The Virginian-Pilot
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The Chesapeake Bay did not have a good 2008, scoring 38 on an environmental scale of 100 - the same score as the year before, a federal assessment released Thursday concludes.
The Bay "continues to have poor water quality, degraded habitats and low populations of several key species of fish and shellfish," said Jeffrey Lape, director of the Chesapeake Bay Program, a government office leading cleanup efforts among six states, the U.S. government and Washington, D.C.
The cleanup has managed to offset the influx of millions of people to the mid-Atlantic region - and all the associated pollution of more cars, homes, streets, fertilizers and sewage - but has made little meaningful progress, the report says.
Despite the glum news, environmental officials were upbeat Thursday at a news conference in Washington. The reason: hope that President Barack Obama's administration will devote more time, energy and money to the Bay.
The new director of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Lisa Jackson, has mentioned the Bay as a priority watershed for her. And she has appointed a senior adviser on Bay issues, J. Charles "Chuck" Fox, the first time such a position has existed within the EPA.
Speaking to reporters Thursday, Fox described the Bay as "severely degraded" and said restoration results over the past 25 years "are simply unacceptable."
Fox did not pledge any new programs or spending but made no bones that the EPA intends to be more aggressive.
"No one should doubt that EPA is back," he said.
The report tries to stay clear of computer modeling and instead relies on field monitoring and on-the-ground scientific data. It measures myriad indicators of environmental health - including blue crab populations and acres of sea grasses - and ranks each on a scale of 1 to 100.
Water quality scored particularly low - 21 - with officials saying too much algae is blooming because of too much nitrogen and phosphorus that leads to little oxygen for aquatic life. The result: green, thick water and "dead zones" where fish and shellfish struggle to survive.
Still, progress is being made. The report notes that 291 million pounds of nitrogen entered the Bay last year, 13 million pounds less than in 2007 and more than 50 million pounds less than the average loads since 1990.
However, cleanup partners agreed in 2000 to cut nitrogen levels to 175 million pounds by 2010. Officials concede they will not hit that key target.
David Paylor, director of the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality, outlined one big success Thursday: land conservation.
The partners in 2000 pledged to preserve or block development on 20 percent of the Bay watershed by 2010. This year, they exceeded this goal, setting aside 7.3 million acres of forests, farmland, parks and stream-side buffers.
"So we've set a new goal," Paylor said - 695,000 more acres by 2020.
The report comes as the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, along with watermen and other advocacy groups, have sued the EPA in hopes of forcing the agency to do more for cleanup efforts.
The foundation argues that the EPA could, and should, force states to impose stricter controls on industries, sewage treatment plants, developers and local governments so they emit fewer pollutants. The case is pending in federal court in Washington.
Scott Harper, (757) 446-2340, scott.harper@pilotonline.com
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Hare-brained, sophmoric estuary restoration projects
Pipeline dredge and the Rolligon Ditcher-Spreader projects are much less expensive than those other hare-brained estuary restoration projects that Scott Harper and other Virginian Pilot news writers have, in the past decade, written about. For instance….Half a billion borrowed dollars for yet to be proven oyster reef projects. Tens of million dollars for Bacterra Storm Water Filters that are completely overwhelmed by heavy rains or large storm surges. Rain barrels. Asian oysters. Don’t feed the waterfowl campaigns. Riprap bulkheads to control sediment. Volunteer manual plantings of spartina alterniflora on improperly prepared shorelines. Volunteer estuary trash pickups. And other feel good volunteer projects. Mechanical dredging of the Lynnhaven River combined with trucking the spoils to the Whitehurst Pit in Virginia Beach. And any of a number of estuary restoration scams promoted by the Corps of Engineers and other flim flam artists.
Restoration of the Chesapeake Bay watershed
In all his articles on the resurrection of the Chesapeake Bay watershed, Scott Harper has not once mentioned marsh restoration by pipeline dredge. Harper apparently is unaware that by simply placing silt and course sand seaward of existing bulk heads and eroding shorelines, on long gentle slopes, vibrant new salt marsh can be created in less than a years time.
Spartina alterniflora (smooth cord salt marsh grass) volunteers unassisted on these repositioned dredge spoils. And hence nurseries for shrimp, crabs and juvenile fishes are recreated. And, a vibrant stand of spartina is the cheapest, most efficient means of removing sediment, heavy metals, PCBs, nitrogen, phosphorus and coliform bacteria from an estuary.
Furthermore, extensive use of the Rolligon 4x4 Amphibious Ditcher-Spreader can be employed to recreate tidal creeks and marshland shallow pools. In these intra marsh shallow pools, the voracious killifish minnow thrives on mosquito larvae.
Finally, the pipeline dredge and the Rolligon Ditcher-Spreader are much less expensive than those hare-brained alternatives Harper has written about.
The Bay Requires a Bail Out
In some sense, the ChesBay needs to be bailed out and refilled with clean water. Sediments contaminated from dozens of years of abuse removed and replaced with clean fill. Eroded properties in several states secured and stabilized. The sources of phosphorus and nitrogen must be reduced or eliminated and their lingering effects mitigated. These actions are all within the reach of the states' legislatures and local governments. This spring (today incidentially) trade with and support your full-service local garden center and shun the big boxes where customer service, information, and earth-friendly approaches to improve the state of the Bay is incomplete or lacking altogether. Test your soils before applying anything. Buy only enough fertilizer to amend the soil - more is not better. Citizens are the eyes throughout the Region on the look-out for poorly managed construction sites - if sediment losses are seen, call city inspectors and the State DEQ to report contaminated runoff. We are all the problem, we are the solution.
Target the Big Causes of Poor Quality
The studies that have been reported over the past few years cite two big causes for Bay degradation. The first is poor water quality (low oxygen, high nitrogen and phosphorous). The second is poor water clarity/ high turbidity due to particulates. These can be addressed by improvements to wastewater treatment plants along the connecting rivers, particularly the Susquehanna River, enforcing agricultural buffer zones, and stopping other forms of sediment due to runoff. Money from the stimulus package could be used to upgrade waste treatment plants near rivers and streams and buffer training and enforcement.
One big political problem is that there is not enough coordination and unity of effort in restoring habitat for aquaeous grasses and fish species. Virginia in particular needs coordination of costal management and planning.
Lawns
Biggest immediate improvement would be for us to let go of the notion of perfectly green, weed-free lawns without phospherous fertilizers. I'm all in favor of alternative ground cover, something that doesn't require mowing!
Bay needs filter feeders
The bay's health will not be restored fully so long as both the bay's year round filter feeders are absent. With oysters scarce due to disease and menhaden grossly over-harvested, there are not adequate filter feeders in the bay except perhaps during the summer when the seasonal jellyfish invasion takes up the slack.
Whether its restoring the native oyster, or introducing the Asian variety, we need a healthy oyster population and our menhaden fishery needs to be managed by scientists and not lobbyists.