Bay Polution

[archeryrob]

I saw a guy post this up to and this is what hit me.

"Washington has been diverting three billion gallons of raw sewage into the rivers on an annual basis, ..." and remember they are 460 waste water treatments that feed into the bay. How many others are overloading? People are always quick to blame farm run off, but they have been heavily working on this. How much farm run off is needed to equal 3 Billion gallons of raw sewage.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/n...-water-tunnel/

I just figured out, I am only fishing North of washing now.

[Retriever]

Dc has what are called combined sewers. Dry flow sewage goes to treastment facilities, wet flow conditions (rain events) exceed the capacity of the plants sending the combined flows directly to the rivers. If you are interested look up the Clean Rivers Project. DC and the federal Government are spending billions on concent decree mandated upgrades to the system. It is slow procees but they will be making significant headway in the near future. I just came off one of these projects (tunnel) and am going to another in the fall.
Regards, Mark

[archeryrob]

I know they are fixing it, but the quantity they are releasing is astounding. The decline of the bay and its grasses started in the late 60's to early 70's at the same time urban and suburban growth was exploding. While farming has stayed the same about per acre, even reduced in central Maryland, and got better with the advent of No till farming and grass buffers.

I think they good news is at least they are admitting what the true problem is finally.

[JohnE]

Fertilizer runoff is also a huge problem, both from farmers and from all these suburban homeowners over fertilizing their lawns. Then you have all the poultry farms owned/leased/hired by huge corporations along the bay and its tributaries. As I understand it, the poultry farmers are actually one of the biggest problems the bay faces lately. I have watched documentaries on this stuff in the past. The manure contains a lot of nitrogen and phosphorus and needs to be disposed of properly. Many farms have actually been caught with these drainage ditches leading directly from their giant coops right into small creeks and streams--basically a poop collecting trench below the chickens and right into the bay it goes.

The raw sewage dumping during rain storms is pretty common on the east coast. I know it is still like that in Rhode Island also. You do not want to touch the water after heavy rains. In fact, they frequently close the beaches after storms roll through. Water is pretty bad up there also, but aside from the raw sewage runoff I am not sure what causes the problems since all the factories are pretty much closed up and they don't seem to have nearly as many farms up there. The lobsters caught in the area often have fin rot and the people making a living off the water can't sell them like the ones without the rot. My family actually operated a traditional New England clam bake company up there in the past and rock weed was required to be placed with all the food being cooked in the burlap tarps. They used to just gather it up down near the cliff walk area in Newport, but it is all gone now because of pollution. I guess they just use seaweed these days instead, but then it is really not the same as when my grandparents and great grandparents used to throw the clam bakes for people.

[Fishinfool]

Farms account for about forty per cent of all "non-point" toxic run-off, according to the CBF. The large chicken producers like Perdue are experts at insulating themselves from legislation to curb the problem. Perdue uses private growers on contract as their supply source for example, and all environmental regulation risk is shifted to small operators.

The flush tax is helping replace old leaky septic systems, and stormwater tax funded improvements are ramping up.

In ten years, if all combined reforms are kept in place and enforced, water quality should improve on an overall basis.

[archeryrob]

I know many of your "average" farmers and the State and Counties are all on top of them with Buffer zones from creeks in grass separations and drain areas and fences. Plus Cattle can't cross creeks without a stone bridge and creeks fences off. They have to log where every pound of manure is spread or moved too, no spreading on rocks or close to creeks.

I am sure Purdue donates enough money and employees enough people to carry favor with politicians. I find no reason they could not have manure ponds like milk farmers do and neutralize it. But like you said they use small operators to take the heat.

The farm up the hill from me got a contract with McDonlads to raise chicken eggs. He build huge coop, dug 4 wells, damn near drained the aquifer. Then McDonalds pull his contract and he went bankrupt and lost the farm. That is how the big operators run. No concern for the farmer for the communities and they are not at fault for encouraging it.

[Frogsauce]

Anywhere there are large numbers of people, the environment suffers. Certain individuals might be environmentally aware, but people in general are toxic.

[buzz]

Another problem... albeit a small one... are the uber-rich who plant their mega-house on the shore with no buffer zone and then call in companies to dump fertilizer all over their gi-normous lawns so they stay nice and green. I think the buffer zones should be mandatory for all waterfront properties.