Only YOU can save the bay...

[Bob J.]

Been away hauling frieght for the last 3 months so 1st off Happy New Year to everyone!

The bay has been cleaned up substantally from where it was 20+ years ago. One only needs to look at the rebound of the striped bass population for proof of it. As boaters we're on the water & we see the problems created by pollution but boaters are not the problem...

The ocean is one of the last places you can get away from land & have freedom. The ocean allows us to escape from a society where the sheep of the world feel that comon sense needs to be legislated. This isn't about protecting the enviroment it is about control & money. As a boater you have freedom, they can't control you & that pisses them off.

>> crawling back into my cave....

Bob

 

[MoonSailer]

Oysters are not the only filter feeders. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filter_feeder Maybe less fishing pressure on filter feeding fish would help the bay. http://www.chesapeakebay.net/atlanticmenhadenmanagement.aspx?menuitem=15378

Menhaden are willing and able to clean up the bay but with about 240,000,000#s being removed from the bay each year they are hindered in what they might be able to do. Hopefully the menhaden won't go the way of the oyster.

 

[Shooter II]

Firstly,
Happy New Year!!
"May you always have Love to share, Health to spare, and Friends who care" To that I would add, and clothes to wear.

I am convinced that the boaters on this thread have accepted that they are people and users of technology and therefore part of the problem BUT they are willing to spend and work to help solve the problem.
It has been pointed out that decades have been spent trying to clean the bay and most of us would say the bay is still really dirty.
What I want to know is what did they do on Lake Erie (it was "dead") that we are NOT doing on the bay?
Where have cleanup efforts, worldwide, succeeded because we are obviously not doing it right on the bay.

 

[Ross]

hooter , In response to your "What did they do for Lake Erie?" I went to Google and then "here"; http://www.joycefdn.org/pdf/9801_WIP.pdf and found a very definitive statement on what has been done and still needs to be done.

 

[rpwillia]

"This was Potomac River" by Frederick Tilp

Great book by a guy who grew up in the 30's sailing up and down the river as a kid. He was also an architect who specialized in designing structures that abutted the river. He dies in the mid 90's, but his book lives on.

When you read this book and read about a lot of the stuff it has endured over the last several hundred years it is disheartening. I can't even imagine swimming in the Potomac and encountering a 6' sturgeon. Around 1900 they were common until we fished them out. Striped bass we an invasive species a few years ago, and now are prized sport fish. I don't even want to think about the snakehead we have hanging out in my marina now. We routinely destroy the habitat of the bay and river giving it little or no thought.

So, what can we do to make things better? We did have the Potomac Riverkeeper in to one of our yacht club meetings and it is interesting what they are doing, but they are too few.

 

[Ross]

Re: "This was Potomac River" by Frederick Tilp

I wonder how many pounds of plancton is required to grow one pound of meat whether it be oyster, clam or mehaden or gizzard shad.

 

[shemandr]

One thing that helped the water clarity in Lake Erie was the Zebra Mussel. It is an invasive species responsible for many problems; but its clear to me, as someone who visited the lake before the invasion and after, that the water became much, much more clear after. Locals attributed the difference to the mussels.

 

[jibes138]

Fish that can save the bay

Ross makes a good point about population growth and impact on the environment. I remember a few cencuses ago the US had about 200M people, now it is well over 300M. The world can not continue to increase the population at the present rate indefinitely. Until this is addressed by government and religions it will continue to grow to an unsustainable state. In Hawking's book The Universe in a Nutshell he describes that within a couple hundred years (maybe 500) every square inch of the planet will be covered with a human elbow to elbow and since the rate of energy consumption is increasing at the same rate as population or higher the entire planet will be glowing red hot.
So what kind of fish can save the bay? Lion fish are a new invasive species that are deadly and are now in the area. Another species for consideration is the Candiru fish. If we seeded the bay with Candiru no one would ever swim in it again and everyone would move far inland to get away. I'll leave it up to the readers to research the Cadiru.
Of a similar note, I was in Santa Barbara a few weeks ago and the surfers could not go in the water because it was too polluted. I asked what the source of the pollution was and the response was it rains so infrequently that when it does rain all the dog droppings, other animal excrement, human impact from fertilizers, etc. all flow into the coastal waters and make it unfit for swimming (it was raining during my trip). So the whole pacific ocean is unable to absorb the current level of human impact. This is not an estuary but a big wide open ocean that can't take the impact. How can a bay possibly survive considering the huge population surrounding it?

 

[Stu Jackson]

So the whole pacific ocean is unable to absorb the current level of human impact.

Dave, a little context is necessary here. This happens each year in So. Cal. because of the both what you describe but more importantly because of the danged sewage treatment plants overflowing because they weren't sized for the rainwater they have to collect. It's a little strange, heck, no, a lot strange, that when the plants were designed, they decided on separating the rain water and the rest of the sewer systems so the plants wouldn't have to handle to heavier loads of the rainwater. So when it rains, all the stuff on the streets bypasses the STPs and creates what you described.

Even so, the STPs now overflow whether they have the rainwater connected to them or not, and spill contaminated waste into the bays, both down there and up here, and back east.

If the fines for this "activitiy" weren't so low, the operators woudl be forced economically, to do something.

Los Angeles is not polluting the whole Pacific Ocean, and the whole Pacific Ocean can absorb it. It's only the first few hundred yards offshore from the STP outfalls that's what creates the beach closings.

 

[Ross]

Re: Fish that can save the bay

About 1950 the population of the US was about 150 million. In just sixty years we have doubled that. One of my grandparents lived to be 90+ years both of my parents did. Financially I am planning on living past 90 years and so are my siblings. If our birthrate is down in this land so also is the death rate.
There has lately been a program called the "world without people" and in it they show how quickly the world recovers from the human population.
Consider what would happen if all of the highways into the northeast section of the country were closed because of the distruction of major bridges on the interstate highways. NYC would run out of food within a week and within a month there would be a massive famine in the entire northeast.

 

[Bill Roosa]

Saving the Bay

There used to be enough oysters in the Bay to filter every drop of water in it once every three days. They are the bay's filter. Take the filter out of a fish tank and how long (no matter what else you do) will the tank survive?

So stop eating oysters

 

[MoonSailer]

Menhaden are filter feeders. Reduce the harvest this year. Let menhaden clean the bay. What happens is that all of the nutrients produce a lot of plankton that is normally eaten and turned into fish. But when we catch all of the fish the excess plankton sink to the bottom and rot. Another awful effect of overfishing is a change in the populations of life. Instead of menhaden and oysters we start getting jellyfish taking over as the top filter feeders. The jellyfish eat the eggs and larva of the oysters and menhaden making it harder for the populations to recover. Turtles eat jellyfish but loggerhead turtles are in trouble. A few years ago we actually got to watch some leatherback turtles eating jellyfish off of Panama City Florida. They could eat a large jelly in two bites. Copepods are filter feeders and fish food. Insecticides kill them. http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~hbf/menhaden.htm Instead of wringing our hands about oysters we should try to save menhaden. Menhaden might be able to make a comeback. They are food for everything in the sea. http://www.chesbay.org/articles/4.asp

 

[Scott T-Bird]

Omega Fish Oil tablets ...

My wife is always getting after me to take these things once a day. I don't like them because they make me burp .... and then it tastes like fish that have been sunning on the beach for a few days . I'm sure they are from this menhaden harvest. This will be a good reason for me to give them up.

 

[MoonSailer]

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/16/opinion/16greenberg.html

 

[Scott T-Bird]

That was an interesting article, but ...

I do have a problem with it. The last paragracph boils down the problem essentially to consumers of fish oil tablets. I have a problem believing that fish oil tablets are the bulk of the end result of the menhaden harvest. I suspect that the real culprit is agriculture and that the vast bulk of menhaden goes into feed for livestock and fertilizer (and not our lawn fertilizers - almost all of the stuff is made for farming).

Agriculture, and the pressure to maintain cheap food, is a huge part of the problem. The NYT article alludes to it, but they don't go deep enough and seem to push off the problem on the shallow argument that it is about the greed of a few individuals and a nations appetite for fish oil tablets. I can hardly force down one per week when my wife watches over my shoulder to make sure I take it. I'll bet the overall consumption doesn't account for more than a tiny fraction of the amount that ends up in agricultural products.

The feed and fertilizer that is flushed into the Cheasapeake in huge volumes is actually made from the fish that would filter it if they weren't being harveested. If we really mean to clean up the environment, regulating agriculture is the place to start. Regulation in agriculture is currently almost non-existent in comparison to all other industries. That is because of our romantic vision of the family farm and a strong lobby. Regulation will drive away small farmers and make the large agricultural corporations more powerful. It will also dramatically raise the price of food. Are we willing to make those sacrifices?

Of course, another way is the voluntary purchase of only agricultural products that do not use menhaden based feed and fertilizer. But that would be too much of a bother.

 

[MoonSailer]

Scott I think that you misread the article. He did mention changing to flaxseed if you are concerned about Menhaden but pointed out the other uses of the fish as you said for animal food. His major point as I read the article was that Menhaden a once hugely abundant fish has been overharvested. He second point was that Menhaden are filter feeders who clean up the water. Thirdly and very importantly Menhaden are near the base of the food chain and are eaten by many other fish. If we remove Menhaden from the sea they are no longer available to clean the water and feed other animals. You can't have stripers unless they have food. Scuba diving I have observed bigger fish eating from huge schools of smaller fish. The last trip to the guld I was surprised at the lack of baitfish around the shipwrecks. There were some but not the huge schools that I used to see. http://www.foragefish.org/atlantic_menhaden.html here is a better article. http://www.healthygulf.org/hot-issue/protect-menhaden-in-the-gulf-of-mexico.html

 

[Scott T-Bird]

Moon, I did understand the article ...

and have no problem with any of the points that you mention. In fact, without this forum, I would have had no idea about how important this surprising fish is to the food chain and to the entire ecology. I agree that severe limitations in harvesting are called for. I read the other articles that you posted as well.

I only mention that the last paragraph of the NYT article seems to trivialize the article by making such a shallow statement. It really doesn't matter if there is only a couple of large corporations that make a large profit by over-harvesting or thousands of small fishermen who barely eek out a living while collectively over-harvesting. That's why I say that it isn't greed that is at the core of the problem. The problem also isn't the handful of people who take the vitamin supplements as they also imply in the last paragraph.

I would respect the article more if they concluded by focusing on the core of the problem, which is that there is a very high demand for a cheap supply of animal feed and fertilizer in the agri-businesses who support this industry. They seem to brush right over that issue.

 

[Ross]

Menhaden have always been taken for their oil which is used in paint and other industrial products. The residue was a problem until they started feeding it as high protein food for poultry. Before the Europeans upset the balance the Chesapeake likely supported a wild bird population larger than the chicken population today. The manure from millions of water fowl was constantly dropped into the water and fed the plankton that fed the mollusks and alewives and menhaden and shad and herring which in turn fed the predatory fish which fed the people who could catch these fish. In those days a family lived on the food they caught or produced. Today we depend on others to provide our food in exchange for money then we become concerned that the providers are not taking better care of us by their abuse of the food production areas. However taking better care of the production areas costs money and we complain when the cost of food goes up. We want the best of all worlds abundant low cost food and a pristine enviornment.

 

[tommays]

In Northport the issue is the birds and land runoff

NOT going to due much about the birds BUT its a nesting area with and above normal amount in a small area

I think we do have the bird thing back in balance as the amount of nesting in spring now is amazing

The land runoff is like Niagara Falls through downtown Northport during every heavy rain and washes ALL the dirt from a pretty big area right into the harbor.


We just had 26" of snow followed by enough rain to melt it 100% ,i cant even think of how much water that was with all the road salt in one week

 

[MoonSailer]

Ross I agree that everything has costs. The biggest problem is human overpopulation and all other problems stem from human overpopulation. People have to eat and the more people the more they have to eat. Yet here in the USA we have no population goals!!!!!! Will our leaders let the USA become as overpopulated as China?? India?? People naturally control their population if allowed to do so but religion promotes overpopulation as does other cultural values.
There seem to be many problems with the Chesapeake among them overfishing. I suspect that at one time Menhaden were more important for filtering bay water than oysters. Apparently the bay is a major breeding area when the Menhaden are most hungry and growing most rapidly. Without the oysters and Menhaden all of this food seems to be feeding jellyfish!!!! We all love jellyfish when we are swimming. Another huge plus of saving the Menhaden is the fact that stripers love to eat menhaden and more menhaden mean more larger stripers. http://www.striperspace.com/large_bunker.html Here is a more technical paper that reaches the same conclusions that overfishing menhaden is bad for the bay. Of course the fishermen who catch the menhaden might have a different opinion. But heck we all try to protect our sources of income. Unfortunately Menhaden are a finite resource and if the population is destroyed the fishermen will then have to seek other sources of income anyway. Like being a logger....once you cut down the forest you have to find other work.
http://www.ecopath.org/modules/Support/Courses/course/2004/Fish501/Uphoff_predator_prey.pdf