Environmental Economic Impact of Pollution in the Chesapeake Bay Essay

The Chesapeake Bay is the nations 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 capital of South Carolina (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 eld the Chesapeake Bay has suffered from elevated levels of befoulment. Nitrogen and phosphorous from waste wet treatment plants, farmland, air pollution, and development all lead to reduced water clarity and lowered atomic number 8 levels, which harm fish, crabs, oysters and underwater grasses (Key Commission Issues 1). There are other types of pollution in the bay much(prenominal) as toxic chemicals, but because nutrient pollution is the most signifi orduret and most widespread in the Bay its effects are the most harmful to fisheries. Nitrogen and phosphorous fuel algal blooms which hide 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 critical 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 di seases that can be contract 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. The signing of the 1987 Chesapeake Bay Agreement marked the offshoot joint vent... ...ablehttp//www.virginia-beach.va.us/cityhall/planning/cbay.html (4 Nov. 1999).Fish Health in the Chesapeake Bay Estimate of Seafood History Losses. Available http//www.mdsg.umd.edu/fish-health/pfiesteria/pfeconomics/sld005.html. (22 Nov. 1999).Glibert, Patricia M. and Daniel E. Terlizzi. Nutrients, Phytoplankton, and Pfiesteria In the Chesapeake Bay. Available http//www.arec.umd.edu/policy/Pfiesteria/terlizzi/terlizzi.htm (22 Nov. 1999).Impacts of Diseases and ase Resistant Oysters Available http//biology.uroregon.edu/classes/bi130/webp rojects/15/oyster.html (22 Nov. 1999).Key Commission Issues Available http//www2.ari.net/cbc/old/cbc_issu.htm(4 Nov. 1999).Lipske, Michael. Getting to Know You National Wildlife, v33. (1995) 24-29.Parker, Doug. The Economic Costs of Implementing the Maryland Water Quality Improvement proceed of 1998. Available http//www.arec.umd.edu/policy/Pfiesteria/parker/parkertext.html (22 Nov. 1999).Santopierro, George D., and Leonard Shabman. Can Privatization Be Inefficient? The Case of the Chesapeake Bay Oyster Fishery. Journal of Economic Issues, v26 n2 (June 1992) 407-415.