The Chesapeake Bay: Virginia’s National Treasure

The weather last week knocked down a lot of beautiful trees.  It caused power outages; it shook things up at the North Anna Nuclear Reactor, and disrupted our week.  It also dumped a bunch of rain.  All of that water ran into our storm drains, filled our creeks, swelled our streams, flushed our rivers, and much of it ended up in The Chesapeake Bay.

The Chesapeake Bay.  The name comes from an Algonquian word referring to a village “at a big river.”  When the first European settlers wandered into the Bay in the early 16th century they commented on the massive oyster reefs that they had to navigate.  They initially thought “Chesepiooc” was the native word for “Great Shellfish Bay.”  Oysters are natural water filters and keep the water clean of sediments and pollutants.  In 1507 the population of oysters could filter the entire Bay in about three days.   The current population is about 5% of what it was in 1507.

In the 1970’s scientists discovered one of Earth’s first “marine dead zones” in The Chesapeake Bay.  Runoff from farms, industrial waste, and chemicals like phosphorus and nitrogen created algal blooms that rendered the water hypoxic or starved of oxygen.  In addition to massive fish kills and crab migrations this dead zone devastated the oyster populations in The Bay.  Oyster farming of this depleted population further depleted stocks to the point that it now takes over a year for the little mollusks to keep The Bay clean.

There is hope for The Chesapeake Bay, though.  There are many groups and organizations that are spearheading efforts to return The Bay to its glory days.  The Chesapeake Bay Program coordinates efforts from Virginia, Maryland, the District of Columbia, and the Environmental Protection Agency.  It brings together local, state, and federal government groups with citizen advisory panels and other volunteer groups.

The Chesapeake Bay Foundation started in 1964 with a concerned group of businessmen and Chesapeake fishermen.  Their mission is to restore The Bay to its former glory by encouraging protection and conservation of The Bay and its tributaries.  The rightly refer to The Bay as a “National Treasure.”

The UVA Bay Game was conceived by students and faculty at The University of Virginia in partnership with Philippe Cousteau.  It uses real world demographic, economic, and scientific data to show the impacts that we have on The Chesapeake Bay and its watershed.  It’s kind of like a live Farmville game where players can change behaviors and policy and it will show up on the future of a Virtual Bay.

Many of our groups and volunteers at Keep Virginia Beautiful work to protect our waterways.  All of these streams and rivers feed into our greatest body of water, The Chesapeake Bay.  If you’re in Hampton or Harrisonburg, Alanton or Andersons Mill, from one end of our State to the other we need to protect The Chesapeake Bay by doing our part to Keep Virginia Beautiful.