natural vegetation at Hog Island
The Chesapeake Bay, one of the largest estuaries in the world, is a rich protein resource of oysters and clams, together with fish and blue crabs. An "estuary" is where fresh and salt water mingle together, creating a special environment that is highly productive biologically. Marine fish, species who can stand salt water, and freshwater species both take advantage of the estuary. In addition, numerous plant and animal species have specialized over the centuries to thrive in the brackish water. The biodiversity as well as the productivity of the Bay is high.
Photosynthesis in an acre of Chesapeake Bay salt marsh can easily surpass the productivity of any Virginia farm in the Shenandoah Valley. Humans prefer to eat corn on the cob rather than marsh grasses, of course, so few of us normally think of salt water marshes as more valuable than corn fields. We may be picky eaters, but the decaying grasses are a great food source for the tiny zooplanton in the water that we can only see with a microscope. The decaying grasses provide the organic material at the base of the "detritus" food pyramid. The submerged grasses create especially valuable habitat - and are sensitive to pollution. The snails, small fish, birds, and larger fish that feed on each other in a hierarchy of life (and death) won't be there if the grasses disappear.
Salinity is the key difference between an estuary, a fresh water lake/river, and a salt-water gulf. In the Chesapeake Bay, the range of salinity varies from 35 parts per thousand at the mouth of the Bay (the saltiness of the Atlantic Ocean) to zero parts per thousand for several miles below the Fall Line. Except in droughts when river flow is diminished, fresh water can extend on the surface of the Potomac River down to Mason Neck.
For Native American societies that hunted and gathered food after the harvest in the Fall, access to the bay was important. It is not surprising that on his 1608 voyage up the bay and some major tributaries, John Smith saw Native American towns surrounded by walls of tree trunks. The competition between tribes was not always peaceful; the resources of the bay were worth a fight.
Surprisingly, the English managed to starve to death in Jamestown, despite having a river filled with fish and seafood at the edge of their fort. In 1608, Smith discovered a bay so rich in fish that his men tried catching them with frying pans:1
Later colonial Virginians made far better use of the protein in the bay. George Washington, for example, made a good profit from having his slaves seine herring in the Potomac River off the shores of Mount Vernon. He would preserve the fish in barrels with salt and sell them as food that could be carried back to Europe - or sold for the slaves in the Caribbean Islands, where most of the land was dedicated to growing sugar cane and food was imported (including much pork from Norfolk).
The biological productivity of the bay was enhanced by the shape of the waterbody. The Chesapeake Bay is the largest of the 130 estuaries in the United States, and second only in North America to the Gulf of St. Lawrence in Canada.2 The Chesapeake Bay is about 200 miles long - and very shallow, averaging only 21 feet in depth (when including the tidal portion of its tributaries). There's an extraordinary amount - over 11,600 miles - of shoreline, more than the Pacific Ocean shoreline on the entire West Coast of the United States from Canada to Mexico.3
The vast amount of life in the bay was triggered in part by that large amount of ecological "edge" where the land meets the sea, plus the ability of sunlight to reach the bottom across much of the shallow bay. The depths at which submerged aquatic vegetation (SAV) will grow in the tidal waters of Virginia and Maryland is limited by wave action in the shallow end (the roots can't hold the plants in one place, if the water is sloshing around with too much energy) and by light penetration in the deep end (the deeper the water, the less light at the bottom). Submerged aquatic vegetation provided food and shelter for microscopic zooplankton, blue crabs, and other wildlife while oysters grew in such quantity that their old shells piled up into bars that obstructed navigation.
The existing size and shape of the Chesapeake Bay has been altered only slightly by natural forces in the last 3,000 years.4 Modern scorecards to measure the bay's health in comparison to the year 1600. References to "Save the Bay" are based on the assumption that the bay was healthy in 1600, so that's an appropriate base line for assessing restoration to the historic condition.
Since European colonists arrived in the early 1600's, the biological conditions of the bay have changed far more than the geological setting. The stocks of seafood could recover easily from the minor impacts of Native American harvests. The impacts of modern fishing, clamming, oystering, and crab harvests in the last century have reduced populations so low, there is doubt that some species can recover. In particular, the harvest of native oysters (Crassostrea virginica) has dropped to 1% of historic levels, leading to proposals to introduce an Asian species (Crassostrea ariakensis) thought more likely to survive the pollution and diseases so prevalent now in the bay. In April, 2009, the Corps of Engineers concurred with Virginia and Maryland officials, and recommended against introducing the non-native species.5
The requirement to "Save the Bay" is compliance with the Federal Clean Water Act, passed in 1972. It was a major expansion of the requirements in the 1948 Federal Water Pollution Control Act, and mandated that polluters get permits before discharging any pollutant from a "point source" (basically, pipes or man-made ditches) into navigable waters. To correct for excessive pollution, EPA developed a process for determining how much pollution a waterbody could absorb before violating water quality standards. In a Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) analysis, EPA would determine the limits for different pollutants, and require polluters to reduce discharges below the TMDL limits.
In 1983, the Environmental Protection Agency published another Federal report documenting the declining condition of the bay. Under the Clean Water Act, the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries were required to meet Federal water quality standards for "swimmable and fishable" waters. The Federal mandate and the EPA report triggered the governors of Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia, plus the mayor of the District of Columbia and the head of the EPA, to sign the 1983 Chesapeake Bay Agreement. That 1983 agreement did little more than create a Chesapeake Executive Council and state that future actions would be taken, but that commitment serves as a starting point for the multi-state commitment to "do something" in order to comply with the Clean Water Act.
 Not all of the states in the Chesapeake Bay watershed signed the 1983 agreement Source: US Geological Survey, satellite map of Chesapeake Bay |
 Missing in 1983: West Virginia, New York, Delaware (New Jersey is outside of watershed) Source: US Fish and Wildlife Service, Chesapeake Bay Program |
Four years later, the signers of the 1983 Chesapeake Bay Agreement committed in the 1987 Chesapeake Bay Agreement to take specific actions to clean up the bay. A key part of the 1987 agreement was a claim that the signing parties would reduce, by 40%, the nitrogen and phosphorous entering the main stem of the Chesapeake Bay - and achieve that reduction by 2000.
Wastewater treatment plants were required by EPA, through the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit program, to reduce nitrogen and phosphorous discharges. New "biological nutrient reduction" (BNR) technology was implemented, using bacteria to convert excessive nitrates (NO3-) in human sewage into harmless N2 gas molecules that escaped into the atmosphere. Banning detergents with phosphorous had a major impact, but additional chemical processes were implemented at wastewater treatment plants to extract most of the remaining phosphorous - at great expense.
At different times, various forms of pollution have been major concerns - bacteria, pesticides, heavy metals, acid mine runoff, and bacteria. Today, two factors from farms, cities, and suburbs upstream are the primary causes of damage to the bay:
To implement its promises, Virginia passed the Chesapeake Bay Preservation Act, and state agencies issued regulations to enforce the state law in jurisdictions defined as "Tidewater" Virginia. The regulations focused on avoiding new pollution, and had no impact on existing sources of nitrogen, phosphorous, or sediment.
In the 1990's, Virginia developed a tributary strategy to reduce nutrients and sediment flowing into the streams that then flowed to the bay. Virginia chose to rely upon voluntary action by farmers and land developers to reduce non-point pollution, the runoff from farm fields and parking lots. Grants were directed to farmers in the Piedmont and Shenandoah Valley to implement "Best Management Practices" (BMP's), such as fencing cattle away from streams so runoff from manure would be intercepted by vegetated buffers.
Included in Virginia's "Ches Bay regs" was a requirement to preserve 100-foot buffers of undisturbed vegetation along each side of a perennial (flowing year-round) stream. The buffers were intended to serve as Resource Preservation Areas (RPA's), capturing sediment, nutrients, and other pollutants before they entered the stream and ultimately flowed to the Chesapeake Bay.
Note that RPA's affected land use at the local level, so Federal and state law shaped local government decisions on rezoning parcels and approving site plans. Only "Tidewater" jurisdictions were required to identify and protect RPA's. To minimize opposition, most of the acreage and most of the jurisdictions in Virginia's portion of the Chesapeake Bay watershed were not affected. One state agency in particular - Chesapeake Bay Local Assistance Board (CBLAD) - was tasked with ensuring compliance. Today, the CBLAD organization has lost its independence and is the Chesapeake Bay Local Assistance Program in the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation.
By 1999, it was obvious that the states and District of Columbia had failed to reduce nutrients and sediment enough to meet Clean Water Act water quality standards. Suburban development had continued unchecked in the Chesapeake Bay watershed, especially in Northern Virginia. Forests and fields, with slow runoff patterns, were replaced by impervious surfaces where rainfall raced off rooftops/parking lots. The surging rush of rainwater carved into streambanks, etching new channels and carrying sediment downstream - ultimately, to the Chesapeake Bay.
Since the 1930's, continued pollution had suppressed the marsh grasses (often Spartina species) and the underwater grasses (Submerged Aquatic Vegetation or SAV) that are essential to the health of the bay. The natural bands of SAV surrounding the points of land and islands have shrunk, and SAV has disappeared from extensive areas on the bottom of the Bay.
There is no secret regarding the cause. Silt from urban/suburban construction, plus erosion after the clearing of forests or plowing of cropland, has physically coated the SAV and blocked the transmission of light that is essential for plant growth.
Since the 1983 Chesapeake Bay Agreement, implementation of Best Management Practices for some development upstream has provided inadequate mitigation. Sediment has continued to pour into the Chesapeake Bay after every major storm. As determined by the US Geological Survey:6
 Best Management Practice (BMP) for development: stormwater pond |
 stormwater drain |
Stormwater is untreated. Rainwater that flows down a suburban or city gutter and enters a stormwater drain will flow directly to the Chesapeake Bay without being processed. Unlike sanitary sewer waste, there are no treatment plants for stormwater. A styrofoam cup thrown into a stormwater drain will flow downstream, pushed in surges by different storms, until particles of styrofoam reach the bay. Some debris and a small amount of sediment might settle out in stormwater ponds, but the rapid suburbanization in the bay watershed has increased runoff so dramatically that new sediment loads have overwhelmed the tributaries and the bay itself.
In addition, excessive nutrients (nitrogen and phosphorous) have washed downstream into the Chesapeake Bay from fertilized farm fields and cattle and chicken manure, as well as wastewater treatment plants. Combined Animal Feed Operations (CAFO's) for turkeys and chickens have generated more manure than farmers can apply as fertilizer on local fields. Especially on the Eastern Shore, the phosphorous in the chicken manure exceeds the capacity of the soil to absorb it, resulting in continued excessive nutrient enrichment of the Chesapeake Bay.
With the force-feeding of fertilizer, there are bursts of growth by algae. When it dies, the decaying algae absorbs too much oxygen from the water, creating "dead zones" where animals can't survive.
In 1999, two organizations (the American Canoe Association, Inc. and the American Littoral Society) sued in Federal court, requesting a judge to force the states to meet the requirements of the Clean Water Act. The consent order, accepted by the states and EPA, resulted in a new Chesapeake2000 agreement, a promise to complete TMDL studies to define the acceptable level of pollution in Bay tributaries and the Bay itself... and a new deadline to reduce the pollution. States and the District of Columbia were given another 10 years. By 2010, the bay was supposed to be so clean, EPA would not list it as an "impaired water" based on Section 303(d) of the Clean Water Act (the "dirty water" list).
After committing to the Chesapeake2000 agreement, Virginia continued to rely upon voluntary actions to mitigate existing pollution. Many news releases were issued in praise of small projects, and each theoretical reduction in pollution (as predicted by computer models) was highlighted as significant. Not surprisingly, however, by 2009 it was obvious once again that the deadline to remove the Chesapeake Bay from the dirty waters list would be missed. In 2008, NOAA declared a "blue crab disaster" in the Chesapeake Bay, based on a 41 percent decline in harvest from the late 1990's.7 EPA's 2008 Bay Health and Restoration Assessment said "the overall health averaged 38 percent, with 100 percent representing a fully restored ecosystem."8
It remains to be seen if the TMDL being developed by EPA in 2010 will change the pattern. In theory, each state (and DC) will be given pollution limits by EPA, and the states will re-allocate their total pollution budgets to individual jurisdictions in 2011 via a state-developed Watershed Implementation Plan. Those Watershed Implementation Plans will identify specific actions to be completed every 2 years, and EPA will monitor completion. If states fail to make adequate progress towards limiting pollution, EPA may impose "consequences" with enough pain to force states to make politically-difficult choices that reduce pollution, but upset farmers and developers. If progress is acceptable, then by 2025 all mitigation measures are supposed to be in place... and sometime later, the Chesapeake Bay may recover.
To increase public support for those tough decisions, outreach efforts are asking people who live in the watershed - but far from the Chesapeake Bay shoreline - to increase their advocacy for saving the bay. Those outreach efforts are highlighting not the science or the economic reasons to reduce pollution, but the value of seafood. the assumption is that most people in the watershed have a marginal interest in the bay's problems, but could be motivated if "saving the bay" meant "saving a seafood dinner."
The dramatic declines in the harvest of fish, oysters, and crabs over the last 80 years stimulated ineffective responses by local citizens to "Save the Bay." Most of the watermen who once made a decent living from crabbing, fishing, and especially tonging/dredging oysters are unable to make a living now. As the children in the families of watermen get out of high school and choose to enter college or other professions, a 300-year old way of life on the Bay is nearing extinction. In exchange, we have developed urban sprawl in Hampton Roads and Northern Virginia/Southern Maryland, and created agricultural economies in the Shenandoah and Susquehanna river valleys with the political power to block regulation of farming practices.
The 17-18 million people who live in the watershed now have upset the natural balance through a number of different stressors. Life adapts over thousands of years of time - but in the last 400 years, the impacts of increased urbanization have dramatically lowered the productivity and biodiversity of the Chesapeake Bay. "Since the 1960s, well over half of the SAV has disappeared from the Bay waters."9
The Chesapeake Bay can be saved, but not if the stressors continue to increase. Since there is no mechanism in the American political system to limit population growth in the watershed, the choice is to change the behavior of the people living in the watershed so they generate less pollution per capita so total pollution does not exceed maximum daily limits - or lose the bay.
