Karey Harris is the toxics subcommittee staffer with the Chesapeake Research Consortium at the Chesapeake Bay Program office.
Imagine seeing a video of a frog in the Amazon that was
believed to be extinct until she was caught on this tape. You see her, abdomen full of eggs, struggle
to get to water to lay her eggs. What a
find! How exciting for that scientist behind the camera! Then you are told that she was ill, died soon
after the video was taken, and no other frogs of her species have been found
since. She is currently in a jar in the
Smithsonian. Just an instant after you
expect to hear a success story, you realize that you have just watched a
species go extinct from the planet. That
happened to me last week, and this little frog tugged at my heart like no amphibian
before.
I had the pleasure of attending the 9th National
Conference on Science, Policy, and the Environment held by the National Council for Science and the Environment
(NCSE) at the Reagan Building in Washington,
D.C. on December 8-10. This year’s conference topic
was “Biodiversity in a Rapidly Changing World,” during which, among other
activities, I watched the frog go extinct.
So why tell the sad story?
As species go extinct worldwide, we are losing biodiversity as
well. Biodiversity
is lengthily defined as “the variability among living organisms from all
sources … and the ecological complexes of which they are a part; this includes
diversity within species, between species, and of ecosystems.” Without all the
words, a place that has good biodiversity has many different species all living
in a small area. A coral reef is probably
the most vivid example, with its multitudes of coral, anemones, and fish. An environment with very little biodiversity
may be as bleak as a cornfield, all dominated by the same species with a few
others thrown in. Biodiversity is often
used as a measure of ecosystem health.
As biodiversity decreases, the ecosystem’s health and stability
decreases as well.
(Check out an
example of good biodiversity from MarineBio, versus an
example of bad biodiversity from Holistic Management.)
The three-day conference focused on ways to preserve
biodiversity worldwide. Topics covered
policy and legislation, scientific research gaps, and communication to the
public. Speakers who made their case for
making changes and saving biodiversity included the director of the
Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History and a Pulitzer Prize-winning
author! Each day after the speakers, various
breakout sessions were offered to give each participant an individual
experience. I could write pages on what
I learned in those discussions, and I have a stack of literature on my desk
that I still need to read!
In addition to new things, I heard several familiar
themes: less pollution, more preserved land, better land use, teach the public
how to be more environmentally responsible, and so on. Some of these are ideas we
focus on here at the Bay Program. Since
this conference had a global focus, we must not be so far off base in our ideas
of how to save our Bay. I hope that one
day the world, and the Bay, will resemble the thriving systems they once were,
in part because this conference had something good to say.
On Tuesday, Rep. Rob Wittman from Virginia presented at the quarterly Scientific and Technical Advisory Committee meeting about his bill, the Chesapeake Bay Accountability and Recovery Act. Check out a clip from his presentation here:
After the meeting he visited the Bay Program office to hear some presentations and meet some of our staff. We thank Rep. Wittman for his visit!
Judy Okay
is a riparian forest buffer specialist on detail from the Virginia
Department of Forestry working at the Chesapeake Bay Program office.
In early October the search was on for a site in the Bay
watershed for the November 18 Bay Program Forestry
Workgroup meeting. Educational workgroup meetings are good because members
can get out of their offices and visit the fields and forests of the Chesapeake Bay watershed. After a few calls, the Virginia Tech
Mare Equine
Center in Middleburg, Virginia,
separated itself from other choices. It was a perfect location for the forestry
workgroup meeting because it has a 23-acre riparian forest
buffer, and forest buffers would be the focus of the meeting.
Riparian forest buffers are a topic near and dear to my
everyday life. People often tell me I live in “buffer land” because my job is
very specific to that area of forestry.
I really am very interested in watersheds as holistic ecosystems and
think of forest buffers as the integral link between what happens on the land
and how those actions are reflected in the water quality of streams and rivers.
Along with other Bay
goals, the
riparian forest buffer goal will fall short of the 10,000-mile commitment
made for the 2010 deadline. The number of riparian buffer miles achieved
annually has dropped off from 1,122 miles in 2002 to 385 miles in 2007. Since Forestry
Workgroup members represent state forestry agencies, NGOs, and other groups
interested in Bay forests, they are the logical group to come up with ways to
address barriers that stand in the way of achieving state riparian forest
buffer commitments. We spent the afternoon of the Forestry Workgroup meeting discussing
the barriers to riparian forest buffer plantings and ways to eliminate those
barriers.
The Forestry Workgroup meeting also featured two
presentations on new riparian forest buffer tools intended for use by local
governments, watershed groups, and local foresters. The first presentation, given
by Fred Irani from the U.S. Geological Survey team at the Bay Program office, was
about the RB Mapper, a new tool developed for assessing riparian forest buffers
along shorelines and streambanks. The other presentation, given by Rob Feldt
from Maryland DNR, was about a tool for targeting the placement of riparian
forest buffers for more effective nutrient removal. (You can read all
of the briefing papers and materials from the Forestry Workgroup meeting at the
Bay Program’s website.)
After all the business, it was time to experience the Mare Center,
their streamside forest buffer and the rolling hills of Virginia. A tractor and wagon provided transportation
to the pasture to see the buffer, which was planted in 2000 with 2,500 tree
seedlings. It was a cold and windy day, and there were actually snowflakes in
the air. We had planned to ride the wagon out and walk back, however, with a
little bit of a bribe, the wagon driver waited while we checked out the forest
buffer for survival, growth, and general effectiveness for stream protection.
The Forestry Workgroup meeting was productive, educational,
and enjoyable. How often can we say that
about group meetings? Sometimes it is
worth the extra effort to provide a meeting place with an outdoor component that
conveys the endeavors that the Bay Program workgroups are all about.
Mike Fritz is with the U.S. EPA at the Chesapeake Bay Program office.
Here at the American Society of Civil Engineers International Low-Impact Development (LID) Conference in Seattle, I’m swept up body and spirit by the
growing throng of several hundred enthusiastic devotees to the cause of polluted
runoff (a.k.a. “stormwater”) reduction. As a non-engineer EPA bureaucrat,
I’m a first-time participant in this biennial LID pilgrimage. But after three
days of PowerPoint presentations and an all-day field trip to Portland, Oregon,
which is the other “LID Mecca,” I’m just about ready to compose my own rap tune
out of cool LID lingo and design “treatment trains” (combinations of multiple
LID techniques) in my sleep. When I get home I’ll definitely take a new look at
my own roof downspouts and concrete driveway, and think about how much
reinforcement my carport will need before I can put a vegetable garden on the
roof!
I used to be an engineer when I was a kid growing up in the
suburbs of hilly central Connecticut.
One of my favorite activities was building snow dams in the street gutter when
the rain finally came and melted the snow on our particularly steep hill. It
was great fun to pack the snow into a big ice dam and then, when the call came
to go inside for dinner – invariably at 5:00 sharp – kick the dam open and send
a big slushy gusher down the street.
Down at the bottom of the hill it always flooded out of the street and
into the Perraults’ front yard. (Maybe that’s why I felt guilty when I saw them
at Sunday Mass.)
Of course at that time, I didn’t see any connection between
that phenomenon – the runoff gusher – and the fact that we could always catch
trout in the Quinnipiac
River upstream of the
city but never caught any downstream. Or why we never found any oysters when we
went way downstream to tromp through the mud in Long Island Sound, even though
my grandfather and uncles told great stories of burlap sacks full.
From what I’ve learned thus far, the “treatment train” at a
house like mine would go something like this:
- First,
don’t cut down any trees and plant as many additional trees and shrubs as
possible.
- Basically
get rid of the lawn.
- Catch
all the rain you can on a green
roof, where it either evaporates or gets used up by the plants. That’s
evapotranspiration.
- For the
remainder of the water that comes down your downspouts, run it directly
into a rain garden,
where a lot of mulch, trees, shrubs and native plants soak it up (more
evapotranspiration), and lots of it goes through the soil into the groundwater.
That’s infiltration.
- If you
have a driveway, garden path or sidewalk, replace the non-porous
(impervious) concrete and asphalt with porous (pervious) stuff. More
infiltration.
- If
there’s still a surplus of water, run it through a vegetated
swale (more evapotranspiration) and into another basin with more trees,
shrubs and mulch. The surface of the swale should be a little lower than
the surrounding land so that it may form a pond for a little while when
there’s a really heavy rain. That’s biorentention.
By that point, you should have pretty well mimicked what the
Chesapeake Bay watershed used to be: a
beautiful hardwood forest with clean waters in healthy streams. With this LID
“treatment train,” now we can all be engineers! Choo Choo!
The 2008 Chesapeake Exective Council meeting is just two days away, and agencies throughout the Bay Program partnership are busy finalizing details for this annual event. This year, Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley, Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine, Washington, D.C., Mayor Adrian Fenty, EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson, and representatives from Pennsylvania, New York, Delaware, West Virginia, the USDA and the Chesapeake Bay Commission will be on hand to review the past year's Bay restoration efforts and set a new agenda for 2009. You can read more details about the meeting at the Bay Program's website.
The meeting will be held at Union Station in Washington and is open to the public from 12:30-3 p.m. We're also planning to have a live webcast of the meeting on our website; stay tuned for that link.
Welcome to the Chesapeake Bay Program's blog, our newest web tool to help you, our web visitors, learn more about the Bay Program and what's going on with the Bay restoration effort.
We've created this blog to give you unique insight into the science, policy and events taking place within the Bay Program. You'll hear from the people who work at our Annapolis office and, occasionally, those who work at organizations throughout the Bay Program partnership. In our entries, we'll tell you about what we do and why we've dedicated our careers to helping advance Bay restoration. We'll also highlight places you can visit to experience the Bay and ways you can make a difference in the Bay restoration effort.
We want to hear from you, too. Use the comments feature of this blog to tell us how you are helping the Bay, or ask us questions about what's going on with the Bay. We'll do our best to answer your questions and use your comments to guide future content on the blog and our website.
Thanks for visiting; we're excited to share our new journey into blogging with you!
Alicia Pimental is with the Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay at the Chesapeake Bay Program communications office.
Yesterday I visited the Chesapeake Bay Environmental Center (CBEC), located in Grasonville on Maryland's Eastern Shore. It's an excellent spot for an afternoon walk, with trails that wind through salt marshes and loblolly pine stands. According to its website, CBEC has four miles of trails, two observation towers and two observation blinds, which are great to take photos from. There's also a one-mile water trail, with canoes and kayaks on-site available to rent (though it was a little too chilly to be out on the water yesterday!).
CBEC is also part of the Chesapeake Bay Gateways Network, a network of over 150 sites in Maryland, Virginia, D.C., Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Delaware and New York. Gateways include water trails, parks, wildlife preserves, museums and more. If you're looking for a way to experience the Chesapeake Bay or your local river, the Gateways Network has lots of spots to offer.
CBEC is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. every day. It's about a 20-minute drive from the Bay Bridge and there's a $5 per person admission charge. I hope you're able to go check it out!
A boardwalk through the marsh leads to a small beach area, where terrapins nest and lay eggs each spring.
One of the observation blinds is located on a small pond and offers great photo opportunities.
After decades of research and, more recently, advocacy, it
probably isn’t news to learn that the earth’s climate is changing. Legions of scientists have documented a wide
range of changes that can be directly and indirectly attributed to human
activities, particularly the emission of greenhouse gases. These gases are heat trapping by-products of
the combustion of fossil fuels. The
question is, what does this global problem have to do with the Chesapeake Bay?
A new report from the Bay Program’s Scientific and Technical Advisory
Committee (STAC) examines this question. (Download the full
report in PDF.) The report reflects the combined efforts of two
coordinating editors and 11 contributing authors that represent more than a
dozen organizations. The team concluded
that climate change is more than a future threat to the Bay – it is an issue
with immediate consequences for today’s restoration and protection decisions. Climate change is likely to bring warmer air
and warmer temperatures to the region, accelerate sea level rise, and potentially
change seasonal precipitation patterns. These
changes have the potential to exacerbate current stresses on the Bay ecosystem
and complicate or potentially undermine restoration efforts.
For example, a changing climate may:
- Alter
the flow of pollutants into the Bay and their impact on water quality and
living resources.
- Challenge
the performance of environmental monitoring programs intended to measure
success and guide regulatory processes.
- Compromise
the effectiveness of restoration strategies, such as those described in
the Tributary
Strategies.
- Require
changes in the design of regulatory programs, such as TMDLs.
These changes mean that the Bay Program will need to
anticipate and adapt to changing conditions to achieve its goals of protecting
and restoring water quality and living resources. It is essential to recognize that the need to
respond effectively to changing conditions is not a new requirement – it is an existing
responsibility based on the Bay Program’s mandates and authorities. This means that Bay Program partners can and
should take immediate action to include consideration for climate change in
important management and policy decisions.
The STAC team concluded the report with a number of specific
recommendations for next steps for the Bay Program, including:
- Creating
a high-level climate change champion charged with identifying
opportunities to address climate change within existing authorities and
existing resources.
- Developing
and deploying new strategies to accelerate consideration of climate change
in public and private sector decision making.
- Prioritizing
and aggressively pursuing targeted research and development to address
specific implementation issues and strengthen the foundation of knowledge
about the impact of climate change on the Bay.
In other words, the Bay Program needs to make climate change
someone’s job and empower that individual to use existing authorities and
resources to anticipate and prepare for changing climatic conditions. With this person in place, the Bay Program
can begin to work with the STAC and other advisors and stakeholders to develop
strategies to help protect and restore the Bay under changing conditions. At times, this will require focused research
and development, and the Bay Program should help ensure that needs are clearly
communicated and that resources are made available to support the work that
needs to be done.
The bottom line of the report is clear: the Bay’s climate is
changing and this will have significant implications for the mission of the Bay
Program and the future of the Chesapeake Bay. It is incumbent on the Bay Program to take
action to anticipate and adapt to changing conditions to ensure that efforts to
protect and restore the Bay will be successful under future conditions.
Krissy Hopkins is the Communications and Education Subcommittee staffer with the Chesapeake Research Consortium at the Chesapeake Bay Program.
Last week, I volunteered with the National Aquarium in Baltimore for a day of
shoreline buffer planting at the Naval
Support Facility at Indian Head, located along the banks of the Potomac
River in Maryland. Over
the course of five days, Aquarium staff, the Maryland Conservation Corps, Charles County
Master Gardeners and local residents planted over 5,000 native grass plants
and 1,500 native trees along 4,830 feet of Potomac shoreline.
I’m pretty sure the trees I planted that day are among the
most protected in the state of Maryland. After
successfully passing through several security checks to enter the Naval
facility, I met up with Aquarium staff at the marina. We then piled into
vans and passed through yet another security checkpoint before entering what I
was told was a highly restricted area of the base (think ‘explosive
deliveries’ signs and mysterious steam hanging in the air). We soon arrived at
the drop-off and scampered down a steep hill to our planting site along the Potomac River.
When I arrived at the site, I was given the job of ferrying
plants from the center of the site to their new and permanent home along the
shoreline. There were low, medium and high marsh plant species that had to
be placed accordingly. After ferrying the plants to their new home, the
planting brigade -- mostly Maryland Conservation Corps folks -- dug holes and
planted the trees.
After a short lunch break, I informed those in charge that I
wanted to participate in the planting so I could have a more well-rounded day
of volunteering (and because ferrying the plants was a lot of walking!). Soon
after I began planting, I truly realized how difficult it is to successfully plant
a tree. For some holes I had to use a pick ax to get through the tough
soil! After about three hours of planting, we had completed our section
for the day and all the trees were securely in the ground.
I climbed back up to the top of the hill where I had been
dropped off in the morning and looked down upon the section we had planted. It
was amazing to see the sea of plants below me and the hard work of everyone
volunteering that day. I’m curious to see what the site will look like in
five, 10 and 20 years when the plants have established.
I especially enjoy these days of my job when I’m able to
leave the office and experience watershed restoration first-hand. I
walked away from that day with muddy boots, sore arms and a greater
appreciation for ferrying plants.
Thanks to the National Aquarium in Baltimore for both of these photos!