PORTSMOUTH
Ferry riders this week saw firsthand the unpleasant summer phenomenon known as a "crab jubilee."
At the two ferry landings on the Portsmouth waterfront, blue crabs were fleeing from an oxygen-starved Elizabeth River, clinging to pilings and below docks in search of life-sustaining oxygen.
Floating next to them were the not-so-lucky - dead fish, dozens of them, including adult striped bass, baby flounders, croakers and white perch.
Officials at the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality said Friday they have been flooded with calls in recent days about fish kills and scurrying crabs in local waters.
The events seem to be concentrated in Portsmouth and Norfolk, in the shallow and enclosed reaches of the Elizabeth River and lower James River, said Wick Harlan, a state environmental specialist monitoring the trend.
Harlan said the culprit seems to be an old one - algae blooms, which are dying off and gobbling up oxygen as they sink to the bottom of affected waterways.
The blooms have been occurring for decades in much of the Chesapeake Bay during late summer, the result of nutrient pollution and high water temperatures. During rains, nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus wash into waterways from city streets, storm drains, development sites, lawns and gardens, parking lots and farm fields.
In proper amounts, nutrients are good for an ecosystem. But when they overwhelm a water body, as they do now throughout the Bay system, algae grows quickly and can cause "dead zones" lacking in oxygen.
Algae blooms last summer were some of the heaviest and most widespread on record in Hampton Roads, but few fish kills were reported. This year, by contrast, the blooms have not been as extensive but are resulting in more kills and more crab jubilees, Harlan said.
State officials found "extremely low" oxygen levels at the High Street ferry landing in Portsmouth on Thursday, Harlan said, following calls from concerned business owners and downtown residents who live near the port.
Betsy Cartier, who runs the Starboards coffee kiosk next to the landing, said she has never seen conditions so bad in her five years on the water.
It started Thursday morning, she said, when scores of sea gulls were picking at dead fish. By Friday afternoon, the smell was "just horrendous," Cartier said.
"Everybody comes off the ferry and wants to know what's going on," she said.
She said she talked to boaters on Friday coming up the Intracoastal Waterway who told her of seeing thousands of dead fish and even snakes on the Southern Branch of the Elizabeth River.
Knitting Mill Creek in Norfolk, near Old Dominion University and the Colley Avenue business corridor, experienced some of the most intensive fish kills this week related to scant oxygen, officials said.
Investigators documented "very high counts" in the creek of a particular kind of algae causing most of the trouble, a species known as Cochlodinium, Harlan said.
The cells of this species can become so large that they might clog fish gills, exacerbating the effects of poor water quality and little oxygen, experts explained.
Cochlodinium arrived in Virginia in 1992 and has been showing up in late July and August ever since, sometimes with gusto and sometimes hardly at all.
Harlan chuckled when asked how long the conditions will continue this summer.
"It's very unpredictable," he said, "and depends a lot on the weather and winds."
Scott Harper, (757) 446-2340, scott.harper@pilotonline.com
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No Kidding--I wouldn't touch the filthy water there!
Even the crabs can't live in the sludge of the Elizabeth river--and you expect people to pay money to EAT something that comes out of that chemical cesspool? Why don't I just shoot myself in the head and cut out the fishmonger middleman?
Well......
I was going to write something but Chemlawn (AKA TrueGreen with the pretty truck) just rang the bell and I've got to go watch the chemicals get spayed in the bay, I mean my yard.
marty
Yep, I was agreeing with you. The only green visible on the bay should be Greenies!!
Background on Phosphate Ban
Falcon,... from google: A nationwide ban on phosphates in laundry detergent went into effect in the late 1980s. VA left a loophole in the 80's but since then the coastal population has increased significantly.
Update: Va. to Start Ban on Phosphates in 2010. Three main contributers: Nitrate (fertrilizer), Phosphates (detergents), Sediment (runoff).
The article states that detergent makers need more time which is not true as other states have done this already! EcoWarrior, the regs are there but what agency will go after Big Business to get them to comply? Remember, they create jobs, right? Meanwhile, HRSD needs to retro fit the WWTPs to treat phosphates before discharge but keep an eye on your bill! Some Oxygenating studies have been done, like diverting surface water to the bottom, but I'd like to see the effects of each shipyard pumping a-little compressed air to the bottom and then
Been here since 1966. The
Been here since 1966. The Chesapeake and the ocean's seaweed is the worst Ive ever seen. I know that fetilizers play a big role in this but I bet that the dumping of treated sewage by local cities play a larger role.
Oxygenated Water
If the EPA can mandate pumping air into gasoline on every pump in America as it goes into our vehicles, you know the "fizzy fill-up", then why can an pump and pipe be put in a strategic location of the Elizabeth that pumps air into the water as it ebbs and flows? Cam it be solar powered, wind powered?
falconski
Marty, I thought green was your favorite color. Are you saying that our regulatory agencies cherry pick the regulations they create and enforce? Great points though. There are so many regulations being proposed in each of the states along the Ches. Bay that focus on banning plastic bags in grocery stores and other products that could affect landfills over the next hundred and thousand years (all good regulations), but where are the regulations that would ban products like phosphates and other products that would have immediate effects on the environment?
All Virginians Have a Part to Play and Protect
Each of you are responsible, in part, for the problems observed in Portsmouth and elsewhere throughout the Commonwealth. Big-box retail outlets heave bags of N-P-K rich fertilizers from the stores into our vehicles. No education of use there. Farmers, unless proactive and progressive, continue to rely on decades old practices of increasing yield by over use of fertilizers in excess of crop use or need. Land developers distrubing farm fields release accumulated nutrients via poor or non-exsistant sediment and runoff controls. Bright green lawns are niceities, but not necessities. The ball in play by our kids really does not care a twit. Plant native trees, shrubs and ground covers, and reduce fertilizer and pesticide use at commercial and residential properties. Cities are tasked by the EPA and DCR via the MS4 NPDES permits to educate the public and land owners on such matters. Loc
Phosphates & HRSD Don't Mix!
When I called DEQ this Spring to report an excessive green slime growing vertically in the water column in ST Julien's Creek, the report back from ODU was that it was a normal event. I've lived here over 20 yrs, some of my neighbors have lived here over 50 yrs and we have never seen anything like it. You could not even take a small boat out to check crab pots!
I find it interesting that Ches. Bay Foundation, VADEQ & EPA allow a loophole in the regulations that permit detergent manufacturers to sell their product which includes an excessive amount of Phosphates in these compounds that even HRSD can't treat in their Waste Water Plants and it discharges directly in the Bay bypassing effective treatment. Think of all those condos with dishwaters!
When Minnesota had their Lakes nutrified, they banned Phosphates in detergents, and they witnessed their fish stocks return in just a few years. We also ne
But the lawns are green
Fertilize your lawn and you fertilize the bay. Pure and simple.