The number of crabs in Chesapeake Bay has dropped 400 million from 1997 to 2012. Over the years, Chesapeake Bay has become a vital ecosystem that is becoming increasingly polluted. An ecosystem is a system of interconnected habitats and living things. Human activity can affect the bay in a negative way, making it important for us to restore it. Steps need to be taken to restore the health of Chesapeake Bay. Some human activities are causing negative impacts on Chesapeake Bay. Residential development is one activity causing risk to the bay. Passage, one states, “Producing electricity, diverting water for human uses, and building roads, houses, and sewage treatment plants put stress on the ecosystem of Chesapeake Bay. This shows that daily activities …show more content…
It is very important that we restore the health of Chesapeake Bay. The health of the Bays ecosystem is causing animals and wildlife to die. According to the text, “fish, crabs, and oysters began to die in Chesapeake Bay, as well as estuaries in the U.S.” This reveals that the health of the bay is causing the animals in it to die, making it important for us to get it back to its health. There are also too many algae in the bay causing problems for the bay's ecosystem, giving another reason to help. This article states, “This has been found to change the habitat for some fish species and contribute to the growth of algae.” By helping the bays health, it will help the animals, algae, and ecosystem altogether. Steps need to be taken to help restore the health of Chesapeake Bay. Government programs are being enacted to help get the Bay back to health. Source one states, “now federal, state, and local governments, have programs to protect and restore the Bay’s water.” This information shows that the government is actively working to restore the wellbeing of the
Looking at the early English colonies in the Chesapeake Bay region, it’s clear that the English had not learned any lessons from their experiences at Roanoke. Poor planning, a bad location, unrealistic expectations, flawed leadership, unsuccessful relations with the local Indians, and no hope of finding the mineral wealth the Spanish found in Mexico, all contributed to failure. The first colonists in the Chesapeake region were not only ignorant, lazy and unambitious, but their attempts were hampered before they had begun. However, a solution to these problems was found in a single plant: tobacco. Nevertheless, this cash crop ultimately created numerous problems for the colonists. The ignorance and indolent acts of the Chesapeake colonists to unsuccessfully restore the colony by themselves led to the demise of the colony as a whole especially regarding the planting of agricultural goods for food.
During the 1600's, many people in the American colonies led very many different lives, some better than others. While life was hard for some groups, other colonists were healthy and happy. Two groups that display such a difference are the colonists of New England and Chesapeake Bay. New Englanders enjoyed a much higher standard of living. This high standard of New England's was due to many factors, including a healthier environment, better family situation, and a high rate of reproduction.
Television commercials, print ads, and billboards in the Washington, DC, area are asking residents to connect two things many might find unrelated: lawn care and seafood. In one commercial, a man stuffs a big plateful of grass in his mouth after a voice-over says, “Spring rains carry excess lawn fertilizers through our sewers and rivers and into the Chesapeake Bay, where the blue crab harvest has been extremely low. So skip the fertilizer until fall, because once they’re gone, what’s left to enjoy?”(Environment, p. 7)
The Chesapeake Bay is the largest estuary in the United States. It holds 18 hundred trillion gallons of water. The Bay is about 200 miles long, and is home to more than 17 million people. The importance of the Chesapeake Bay is incredible; two of the United States’ five major North Atlantic ports – Baltimore and Hampton Roads – are on the Bay. (Chesapeake Bay Program, n/d). The Chesapeake Bay provides shelter and food to all living things in the surrounding area. Both, people and animals, use the Bays resources every day and have done so for centuries.
Nature designed Florida to be one large marine ecosystem. Florida is one big sand peninsula located below the 40th longitudinal North American line. Three bodies of salt water (Gulf of Mexico, Strait of Florida and Atlantic Ocean) surround three out of four directions of Florida. Man-made canals, natural lakes, rivers and estuaries are confined within the State of Florida’s physical boundaries. All of these form an interlocking system of waterways that impact the interconnected marine environment (marine ecosystem). All of Florida’s waterways are connected back to the surrounding bodies of water while passing through Florida’s sub-tropical and temperate zones and impact the delicate marine ecosystem balance. Man and nature are causing a negative impact to this region like never before. Hurricanes, lack of green initiatives, garbage, pollution and the stripping of natural resources for population growth are decimating Florida’s natural ecosystems.
The Chesapeake Bay is the nation’s largest estuary with six major tributaries, the James, the Potomac, the Susquehanna, the Patuxent, the York, and the Rappahannock Rivers, feeding into the bay from various locations in Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania, and the District of Columbia (Chemical Contaminants in the Chesapeake Bay – Workshop Discussion 1). These areas depend on the Bay as both an environmental and an economic resource. Throughout the last 15 years the Chesapeake Bay has suffered from elevated levels of pollution. Nitrogen and phosphorous from wastewater treatment plants, farmland, air pollution, and development all lead to reduced water clarity and lowered oxygen levels, which harm fish, crabs, oysters and underwater grasses (Key Commission Issues 1). There are other types of pollution in the bay such as toxic chemicals, but because nutrient pollution is the most significant and most widespread in the Bay its effects are the most harmful to fisheries. Nitrogen and phosphorous fuel algal blooms which cloud the water and block sunlight from reaching underwater grass beds that provide food and habitat for waterfowl, juvenile fish, blue crabs, and other species (Blankenship 11-12). Algae plays a vital role in the food chain by providing food for small fish and oysters. However, when there is an overabundance of algae it dies, sinks to the bottom of the Bay, and decomposes in such a manner that depletes the oxygen levels of the Bay (11). The reduced oxygen levels in the Bay reduce the carrying capacity of the environment and these “dead areas” sometimes kill off species that can not migrate to other areas of the Bay, such as oysters (11). Increased abundance of algal blooms also led to the overabundance of harmful and toxic algae species and microbes such as the microbe Pfiesteria, which was responsible in 1997 for eating fish alive and making dozens of people sick (12). The heightened awareness of diseases that can be contracted through consumption of contaminated fish also has an economic impact. Therefore, the excess levels of nitrogen and phosphorous have fueled an overabundance of algal blooms, which has reduced water clarity and lowered oxygen levels, affecting many species within the bay and ultimately the industries that rely on these species.
Introduction The Chesapeake Bay is a large estuary located on the east coast of the United States. The bay is over 200 miles long and goes through Delaware, Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia. The bay has much to offer the locals. Many locals have made a career out of harvesting the bay's sea food.
The Chesapeake Bay is a large bay that stretches from Maryland to Virginia, fed by many rivers and streams that run from as far north as New York to Virginia and West Virginia.5 It is home to a plethora of plants and fish species, many of which the people of the area fish for food and supplies. The pollution present in the Chesapeake Bay is affecting the livelihood of both the fishermen and the fish – the less the fishermen haul due to the death of the species they catch, the less they get paid – and as consumers of these fish, we are consuming the toxins as well.
... the residual effects of pollution left behind by both mining in the Chesapeake Bay area around rivers, such as the Susquehanna River in Pennsylvania, that feed into the Chesapeake Bay. Lutz also had quoted John Dawes, now the executive director of the Foundation for Pennsylvania Watersheds, on the damage done to streams and to the aquatic life in the streams. Dawes told Lutz "'we're looking at 4,600 miles of dead streams in Pennsylvania'" in reference to the vitality in polluted regions. This can occur in several ways but the two generally accepted causes are the toxicity levels in the water are too high to support life and the contaminated water is slowly killing off members of the food chains for the aquatic life. In either theory, the death of fish and their food chain caused by AMD is impacting the billion dollar fishing industry that calls Chesapeake Bay home.
The Chesapeake Bay has faced an excessive amount of pollution over the past century. The water in the bay has become so highly polluted that It is capable of causing harm to humans coming in direct contact with the water. Although algae serves a vital role in the bay’s ecosystem, it also creates a problem that is causing a large amount of the problem.
Chesapeake Bay is a huge natural environment on the east coast. It has served as an important ecosystem, however human impacts over centuries have changed its landscape and ecological system. Due to industrialization, the bay has faced challenges of human impact like habitat destruction, and nutrient runoff. The importance of restoring the bay’s health is a serious statement because not restoring the ecosystem will rehome many animals living in the Chesapeake Bay. Actions to restore the health of the bay include taking actions like implementing pollution controls, restoring wetlands and collabing with the government agencies to protect land in the bay.
Heal The Bay is an environmental nonprofit that releases an annual beach scorecard detailing water pollution levels at beaches across the state. The elevated bacteria levels found at Cowell can be harmful to anyone who enters the water for recreation (Santa Cruz Surfrider 2018). Efforts to identify and eliminate sources of this pollution have made some progress. The City created a task force in 2015 to try and deal with the issue. Nets have been installed under the Wharf to prevent bird droppings from contaminating the water (York 2017).
Water pollution has had devastating effects on the environment, which include irreversible effects on the oceans ecosystem. People often underestimate the importance of the ocean. They don’t realize how much damage pollution has caused to the ocean and the thousands of creatures that inhabit it. Earth is a huge place, but resources are actually very limited and will not last forever unless there is a balance. We must protect the resources we have in order for them to last into the next generation.
The oceans need to be protected because it is where life began and if not taken care of, life as we know it will end. When dangerous substances go into the ocean, ecosystems are suffer and become endangered along with lives of people and of marine life. Surfrider Foundation recognizes the importance of protecting and preserving the quality and biodiversity of the world's coasts because they are truly irreplaceable. There is also historical evidence of ocean pollution being present in the past, but the problem still lingers today. Heal the Bay discovered that,“Did you know there is a DDT and PCB hot spot off the coast of Palos Verdes? This superfund site (which indicates it's one of the most polluted places in the United States), is left over from a 1930's era chemical plant. Because DDT takes so long to break down in the marine environment, it persists to this day, contaminating certain species of fish. There are also highly polluted sediments in the Long Beach area, a sign of the heavy shipping in the port. Heal the Bay works on developing effective capping and removal plans to keep those toxins from spreading” (Heal the Bay). DDT is still highly concentrated in the South Bay area and still contaminating different species of fish. Even after more than 80 years DDT, a toxic insecticide, is still very concentrated and during upwellings, DDT particles come back up and continue to harm marine life. If humans are careless about what is thrown on the floor or sprayed on lawns, it can lead to disastrous affects when it comes to the condition of the ocean's ecosystems, and can endanger life itself leading to a problem that only we can mend.
The problem with contaminated beaches will soon take effect on everyone. The main causes that pollution creates in the beaches are from heavy rainfall, natural disasters, and plant malfunctions. Government agencies cannot control the weather, but they can control what goes into the water. In the United States, the number one reason why beaches are closed down are due to contamination in the water that may be harmful and are left untreated. The arising problem with the beach is that the industries are producing toxic chemicals and tossing the unwanted waste into the ocean. Also, the public are recklessly throwing their trash out into the streets. A prime example to demonstrate this is, if someone was trying to throw a bottle into a street trashcan but missed, he/she is unlikely to pick up after himself/herself if no one was around to see it. This scenario causes pollution to the sidewalks. When mother nature disasters occur, these waste products will end up in the storm drains and into the sewage system. The overflow of debri from the cities can flow into the rivers and if not preserved, it can flow into the ocean. The rivers will then carry these human caused waste into t...