# Zebra Mussels - Lakes



## Jurgy (Feb 6, 2009)

Zebra mussels made it into the lake last year. Other than keeping the bottom paint fresh, is there anything we should do proactively to protect the Yanmar or head?

Thanks in Advance
Jurgy
S/V Lazy D II


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## Oaksail (Jan 6, 2011)

We've had zebra mussels in Lake Ontario for something like 20 years. In the 2 years we have had our first boat i have seen no effect to the boat other than a little cluster stuck to the bottom of the wing keel. i haven't seen any sign of them at the thru hulls or engine intake.
They do make the water nice and clear though.


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## Siamese (May 9, 2007)

We've had the little buggers for decades here on Lake Michigan. I've had them take up residence in the intake on my Catalina 309, but never approaching the point where they might impede the flow of water to the heat exchanger. When I see that they're present, I just clear them out. Swabbing a little bottom paint in there couldn't hurt, but they have not really been a problem.


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## Jurgy (Feb 6, 2009)

Thanks Folks - 

Its been a concern. Good to know it won't be a huge issue. And the clear water will be a bonus!

Jurgy
S/V Lazy D II


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## travlin-easy (Dec 24, 2010)

Take one look at the waters of Chesapeake Bay and it will make you wish the zebra mussels would hurry up and get here. Fifty years ago I was scuba diving for oysters during October near the Bay Bridges at Kent Island. The underwater visibility was nearly 20 feet. Today, in the dead of winter, when the water is clearest, 6-inch visibility is considered good to excellent. 

C'mon zebra mussels,

Gary


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## Oaksail (Jan 6, 2011)

travlineasy said:


> Take one look at the waters of Chesapeake Bay and it will make you wish the zebra mussels would hurry up and get here. Fifty years ago I was scuba diving for oysters during October near the Bay Bridges at Kent Island. The underwater visibility was nearly 20 feet. Today, in the dead of winter, when the water is clearest, 6-inch visibility is considered good to excellent.
> 
> C'mon zebra mussels,
> 
> Gary


20 years ago Lake Ontario was viewed by many to be grossly polluted, they wouldn't go any where near it. Now when we have non boat friends out on the boat they are amazed how beautiful the water is.


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## Greenflash35 (Dec 1, 2008)

Once as a lad an old salt told me it only takes three days until barnacles start. Since then i've cleaned the hull once a week. It's quick and easy if you get there before the zebra mussels start to mature. Just put a sock over your hand and poke a finger into the through hull.


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## Minnewaska (Feb 21, 2010)

Before you beg for having zebra muscles, try walking on them.


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## mrslubrdink (Sep 11, 2011)

They arrived at our lake 3 years ago. We had 5 on the rudder when we pulled the boat this year. We haven't had problems with them getting into the engine intake.


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## benesailor (Dec 27, 2012)

I've been on Lake Ontario for 3 years now and haven't seen one on the boat yet. I still have my hi-power florida ablative. I think that may have an affect. 
They definitely are not fun to walk on. You should see what the canal looks like when they drain it for winter. They cover everything! If a tree branch dips in the water; they cover every square inch.


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## KIVALO (Nov 2, 2011)

Owasco Lake, my lake, has had zebra mussels for a decade or so now. I don't notice them on my boat, which is a Hunter 260 moored in front of my house, except on the depth transducer and speed indicator wheel. Its a simple matter a quick dive in the drink to clean them off. Never noticed them on the ablative, it seems to work quite well for zebra mussels.

Brad


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## Brent Swain (Jan 16, 2012)

Someone should set up an industry to turn them into fertilizer. Then we could eliminate chemical fertilizers which have reated a huge dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico. It would also give kids spending money gathering them.


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## travlin-easy (Dec 24, 2010)

Walking on Zebra mussels would be a pleasure when compared to walking on the black, slimy, bottom of most of the upper Chesapeake's tributaries. Take a nice hike on the bottom of Back River just east of the Eastern Avenue Bridge. Yeah, you know the place, Cox Point State Park, where no one has been able to swim for more than 75 years because of the pollution. If the Zebra Mussels took up residence there they probably would suffocate. Gotta feel sorry for the little critters.

When Zebra Mussels first invaded the great lakes all the marine biologists screamed this invasive species would destroy the lake's ecology. Amazing! When I was 17 years old and in boot camp at Great Lakes, IL you could stand in Lake Michigan in ankle deep water and not see your toes. Today, you can toss a quarter overboard and watch it sink to the bottom in 25 feet of water.

The yellow perch in Lake Erie at the same time were so contaminated that they were considered unsafe to eat. Not so today. Gee, I wonder if the Zebras cleaned up the lake to the point where the fish were now safe to consume? That would be my guess.

Zebras are incredible filter feeders, and because of their sheer numbers they scrub huge volumes of water every minute of every day. They seem to be far more efficient at this than clams and oysters, and because nothing other than diving ducks seems to want to eat them, from my point of view they don't seem to pose any environmental threat at all.

From some of the research I did on them three decades ago, the problems of them clogging intake pipes for municipal water supplies was quickly solved by passing a low voltage across the pipe surface, which kept the vellagers off the pipes, something like a cattle fence. And, the tiny amount of chlorine used to purify drinking water apparently kills any escapees that make into the system.

Bottom line: Despite the billions upon billions of dollars spent on the Chesapeake Bay Cleanup Program, the bay is filthy. I'll take the Zebras over the political hacks and naysayers at Maryland DNR, put my tax money back in my pocket where I can spend it as I see fit, mainly on sailing. Hell, if the water was nice and clean, I probably would still have a great fishing boat and be out on the bay catching striped bass, perch, bluefish and eating them regularly.

Like I said "C'mon Zebras!"

Gary


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## Minnewaska (Feb 21, 2010)

travlineasy said:


> ......Despite the billions upon billions of dollars spent on the Chesapeake Bay Cleanup Program, the bay is filthy. I'll take the Zebras over the political hacks and naysayers at Maryland DNR...


Amen to that.

I also agree that the ecological impact of the zebra muscles was overblown. However, one can't dismiss the downside that these critters ruin lake side access. A friend has a summer lake house on one of the Finger Lakes. I wouldn't call the waterfront a beach, more like grass up to the water's edge with a rocky bottom that you wade out until it drops off dramatically. The kids would bring floaty toys out and play in the deeper water. They can't get out there now, without shoes on. Zebra shells will tear your feet to shreds like little razors.


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## benesailor (Dec 27, 2012)

There is no doubt that the zebra mussels have cleaned up the water in upstate NY. Oneida Lake used to be muddy looking and one of the best walleye fisheries in the US. Now it is much cleaner and the walleye population has plummeted. 
For those that don't know; zebra mussels are very small, the largest being about the size of a dime. They literally cover the shallows up to a depth of a inch or so. It all depends on the bottom structure. 
Given the depth of the finger lakes, up to 618 feet, i doubt the zebra mussels have much affect(at least the deeper ones). For those that have never seen the finger lakes, you don't know what you are missing. 
I agree, we should drop a couple of buckets of these babies in Maryland. Save the tax payers a lot of money! Both state and federal.


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## Minnewaska (Feb 21, 2010)

benesailor said:


> .....Oneida Lake used to be muddy looking and one of the best walleye fisheries in the US. Now it is much cleaner and the walleye population has plummeted.


Good point. I was going to say that clear water is not always better water for every living organism. It depends on what's making it unclear.



> For those that have never seen the finger lakes, you don't know what you are missing....


I agree. Spectacular scenery. As they were carved by glaciers, they are not only very deep, but the hills rise straight up from the water's edge. The largest two being roughly 40 miles long each. Gorgeous, but can make for some squirrely sailing, as the hills can either block or redirect the winds.


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## sailortjk1 (Dec 20, 2005)

Biggest problem is to the speed transducer paddle wheel. They can clog and stop it from properly functioning. Over the years I have found e few broken pieces of shells in my strainer, but NOTHING to be alarmed about. 

Other than the fact that they alter the natural life of the lake they generally are not a problem to boaters. It does seem to be that the species that they affect have found a way to adapt.


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## KIVALO (Nov 2, 2011)

benesailor said:


> T For those that have never seen the finger lakes, you don't know what you are missing.


I'm enjoying a cup coffee on the shore of one right now. 



Minnewaska said:


> I agree. Spectacular scenery. As they were carved by glaciers, they are not only very deep, but the hills rise straight up from the water's edge. The largest two being roughly 40 miles long each. Gorgeous, *but can make for some squirrely sailing*, as the hills can either block or redirect the winds.


They certainly can! But as you said, absolutely gorgeous. Especially in the peak fall season.

Brad


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## daydream sailor (Mar 12, 2012)

I was just wondering, has anyone been brave enough to try and cook those little buggers, or are they poisonous, put them in a chowder or something.


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## Minnewaska (Feb 21, 2010)

daydream sailor said:


> I was just wondering, has anyone been brave enough to try and cook those little buggers, or are they poisonous, put them in a chowder or something.


No idea whether they are edible, but the average shell is the size of an eraser head. The meat inside must be inconsequential.


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## crichard (Nov 7, 2002)

As has been noted, zebra mussels can filter huge amounts of water. However, this can (and has) resulted in dramatic changes in the lower Great Lakes. Some nutrient and sediment levels have dropped significantly which has resulted in profound alterations in Lake Erie, Ontario, and some portions of Lake Michigan and Huron. The increased water clarity has caused huge increases in macrophyte growth (shoreline owners call them weeds)in shallow areas along shorelines with consequent changes in the types of fish populations that are supported or damages by that type of growth. Walleye and perch populations are faltering in many areas due to lack of zooplankton which feed on algae consumed by zebra mussels. The carpeting of much of the lake bottoms by dead shells has eliminated suitable spawning areas in many areas of the lakes for fish that need that habitat. The altered lake bottoms have also caused native mussels and other lake species to disappear in many areas. Some fish species actually may be enhanced by the increased weed beds (bass).The cascade of impacts to the Great Lakes continues and is well documented. That's why many private lake associations and government agencies try to educate people to not spread them further.


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## kwaltersmi (Aug 14, 2006)

crichard's comments are spot-on. If you don't currently have zebra mussels in your water body, you do NOT want them. Their impacts are far reaching and expensive. 

As for direct impacts to sailboats: You'll be fine if you check your intakes, rudder post, etc. periodically and clear away the mussels that are trying to grow there.


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## bobmcgov (Jul 19, 2007)

They also are hell on native shellfish populations. Do you like your crabs, mussels, clams, etc on the Chessie? Better not play Freelance Environmental Engineer, then. Cuz freshwater shellfish in the Great Lakes and Finger Lakes are pretty much hammered.



















Lots of trees don't make a healthy forest, and clear water is not the definition of a healthy waterway. If pollution is a problem, the answer is not introducing exotic filter feeders into the mix. The answer is to _stop polluting_.


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## KIVALO (Nov 2, 2011)

Are you making the argument that zebra mussels were introduced as a means to control pollution? Or did I misunderstand your point?



bobmcgov said:


> They also are hell on native shellfish populations. Do you like your crabs, mussels, clams, etc on the Chessie? Better not play Freelance Environmental Engineer, then. Cuz freshwater shellfish in the Great Lakes and Finger Lakes are pretty much hammered.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


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## Minnewaska (Feb 21, 2010)

KIVALO said:


> Are you making the argument that zebra mussels were introduced as a means to control pollution? Or did I misunderstand your point?


I'll let them speak for themselves, but I didn't read it that way. I think they were refuting the suggestions by others to intentionally introduce them into certain waterway to help clean them up. However, the muscles don't discriminate, they will clean up the good with the bad and that's not good.


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## bobmcgov (Jul 19, 2007)

KIVALO said:


> Are you making the argument that zebra mussels were introduced as a means to control pollution? Or did I misunderstand your point?


Re-read the thread, Kivalo. Travelineasy and Benesailor, specifically, have suggested zebras should be intentionally (or surreptitiously) introduced into the Chesapeake watershed as a means of improving water clarity. As an alternative to costly cleanup and pollution management programs. Ahaahaa. Exactly when has intentional or accidental introduction of invasive species gone as planned? Dingos, rabbits, or cane toads in Australia? Rats and goats in Hawaii? Tree snake in Guam? Lake trout in Yellowstone? I suppose you could make a case for the earthworm and European honeybee in the Americas; tho the Africanized bee is the flip side of that.

Distilled water is very clear, too. Absolutely sterile, nothing lives in it, but lovely to look at. Much of the 'murk' you see in estuaries is called nutrients, and its what the entire food chain rests upon. Near-shore game fish populations in the Finger Lakes have been hurt badly by the zebra mussel; I know lifelong fishermen who quit trying a decade ago, because the fishing has gotten so poor.

Any *excess* Bay algae or sludge that results from human activity ought to be brought down to healthy levels. The way to do that is by attacking point or distributed sources of pollution. Start with your own behavior: you got a quarter acre of luscious, weed-free bluegrass turf in front of your home? How much nitrogen, phosphorus, pesticide, and herbicide you dumping on that baby every year? How much of that ends up in the storm drains after a hard rain? Multiply by a few million, and *there's* the cause of much of the Bay's murk. You willing to address that? Or do you subscribe to the "Take a pill, feel better" approach? Rather than changing our diets or exercising regularly, let's just pop a handful of Lipitor and shove a stent in there. Hand me another cheeseburger! Let's not re-think our approach to suburban landscaping -- we'll just gamble with the entire Chesapeake ecosystem instead. *sigh*

It's insane to approach behavioral or environmental problems by throwing invasive species at them. The human record in this department, dating back about 20,000 years, is one dismal, unmitigated FAIL.


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## twenty1knots (Mar 4, 2012)

Minnewaska said:


> No idea whether they are edible, but the average shell is the size of an eraser head. The meat inside must be inconsequential.


This is what wikipedia has to say on this matter:

Because they are so efficient at filtering water, they tend to accumulate pollutants and toxins. For this reason, although they are edible, most experts recommend against consuming zebra mussels


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## travlin-easy (Dec 24, 2010)

First and foremost, Zebra mussels were inadvertently introduced into the Great Lakes when ships from the Baltic Sea region pumped their ballast waters into the lake. At the time, which was more years ago than i would like to remember, Lake Michigan was a filth pit. The waters near Chicago were gray, underwater visibility was essentially zero, most species of fish were considered inedible, at least those that still existed. Most finfish populations were essentially wiped out by both loss of habitat and commercial exploitation. Yellow perch, which at one time were considered the staple of the Great Lakes commercial fishing industry, were so toxic that the consumption level for children, pregnant women, senior citizens, and those with serious health problems were advised to avoid them altogether. Walleye pretty much didn't exist in Lake Erie anymore, their population so low at the time that catching a legal size walleye in a day of fishing was considered a feat in itself. Brown trout, which is another invasive introduced by state and federal fisheries agencies, were thin, sickly looking, and often full of sores or lesions.

The zebras arrived, the water became clear, aquatic grasses emerged from areas of the lake where there previously was insufficient oxygen to support any form of life, yellow perch and walleye soon took up residence in the submerged aquatic vegetation (SAV), and their populations immediately increased by huge numbers. Lake trout and brown trout sizes and populations also grew rapidly, and their overall health improved as well. EPA tests of the finfish population's toxins, particular those usually found in the fatty tissue just beneath the skin, revealed that previous toxin levels were once again in the safe to consume range. How could this be? Industrial polluters didn't suddenly shut off the discharge pipes into the lakes. There were no less people contributing human waste to the wastewater treatment facilities, and those facilities were just as outdated as they were a decade earlier.

Now, lets look at the spawning grounds. Where do most of the finfish of the Great Lakes spawn? Not in the lake - that's for certain. The vast majority of them spawn in fast flowing tributaries, locations where zebra mussels do not exist. In order for zebra mussels to exist they must colonize on themselves. They require slow-moving bodies of fresh water, lakes, and the mouths of larger rivers. The main reason there has never been a large colony of zebra mussels in the Susquehanna River is because the river moves too fast for them to colonize upon themselves - it's that simple.

If they do make it to the Chesapeake's upper reaches, which is doubtful, their chances of survival are slim to none. Diving ducks love to eat them, and guess what, we have lots of diving ducks that winter at the Susquehanna Flats. Additionally, they really don't tolerate salinity very well, though there have been some studies that claim they could tolerate levels reached as far south as the mouth of the Patapsco River, but it's doubtful. Blue crabs also love to eat them, but pollution and loss of habitat, coupled with overfishing by commercial interests, has just about wiped out the bay's blue crab population.

If you're worried about zebras competing with oysters and clams for plankton, well, first we would have to restore the bay's oyster and clam populations in order to have any competition at all. We have lots of plankton, though - much more than we need. There is more than enough excessive plankton flowing down every tributary to Chesapeake Bay to feed the entire zebra mussel population of the entire world, and still have lots left over for the oysters, clams, mussels, menhaden, bay anchovy, and all other plankton consuming species combined. 

So, who are these so-called experts that claim the zebra mussels will destroy the bay's ecology? Most of the ones I've come across were state and federal biologists that were out looking for grants to study the effect of the zebra mussels - not experts by any means. Keep in mind these are the same so-called experts that claim if you give them more and more of your hard-earned dollars they'll clean up the bay. Yeah! Still be believe in the Tooth Fairy, too. The Chesapeake Bay Cleanup Program has been going on for more years that most of the good folks on this forum have been alive. During that time, the bay has increasingly become more and more polluted. Do you REALLY believe the tales these so-called experts have been telling you? Lets get serious.

Zebra mussels did one Hell of a good job of cleaning up some of the most fouled waters in the United States - the Great Lakes. They did it at no expense to the taxpayer, and they did it in less than two decades. If they arrived in Chesapeake Bay, and managed to survive the horrendous pollution, established viable populations, maybe, just maybe, they could cleanse the bay's upper reaches to the point where you wouldn't have to worry about eating finfish, shellfish, and crustaceans. Maybe the beaches of Baltimore, Anne Arundel and Charles, Calvert, Kent, Queen Annes, Talbot, and other counties bordering the bay would be once again open to the public. All those beaches are currently closed because of extremely high levels of fecal-colliform bacteria in the waters.

Lets see now, if the zebras arrived and cleaned the waters, we wouldn't need to be shelling out huge sums of money to fund the Chesapeake Cleanup Program, which is now well over $15-billion and growing. We wouldn't need a Chesapeake Bay Foundation to study the sources of pollution in the bay and educate the school kids about how to keep the bay clean. We wouldn't need to fund the EPA's Chesapeake Bay Division. We wouldn't need much of the Maryland Department of Natural Resources Fisheries Administration, which consists of a bunch of biologists that spend huge sums of money studying when the bay's fisheries collapsed. Those fisheries would likely recover on their own.

The bay's SAVs, which are a fraction of what they were just 50 years ago, would soon recover because when water clarity improves and life-giving sunlight reaches the bottom, those grasses emerge in all the traditional areas, thereby improving habitat for juvenile finfish and crustacean species. Those same grasses provide a significant portion of the winter dietary needs for migrating waterfowl. Those SAVs also improve the dissolved oxygen level in the bay's depths, locations where oysters and clams currently do not exist because of the incredible nutrient overload now taking place in the bay.

Yes, there is a drawback with zebra mussels - they will attach to any hard substrate, water intake pipes, pier pilings, rocks, etc... Of course, these are the same places where barnacles no longer seem to be able to survive, at least in depths more than 10 feet. That's because there is no longer any oxygen at those depths in mid summer. The same methods used to prevent barnacle attachment to these objects also works with zebra mussels. 

So, for all you naysayers, those of us who reside near, and boat in the Chesapeake Bay, send those zebra mussels our way. We'll take em'. We would really like to see the bay's bottom once again, we would like to be able to eat the fish, clams, oysters, mussels, crabs, eels, etc.... We would love to see those SAVs clogging the rivers and the bay's shallows. I just returned to the bay from the beautiful waters of the Florida Keys. When I exited the James River into the bay proper and looked at the brown water I had to traverse to reach home I wanted to turn the boat around and head back to the keys. If you're old enough to remember to TV commercial about pollution where the American Indian stands on a hill overlooking an interstate highway with a tear falling from his eye, that's the way I felt when I returned to the Chesapeake. 

Good luck on ever seeing the bay clean in any of our grandchildren's lifetimes - it ain't gonna' happen without the help of the zebras.

Gary


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## Barquito (Dec 5, 2007)

Some of those little sh*ts attached to my speed transducer last summer... it said I was going zero kts all the time... not too much different from how fast I was actually going!


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## benesailor (Dec 27, 2012)

I didn't mean to imply that they should be introduced into another water system (it was more in jest). I would never intentionally introduce any critter/plant life into another system. Yes, clean up the neighborhood. 

Zebra mussels have had a huge effect on the NYS water system. Good or bad. I believe it will be years before a true pattern will emerge to truly see how the ecosystem will stabilize. 

That being said...... i remember the finger lakes and lake ontario during the early years of the zebra. The finger lakes have always been fairly clean. Lake ontario is much cleaner, impart because of the zebra. Oneida lake is actually kind of swimmable. 

Yes, as a child i was told to throw my fish back. Now it's a different story.


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## TakeFive (Oct 22, 2009)

I dunno, I'm a scientist but not a biologist. But something tells me that when a pervasive species enters a new ecosystem, things can be thrown terribly out of balance for a long time, and unexpected things can happen (some good, some bad).

The only true way to stop pollution is the stop polluting. If we keep dumping the same toxins into the bay and rely on some species like zebra mussels to clean it up, the toxins may not be disappearing, they might be just be getting concentrated in a different location. And then, once a predator for the mussels does come along, you could find those toxins doing harm to other species and maybe even working their way into the human food chain.

Cleanup efforts are not cheap and do not give the immediate gratification that our video game culture has grown to expect. But as someone who works for a large industrial company, I feel an obligation to fund some efforts to figure out how to assist nature in breaking down and safely disposing of the products that otherwise make all our lives a little better.


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## travlin-easy (Dec 24, 2010)

Stopping pollution is easier said than done. Keep in mind that every time a newborn baby enters this part of the world, that baby poops in Chesapeake Bay. It does this many, many times during it's lifetime, and it produces offspring that compound the problem. Now, that person, whom will likely live more than 70 years, requires a significant volume of food in order to survive. The person will likely consume a huge quantity of beef, pork, poultry, vegetables, fruits, etc..., animals that produce lots of nutrients that will wash into the bay's tributaries, and eventually end up in the bay. 

This process, reproduction, which is part of human behavior, is not something that will go away. It will continue throughout time, and you must take into consideration that human populations are still increasing worldwide - not just in the Mid-Atlantic region. As those populations grow, each and every person born poops into the bay. This is not going to stop - ever. We keep building more and more homes, and more and more sewage treatment plants to cope with the population expansion. Those treatment plants cannot possibly keep up with the population increases, thus the waters of the bay and its tributaries will continue to worsen. This isn't rocket science - it's just common sense.

Many years ago I published an article about the bay's water quality and why it would never get better. I cited as an example the Susquehanna River, which at the time was listed as the most polluted river in the nation. When the article was published there was approximately 130 sewage treatment plants on the Susquehanna River between NY and the head of Chesapeake Bay. The last line in the article stated "If the good people of Harrisburg, PA do not flush their toilets, Havre de Grace, MD would not have any drinking water." The editor didn't like the line, but he agreed that this was indeed the case. Someone wrote a letter to the editor saying this just revealed how well those sewage treatment plants work. In reality, the plants, nearly all of them, were running at more than 200 percent over their rated capacity. The treatment at that time was huge doses of chlorine to kill the bacteria prior to discharging the water into the river.

A few years ago, when Maryland was experiencing a horrendous drought, the city of Frederick, MD considered piping its waste water into the city reservoir, which at the time was nearly bone dry. An early season hurricane solved their problem, but that water was nothing but a muddy torrent that flowed in from the creeks feeding the lake. 

Good luck,

Gary


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## Glen53 (Jun 17, 2010)

travlineasy said:


> Stopping pollution is easier said than done. Gary


Hay Travel, never thought of it in those terms. I think I would enjoy sitting down to a beer with you and listing to you speak about this and other issues. However this might lead to a couple of beers, and then I might have to P


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## TakeFive (Oct 22, 2009)

travlineasy said:


> Stopping pollution is easier said than done...


I never said it would be easy.

What you describe is the classic scenario of human overpopulation, which Mother Nature will fix for us (in a very unpleasant way) unless we can devise waste management strategies to fix it ourselves.

One prediction that you can take to the bank: We will not fix human overpopulation by overpopulating with another invasive species like zebra mussels. Everything must coexist in a delicate ecological balance, and gaining the knowledge and developing the effluent management strategies to pull that off will be costly. I believe in the capability of science to succeed in that over the long term, but oversimplified suggestions from cynical observers are much less likely to be successful.


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## travlin-easy (Dec 24, 2010)

Cynical - you betcha! Long term? Lets see now, the first studies of Chesapeake Bay were conducted in the 1890s, and from the little research I've done over the past 40 years, there has been at least one or more studies each year pertaining to the bay's water quality. So, how long are YOU willing to wait for the scientific world to solve the bay's problems? Would a couple more centuries do the trick? I don't think so.

Keep in mind there is a massive industry out there of scientists that love to keep those tax dollars flowing into their pocket while they study everything on the planet. They're gobbling down those federal grants as fast as they become available, and some of those studies are open ended. Yep, they're just like highway projects along I-95 - those orange and white barrels seem to always be there. If I recall, the first crab study was created by Governor William Donald Schaeffer back in 1984. Schaeffer called it his "Crab Action Plan." The study revealed that crabs were being systematically wiped out by commercial crabbers in Maryland and Virginia. The study took a couple years, cost about $1-million per year, and the MD-DNR and VMRC biologists are still studying those same crabs today. It took nearly a decade after the results were released before MD-DNR Fisheries Service took any action at all. The very first thing they did was to limit the recreational harvest. (Gives you that warm, fuzzy feeling, doesn't it!) Next, they added a new recreational crabbing license (tax) to generate funds to enhance the studies. A couple years later, the scientists decided that MD-DNR's actions didn't do anything, so the scientific community said maybe we should limit the commercial catch. DUH! So, they shortened the commercial and recreational seasons, and limited the commercial guys to 500 crab pots per license. Big deal.

So, a couple centuries from now, when the earth's population is on the brink of starvation, drinking recycled urine, and still pooping in Chesapeake Bay, let me know how all that scientific stuff works out. Hell, long before then you'll have a bay that is so overloaded with nutrients that you'll be planting corn in the main shipping channel.

Cheers,

Gary


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## KIVALO (Nov 2, 2011)

I read the thread fairly carefully, my confusion was what you meant. Anyhow, I agree, the introduction of Zebra mussels have very few benefits and many drawbacks. I live on a Finger Lake and the near shore swimming areas are mostly covered with various forms of aquatic weeds, hydrilla being the most troublesome locally. I cant remember the last time I found crayfish while swimming and cleaning the beach has taken on a whole new meaning in the last decade. In short, zebra mussels SUCK!

Brad



bobmcgov said:


> Re-read the thread, Kivalo. Travelineasy and Benesailor, specifically, have suggested zebras should be intentionally (or surreptitiously) introduced into the Chesapeake watershed as a means of improving water clarity. As an alternative to costly cleanup and pollution management programs. Ahaahaa. Exactly when has intentional or accidental introduction of invasive species gone as planned? Dingos, rabbits, or cane toads in Australia? Rats and goats in Hawaii? Tree snake in Guam? Lake trout in Yellowstone? I suppose you could make a case for the earthworm and European honeybee in the Americas; tho the Africanized bee is the flip side of that.
> 
> Distilled water is very clear, too. Absolutely sterile, nothing lives in it, but lovely to look at. Much of the 'murk' you see in estuaries is called nutrients, and its what the entire food chain rests upon. Near-shore game fish populations in the Finger Lakes have been hurt badly by the zebra mussel; I know lifelong fishermen who quit trying a decade ago, because the fishing has gotten so poor.
> 
> ...


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## benesailor (Dec 27, 2012)

It's weird that the head waters for the bay are adjacent to the finger lakes(utica, binghamton); yet zebra mussels haven't invaded this turf that i know of. 
I once considered kayaking the entire length to see what it would be like. 

I'm sure that there are a lot of environmental factors from NY PA and the bay basin that need to be addressed before the bay will be what some would considered acceptably clean. 

We will see in the future


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## travlin-easy (Dec 24, 2010)

Brad, I don't know how old you are, but I suspect you are relatively young. I would also venture a guess that the lake you now swim in would be nothing more than a cesspool if it were not for zebra mussels. In fact, there probably would not be any forms of aquatic vegetation growing, and the water would likely be too toxic to swim in. 

We have places in Chesapeake Bay where the hydrilla cannot grow because the sun no longer reaches the bottom of the bay, even in the shallows. At one time, the Potomac River was choked with hydrilla. Largemouth bass fishing there was incredible, so good in fact, that Bass Masters held at least one qualifying tournament there every year, and the highest weights ever recorded came from the Potomac River. It was also fairly dense in the upper bay tributaries, Gunpowder, Bush, Chester, etc..., which prompted BASS to hold their Bass Masters Classic in the upper Chesapeake.

Hydrilla, which arrived with the aquarium trade from southeast Asia, if I recall correctly, and got its start somewhere in south Florida. The grass is very resistant to most everything, but like all SAVs it provides a great nursery area for juvenile fish of various species. It does a pretty good job of keeping the water clean as well, filtering out much of the suspended particular matter.

Back in the 1960s, MD-DNR decided to attempt to kill off the hydrilla that had overwhelmed the Northeast River, situated near the head of Chesapeake Bay. They tried various products, copper sulfate, and at least one new product, 24D. The scientists did test strips about 100 yards long and 100-feet wide, seeding grass beds near some of the marinas that were bitterly complaining about the overabundance of the vegetation during the height of boating season.

Well, it worked. In fact, it worked so well that for the next 40 years there wasn't a blade of grass to be found in the entire Northeast River and the adjacent Susquehanna Flats. The bottom was nothing but a mud pit. DNR transformed one of the world's best largemouth bass fisheries into a muddy-bottomed desert where nothing could survive. There was no place for juvenile fish to hide from predators, stripers no longer had shad of any form to feed upon, the freshwater clams suffocated because the grass was no longer there to filter storm run-off, and the overall water quality went down the tubes within just a few years. Yep, those scientists did a real, bang-up job.

About 2000 is when the 24D toxins were either buried in silt and mud, or they just went away. Soon after that the first sprouts of hydrilla were seen along the shallow channel edges of the Northeast River. A few years later, freshwater clams began showing up on the Susquehanna Flats, the grass began to grow, the bass fishery began to rebound and fair numbers of striped bass once again roamed the channel edges in search of juvenile shad. The water quality in areas where the clams and grass abound is relatively clear, often with summer visibilities to 5 feet, which in this part of the world is really good. Just outside those areas, underwater visibilities may be 5 inches at best.

Count your lucky stars, Brad. At least you have water clean enough for swimming. It has been more than 4 decades since the upper Chesapeake's beaches were closed because of pollution. The only beaches still open for swimming are at Maryland state parks south of Baltimore - locations where water quality is still lousy, but the state would never admit to that because it may drive tourists away. Ironically, MD-DNR tried to blame the high fecal-coliform bacteria count in the bay's upper reaches on waterfowl. Yep, the water is polluted because of those damned ducks, geese and swans.  Oh, it was one of their scientists that made that statement, too. Just makes you feel good all over, doesn't it? 

Gary


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## Bmantel (Jul 27, 2012)

{Count your lucky stars, Brad. At least you have water clean enough for swimming. It has been more than 4 decades since the upper Chesapeake's beaches were closed because of pollution. The only beaches still open for swimming are at Maryland state parks south of Baltimore - locations where water quality is still lousy, but the state would never admit to that because it may drive tourists away. Ironically, MD-DNR tried to blame the high fecal-coliform bacteria count in the bay's upper reaches on waterfowl. Yep, the water is polluted because of those damned ducks, geese and swans.  Oh, it was one of their scientists that made that statement, too. Just makes you feel good all over, doesn't it? }---------------------------------------------
Well it looks like nature has, as usual, found a way.... 

(add in the good old' http : / /)
nas.er.usgs.gov/taxgroup/mollusks/zebramussel/

Reference 1 Ref. Number: 24106 
Author: Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection. 
Date: 2008 
Title: Zebra Mussel Found on Susquehanna River at Conowingo Dam in Maryland. 
Publisher: Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection. 
Comments Found alive inside a hydroelectric plant water intake. 

Soon to be cleaning up MD and other waters near you!
Blake


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## Ritchard (Aug 15, 2011)

Wonderful discussion sailors. Travlin appears to be somewhat passionate about the subject, and I like - though don't necessarily agree on - all his points save for "eels". Yech. 

I am of two minds about the mussels. As a diver, I love 'em and hate 'em. I have seen days in the St Lawrence River near Brockville ON or Alexandria Bay NY where the viz has been in excess of 100 feet. Gin clear water that incidentally in late August is so warm you can do 100+ foot dives in a thin wetsuit. The irony of course is though you can see 100 feet, everything you see including the shipwreck you paid charter fees to dive, is absolutely covered in the things. You kind of have to train yourself to filter the mussels out of your vision and imagine the scene free of them. They make the puzzle of reassembling a busted up shipwreck in your mind even tougher.

They are absolutely everywhere in the Great Lakes and River areas I have dived. I can't remember at what depth they begin to fade away, but I think they are mostly gone by 160-180 feet. 

As has been said, they are nasty to step on, and hell on either wetsuit or drysuit diving gloves. They do clean the water and make it nice for swimming. It's not long ago that I would not have considered swimming in Lake Ontario, now on calm days as I leave my harbour, you could read the date on a quarter at 30 feet. They have upset the ecological balance, and terrifically alters fish populations for good and bad. In the end I think nature sorts herself out. I don't think I am in favour of introducing them on purpose, because that has never worked out with any such introduction, but I can understand the frustration when a formerly beautiful body of water becomes a huge dead zone.

As for the original question, I've never had a problem with the little monsters clogging up the boat plumbing. Perhaps it's because I use my boat far too often for that to happen?


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## TakeFive (Oct 22, 2009)

travlineasy said:


> ...Back in the 1960s, MD-DNR decided to attempt to kill off the hydrilla that had overwhelmed the Northeast River, situated near the head of Chesapeake Bay....Well, it worked. In fact, it worked so well that for the next 40 years there wasn't a blade of grass to be found in the entire Northeast River and the adjacent Susquehanna Flats. The bottom was nothing but a mud pit....


It's nice to see that you agree with me that rash actions taken without carefully studying the unintended consequences can lead to disastrous effects. Seeding the upper bay with Zebra mussels would likely lead to similarly unpleasant surprises. Do we know for sure? No. That's why things need to be studied.

So it seems to me that there are a few options here:

Do nothing, and let the pollution grow along with our population. Save money by firing the scientists, since they are unnecessary.
Do our best to limit pollution where possible with existing technology, and fund long term studies to better understand what options might improve the ecology without disastrous unintended consequences. Enact user fees, environmental impact fees, licenses, and other usage-based taxes to distribute the costs to the people who currently damage the environment or benefit from the studies.
Do something abrupt without carefully thinking it out (like seeding the bay with zebra mussels), and live with whatever the consequences happen to be. Save money by firing the scientists, but prepare to hire their children and grandchildren 40 years from now when the sh!t hits the fan from our stupid acts.
I vote for #2. You seem to favor #1 or #3, but I'm not sure which.

By the way, everybody needs to make a living, and everyone will look for a place to apply their skills in a way that supports their families and benefits society. I'm not sure why you feel the need to single out scientists as being uniquely sinister in their motives.


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## travlin-easy (Dec 24, 2010)

"*I'm not sure why you feel the need to single out scientists as being uniquely sinister in their motives.*

Probably because I'm old, cantankerous, and spent lots of time with them when I was a reporter. I got to see the results first hand, I watched Chesapeake Bay die one day at a time, I heard all the BS they perpetuated, and now my grandson will never have the chance to see what I saw more than a half-century ago.

About 20 years ago I took a good friend and his wife out for a day on the bay, a time when I had a 21-foot center console fishing boat rigged for offshore fishing. I launched the boat at Gunpowder State Park's Dundee Creek Marina. As we motored out of the creek, my friend of many years said he would like to see a home he used to rent near the mouth of Seneca Creek. No problem - it was just a short hop to the creek's mouth and as we entered the creek there were a couple youngsters jumping off the pier and swimming. The water, which was various shades of greenish brown and gray, was covered with globs of floating algae, and also interspersed with the corpses of dead and decaying catfish, carp, white perch, striped bass, yellow perch, menhaden and other species. My friend, Erick, looked at me and said, "don't those kids know how fouled the water is?" I responded, "No. As far as they're concerned the water is clean. They're only about 12 years old and have never seen this creek when the water was clean. In reality, they don't know it's filthy and polluted, and could pose a health hazard."

I've talked with lots of young people over the years who sincerely believe the bay is will soon be clean and clear because we're spending billions of dollars on it. They believe the Chesapeake Bay Cleanup Program is working, and they also believe that you can educate youngsters and they will not become polluters when they become adults. I sure wish that were the case.

Now, I don't know about the communities surrounding Lake Wallenpaupack, but in this part of the world, the mid-Atlantic region, every form of pollution is rampid and out of control. Think not? Take a good look along the roadsides, any roadside, and you'll discover the underbrush is covered with plastic bottles, beer cans, soda cans, fast food wrappers, plastic cups, plastic bags, you name it and it's there. It covers both sides of the roads, and it's hard to find a square foot of roadside that is not trash covered. Do you think old farts such as myself tossed that stuff out their car windows? Think about it.

Gary


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## KIVALO (Nov 2, 2011)

I am 38(I so wish I were as young as I suspect you originally thought! ) and have lived on the shore of Owasco Lake my entire life save for college. In fact I live two doors from where I grew up. I am not an expert on marine biology or even an enthusiast regarding the subject so I will not attempt to dispute your comments, you very well may be right for all I know. I will however comment on my own observations regarding 38 years of enjoying my lake. Thus far I see little benefit to zebra mussels and massive draw backs. They are here to stay though and there is nothing that can be done about that now. Our next big issue is asian clams, we are presently attempting to kill them off from our lake during the previous two winters. Unsure if its been successful though.

Anyhow, I hope your trip is going well. You must be close to being back in the Chesapeake by now, right?



travlineasy said:


> Brad, I don't know how old you are, but I suspect you are relatively young. I would also venture a guess that the lake you now swim in would be nothing more than a cesspool if it were not for zebra mussels. In fact, there probably would not be any forms of aquatic vegetation growing, and the water would likely be too toxic to swim in.
> 
> We have places in Chesapeake Bay where the hydrilla cannot grow because the sun no longer reaches the bottom of the bay, even in the shallows. At one time, the Potomac River was choked with hydrilla. Largemouth bass fishing there was incredible, so good in fact, that Bass Masters held at least one qualifying tournament there every year, and the highest weights ever recorded came from the Potomac River. It was also fairly dense in the upper bay tributaries, Gunpowder, Bush, Chester, etc..., which prompted BASS to hold their Bass Masters Classic in the upper Chesapeake.
> 
> ...


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## travlin-easy (Dec 24, 2010)

I'm back in the Chesapeake's upper reaches, arrived right on schedule, which was April 1st. While the last few days were a bit hectic with high winds, dense fog, towering waves, and at times, near zero visibility, both the boat, myself and my crew made it unscathed. 

As I drove home, the car seemed to rock from side to side a bit, which I can only attribute to four rough days at sea, I had to cross Conowingo Dam at U.S. Route 1. Above the dam there was at least 10 acres of floating debris, everything from driftwood logs to 55-gallon plastic drums, 5-gallon plastic buckets, some building parts, a couple old, wooden doors, and an assortment of what appeared to be blocks of Styrofoam, chunks of pier floats, and a large picnic table with attached benches. My wife also spotted a kayak among the partly submerged logs. Three days later, when I returned to the boat, the majority of the debris had mysteriously vanished. The only debris was the usual pile which always seems to be situated in the lake at the southern end of the dam in a small cove.

The question that always comes to mind is: Where is all that debris now? It will ALL show up when the next heavy rainstorm hits southeastern Pennsylvania. It will flow down the river, enter the bay's upper reaches, and for the next few months, be part of a boater's worst nightmare.

All of this debris came from somewhere upriver, somewhere between Bingington, NY and Harrisburg, PA. No one knows for certain where it originates, but it surely didn't originate in Chesapeake Bay. How it managed to get over Conowingo Dam is anyone's guess, but it sure as Hell didn't wash over U.S. 1 and it surely didn't suddenly sink to the bottom of Conowingo Lake. Whoops!

The same holds true with the nutrients that wash into the Chesapeake. All came from various, tributary sources. The last time I researched the number of wastwater treatment plants along the Susquehanna, both large and small, there was about 130 of them. Nearly every one of them was running over capacity, and in some instances the only treatment of raw sewage was to rock it back and forth with paddle boards, then allow it to flow over a spillway so it would exposed to the sun's ultra-violet rays prior to discharging into a creek. 

And, while agriculture was one considered the largest contributor of nutrients (poop) to the bay, sometime ago this theory was revised and municipal wastes were now considered the largest contributor. In response to this, Governor O'Mally decided to put a new tax in place, one that would penalize those who likely had the least impact - homes with septic tanks, people that do NOT send their wastes into a municipal wastewater treatment plant. The tax, which most residents refer to as the "Poop Tax" or "Flush Tax" is nothing more than another revenue grabber. Apparently O'Mally didn't get the funds he projected, so he doubled it from $30 to $60 per year. 

That wasn't enough, though. He managed to railroad another tax through the Maryland legislature, $125 for every home that has impervious surfaces - a roof, driveway, sidewalk, and if you are a business, with the required parking spaces mandated by the state, you really get slammed. The tax could amount to thousands of dollars a year. Like the Poop Tax, the Impervious Surface Tax is supposed to be used to clean up Chesapeake Bay. Yeah! Right! 

Here I go getting cynical again. Sorry for the rants, guys and gals, but every time I go out sailing on the world's largest estuary I become more and more depressed just looking at the water.

Good Luck,

Gary


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## TakeFive (Oct 22, 2009)

travlineasy said:


> ...I got to see the results first hand, I watched Chesapeake Bay die one day at a time, I heard all the BS they perpetuated, and now my grandson will never have the chance to see what I saw more than a half-century ago...


So why do you blame the scientists for this?

One of the unfortunate things about ecology, economics, and other social sciences is that you can't run control experiments, and design experimental methodologies to the separate multiple variables on a grand scale. You can't tell what would have happened if the environmentalists had done nothing. You also can't tell what would have happened if they had spent 2x or 5x as much.

Maybe the scientists were right, and we just didn't do enough of what they were recommending. Did anyone anticipate the huge growth in the poultry industry on the eastern shore? Did anyone anticipate the explosive growth of ex-urban communities in Lancaster, Berks, York, and other counties in central PA? Those places have pretty much become bedroom communities for Baltimore, Frederick, Wilmington, and even Philadelphia, and the growth there has been huge.

Given this growth, it's possible that the Bay would be EVEN WORSE than it is now if nothing had been done. Maybe the scientists were right, but their more aggressive proposals were beaten down by politicians and skeptical reporters. 

I say there's plenty of blame to go around. Do you ever buy Perdue chicken? You're to blame. Did you ever fertilize your lawn? You're to blame. Did you buy Lancaster produce? You're to blame. Did you buy a McMansion on previously forested land that was clear-cut? You're to blame. Do you hire the lowest bidder to pick up and haul your trash? You know, the one who doesn't bother to put tarps over his truck when he drives to the landfill, so he spills plastic bottles and food wrappers all over the road? You're to blame.

You can direct all your ire at the scientific community if you want. I would estimate that scientists get it wrong 3 out of 4 times. But that's still a lot better record than the big corporations who grow the chicken, manufacture and dump the fertilizer, build the McMansions, and haul the trash. No thank you, I'll put my trust with the scientists.


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## travlin-easy (Dec 24, 2010)

First and foremost, the scientific community DID run controlled experiments of pollution effects on Chesapeake Bay, and after a couple decades, abandoned the program. The projects took place at a massive facility at Mattapeake, MD where a 5-acre model of Chesapeake Bay was constructed inside immense steel buildings. The cost to taxpayers was staggering. The model was highly detailed, scaled exactly, experienced the exact tidal changes, water flows, etc...,etc...etc.... This facility employed a large staff of scientist, and at the time was touted as the savior of Chesapeake Bay. Scientists from at least four other states were invited to utilize the facility as well, and if I recall correctly, there was no charge to them for their usage.

Well, tens of thousands of tidal changes later, the introduction of tons of simulated pollutants, and thousands upon thousands of controlled experiments later, the project was dumped. It wasn't dumped because it didn't work - it was dumped because funding sources dried up. The reason they dried up? According to the rumor mill in Washington, DC the funding ceased because everyone was jumping on the study bandwagon, but no one was aboard the fix the problem wagon. Guess what - they're still not on that wagon today.

Now, lets look at my place, my palatial estate. I'm on a well, septic tank and field, my manicured front lawn consists mainly of crabgrass, johnson grass and other weeds. What the Hell, those weeds are just as green as Kentucky blue grass, but not nearly as fragile. There has NEVER been any fertilizer applied to my weed patch in the 45 years I've lived here and there will never be as long as I'm still kicking.

Until about 12 years ago, my driveway was crusher run, and at the end of the driveway was a cofferdam to prevent any run-off. When I became too old to remove the snow by hand, I had the driveway paved with blacktop and purchased an 8 HP snow blower. Then I planted tall red fescue at the end of the driveway to absorb any runoff from the blacktop.

Most of my 5.5 acres is still woodland, but the deer have eaten all the understory plants away, which results in higher than normal erosion into the stream that runs through the back end of my property. The deer are just one more example of MD-DNR not getting it right. 

Now, your estimate of scientists not being right 75 percent of the time may be right, at least in the environmental areas of science. Could be higher. Keep in mind their environmental track record nationwide has been pretty abysmal, especially in this part of the world.

Lets get the record straight. We have the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), a massive bureaucracy that employs hundreds of thousands of people, many of them PHDs, and their only job is to safeguard our environment. Strike one!

In Maryland, we have the Maryland Department of Environment (MDE), which employs a huge number of staff and scientists. Their sole purpose is to protect and preserve the state's environment. Guess they need more money. The rivers, streams, creeks, and in some locations, groundwater supplies are all polluted. The bay, well, we've already discussed that. Air pollution in Maryland is ranked among the highest in the nation, and lots of "Code Red" days, which mean you shouldn't allow the kids to go outdoors and play because the air pollution is at dangerous levels. Same holds true for seniors, people with heart and lung problems, etc... So much for going outside for a breath of fresh air. Yep, they're doing a real, bang-up job at MDE.

We have the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, a massive bureaucracy that employs thousands of people, many of them scientists. Their sole purpose is to protect, preserve and enhance the natural resources of Maryland for all the state's citizens. They refer to this now as resource management. To date they've managed to wipe out: Oysters, soft shell clams, hard shell clams, striped bass, bluefish, weakfish, white perch, yellow perch, speckled trout, Atlantic menhaden, Atlantic croaker, blue crab, puffer-fish, American eel, American shad, hickory shad, blueback herring, and many, many more piscatorial species. They did this with the approval of scientists from the EPA, Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, National Marine Fisheries Service, and a dozen lesser known state and federal agencies. Do you think they just might have done a little better? These are individuals that have degrees from major universities throughout the nation, degrees in fisheries and wildlife management, highly educated, some with PHDs. Hell, we even subsidized their educations with our tax dollars. Turns out they're real good at studying things, but they just need to work on fixin' things.

If you want to rely on the scientific community to fix the planet's environment, that's up to you. Me, I don't have 200 years to see if the 25 percent or less that get it right and finally manage to fix things. I just did a controlled experiment, looked at their past record, came to the conclusion that the chances of a group of scientist solving the bay's woes were slim to none. I put my money on the zebra mussels. And, if they arrive next year, and I manage to live another decade, I just may get to see the bay as clean and clear as it was in 1962, a time when I SCUBA dived for oysters at the old span of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge. Back then, we had 20-foot underwater visibility in late September, when the oyster season opened.

Better hope your doctors and surgeons are right more than 25 percent of the time - yeah, they're scientists as well. 

Gary


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## TakeFive (Oct 22, 2009)

I still don't understand why you blame scientists for ecological problems that they didn't cause. They've been unable to solve a problem that may be unsolvable (until disease and famine reduce the overpopulation back to historical levels). And you haven't provided any evidence that their efforts had no effect. It's possible that without their work, things might be even worse than they are now.

Scientists are not as dumb as you suggest, and they do their best to anticipate unintended consequences of any actions. It's a much better methodology than the simpleminded, "obvious" solutions proposed by the non-scientific community, like intentionally introducing zebra mussels, which could lead to an ecological disaster.

Your doctor example is irrelevant. The doctors that you visit in an office are not experimental scientists. They are clinicians and practitioners, implementing medical techniques that have been tested and refined by research physicians. As you suggest, the practitioners could never get away with a 25% success rate. However, the research physicians probably are around 25% like the rest of the true scientists during the early stages of their research (this phase is way prior to introducing their practices to the human population). It's only after much experimentation that they get their success rate high enough to put their treatments into routine practice. Such trial and error is part of good science, but unfortunately it is not possible for ecological research where the time scales are decades and length scales are hundreds of miles.


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## mad_machine (Dec 16, 2012)

it's all a very good point TakeFive. From what I gather (I don;t live on the bay) most of the chesapeake's issues stem from runoff.. and having been all through PA.. I know the watershed for the bay is HUGE! 

No doubt those scientists working hard on the bay's problems are running hard just to keep up. One thing you forget about scientists.. they all want that "name"., They want to become that "dr. So&so who fixed the chesapeake bay" or whatever it is they study and work on.


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## travlin-easy (Dec 24, 2010)

TakeFive, If the problem is unsolvable, then why should we continue to fund their studies? Most of the solutions to the bay's ills are just common sense, but as my dear departed father used to say "Common sense just ain't very common these days." Hey, it's the scientific community that says there is a solution, and if you give us money, we'll fix the bay. They've been saying that for more than a half-century, and the politicians believed them. We gave them money, lots and lots of money. They didn't fix anything.

And, if you do your homework, which I'm fairly confident most people will not take the time to do, they'll quickly discover that there were lots and lots of studies performed by scientists employed by state and federal agencies that allowed the polluters to dump their particular pollutants into the bay in the first place. Then there were studies that validated the original studies, and more studies to verify the secondary studies that were used. All these studies were done by the scientific community.

Ever hear of Federal Allowable Limits? There's an entire book of them and they address just about every substance on the planet. The feds tell the states how much of a particular toxin you can absorb without it being harmful. The book tends to be revised every now and then. The book is published every year, and there are additions every year. Until recent years, there was a federal allowable limit for asbestos. Yep, asbestos. There was a doctor in South Africa by the name of Selikoff who did an extensive study related to asbestos exposure. He very quickly came to the conclusion that there is no safe level of exposure. He was right, but many of the U.S. scientists tried to say more studies were needed to prove his theory. I had a single, week-long exposure while in the U.S. Navy in 1959, a time when the Navy figured if you wore a surgical mask you would be safe. I currently suffer from asbestosis, which is a fatal disease where you slowly, but surely, suffocate to death. You may want to read Selikoff's paper on this at http://www.epidemiology.ch/history/...mond 1964 asbestos exposure and neoplasia.pdf

I'll take my chances with the zebra mussells,

Gary


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## sesmith (Jan 24, 2013)

Minnewaska said:


> Good point. I was going to say that clear water is not always better water for every living organism. It depends on what's making it unclear.
> 
> I agree. Spectacular scenery. As they were carved by glaciers, they are not only very deep, but the hills rise straight up from the water's edge. The largest two being roughly 40 miles long each. Gorgeous, but can make for some squirrely sailing, as the hills can either block or redirect the winds.


Yes, it is beautiful here and we are squirrely sailors.

I've been in the area for 32 years. The zebra mussels have cleared up the water in Cayuga Lake. Not necesarily a good thing. It is commonly believed that they are responsible for the crash in the smelt population. That, in turn, effects the lake trout, etc. Now we are fighting invasive Hydrilla in the inlet. It has the potential of totally clogging the waterway. In our hills, we are soon to have our ash trees decimated by emerald ash borer. Another invasive, hemlock wooly adelgid, is established in the Ithaca area, and has the potential to wipe out all our hemlock trees. These trees are important native trees found in all our stream / riparian areas. Invasives are rarely, if ever good for a local ecosystem. I guess the good thing about the zebra mussels is that the water is clear enough to see my feet bleed out when I cut them on the mussels.


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## travlin-easy (Dec 24, 2010)

*"I guess the good thing about the zebra mussels is that the water is clear enough to see my feet bleed out when I cut them on the mussels."*

And, the zebras probably made the water clean enough so you didn't get a horrendous infection that would have resulted in having your foot amputated. _Other than that Mrs Lincoln, how did you like the play?_ 

Gary


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## downeast450 (Jan 16, 2008)

Gary,

I read your posts about the condition of the Chessy with sadness. When I was a child we would drive down from NY, spend a couple of weeks on Hatteras, chasing blues and camping on the beach. Only a ferry got you across Oregon Inlet, way before they moved the lighthouse. A chicken neck on a string and a dip net easily caught crabs for dinner on the bay side. Swimming was taken for granted. Dad was a college proff. For 10 years we spent about 50 days each summer car camping around these beautiful United States. Spending a lot of that time on the coasts catching fish and living like Gypsys. A weekly budget of one $20.00 travelers check. No credit. Happy times and great training for the cruising life. Getting older has its down side but having been able to see and experience this beautiful country, before the collective effects you lament, is priceless. I too feel sorry for the young folks who will never have those experiences. Lucky us. 

Down


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## mad_machine (Dec 16, 2012)

Down,

that really is the problem. People today forget how good and how bad a lot of the quality was back then. The water was relatively good in many places and the air was really really bad in others..

It's like the complaints about holding tanks.. I can remember when marina's smelled like sewersuke


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## downeast450 (Jan 16, 2008)

mad_machine said:


> Down,
> 
> that really is the problem. People today forget how good and how bad a lot of the quality was back then. The water was relatively good in many places and the air was really really bad in others..
> 
> It's like the complaints about holding tanks.. I can remember when marina's smelled like sewersuke


We always stopped in Monaca, PA at the grand parents. Watching them dump the slag cars directly into the Ohio River was an evening's entertainment. Some things have improved, for sure!

Down


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## mad_machine (Dec 16, 2012)

exactly. I am willing to bet that part of the Bay's problems is the lack of oysters. While do not filter as much as the zebra, they more than take in their bodyweight in nutrients and other things a day. As we overfished them, the bay became murkier and murkier.

It is not just pollution.. if it were, the bay would look better than it does.. it's that will killed off the bay's natural method of cleansing itself


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## sesmith (Jan 24, 2013)

The decline in oysters is more likely a symptom, not a cause. Silt and excess nutrient runoff, and decline of wetlands are probably more at the root of the problem. I have a spring on my property, high on a hill in the Fingerlakes area of NY that turns into a stream. It eventually, makes it's way to the Chesapeake. When you realize just how large the Chesapeake watershed is, you realize that fixing the problem down there is a huge undertaking that has to include even where I live. It can't be fixed by introducing an invasive like the zebra mussel. Everything we do up here, with regards to agriculture, road ditches, industrial activity (like gas exploration and fracking...a hot topic right now in NY state), directly effects the Chesapeake Bay.


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## travlin-easy (Dec 24, 2010)

Actually, the decline of oysters began back in the early 1840s, a time when most folks thought they were quite abundant, but that was actually the turning point for the bay's oyster population. Prior to the U.S. Civil War the bay supplied nearly 75-percent of all the world's oysters. "After the Civil War, the oyster harvesting industry exploded. In the 1880s, the Chesapeake Bay supplied almost half of the world's supply of oysters. New England fishermen encroached on the Bay after their local oyster beds had been exhausted, which prompted violent clashes with competitors from Maryland and Virginia. Watermen from different counties likewise clashed."

When the oyster population crashed in Chesapeake Bay, commercial watermen switched to catching other species of shellfish, mainly softshell and hardshell clams. It didn't take much to wipe them out as well.

Looking for new ways to make a living on the bay's natural resources, commercial watermen switched to striped bass, a species that until the early 1900s was used for fertilizer on waterside farms. It took a lot of years to wipe them out, but by the late 1950s the entire east coast population of striped bass was doomed and headed toward extinction. However, it took nearly 30 years before scientists decided the striper population was in trouble. By that time it was almost too late and a complete moratorium was enacted in 1985 in Maryland's portion of Chesapeake Bay, while northern states put stringent catch restrictions in place for recreational anglers.

Atlantic menhaden, one of the bay's most important filter feeders, came under attack as the striped bass population rapidly declined. Menhaden feed exclusively on various forms of plankton, with phytoplankton being at the top of their dietary preference. The largest commercial fishing industry in the nation targets Atlantic menhaden and is based out of Reedville, VA. The schools of fish are encircled with large, purse nets, and then sucked up large tubes into a hold. They are then transported to the menhaden reduction plant where the fish are essentially cooked down, the oils extracted and used for paints and omega3 fish oil tablets, and the carcass is used for poultry and hog feed. 

In 2006 the Atlantic menhaden commercial harvest fell to under 110,000 metric tons. This was a far cry from harvest levels of just a decade earlier, a reduction of more than 90 percent. There was no reduction, however, in harvest effort, which actually increased over the same period. Spotting a school of migrating menhaden in Chesapeake Bay and the nearshore Atlantic waters is almost unheard of these days. Three decades ago, schools measuring up to 40 miles long and 10 miles wide were a common occurrence.

Other filter feeders on the bay include barnacles, which until recent years were probably as common as zebra mussels in the great lakes. When I was a youngster every piling in Baltimore's Inner Harbor was totally encrusted with them. In some locations they were an inch or more thick, and they covered the pilings from the high tide line to the muddy bottom. 

Sure, you can still find barnacles in the bay, but they no longer live in depths below 10 feet - mainly because they need oxygen in order to survive. The same holds true for all bay species, most of which that are still alive can only survive during mid summer in depths less than 15 feet, and that includes those that can tolerate relatively low oxygen levels.

With the exception of barnacles, all the other bay's filter feeders have been wiped out by commercial exploitation. And, until recent years, there was essentially no catch restrictions, at least anything meaningful. Ironically, Maryland's commercial watermen have essentially been putting themselves out of business for the past two centuries, mainly by depleting one bay resources after another. Additionally, they are among the only self employed businessmen that are able to collect unemployment compensation with a particular fishery closes because that fishery's population crashed.

There's a lot more to this story than meets the eye, and I didn't just pull this information out of the air and post it here. As an investigative reporter, I wrote about the Chesapeake Bay and it's fisheries for more than two-dozen publications for more than 35 years. I've spent thousands upon thousands of hours both on the bay, and SCUBA diving beneath it's surface. I also fished nearly every state in the nation, and fished several countries, often fishing with the area's top fishing guides, interviewing leading state and federal fisheries scientists, and managed to collect tens of thousands of photos in the process.

One of the things I learned from more than three decades as an investigative reporter was you're not going to change some things, human nature being at the top of the list. People began using the world's waterways as a waste disposal system long before we were born, and this will likely never change. The out of sight out of mind scenario. We continue to dump human and animal poop into the streams, rivers, bays and oceans as if it will just go away. It never has. We bury our disposables in landfills, cover it with dirt, then cover it with plastic, and finally another layer of dirt, thinking it just went away. It's biodegradable, isn't it? Not in anyone's lifetime! There was an old saying by a long since deceased U.S. Senator "The solution to pollution is dilution." a rationale that still exists to this day.

I sincerely wish I were dead wrong on this issue, but I'm very confident I'm right on the money. Everything on the planet is now considered disposable. At one time it was pretty much limited to diapers, which at the time took up more than 66 percent of most U.S. landfills. Now, in 2013, telephones, TVs, computers, cars, homes, everything - we just toss them into a landfill, or into the water. Then we find some scientists to investigate why the water is polluted and you cannot safely eat anything that comes out of it. We have another team of investigators that are studying the worlds groundwater supplies, trying to figure out how they became so polluted. We have people investigating why springheads and groundwater supplies are drying up at an alarming rate throughout the nation, while agriculture and municipal users continue to drill deeper and deeper to obtain more and more water. They do this instead of creating reservoirs.

Then, here in Chesapeake Bay, we have Governor Owe-Mally, (O'Mally), who has presidential aspirations for when O'Bamma leaves office. Owe-Mally just enacted a stormwater management tax on everyone in the state, $125 per year for homeowners, more for business, claiming that all those impervious surfaces are why Chesapeake Bay is fouled. He figures that if we pay a lot more money, the bay can be cleansed of its impurities. Yeah, right! He says the money will not be dumped into the state's general fund. Of course, he has a track record of lying about these things.

Yeah, I'm still cynical!

Gary


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## downeast450 (Jan 16, 2008)

Gary,

Ugh! Your stories are familiar. It isn't going to get better, soon! Catching all the "common" species here in Maine used to be a given. We would watch Ospreys catching flounder on the flood tide and join them when a feed sounded good. Pollack were so thick at times the schools would push fish onto the shore and they could just be picked up. Fresh haddock. No problem. I caught my last Atlantic Salmon in 1981. The only sustainable fishery I know of is lobsters. There was a day when they were almost wiped out, too.

Maine is still hanging on by a thread and I choose to escape here.

Thanks for all the advocacy your career represents. It made a difference.

Down


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## sesmith (Jan 24, 2013)

travlineasy said:


> Yeah, I'm still cynical


Cynical is good. We need more cynical 

The only thing that gives me hope is knowing some (many) things were worse when I was a kid. More and more of the toxic waste sites are getting cleaned up. Air quality is better in many places. These days, it's not uncommon to see a bald eagle and occasionally a perigrine falcon, both basically doomed species around here when I was a kid. I put out more recyclables than I do garbage, these days. Change just seems too slow, and too political.

We need cynical people need to keep the pressure on.


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## mad_machine (Dec 16, 2012)

that is what I thought, Gary. Can't clean up the bay when there is nothing to clean it up. While I do not advocate bringing in an invasive species, have to wonder what the zebras would do


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## KIVALO (Nov 2, 2011)

You said you were from cny, iirc, I live on Owasco Lake. We have an Eagle that nests in Montezuma Wildlife Refuge and will occasionally hunt for food along the shoreline of Owasco. It really is a sight to behold. It was a bucket list item since I have never seen one before they nested in Montezuma.



sesmith said:


> Cynical is good. We need more cynical
> 
> The only thing that gives me hope is knowing some (many) things were worse when I was a kid. More and more of the toxic waste sites are getting cleaned up. Air quality is better in many places. These days, it's not uncommon to see a bald eagle and occasionally a perigrine falcon, both basically doomed species around here when I was a kid. I put out more recyclables than I do garbage, these days. Change just seems too slow, and too political.
> 
> We need cynical people need to keep the pressure on.


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## travlin-easy (Dec 24, 2010)

I guess I'm fortunate in that there are lots of bald/American eagles residing at the head of Chesapeake Bay. One of the reasons behind this is a forage species known as gizzard shad, which swarm at the base of Conowingo Dam, located about 6 miles upstream of the Susquehanna River's mouth. When the hydroelectric dam opens the gates and water rushes through the turbines, huge quantities of gizzard are drawn through the system and ejected at the base of the dam. I've seen up to a dozen eagles show up when the dam's warning siren sounds, which is a signal that the water below the dam will be rising. The eagles are joined by gulls, herons and ospreys who circle above the rushing water awaiting stunned and disoriented shad to rise to the surface. Striped bass, smallmouth bass, walleye, channel catfish and perch join in on the feast just beneath the water's surface. It's a sight to behold, particularly during early spring when various spawning runs are taking place.

Cheers,

Gary


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## mad_machine (Dec 16, 2012)

Gary,

I have to say I would not mind seeing that. Is there a scheadule or place they publish when the dam is open?


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## downeast450 (Jan 16, 2008)

mad_machine said:


> Gary,
> 
> I have to say I would not mind seeing that. Is there a scheadule or place they publish when the dam is open?


Ironic?

Here in Maine we fight to remove dams and celebrate their demise. Two big ones are being removed from the Penobscott River now. There are lots of eagles. We paddle the Susquehanna River every Memorial Day and enjoy the river valley's upper end. I do understand Maine is a bit more remote than the Susquehanna's watershed. Our concern with the effect of dam releases is the impact on the anadramous fish. Providing a feeding station for other species is better than not. I guess? We have to salvage what we can from our impact on this planet. Here is hoping that fracking doesn't eliminate the runs of fish. Eagles won't be the biggest losers. They can come to Maine.

Down


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## travlin-easy (Dec 24, 2010)

The dam runs water daily, mainly during the week and during peak power consumption times. It's primarily a peaking plant, which sells electricity to the grid during business hours. The best time to see the eagles there is during April and May.


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