The numbers, according to a report released Monday, are sobering:
- The estimated population of blue crabs in the Chesapeake Bay has plummeted to 260 million in 2007 from 791 million in 1990.
- More than 4,400 jobs in Virginia and Maryland related to catching, packing and selling crabs have been lost between 1998 and 2006, a 40 percent dive costing the economy about $640 million.
- "Dead zones" that occur in the Bay each summer kill about 75,000 tons of bottomndwelling clams, worms and other tiny aquatic life, or enough food to support some 60 million crabs.
The report, published by the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, an environmental group, attempts to detail for the first time the effect s of pollution and overfishing on crab stocks and a oncenrenowned crab industry.
It also offers a way out of the crisis, which peaked this fall when the U.S. Commerce Department declared the Bay's crab fishery a federal disaster. Congress subsequently approved $20 million in disaster relief, which Virginia and Maryland now are deciding how to spend.
The Bay foundation, drawing on ideas from more than a dozen scientists and government experts, suggests painful medicine and serious reform.
Policy recommendations include a federal crackdown, in enforcement and new regulation, of nutrient pollution from a vast array of everyday sources - from cars to farms, sewage plants to urban storm drains.
The foundation urges "smart investments" in green technologies for improving sewage plants, road construction, land development and agriculture through an expected economic stimulus package from Presidentnelect Barack Obama's administration.
It also suggests a new system for watermen to harvest crabs, for requiring identification tags on all crab traps and pots, and for expanding noncatch sanctuaries throughout the Bay.
"It's not just the crabs that are suffering; people are," foundation President William C. Baker said in a statement Monday. "Jobs have been lost and the economy has been damaged."
In some respects, the report confirms what watermen have been arguing for years - that declining water quality in the Bay and government's inability to clean it up are mostly to blame for the crab crunch.
However, the foundation deviates from that argument in one key way: It supports strict limits on crabbing adopted this year that most watermen oppose.
"Only by restructuring the fishery, along with improving water quality, will we save the blue crab," the report concludes.
Data are drawn mostly from recent studies and research by leading scientists in Virginia, Maryland and the federal Chesapeake Bay Program.
Much of the detail about dead zones, the nickname for waters that lack enough oxygen to support aquatic life, come mostly from Robert Diaz, a professor at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science in Gloucester Point.
"The dead zones mean the crabs don't have enough food," Diaz wrote, "and crowded in shallow areas, they're more vulnerable to being fished."
The report comes as the foundation is suing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for failing to take actions sufficient to remove the Bay from the national "dirty waters" list. The Bay was supposed to come off the list by 2010, but the EPA admits it will miss that deadline.
It also comes as Virginia is gearing up for crab season next year, which opens in mid-March.
Officials must decide whether they want to impose more regulations on top of the significant ones passed in 2008, when the governors of Virginia and Maryland said they wanted a 34 percent catch reduction of female crabs.
Reported harvests in the first half of 2008 show a steep drop from even the weak catches noted during the same time in 2007. According to the Virginia Marine Resources Commission, 7.1 million pounds of blue crabs were landed from January to June 2008, compared with 8.8 million pounds during the same six-month period in 2007.
Scott Harper, (757) 446-2340, scott.harper@pilotonline.com
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I remember
I remember way back when people where hyping ethanol, I said a spike in farming like that would be very bad for the environment. The response was I was an ignorant pawn of big oil, Bush apologist, or some other such silly cliche.
nasty water
I wouldn't eat anything that even touched bay water anyway, ban all the catch and the pollution and MAYBE in 1000 years the water will be safe enough to eat from again.
Three cheers for HRSD, our
Three cheers for HRSD, our savior! Thank goodness this expertly run organization has met the challenge, literally saving humanity in Hampton Roads, at the cost of a measly additional tax, which never existed before. And wile we are pushing environmentalism, let's not forget to blame evil rich people for being the biggest polluters, and admonish all the rest of humankind for ignoring this problem, as well as global warming. Also let's throw in the Bush administration for good measure - we should always blame them for everything, hurricanes, other acts of god, capitalist pig oil companies, and pollution too. Bad bad bad!
The Low Fruits (most polluters) Have Been Already Picked
Since early 1970 and the advent of the Clean Water Act, the majority of the significant polluters of the State's waters have been addressed with suitable permits and wastewater system upgrades. What has saved the region is the Hampton Roads Sanitation District and its system of sewage treatment plants from VB to Williamsburg, Franklin and Nanesmond. You pull the chain today, that is where your mess goes. Storm water falling across this area is not diverted to a sewage treatment plant, but flows directly to the rivers and bays. That, and polluting construction and development activities remain very fair targets for continued actions. Other than the few antiquated shipyards with tons of metal and petroleum pollution, and limited other industrial activities - like agriculture, the regulations are sound although the regulators are stressed. What is lacking: more stringent poultry litter controls, vigorous oversight of sewage sludge and pig waste application, restrictions/reformulations of home-use fertilizers and related chemical nonsense, and public interest.
Some people
Some people will still blame it all on the Watermen. The fact is the problem starts as far up as New York. ANYTHING that makes it in a ditch, stream, or river that flows in to the Chesapeake Bay. There are so many factors in this problem that some people don't want to see. I guess they want relief money so they can make their lawn nicer.
Crabs
Don't get rid of the watermen , get rid of the polluters. Limit the catch until the crab population goes up , raise the price on crabs as not to penalize the crabbers or distribute part of the pollution fines back to the crabbers to compensate them for the lower catch limits.
watermen catch most of the blame
Over harvesting obviously has a negative effect on the blue crab population, but pollution is most likely just as harmful if not more harmful. The article mentioned the high levels of nitrogen and phosphorus in the Bay and rivers. It doesn't take a chemist or biologist to figure out that runoff from agricultural operations is just one of the sources that damage the Bay and and kills the organisms that live in it. I live in a nice neighborhood in Chesapeake with nice yards that are super green with no pesky dandelions or weeds that are just too horrible to have to look at. God help you if your lawn doesn't look like a golf course or a putting green. What would the neighbors think? Nitrogen-based fertilizers and products like Weed and Feed have got to have a negative impact on the Bay as we all live in close proximity to the Elizabeth River. I love how the chemical companies make products, then tell you how your yard is supposed to look so you are not the bum on the block with the occasional weed or dead spot on your lawn. Suckers I say. Lawn Freaks need alternatives to these products. The only thing I put on my lawn is a mower. In the not too distant future we will all be able t
There is another way!
You can say it another way. If you enforce the laws on run off into the bay you would solve the problem. When every inch of the Bays shoreline is manicured lawns and agriculture the results are a damaging run off of fertilizers and nitrogens that create dead zones, that are oxygen starved, thus causing marine life to deminish. Hampton Roads cities routinely violate the Chesapeake Preservation Act by rubber stamping exemptions to the 100 foot buffer required for developement along the bays shores and tributaries.You can try to blame watermen for the crab shortage, but that is just an easy way out. The real culprits are the real estate developers making millions on shoreline developement and the farming industry that refuses to curb their run offs of nitrogen and pesticides into our waterways. That would mean stepping on some powerful and wealthy toes and we cant't have that. So it is easier to just beat up on the watermen by blaming them for the bays decline.
How many ways do you have to say it!
Watermen have overfished the bay by catching an average of 62 percent of the bay's blue crabs each year over the last decade