Chesapeake Bay
A New Day for the Anacostia River
(Posted by Brooke DeRenzis and Walter Smith.)
The Anacostia watershed is one of the most densely populated watersheds of the Chesapeake Bay drainage basin. Like many urban watersheds, it is severely polluted by stormwater which runs off of roofs, roads, driveways and parking lots—picking up trash, oil, and bacteria along the way—and into the river and its streams. Although urban and suburban development accounts for only 9 percent of the Chesapeake Bay watershed’s land use, the Bay watershed is becoming more developed. In fact, according to the Chesapeake Bay Program, stormwater runoff is the Bay’s only major source of pollution that is increasing.
New Chesapeake Bay Data Tool
(Posted by David Burke.)
Chesapeake Commons, a new web resource, now provides informative maps and data about nearly any type of information relevant to the Chesapeake Bay watershed. The Chesapeake Commons is made available through the sponsorship of the Chesapeake Bay Funder’s Network. CBFN’s new data tool is powered by Rhiza Labs’ Insight software that makes it easy for users to store, map and analyze whatever data is of interest to them.
Read MoreChesapeake Bay Report Card: “Don’t Bring Me No Bad News”
(Posted by Bill Dennison.)
This year’s Chesapeake Bay report card, produced by EcoCheck, a partnership between NOAA and the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, was released last week. The overall report card score was a C-, based on data collected throughout 2010. Unfortunately, this report card score declined from the 2009 report card which was a C, and this was the first time the score declined since 2004. Of the fifteen reporting regions, only two had higher scores than last year, but nine had lower scores, leaving four with no change.
Read MoreA New Day for the Anacostia River
(Posted by Jeanne McCann.)
What are you doing Monday, May 2, 2011? How about joining a mass of D.C. dignitaries for the release of D.C. Appleseed’s latest report, A New Day for the Anacostia: A National Model for Urban River Revitalization?
Read More“No Farms No Food”: No Regs?
(Posted by Howard Ernst.)
The truck ahead of me had a constellation of conservative bumper stickers. The kind of stuff you would never see on a Prius. Most of them were familiar conservative messaging, the obligatory National Rifle Association sticker in the rear window, a slogan against taxation (even with representation), but there was one sticker in particular that glared at me from the vehicle’s rear end. It simply stated, “No Farms, No Food.”
Read MoreArsenic With a Side of Chicken
(Posted by Kathy Phillips.)
Arsenic is a poison. It’s a metalloid or ‘heavy metal’. It is a carcinogenic. Its use in pesticides has been banned in the U.S. since 1988. But when it comes to food production, it is quite allowed.
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