U.S. Water News Online
RICHMOND, Va. -- Nutrient-borne pollution is depleting oxygen in Virginia's major tributaries to the Chesapeake Bay, making it hard for fish, crabs and oysters to survive, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation says.
The entire York River and parts of the Pamunkey and Rappahanock rivers lack oxygen levels necessary to sustain healthy marine life, according to data collected by the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality in early June.
That the problem is occurring so early in the season and so far from the mouth of the rivers alarms some researchers, who say the problem is likely to worsen this summer.
Jeff Corbin, senior scientist for the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, said he fears a repeat of last year's "dead zone,'' where oxygen-starved water covered 40 percent of the bay, from Baltimore to the mouth of the York River.
"We're on track to having just about as bad a dead zone problem this year,'' Corbin said. "That we see these conditions so early in the summer and so far up Virginia rivers is truly alarming.''
Recently, the foundation found a large "mahogany tide'' of brown algae several hundred yards long in the lower James River. Such blooms are known to kill oysters and other shellfish by clogging their gills and producing toxins that kill their young.
Charles Landon, a Gloucester County waterman who crabs in the York River, Ware and Severn rivers, told the Daily Press of Newport News that his catches have been rotten so far this year. "We haven't had this kind of trouble this bad before,'' he said.
Low oxygen levels, known as hypoxia, have been occurring annually in the bay and its tributaries. The phenomenon results from excessive amounts of nutrient pollution running off from farms, stormwater and septic systems, and flowing from sewage-treatment plants.
State environmental agency officials acknowledge that water quality continues to be a problem but say it's too early to predict another bad year for the rivers and the bay.
"It's premature to draw conclusions,'' DEQ spokesman Bill Hayden said. "This is not cause for alarm. It's cause for continuing the work we've been doing.''
The foundation and other environmental groups have been calling for limiting such nutrient pollution from sewage-treatment plants.
State officials said Virginia is tackling the problem by drafting strategies to reduce river pollution and developing regulations designed to reduce the amount of nutrients flowing out of industrial and sewage-treatment plants.
But other state and federal regulatory agencies and residents of the bay watershed itself will have to share the burden of cleaning up the bay, which could cost as much as $18.7 billion according to government projections.
Return to the U.S. Water News Archives page Or Return to the U.S. Water News Homepage
Editor@uswaternews.com
*Your Name:
*Your Email:
*Friend's Email:
Use a comma to separate e-mail addresses:
*Your Comments:
Hi, I thought you might like to read this article.
*Required Fields