Only vigilant stewardship will save vital fisheries for the next generation of anglers.

There are increasing signs that the Chesapeake is losing its habitat value for stripers. In addition to sewage discharges and stormwater runoff from the region’s fast-growing urban and suburban areas, those pollutants come from concentrated agricultural livestock operations, especially in Pennsylvania’s Lancaster County, Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley and the Delmarva Peninsula. Pollution-driven algal explosions have sucked dissolved oxygen out of large stretches of water. Areas absent of or low in dissolved oxygen (DO) are known as “Dead Zones” or “bad water.” This summer, nearly half of the Bay fits under that category.

“We are removing 41 percent of the bay’s habitat,” said Chuck Epes, spokesman for the Virginia Office of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation (CBF), an environmental group with close ties to the Bay’s angling community. “Water containing less than 5 milligrams per liter of dissolved oxygen can’t support normal growth and reproduction of the Bay’s most important creatures.”

“It’s depressing that large dead zones are becoming a summer routine,” said Roy Hoagland, a vice president in CBF’s Annapolis headquarters. “The Chesapeake needs our elected officials to provide the leadership necessary to substantially increase funding for sewage treatment plant upgrades and to provide farmers the resources they need to reduce pollution from agriculture.”

North Carolina

Hewletts Creek & Cape Fear River

On July 1, 2005, Hewletts Creek, a primary nursery area for larvae and juvenile fish, received 100,000 gallons per hour of sewage for 18 hours from a corroded Wilmington pump station pipe, and forced the closure of the tidal creek and broad, adjacent areas to swimming and a ban on fishing. The spill killed untold thousands of fish, soiled waterfowl, fueled algae blooms, and left an unknown amount of potentially dangerous bacteria in the creek bottom.

The Division of Water Quality cited the city for “failure to manage, maintain and operate the collection system, for making an outlet to state waters without a permit and for creating conditions that exceeded water-quality standards for fecal coliform and dissolved oxygen in Hewletts Creek.”

According to Cape Fear Coastkeeper Ted Wilgis, the substantial fine was a welcome change from past incidents, which often received little more than a slap on the wrist from state regulators.

“If there is any silver lining about millions of gallons of wastewater fouling a tidal creek,” said Wilgis, “it’s that the spill has provoked a strong outcry from the public and city leaders about the state of Wilmington’s utility system.”

Georgia

Savannah River

Saltwater gamefish such as striped bass require intertidal estuarial stretches where the salt wedge moves upstream and downstream. Regrettably, 90 percent of the tidal freshwater marsh in the Savannah River has been overtaken, and the last 10 percent is at risk.

Starting in 1977 the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers thought they could build a “natural” tidal gate to control the Savannah River, blocking one channel of the river to force the flow to accelerate through the remaining open channel, naturally flushing sediment and thus reducing dredging expenses. As part of the $2.5 million project, the Corps also decided to build a freshwater diversion canal to ensure that the river was supplied enough fresh water. However, calamity struck when the salt water backed up farther than anticipated, almost completely wiping out the $100 million Atlantic striped bass fishery.

This engineering blunder was decommissioned in 1990, and anglers aggressively worked to restock striped bass, but the Corps continues to dredge 7 million cubic yards per year of river sediment. The resulting change in the salinity regime destroyed 53 percent of the remaining tidal freshwater marsh. Currently, the Corps and the Georgia Port Authority plan to increase channel depths by six feet along a 26-mile stretch. Senior Fish and Wildlife biologist and local angler John Robinette said the deepening will degrade the remaining tidal freshwater marsh, and undermine striped bass and habitat restoration programs.