(Posted by Gerald Winegrad)

My name is Gerald Winegrad and I’m worried about the future of the Chesapeake Bay. I grew up in Annapolis and spent many a summer day with my friend Michael Bailey fishing all around Annapolis. Michael Bailey is now dead and the Bay is dying.

Earlier this month, my wife and I were planning our big annual end of summer crab feast on our deck on Oyster Creek south of Annapolis. We have two crab pots and had a dozen crabs to share but for 22 family members, I had to find a bushel of nice ones. So I called local waterman (a dying breed) who I knew from years back and tried to order a bushel of crabs. He had sold me a busting bushel of fat Jimmies in May but told me an incredibly sad story: Now, when crabs should be plentiful, he could not catch even a bushel because dead water had killed every crab in his pots in the West River. He was saddened not just because his livelihood was hurt, but at the terrible waste caused by oxygen deprived water killing every crab.