Daniel+R

"If the richest, most powerful nation on Earth can't clean up this mess on the very doorstep of the nation's capital, what message do we send for the future of the planet?" (Horton)

Chesapeake Bay The Chesapeake Bay has been known for its fertile land, perfect for farming ever since it was “discovered” in the 1600s. Even back in the 1600s there was environmental degradation. These colonies were the tobacco raising colonies and they would farm the same plot of land until it could no longer produce any more tobacco and then they would move on to the next plot of land and deplete that of its resources and so on and so forth. Now, in the twenty first century, we have an even bigger problem. The actual Bay area is being destroyed at enormous levels. Nearly every possible form of destruction humans can cause to an environment is happening here. We are overfishing the Bay, polluting the Bay, our population is increasing around the bay, and destroying the Bay’s environment. All these things occurred for many reasons. We overfished the area because we wanted to make as much money as possible in the shortest time frame with no care in the world about how this would affect the environment. We polluted the area by farmers using fertilizers on their plants upstream. The nitrogen and phosphorus eventually ran off into the nearby rivers and streams and eventually got into the Bay and caused an algal bloom that eventually depleted the water of oxygen causing dead spots that in turn caused huge fish die offs. This only intensified the strain on the organisms’ population in the Bay. As our population grows, we need more and more supplies, be it food, timber, or water, so the fishermen would harvest more fish from the Bay and again straining the populations even more. We have also destroyed the Bay environment. We have filled the marshes that filtered nutrients and reduced silt runoff but now there is nothing there to stop the overflow of nutrients and silt from going into the Bay. The Chesapeake Bay isn’t being restored, it’s being rehabilitated. The state and local governments have set deadlines and quotas to reduce the degradation but so far, they have been way off of their goals. So the big wigs in government set another goal for 2025 but to make sure they reach the goals this time, they have set two-year milestones to monitor progress. There are many ways that we are trying to fix this problem. There is federal legislation that is removing hundreds of metric tons of phosphorus and nitrogen from the Bay area. Another way we are remedying the Bay is that we are now building better sewage systems to both reduce agriculture runoff and sewage leaks into the Bay.

Citations: Boesch, Donald. "Chesapeake Bay Cleanup." //Washington Post: Breaking News, World, US, DC News & Analysis//. 30 Sept. 2011. Web. 16 Jan. 2012. [].

Horton, Tom. "Chesapeake Bay." //National Geographic Magazine//. Web. 18 Jan. 2012. [].

2009, September. "Facing Facts in the Chesapeake Bay." //EWG Home | Environmental Working Group//. Web. 18 Jan. 2012. [].

"Water Quality Issues." //Chesapeake Bay Foundation//. Web. 18 Jan. 2012. [].

Dead zone



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CHapter 16 and 17 jeopardy

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