bay from the Back River whenever it rained hard in Baltimore, the storm water would overflow the sewage treatment plant, and it washed the raw sewage into the bay. All of the boats and shipping dumped sewage waste from their heads. I remember sailing through masses of dead fish and seeing toilet paper in the water. As the sewage waste digests it deoxygenates the water, and schools of fish swim in and it kills them all.

It was about that time that property owners on shore and watermen started organizing to protect the bay from pollutants. There are technologies that can be applied today that were not available back then, like solar powered bubblers to help oxygenate the water.

[zacktimmons]

A huge amount comes down from the watershed in NY and PA via the Susquehanna river in northern maryland

[bayoujaeger]

The northern end of the bay has some horrible algae blooms while down here closer to the ocean omega and other commercial fishing conglomerates are raping our waters of menhaden. Every fish and crab relies heavily on the huge menhaden grounds but politicians continue to allow them to be in the bay using planes to locate huge pods of menhaden and other baitfish while further restricting the local watermen.

[kj]

I grew up in the area in the 80s and 90s. I remember hearing stories from my elders that in the 50 and 60 the water was clear in some spots and you could see the bottom.

I remember going crabbing after school with my brother with nothing but a chicken leg, net and bucket.

It is sad because everybody knows it's a problem we've always known it was a problem. There are times where they have warnings where you can't even get in the water at the beach because the water is so polluted.

It's the fault of leadership they've allowed companies and organizations over the years to dump chemicals and waste into the water basically for campaign funds.

[rtqii]

Monsanto has a subsidiary, P4 Production LLC. They operate phosphate mines, a mill, and refinery in Soda Springs ID to produce elemental phosphorus. The entire area of their site and the buffer area is contaminated with toxic selenium, cadmium, and radioactive thorium as a result of this extraction activity. I was surprised to find that most of their production of elemental phosphorus goes into manufacturing Roundup. The use of this herbicide nationally actually adds many tons of free surface phosphorus to the environment every year.

[ginathacker]

I sail the Bay from the Magothy, it’s beautiful and sometimes wild. To my knowledge, Maryland restricts the harvesting of female crabs. But, Virginia does not. The abundance of females left by Maryland is a boon enriching Virginia’s unrestricted harvest. Follow the money and the self interest.

[JohnnyRFarmer]

Factory farming is more responsible than anything. Two immediate things you can do is stop buying brand name chicken. Get it from a locally sourced organic farm. Second, don't put Scott's lawn products on your lawn.

[wecandobetter]

Having live on the bay all my life I’ve witnessed the slow death of a national treasure. Back in the 50s we had abundance of sea grasses that supported numerous species of life. We also had millions up millions of oysters that help filter the water. Once the grasses and oysters died off it started the demise. Despite attempts to correct this problem it continues to spiral downward. I don’t have a magic solution to solve this. Hopefully somebody does

[adriaanboogaard]

I grew up in Farming and Ranching but I've worked for a Water Utility for 28 years I also love to fish . I think it's like most things in life we can do better from all sides need each other's help and teamwork.

[Brasslite]

Chesapeake Bay is one of our countries' invaluable resources. The governors and congressional members should be pushing hard for the Bays restoration. Necessary restrictions will not be popular with all residents.

[AdventureOtaku]

Honestly, anything we try and do at the scale we need it for our population, from raising food (farms and chickens in this case) to handling waste, to harvesting fish for both sport and feeding our people just isn’t maintainable without destroying the environment. We need to change the way we think and do everything in our society if we are going to survive.