Chesapeake Bay
CHESAPEAKE OYSTER SANCTUARIES HOLD PROMISE FOR RECOVERY | COMMENTARY
The sanctuary and aquaculture initiatives were vigorously opposed by oyster harvesters and the oyster industry. As they had for 140 years, they again fought any proposals that decreased public oyster grounds. Instead, they promoted the government system of paying to plant shell and seed oysters for them to harvest and sell. Such resistance has impeded the switch to aquaculture for 140 years despite the unambiguous evidence that aquaculture could produce an enormous quantity of oysters. This has been the case throughout the world as wild stocks crashed.
Read MoreGerald Winegrad: The sad state of the Chesapeake Bay and advocacy for its restoration
The main failure is not adequately controlling agricultural nutrients and sediment that are choking the bay system. Farmland covers two million acres of Maryland, 32% of its land mass. Farming is a leaky business, especially from the massive chicken industry growing about 600 million birds a year producing 1.6 million pounds of chicken litter, mostly poop.
Read MoreMy prescription for restoring Chesapeake Bay demands strong medicine!
This might be a Hail Mary pass, but it is time for policy makers to end the greenwashing and half-measures and adopt these proposals. Bay Restoration Prescription. The price of not doing so is a degraded Chesapeake with lurking flesh-eating diseases and dying fisheries…
Read MoreEPA and bay state governors again do nothing to advance the cause of a clean Chesapeake Bay
These top scientists found that reductions in key bay pollutants of nitrogen, phosphorus and sediment were likely overestimated from BMPs for agriculture and developed lands. The BMPs were not as effective as thought. “While Chesapeake Bay Program modeling suggests that phosphorus reductions targeted by the TMDL are nearly achieved, analysis of water quality at riverine monitoring stations finds limited evidence of observable reductions in P concentrations.”
Read MoreEfforts to restore the Chesapeake Bay are a study in cowardice and political expediency
There is more very bad news for all of us in Chesapeake Country: the bay watershed lost 20,000 acres of forest a year (2013-2018). Maryland led the way. A new study also shows that developed impervious areas in the watershed increased by 50,651 acres from 2013 to 2018. This is mostly from new structures, roads, driveways, parking lots and runways.
Read MoreChicken industry wins again, crippling Chesapeake Bay restoration efforts
In 2022, the industrialized Delmarva chicken industry produced 596 million chickens in 4,889 chicken houses—a record 4.4 billion pounds of chicken and $5 billion in wholesale value. This was a 38% broiler increase in a decade. These chickens produced 1.5 billion pounds of chicken excrement — equal to the weight of two Statues of Liberty! Corn and soybeans grown for feed are highly nitrogen intensive, adding more nitrogen to the bay.
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