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November 28, 2020

The Talbot Spy

The nonprofit e-newspaper for the Talbot County Community

Ecosystem Eco Homepage Ecosystem Eco Portal Lead

CBF Opposes Maryland Proposal to Limit Areas for Oyster Restoration

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The Chesapeake Bay Foundation (CBF) is opposing proposed changes to Maryland’s public shellfish fishery areas that would limit the ability to expand oyster farming and restoration activities in the future.

Maryland’s Department of Natural Resources (DNR) presented the proposed policy Oct. 12 at the Oyster Advisory Commission meeting. The proposal, if approved in regulation, would establish criteria to develop new public shellfish fishery areas—Bay bottom reserved exclusively for oyster harvesting —if the area has five or more oysters per square meter of bottom.

Once a public shellfish fishery area has been established, the bottom can no longer be used for activities such as oyster restoration or oyster farming, also known as aquaculture. However, Bay bottom with strong oyster populations are among the best areas to restore oyster reefs or raise oysters as part of an aquaculture operation. This proposal could prevent reef restoration and aquaculture in large portions of Maryland’s Bay by reserving them for commercial harvest. More than 179,000 acres of Bay bottom are already designated as public shellfish fishery areas. An additional 100,000 acres or more that fall outside of these areas are also open to oyster harvest. About 6,500 acres of Bay bottom are currently being leased for oyster farming.

Environmental advocates, scientists, watermen, and seafood sellers are working together to develop recommendations for a new fishery management plan for oysters as part of a consensus process established in Maryland law in January. DNR’s proposed regulations represent a major change in oyster management that undermine the spirit of that law and the process that’s already underway. This end-around the consensus-based process ties the hands of stakeholders working to develop a shared vision for oyster management.

The proposal must still go through a public comment period and legislative review before it can be established in regulation by DNR. CBF is urging DNR to consider tabling this proposal so that it may be properly considered by the Oyster Advisory Commission members whose legislative mandate is to cooperatively develop recommendations for oyster management that increase oyster abundance and ends overfishing.

The reality is Maryland needs more oysters. Oysters filter and clarify water. Their reefs provide habitat to blue crabs, fish, and other marine life. Despite these benefits, oyster populations in the state remain at historic lows. Expanding areas for the exclusive use of harvesters that require no replanting of oysters and excluding aquaculture operators, who are required to replant areas at sustainable levels, seems highly unlikely to achieve this outcome.

CBF Maryland Fisheries Scientist Allison Colden issued the following statement about the proposal:

“This proposal undermines the process put in place by the legislature to implement actions to increase the oyster population and end overfishing. It appears to be a one-sided proposal to increase the oyster harvest at the expense of restoration and aquaculture efforts that are helping to bring Maryland’s oysters back. Making more of Maryland’s Bay bottom off-limits to restoration and aquaculture makes no sense as oyster populations are wallowing at historic lows. The state must balance the interests of the fishery with the environmental and social benefits more oysters could provide, instead of reserving the remaining oysters in Maryland waters for harvest.”

ShoreRivers Board Names Isabel Hardesty as new Executive Director

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Building on a decades-long legacy, ShoreRivers has grown its grassroots foundation in local communities, reduced pollution in Eastern Shore waterways, and elevated the organization’s voice at state and regional levels in Chesapeake Bay policy and regulatory issues. ShoreRivers is now one of the preeminent voices for clean water in the Delmarva region, using this leverage and expertise to implement innovative agricultural practices, produce high quality environmental education programming in public schools, and enforce clean water laws for the benefit of every citizen.

With these successes as a springboard, it is with gratitude and a salutation that the Governing Board of ShoreRivers announces the retirement of Executive Director Jeffrey Horstman at the end of 2020. Since 2010, Horstman has served in several capacities, including as a board member, the Miles-Wye Riverkeeper, executive director of one of ShoreRivers’ legacy organizations, and ultimately as executive director of ShoreRivers. In that time, he has led the organization to become a regional powerhouse for professional, impactful environmental work.

With Horstman’s retirement at the end of the year, the board is proud to announce a unanimous vote to promote Deputy Director Isabel Hardesty to executive director in 2021. Under Hardesty’s pivotal leadership, ShoreRivers will continue to advocate tirelessly for clean water with an inclusive vision of the future.

Hardesty has been with the organization for almost ten years. Her experiences as policy director, Chester Riverkeeper, regional director, and deputy director provide a breadth of knowledge and deep understanding of the organization that will ensure a smooth leadership transition and uninterrupted progress toward the organization’s goals.

“We have all worked hard to develop an organization that is now the foremost expert for water quality on the Delmarva,” says Hardesty. “I am energized by the prospect of leading ShoreRivers as we continue to thrive and advance our mission to protect and restore our rivers.”

Hardesty previously worked for Ocean Conservancy in Washington, DC, before joining the Chester River Association in 2011. She has a Bachelor of Science degree from Bucknell University and a Masters in Environmental Management from Duke University.

“It is with full confidence and a positive outlook toward ShoreRivers’ future that I retire from the role that has brought me great joy and fulfillment,” says Horstman. “Isabel is a natural choice to lead ShoreRivers in this next phase as we continue working for healthy rivers.”

ShoreRivers focuses on the waterways of the Chester, Choptank, Sassafras, Miles, and Wye Rivers, Eastern Bay, and the Bayside Creeks. The main office is located in Easton with regional offices in Chestertown and Galena. A dedicated staff of educators, scientists, restoration specialists, and advocates focuses on policies and projects that improve the health of our rivers. ShoreRivers was created in 2017 when the Chester River Association, Midshore Riverkeeper Conservancy, and Sassafras River Association merged.

Rising Waters: Climate Change and the Chesapeake Bay

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Climate change can seem a little abstract, or at least causing problems comfortably far away–forest fires in California and the Pacific Northwest, or hurricanes on the Gulf coast. But new research makes clear that there will also be profound local impacts. Recent flooding on Maryland’s eastern shore—in Salisbury, Chrisfield, Cambridge—and in Annapolis and Baltimore on the western shore is “likely just a foretaste of what is to come,” says scientist Ming Li of the University of Maryland’s Horn Point Laboratory. 

The earth’s atmosphere warms because of growing concentrations of gases—especially carbon dioxide and methane stemming from human use of fossil fuels—that trap reflected sunlight. Much of that excess warmth ends up in the surface layers of the oceans. And warm water expands—raising sea levels slightly each year. This process has been accelerating in recent decades, and in Chesapeake Bay the water level is rising at twice the global rate. So high tides are getting higher, and so is the risk of flooding. 

Warmer waters also mean that there is more evaporation into the atmosphere, and hence the likelihood of more (and more intense) rainfall, which can add to flooding as rivers overrun their banks. And since it is the moisture in the air that fuels the intensity of a thunderstorm or a hurricane, it’s not surprising that we are seeing more intense storms that unleash unprecedented amounts of rain—like the 60 inches that Hurricane Harvey dumped in the Houston area of Texas in 2017.  Intense storms also mean high winds, like the 150 mile-per-hour winds of Hurricane Laura that battered Louisiana earlier this year, and often violent storm surges like those from superstorm Sandy that wreaked havoc in northern New Jersey and New York City in 2012. The forecast is for an increasing number of such severe storms.

One instinctive response to such forecasts is to build up sea walls or levees to protect waterfront properties, but such hardened coastlines turn out to be very expensive—prohibitively so for the entire Bay. A second response is to create so-called “soft” coastlines—salt marshes or other low-lying areas that are allowed to flood and thus absorb much of the tidal or storm surge. A third response is to relocate threatened houses, roads, and other infrastructure away from the coastline—which is the policy increasingly being adopted for low-lying areas nationally by the Army Corps of Engineers and other federal and state agencies. 

What actually happens when higher tides or a severe storm surge hits the Chesapeake Bay is fairly complex, however, and depends to a significant extend on what coastal management actions are taken. Ming and his colleagues have developed numerical models—based on the well-understood physics of how water flows and detailed mapping of the physical shape of the Chesapeake basin—of both tidal and storm surges in the Bay, using them to explore what happens under a wide range of conditions and coastal management strategies. One clear result is that while seawalls and other forms of hardened coastlines may protect some properties from higher tides, they also create peak tides that are dramatically higher, especially in the mid- and upper Bay. In effect, the tidal surge would propagate further up the Bay—to Baltimore and beyond. Soft coastlines, on the other hand, absorb much of the tidal energy, so that there would be a minimal increase in peak tides and much less impact in the upper Bay. 

Most of the low-lying area appropriate for soft coastline management strategies lie on the eastern shore. So adopting that type of coastline management for the Bay would help prevent serious flooding in urban areas such as Annapolis and Baltimore, but at the expense of significant land-use changes and likely necessary relocation for some homes and facilities on the Eastern shore. Such a strategy would create serious equity issues, unless those impacted are fully compensated and perhaps incentivized. 

The models show that storm surges pose an even greater—if more intermittent—risk than higher tides, promising both more extensive flooding and greater property loss. They are based on the impact of Hurricane Isabel, just a category 2 storm when it hit Maryland in 2003, but whose storm surge nonetheless damaged or destroyed hundreds of buildings on the eastern shore and caused severe flooding in Baltimore and Annapolis. An equivalent storm hitting the Chesapeake Bay region in 2050 when the ocean is warmer and tides higher would be expected to cause far more damage on the eastern shore and to have a storm surge in Baltimore more than 10 feet high—and that’s with soft coastlines in place; with hard coastlines, the impact in the mid and upper Bay would be greater. Property losses are estimated to be 3-4 times higher than Isabel. Ming’s model does not estimate rainfall, which could add to the flooding throughout the region. 

Model-based projections about the future don’t come with guarantees, of course, but the message of this careful, detailed Horn Point Laboratory research is clear. Rising waters are inevitable; the incidence of severe storms is increasing; there will already be significant impacts in the next decade or two; and the time to prepare for them is now. Moreover, that a coordinated regional approach to coastline management—as opposed to individual actions to harden their shoreline for those that can afford it—will both reduce overall risks and share the burdens more fairly. 

Al Hammond was trained as a scientist (Stanford, Harvard) but became a distinguished science journalist, reporting for Science (a leading scientific journal) and many other technical and popular magazines and on a daily radio program for CBS. He subsequently founded and served as editor-in-chief for 4 national science-related publications as well as editor-in-chief for the United Nation’s bi-annual environmental report. More recently, he has written, edited, or contributed to many national assessments of scientific research for federal science agencies. Dr. Hammond makes his home in Chestertown on Maryland’s Eastern Shore.

 

Election 2020: The Spy Bay Ecosystem Forum with Rob Etgen, Alan Girard, Isabel Hardesty and Tom Horton

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While COVID-19 continues to dominate the news cycle and the public’s attention, there remains a number of other important issues that should be considered as voters go to the polls on November 3.  And nothing can be more important to those living in the Chesapeake Bay region than its ecosystem health.

That is why the Spy pulled together some outstanding conservation leaders who work on the Chesapeake Ecosystem to talk candidly about what is a stake for the next four years. Our all star panel includes Rob Etgen, president of the Eastern Shore Land Conservancy, Alan Girard, the Eastern Shore Director of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, Isabel Hardesty, deputy  director of  ShoreRivers, and award-winning environmental journalist Tom Horton.

This video is approximately thirty-five minutes in length. For more information about Eastern Shore Land Conservancy please go here, for the Chesapeake Bay Foundation go here, for ShoreRivers go here and Tom Horton’s Bay Journal Films go here.

 

Land-based Salmon Farm Proposed for Eastern Shore

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The Chesapeake Bay is known to many for the seafood it produces: blue crabs, oysters and striped bass.

In a few years, though, the Bay region could become a major producer of an even more popular seafood that doesn’t come from the Chesapeake. A Norwegian company, AquaCon, has unveiled plans to raise salmon on Maryland’s Eastern Shore.

Yonathan Zohar, head of the Aquaculture Research Center at the University System of Maryland’s Institute of Marine and Environmental Technology, shows salmon being raised in tanks in Baltimore. Dave Harp 

AquaCon executives intend to build a $300 million indoor salmon farm on the outskirts of Federalsburg in Caroline County. By 2024, they aim to harvest 3 million fish a year weighing 14,000 metric tons — an amount on par with Maryland’s annual commercial crab catch.

If that goes as planned, the company expects to build two more land-based salmon farms on the Shore over the next six or seven years, bringing production up to 42,000 tons annually. That’s more than the Baywide landings of any fish or shellfish, except for menhaden, and more valuable commercially.

AquaCon’s announcement comes amid a rush by mostly European aquaculture companies to supply Americans with farmed salmon. Another Norwegian company is preparing for its first full harvest later this year from a facility south of Miami, and plans have been announced to build big indoor salmon farms in Maine and on the West Coast. Two small U.S.-based salmon operations in the Midwest also are moving to expand production.

It’s not hard to see why. Next to shrimp, salmon are Americans’ favorite seafood. They each eat more than 2.5 pounds of it annually, according to the National Fisheries Institute. Experts think that appetite could double over the next decade. And right now, more than 90% of the salmon consumed in the United States is imported. Most is Atlantic salmon produced by aquaculture operations in Norway, Chile, Scotland and Canada.

Atlantic salmon, which can grow to 30 inches and weigh 12 pounds, once spawned in every East Coast river from New York north into Canada. But fishing so depleted the stock in U.S. waters that the fishery was shut down in 1948. It’s never recovered, and the species is listed as endangered.

Traditionally, most imported salmon has been raised to market size in open sea pens. But that has several environmental downsides. For example, growers have used antibiotics, pesticides and other chemicals to fend off sea lice, a major problem, along with other parasites and diseases.

Also, uneaten food and fish waste increase nutrient levels in open water, which can deprive aquatic life of the dissolved oxygen it needs to thrive and survive.

In recent years, facing increased production costs and more regulatory limits on open water aquaculture, salmon farmers have begun trying land-based aquaculture, using recirculating technology that’s been utilized for years to raise other fish in tanks.

AquaCon executives say their technology will keep their salmon free of parasites and diseases without drugs or chemicals. It will also prevent water quality impacts, they say, by treating and reusing nearly all of the water in which the fish swim.

“This is really the first true green aquaculture project in the world,” said Henrik Tangen, AquaCon’s chairman. “That’s what we’re trying to achieve here.”

Tangen said he and the company’s top executives are mindful of the need to minimize environmental impacts in the Chesapeake Bay watershed.

“We know we are in an environment where we need to be cautious of any natural resources we are using,” he said.

‘Biodigester’ technology

“There is a huge opportunity here for domestic production,” said Yonathan Zohar, head of the Aquaculture Research Center at the University System of Maryland’s Institute of Marine and Environmental Technology.

To Zohar, the AquaCon venture is the fulfillment of a dream. He’s spent nearly three decades working to make fish farming more productive and sustainable, raising small batches of striped bass, salmon and tuna, among others, in tanks. But until now it hasn’t brought large-scale aquaculture to Maryland.

“Now we believe the technology is finally mature,” Zohar said, “and able to be scaled up in a way that is economically feasible and … environmentally responsible.”

The AquaCon team chose to build on the Eastern Shore because of its proximity to mid-Atlantic markets, but the institute’s nearby expertise helped cement that decision. Executives say they have a formal partnership set up to work with the institute as plans move forward.

Farmed salmon traditionally have been raised to market size in open sea pens. Parasites, disease and regulatory limits have fueled a shift to land-based aquaculture, particularly to supply a growing U.S. demand for the fish.

At the institute’s Baltimore laboratory, the sludge that settles on the tank bottoms from uneaten food and fish waste is siphoned off into an anaerobic digester,  converting 70% of it into methane gas.

Tangen said AquaCon plans to treat its sludge using Zohar’s “biodigester” technology. The company also wants the institute’s help to develop a more sustainable diet for its salmon — one including algal oils and protein from insects. Another rap against traditional aquaculture is it requires harvesting a lot of wild fish to feed the farmed ones.

AquaCon’s salmon-rearing facility would have one of the largest building footprints on the Delmarva Peninsula. Containing 25 acres of space under a single roof, the facility will be roughly the combined size of six Walmart Supercenters.

As to the site, AquaCon is moving to purchase a 200-acre farm just outside Federalsburg. The property, currently composed of chicken houses and cornfields, will be annexed by the town to get access to its sewer lines, if the company gets its way.

The salmon will spend their lives swimming in circles in a complex of 127 tanks. Mimicking their natural life cycle, which involves migrating from rivers to the ocean and back, the fish will start out in freshwater tanks and finish their grow-out in tanks with salinity levels similar to the Mid Bay’s. Salmon can reach market size (about 11 pounds) in about two years that way, faster than if raised in sea pens.

The water in the tanks will be recycled after being treated to filter out ammonia, using technology that reuses more than 99% of it, company executives said.

“Our objective is to optimize the water usage so we don’t have any waste,” said Bob Rauch, the project’s Easton-based engineering consultant.

The handling of wastewater

The Federalsburg facility will still need a vast quantity of freshwater initially to fill its tanks – 49 million gallons, enough for 74 Olympic swimming pools. After that, the operation and processing of harvested fish will only require about 70,000 gallons a day from an onsite well to replace what is lost through its waste treatment systems.

The chicken farm currently operating there is permitted to pump more than 10 times that amount, according to Rauch. But at times, AquaCon may need to double or even triple the current well’s permitted withdrawal rate. Company executives say they believe there is ample groundwater to do that, but would require approval from the Maryland Department of the Environment.

On the edge of the small community of Federalsburg, MD, a proposed indoor salmon farm would sprawl for 25 acres under a single roof. Jeremy Cox

AquaCon hopes to pipe 70,000 gallons of treated wastewater daily from its operation to Federalsburg’s municipal wastewater treatment plant. That facility can process up to 750,000 gallons per day but now uses only about half of that capacity to serve the community’s 2,800 residents.

Lawrence DiRe, the town manager, said that the developers haven’t formally submitted any plans to the town. But if they jibe with what has been publicly presented so far, the wastewater plant should have no problem handling the additional flow, he said.

Federalsburg’s wastewater plant discharges into Marshyhope Creek, about 15 miles upstream from where it drains into the Nanticoke River, a Bay tributary. In 1996, the MDE declared the Marshyhope impaired by nutrient pollution, pointing to the overfertilized cropland that abuts much of its course.

Despite the nutrient problems, scientists and fishermen have discovered that the creek and the Nanticoke River harbor a spawning population of endangered Atlantic sturgeon. The state is conducting a tagging study to monitor the rare, prehistoric-looking fish.

Rauch said environmentalists have expressed concern that the aquaculture complex might upset the waterway’s ecological balance, harming the sturgeon. He vowed the company would take any actions required by environmental regulators to ensure that doesn’t happen.

Federalsburg’s wastewater plant itself has a spotty regulatory history, though, with a handful of violations the last three years, including exceeding discharge limits on phosphorus and E. coli bacteria. The town manager said the plant was run then by an outside contractor, but the town has since taken over.

AquaCon may need to dispose of additional wastewater if it has to purge its fish of a muddy flavor that can plague tank-reared salmon. Tangen said that the technology they plan to use should avoid that problem. But if needed, Rauch said the facility would seek MDE permission to spray the extra treated wastewater onto the land the company is acquiring.

AquaCon’s Tangen noted other “green” features of its project, including the installation of solar panels on the sprawling roof and the methane its waste digester will generate, which could be burned or sold to generate power. And by locating in Maryland, he said, the company will be reducing carbon dioxide emissions used to get its salmon to U.S. consumers, compared with those shipped in from abroad.

Salmon swim in a tank at the Aquaculture Research Center at the University System of Maryland’s Institute of Marine and Environmental Technology in Baltimore.
Dave Harp

Company executives have met with state environmental regulators to explain their plans. MDE Secretary Ben Grumbles wrote AquaCon’s Tangen in June that he is “very encouraged” by the company’s plans and “welcomes the opportunity to support projects that are environmentally responsible and sustainable.”

The amount of groundwater requested by the company is “within a reasonable range,”Grumbles added, though testing would have to confirm it.

The MDE also would need to approve the company’s plans to control stormwater pollution, and agency spokesman Jay Apperson said an air pollution permit tied to the anaerobic digestion operation may also be required.

Can it succeed?

AquaCon’s Federalsburg operation is expected to create about 150 jobs, company officials said. Although it would be located in the Shore’s only land-locked county, it’s a good fit for the predominantly agricultural region, said Debbie Bowden, Caroline County’s economic development director.

“Anything that grows is in our DNA,” Bowden said. “With the cutting edge technology of the aquaculture … it creates an opportunity for more jobs and more economic activity.”

Whether it all comes together remains to be seen. While there’s a lot of buzz around land-based salmon operations, industry experts say they have yet to prove they can reliably turn a profit and compete with traditional openwater fish farming.

All of the salmon facilities announced in the United States call for massive injections of capital, and experts predict some won’t be able to get off the ground. They also warn that glitches in the water purification systems could cause large numbers of fish to die; a large indoor salmon farm in Denmark experienced a big die-off earlier this year. And recirculating systems require a lot of energy to run.

What’s needed is a “major success story,” said Brian Vinci, director of the Freshwater Institute, an arm of the Conservation Fund that works to make aquaculture more environmentally responsible. The institute’s laboratory in Shepherdstown, WV, has been raising a small batch of salmon in recirculating tanks for years to refine the technology.

“We need someone to show that, at this massive scale … they can succeed biologically and can succeed economically,” Vinci said during a recent webinar, “and can do it while maintaining all the sustainability benefits.”

AquaCon’s executive team believes it can do that. First, though, they need to come up with $300 million to build the Federalsburg plant, and $1 billion for all three facilities. This is the first such operation for the company, which was only formed last year.

But Tangen is confident they’ll attract enough investors, because the firm’s management team  has decades of  experience in financing, designing, building and operating aquaculture facilities in Norway and around the world.

Above all, he said, they’re aiming to develop an operation that can produce “American Salmon” — their brand name — with a reputation for environmental responsibility.

“We’d like to have a product that people relate to in a positive way,” he said, “that is something they want to give their children and something they believe … to be a sustainable type of production and product itself.”

By Tim Wheeler and Jeremy Cox

‘Forever Chemicals’ Found in Chesapeake Region’s Freshwater Fish

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High levels of “forever chemicals” have been reported in freshwater fish and water from a Maryland creek, raising new questions about the extent and seriousness of these compounds’ contamination in the Chesapeake Bay watershed.

Per– and poly-fluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, were found in the blood plasma of smallmouth bass taken in 2018 from Antietam Creek near where it flows into the Potomac River, according to Vicki Blazer, a biologist with the U.S. Geological Survey’s Leetown Science Center in Kearneysville, WV.

Vicki Blazer, USGS
Vicki Blazer, fish biologist with the U.S. Geological Survey, removes kidney of euthanized fish collected from the South Branch of the Potomac River. The organ was to be analyzed to assess whether it was affecting the ability of the fish to fight off disease. Studies have found that PFAS can affect the immune system of lab animals. (Heather Walsh / USGS)

PFAS compounds also were detected — though at lower levels — in the plasma of the popular gamefish in three other locations: the South Branch of the Potomac in West Virginia and at two sites in the Susquehanna River in Pennsylvania.

PFAS are a group of more than 4,700 chemicals that have been used for decades in a wide variety of products, including nonstick cookware, stain– and water-repellant fabrics and fire-fighting foams. They are very persistent — hence their nickname — and have been found across the United States in groundwater and surface water, in fish and other foods, as well as in people’s bodies.

The extent of PFAS contamination reported in the six-state Chesapeake Bay watershed has been fairly limited — about 20 sites, many of them connected with military bases or airports where fire-fighting foam has been sprayed. But testing to date also has been limited, though Pennsylvania and Maryland are expanding their search for the compounds in drinking water supplies.

The USGS data are the first reports of PFAS contamination in finfish in the Bay watershed, though a 2002 study reported finding the compounds in oysters at the mouth of the Patuxent River. The Maryland Department of the Environment is checking for PFAS in oysters from that site and from the St. Mary’s River.

Animal studies have found that exposure to high levels of some PFAS can affect growth and development, reproduction, thyroid function and the immune system, as well as injure the liver. Just as they’ve been found in many people, PFAS also have been widely detected in wildlife and fish, where their effects on those animals are less well-known. But PFAS bioaccumulate, meaning they can build up in people who eat contaminated fish and wildlife.

Blazer said the levels measured in the Antietam Creek bass were high compared with what she’d seen in scientific literature. A Canadian lab commissioned by the USGS to analyze the blood plasma samples detected six different PFAS compounds. Levels of one — perfluorooactane sulfonate, or PFOS — measured as high as 574,000 parts per trillion. The average PFOS level among all 34 bass plasma samples was 381,000 parts per trillion.

PFAS levels in fish tend to be highest in their blood and livers, Blazer said, with much lower levels in their muscle or tissue, which is what’s typically converted for fillets.

‘So what we’re eating tends to be lower [in PFAS] than in the plasma,” the USGS scientist said.

Sampling smallmouth bass from Antietam Creek Researchers examine euthanized smallmouth bass collected by electrofishing form Antietam Creek in Maryland. Analysis later revealed high levels of PFAS in the bass’ plasma. (Vicki Blazer, USGS)

“We don’t know what it means to the fish yet,” she added. But it’s become one more possible factor in the health problems she’s been studying for more than a decade in the watershed’s smallmouth bass, including abnormal sexual organs, skin lesions, die-offs and poor reproduction.

Research suggests several factors could be involved in the species’ declining abundance in the watershed, including abnormally high river flows during the spring spawning season. But Blazer and her team have identified other possible culprits, including bacteria and viruses, parasites and hormone-altering chemicals that can suppress a fish’s immune system.

“It does look like [PFAS] might be another risk factor for the immunosuppression we see,” Blazer said. She’s having plasma analyzed from fish collected in other years to see if they also show PFAS contamination.

Brent Walls, the Upper Potomac Riverkeeper, called the PFAS levels in bass plasma from Antietam Creek “astronomical” and “very troubling.” Anglers fishing for sport often release smallmouth bass, he said, but many also are consumed.

The riverkeeper said the USGS data prompted him to look for possible sources of PFAS contamination in Antietam Creek. He hired a Pennsylvania laboratory to analyze water samples he collected from outfalls for wastewater treatment plants serving Hagerstown and Smithsburg. He also sampled water near the mouth of the creek for a comparison.

The lab reported detecting a total of 11 different PFAS compounds at the three sampling sites. The lab measured a cumulative 138 parts per trillion in treated wastewater at Hagerstown, 82 parts per trillion at Smithsburg, and only 7 ppt at the creek’s mouth.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency does not regulate PFAS, though it has said it’s moving toward doing that for a handful of the compounds. It did set a “health advisory level” in 2016 for drinking water of 70 parts per trillion for two compounds, PFOS and PFOA, or perfluorooctanic acid.

Levels of PFOS and PFOA in the riverkeeper’s water samples did not exceed the EPA recommended level for drinking water. But Walls noted that PFAS can build up in animals and people if they ingest it repeatedly over time.

“There’s just a lot of unanswered questions about levels,” he said. “What’s the toxic level in drinking water? What’s the level in fish consumption? What’s good and what’s not good?”

He said he was also worried that contaminants might be in sewage sludge from wastewater plants, which gets spread as fertilizer on farm fields.

Walls said he had presented his and the USGS data to the Maryland Department of the Environment earlier this year but was frustrated by the agency’s lack of response to date.

Brent Walls, the Upper Potomac Riverkeeper, collects a water sample from Antietam Creek by a U.S.Geological Survey stream gage. Water from this location registered relatively low levels of PFAS, but levels were higher in water sampled from two wastewater treatment plant outfalls upstream. (Potomac Riverkeeper Network)

A number of states, likewise frustrated by the EPA’s failure to regulate PFAS, have set or are considering setting much lower limits on PFAS in their drinking water. Pennsylvania is among them. With about 30 contaminated water supplies reported across the state already, the Department of Environmental Protection began testing for PFAS last year in about 400 other locations statewide where it believes contamination is possible.

The MDE spokesman said agency officials have reviewed the Antietam Creek information and hope to have a conference soon with the riverkeeper. Apperson said officials want to know more about how he collected the water samples and the basis for his conclusion about health risks associated with PFAS in fish blood.

Walls welcomes the scrutiny. “Everything was by the book … our sampling program is pretty solid,” he said. Meanwhile, he said he hopes that Maryland officials will be prompted to do their own research and protect the public.

“It’s pretty much up to the states to start doing this, because the federal government is dragging their feet for sure,” he said.

By Tim Wheeler

Looking Back with Former West & Rhode Riverkeeper Jeff Holland

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In the field of conservation, rarely is there a feeling of “mission accomplished.” Even after decades of advocacy, reform, and new policies, the state of the environment remains in constant threat as climate change and rising sea levels continue to impact delicate ecosystems like our own Chesapeake Bay.

Nonetheless, progress is still being made in both small and large ways to protect the region’s natural assets, and one example has been the efforts made on the Rhode and West Rivers on the outskirts of Annapolis.

For almost a decade, Jeff Holland led many of those strategies in his role as Riverkeeper to both rivers. With the encouragement of Bob Gallagher, the founder of West/Rhode Riverkeeper, which has recently transitioned into the Arundel Rivers Federation, Holland took on this new role of river protection and advocacy after years serving as executive director the Annapolis Maritime Museum.

In his Zoom interview with the Annapolis Spy, Holland reflects on his work and the future of Maryland’s natural resources as it continues to face new challenges.

By the Way, How Do You Predict the Behavior of Rockfish or Crabs? By Al Hammond

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Kenny Rose is an applied mathematician and fisheries scientist by training and has worked on many ecosystems throughout the US and internationally. He has spent years studying the San Francisco Bay and the Gulf of Mexico, and now focuses on the Chesapeake Bay at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science’s Horn Point Laboratory near Cambridge, Maryland. 

Mathematical models—like those used for weather forecasts or to predict storm tracks—are key to studying and predicting many environmental phenomena. They typically take in data about the current state of the environment, then use computerized versions of physical laws to calculate expected outcomes. And even though nature sometimes doesn’t behave as predicted, it’s still useful to know that rain is expected or if the tide in the Bay is going to be high. 

Dr. Kenny Rose, the France-Merrick Professor in Sustainable Ecosystem Restoration at Horn Point Laboratory of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science

But what if there are no laws that apply, only some fuzzy rules of thumb? For example, what if you want to model the behavior of fish—not just how they move around, but how they respond to warmer water or a depleted food supply? For that matter, how would you model the behavior of people or of corporations? There are no physical laws for that, but scientists have developed a different type of model for just such purposes. Called an “agent-based model” or sometimes a “complex adaptive system” model, it creates a virtual world that can track the interaction of large numbers of agents (rockfish or blue crabs or people) with each other and with the environment around them. Such models depend on assumptions about the nature of those interactions, and if those are reasonably accurate, then what emerges from the model calculations is predictions or simulations of population-level behavior—for example, will there be plenty of crabs this year? Or how stable and resilient is the Bay’s rockfish population in the face of warming and more acidic waters (because of higher carbon dioxide levels) as a result of a changing climate.

Such predictions—often based on hundreds or thousands of simulations with varying assumptions—can be compared to observed behavior to test and refine the modeling assumptions. For many fish species in Chesapeake Bay, it turns out that the critical assumptions have to do with survival while they are larvae and juveniles (before they become full adults):  most very young fish don’t survive. Is that because of food availability; or does it depend on whether they live near the bottom of the bay or near the surface; or does it depend on their risk of being eaten before they can reproduce? So modelers test these and other assumptions, while also testing such variables as temperature, salinity, and the type of bottom (does it offer good ways for a young fish to hide?). 

These types of virtual world models have been used for simulating such things as how fish group together, population size under different harvesting plans, interactions between different species, and the sustainability of ecosystems. At the Horn Point Laboratory, one on-going application of such models is to simulate how fish group together—known as schooling—and to test different ways to set up underwater cameras (also simulated), in order to get the most accurate estimate of the number of fish. That’s because fisheries scientists are increasingly using waterproof cameras located on the ocean bottom or on underwater drones to track populations in locations that are difficult to sample directly. But calibrating what the cameras show is tricky, because they may miss some when underwater visibility is poor or count the same fish multiple times. So Rose helped build an agent-based model of fish movements and is using that virtual world to calculate correction factors for the camera and ideas about better camera placement, leading to more accurate population counts.

Understanding how fish school is important for a number of reasons, not just for improving population counts. For juveniles, being in a crowd is one of the best defenses against being eaten. And from a fisheries perspective, schools are often where the best fishing is to be found. 

The models do provide insights into population size and the food webs that support it, which lets fishery managers know whether they should allow larger harvests or increase protections in a given location. And because rockfish move around—they might come into the Bay as youngsters, then leave later on—rockfish and many species are managed at regional (mid-Atlantic) scale. Crabs move outside the Bay as well. 

This map identifies spawning ground sites for Shad or River herring across the Chesapeake Bay. River herring migrate from saltwater to freshwater to spawn, as do Striped bass, Hickory and American shad, Blueback herring, Alewife, White perch, and Yellow perch. Map produced by the Maryland Department of Natural Resources

Oysters, on the other hand, stay put and are managed locally. Another ongoing effort at the Horn Point laboratory, led by Dr. Elizabeth North, uses modeling to understand how temperature, salinity and circulation patterns in the Bay affect the transport of oyster larvae. That depends initially on models of tides and currents, which can be calculated from physical laws. Then agent-based models build on those results to help the scientists understand where the larvae end up—and where they don’t. This knowledge can be used to ensure oyster larvae have the right habitat in the right location to settle and grow.  

The bottom line is that the health of the Bay and of its fisheries now depend on careful management, and today’s management practices in turn depend increasingly on detailed data collection and on sophisticated modeling—including modeling the behavior of fish. So remember to give a mental “thank you” to the modelers the next time you host a crab feast. 

Al Hammond was trained as a scientist (Stanford, Harvard) but became a distinguished science journalist, reporting for Science (a leading scientific journal) and many other technical and popular magazines and on a daily radio program for CBS. He subsequently founded and served as editor-in-chief for 4 national science-related publications as well as editor-in-chief for the United Nation’s bi-annual environmental report. More recently, he has written, edited, or contributed to many national assessments of scientific research for federal science agencies. Dr. Hammond makes his home in Chestertown on Maryland’s Eastern Shore.

Maryland Environmentalists Jubilant Over Passage of Public Lands Bill

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Major environmental legislation sailed through Congress Wednesday while the nation’s political leaders were stuck in intense negotiations over the contours of a fifth COVID-19 relief package.

The Transportation Revolution by Al Hammond

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If you are thinking of buying a new car or light truck anytime soon, you may want to reconsider. That’s because conventional gasoline-powered vehicles are about to become technologically obsolete and economically uncompetitive—which means it will become progressively harder to find gas stations to refuel them, mechanics to repair them, or buyers for used vehicles when you want to sell.

One cause of this transformation is the impending surge in the production of electric cars and trucks by every major manufacturer. These electric models—apart from the cost of the batteries that power them—are already cheaper to produce (many fewer parts) and maintain than those with internal combustion engines. The batteries themselves are about to see dramatic improvements that will increase their driving range on a single charge to 600 miles or more, reduce the time required to recharge them, increase their lifetime, and lower their cost—which in turn will make electric vehicles less expensive to buy and far less expensive to operate than comparable gasoline-powered models. Indeed, Tony Seba, a Stanford University economist, has published estimates that electric vehicles will soon be 90% cheaper to operate than gas-powered cars, taking into account the cost of fuel and repairs over the lifetime of the vehicle. All these changes add up to one thing: gas-powered vehicles may no longer make economic sense.

A second major technology-driven shift is the coming scale-up of autonomous or “self-driving” vehicles that use multiple sensors to detect roads, traffic signals, driving conditions, and other vehicles, combined with artificial intelligence tools to interpret this data instantaneously and guide the vehicle accordingly. That will save lives: human drivers make mistakes that cause nearly 40,000 fatalities and 4 million injuries per year in the U.S. alone. The proliferation of self-driving vehicles will also mean that people can potentially use their travel time to do other things.

More importantly, many people won’t need or want to buy a car at all—they will summon a self-driving vehicle to take them where they want to go. This revolution—often called Transportation-as-a-Service (TaaS)—will happen in urban areas first, reducing traffic congestion and air pollution. Already Waymo (owned by Google) has driven autonomous vehicles over 20 million miles without any accidents and has completed 100,000 self-driving rides in its test city, Phoenix, Arizona; it is buying another 60,000 self-driving vehicles to use there, which may enable it to provide half of all the local travel needs for that city. Waymo is not alone: a company called Aptiv has also completed 100,000 self-driving rides in Las Vegas and is starting service in several other U.S. cities.

For those of us that live in small towns or rural areas and can’t imagine not having a vehicle in the driveway or carport, the TaaS transformation may seem irrelevant, but we will nonetheless be affected by it. Among other changes, TaaS combined with electric vehicles will disrupt the car insurance business, lower the revenue that governments get from gasoline taxes, save families that can avoid buying a car lots of money, and lower the cost of shipping goods (because of self-driving trucks). TaaS will change the value of homes and other real estate (imagine what can be built on all those soon-to-be-empty parking lots, which in cities like Los Angeles take up nearly one-third of the space, or how much less attractive a house outside the range of a TaaS service might be to a potential buyer). It will also enable expanded home delivery services for packages or food by self-driving electric vehicles or battery-powered drones.

If all this seems too abstract, consider the following: Consumer Reports estimates it costs about $15,000 to fill up a Jeep Liberty over five years, if you drive 12,000 miles per year; the electricity to power an electric Jeep Liberty is estimated to cost less than $1,600 over the same period. And fuel savings are just the beginning. The drivetrain in a conventional car has as many as 2,000 moving parts, compared to as few as 20 in an electric car. Electric vehicles have motors, not engines, so they don’t need to shift gears… and they don’t need oil, spark plugs, air filters, coolant, or transmission fluid. A conventional car’s engine might last 150,000 miles before it needs rebuilding, but electric car motors can last 600,000 miles or more. That’s why some electric car makers warranty the drive unit for up to 8 years, with unlimited miles—something no gas-powered car can offer.

So if you could buy essentially the same car, except cheaper and 90 percent less costly to use and maintain, quieter to drive, capable of much more rapid acceleration and greater pulling power, as well as likely to last several times as long, which would you buy? That’s why many experts think that electric vehicles will account for more than half of all new cars and trucks sold in the U.S. within 5 years. And because of TaaS, the total number of cars sold is likely to be far lower—and most cities are likely to have fleets of electric, self-driving cars that can each deliver 100,000 miles of rides a year with little maintenance.

While all that’s good for us as transportation users, it means disruptive change for quite a few segments of the economy. Professional drivers—chauffeurs, cab drivers, truckers—may simply disappear. Demand for mechanics and replacement auto parts will drop. Insurance companies will have fewer accidents to pay for and will have to lower premiums, losing revenue. We won’t need as many gas stations and truck stops—electric cars will mostly recharge overnight at home and self-driving trucks don’t need to stop for food and rest. Oil companies will suffer. With less traffic on the roads, driving (or being driven by your car) may replace short-haul air traffic and the hassles of airports, to the detriment of the airline industry. On longer trips, you could simply sleep in your car’s fully reclining seats while it drives you, so roadside hotels and motels may face problems as well. And as TaaS scales up, the sales of auto manufacturers will drop; many may not survive.

That’s what disruptive technological change looks like. It happened before when cars replaced horses; now it’s happening again as electric vehicles with self-driving capabilities replace conventional cars and trucks.

Al Hammond was trained as a scientist (Stanford, Harvard) but became a distinguished science journalist, reporting for Science (a leading scientific journal) and many other technical and popular magazines and on a daily radio program for CBS. He subsequently founded and served as editor-in-chief for 4 national science-related publications as well as editor-in-chief for the United Nation’s bi-annual environmental report. More recently, he has written, edited, or contributed to many national assessments of scientific research for federal science agencies. Dr. Hammond makes his home in Chestertown on Maryland’s Eastern Shore.