Sometimes, it’s the most obvious things that grab y'all past times surprise.
Last Thursday, I was driving westward through key New York, headed upwards to Lake Ontario to come across alongside some friends as well as hit a footling freshwater angling earlier the saltwater flavour took over my life for the side past times side several months.
Somewhere past times the Catskills as well as perchance twenty-five miles eastward of Binghamton, I passed a sign that I didn’t expect. It said
“Entering the Chesapeake Bay watershed.”
Chesapeake Bay?
That borders Virginia as well as Maryland, non the State of New York. A quick banking concern check on mapquest.com revealed that at that spot are 261 route miles betwixt Binghamton as well as Baltimore, so what does Chesapeake Bay receive got to hit alongside the moo-cow as well as corn province of New York’s Southern Tier?
The respond to that enquiry lies—or, to a greater extent than accurately, passes—under the highway, inwards the shape of a fairly small, slow-moving current that is no wider, as well as seemingly far less interesting, than the various trout streams I had passed a spell before.
For what looks similar a nondescript, farm-country current is genuinely the due north branch of the Susquehanna River, a waterway that flows for 464 miles from its origins nigh Cooperstown, New York to its oral fissure at the northern terminate of Chesapeake Bay.
So yes, key New York is real much a component of the Susquehanna River watershed, a watershed that ultimately provides one-half of all fresh H2O that flows into Chesapeake Bay. From a geological perspective, the Chesapeake Bay is cypher to a greater extent than than the drowned channel, or “ria,” of the Susquehanna, an ancient river that flowed earlier dinosaurs commencement walked on Earth, as well as cutting through shorelines far unlike than those nosotros know today.
The Susquehanna’s watershed extends far beyond New York as well as the river’s immediate banks; the entire drainage basin encompasses 27,510 foursquare miles, including parts of New York, almost one-half of Pennsylvania, as well as much of northern Maryland. Anything that occurs inwards that extensive watershed that affects the wellness of the river will, ultimately, time period downstream as well as impact the wellness of Chesapeake Bay.
That, inwards turn, matters to anglers, every bit Chesapeake Bay is an of import producer as well as plant nursery expanse for a host of fish species, most peculiarly the striped bass that ultimately migrate out of the bay as well as migrate upwards to New York as well as New England. The Bay’s wellness tin hence influence the wellness of fish stocks many miles away.
And the Bay’s wellness isn’t every bit practiced every bit it should be.
“The Bay’s hypoxic (low-oxygen) anoxic (oxygen-free) zones are caused past times excess food pollution, primarily from human activities such every bit agriculture as well as wastewater. The excess nutrients cause an overgrowth of algae, which as well as so sinks as well as decomposes inwards the water. The resultant depression oxygen levels are insufficient to back upwards most marine life as well as habitats inwards near-bottom waters, threatening the Bay’s crabs, oysters as well as other fisheries.”
Rob Magnien, managing director of NOAA’s Center for Sponsored Coastal Ocean Research, notes that despite some progress,
“more move needs to live done to address nonpoint food pollution from farms as well as other developed lands, to brand the Bay cleaner for its communities as well as economical interests.”
As a practical matter, that move tin exclusively live accomplished at the federal level, or at to the lowest degree alongside federal coordination of province efforts. While Maryland tin sure enough regulate activities that occur inside the state, as well as examine to proceed them from harming the Bay’s waters, it has no effective way to preclude farmers inwards Pennsylvania or municipalities inwards New York from allowing pollutants to run into the Susquehanna, as well as and so into Chesapeake Bay.
While New York, alongside its long coastline as well as important commercial as well as recreational angling industries, mightiness receive got a existent incentive to protect its percentage of the Susquehanna watershed, at that spot is footling practical argue for essentially landlocked Pennsylvania to parent the well-being of coastal fisheries inwards a higher house the economical interests of its ain farmers (and yes, Pennsylvania does host a pocket-size striped bass fishery, but it is comprised of fish spawned inwards the Delaware River, non inwards Chesapeake Bay).
Since 2010, efforts to command pollutants flowing into Chesapeake Bay receive got been centralized inside the Chesapeake Bay Program Office, which is component of the federal Environmental Protection Agency. Such Office has made existent progress on a number of fronts, including setting a Total Maximum Daily Load of pollutants that tin time period into the Bay, which
“identifies the necessary pollution reductions of nitrogen, phosphorus as well as sediment across Delaware, Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia as well as the District of Columbia as well as sets pollution limits necessary to come across applicable H2O character standards inwards the Bay as well as its tidal rivers as well as embayments. Specifically, the TDML sets Bay watershed limits of 185.9 i grand one thousand pounds of nitrogen, 12.5 i grand one thousand pounds of phosphorus as well as 6.45 billion pounds of sediment per year—a 25 percentage reduction inwards nitrogen, 24 percentage reduction inwards phosphorus as well as 20 percentage reduction inwards sediment…”
In companionship to assure that the states agree upwards their component of the bargain, the procedure includes measures
“to ensure accountability for reducing pollution as well as coming together deadlines for progress. The TDML [was] implemented using an accountability framework that includes [Watershed Implementation Plans}, two-year milestones, EPA’s tracking as well as assessment of restoration progress and, every bit necessary, specific federal contingency actions if the jurisdictions hit non come across their commitments.”
In all, the TDML innovation represented a massive attempt that, spell nowhere nigh complete, got off to a practiced start, as well as stood a fair risk of improving the wellness of Chesapeake Bay.
Unfortunately, it may never teach the risk to hit so.
In 2017, the Trump direction proposed a budget that would receive got stripped all funding from the Chesapeake Bay Program. Fortunately, from the Bay’s signal of view, that budget was never adopted, as well as the continuing resolutions that kept the regime funded recognized the Bay Program’s value, as well as provided sufficient funding to proceed it viable.
The administration’s 2019 budget i time again seeks to defund the Chesapeake Bay Program, slashing that percentage of the EPA’s budget past times 90%, from nearly $73 i grand one thousand this twelvemonth to simply $7.3 i grand one thousand inwards 2019. At such a depression marking of funding, the Chesapeake Bay Program Office would simply barely live able to monitor Program progress, but would non live able to brand whatsoever meaningful contribution to the effort.
That wouldn’t bode good for a host of fisheries, whether for the depleted as well as sessile oyster to the migratory striped bass that pass their commencement years of life inwards the Bay’s waters.
Other important, but troubled, H2O bodies on every coast, including the Gulf of United Mexican U.S. (which has a dead zone the size of New Jersey), Long Island Sound, San Francisco Bay, Puget Sound as well as the Florida Keys/Everglades part (along alongside the strictly freshwater regions of the Great Lakes as well as Lake Champlain) would also consider of import funding either completely eliminated or slashed to token amounts that would brand whatsoever existent progress impossible.
That’s a bad thing, for to both the fish as well as the fishermen who pursue them, cypher is every bit of import every bit water. For as W.C. Fields noted, when explaining why he never drank the stuff,
“Fish [fornicate] inwards it.”
They swim inwards it, feed inwards it, breathe inwards it as well as grow inwards it too; without H2O build clean plenty to back upwards such activities, fish—and fishing—won’t last real well.
And every bit nosotros all know, “stuff” flows downstream. Any pollutants that terminate upwards inwards the water will, inwards time, terminate upwards inwards our bays as well as estuaries, the plant nursery areas as well as feeding grounds that are critical to coastal fisheries.
That beingness the case, every bit the budget debates rut upwards i time again this fall, anyone concerned alongside the wellness of our fisheries postulate to remain on top of this issue, as well as permit their representatives know that build clean H2O is worth paying for.
Yes, nosotros unremarkably worry almost pocketbook limits, seasons, size limits as well as such.
But those things exclusively affair if at that spot are fish inwards the water, as well as that agency that, most of all, nosotros postulate H2O that is gibe for those fish to alive in.
Because It All Flows Downstream
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Oleh
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