Report recommends further research to determine effects of “fracking” in Bay watershed

While research continues to shed light on the environmental effects of shale gas development, much more remains unknown about the risks that the process known as “fracking” could pose for the Chesapeake Bay watershed.

According to a report released this week by a panel of scientific experts, additional research and monitoring—on sediment loads, on forest cover, on the best management practices that might lessen fracking’s environmental impact and more—must be done to determine how hydraulic fracturing might affect land and water resources in the region.

Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons

Hydraulic fracturing is a process that works to extract natural gas and oil from beneath the earth’s surface. During the process, a mixture of water, sand and additives is pumped at high pressure into underground rock formations—in the watershed, this formation is known as the Marcellus Shale—breaking them apart to allow the gas and oil to flow into wells for collection.

The process can impact the environment in a number of ways. According to the report, installing shale gas wells requires clearing forests and building roads, which can impact bird and fish habitat and increase the erosion of sediment into local rivers and streams. Withdrawing water from area sources—an essential part of gas extraction, unless water is brought in from off-site—can alter aquatic habitat and river flow. And the drilling process may result in the accumulation of trace metals in stream sediment.

Read more about the environmental effects of shale gas development in the watershed.

Bay Barometer: Bay impaired, but signs of resilience abound

While the Chesapeake Bay Program’s latest look at watershed health reflects the reality of an impaired Bay, signs of the ecosystem’s resilience abound in the science-based snapshot the Program released today.

According to Bay Barometer: Spotlight on Health and Restoration in the Chesapeake Bay and its Watershed, water clarity and dissolved oxygen levels are low, a number of freshwater streams continue to be in poor condition and oyster populations remain at less than one percent of historic levels.

But even as these and other indicators of watershed health point to a stressed ecosystem, early information on how the Bay fared in 2012—from a summertime dead zone estimated to be smaller than normal to the boost in juvenile crabs entering the fishery—gives officials cause for optimism.

Recent restoration work and pollution cuts also offer signs of hope, although it will take time for such efforts to show visible improvements in water quality. The 240 miles of forest buffers that were planted alongside local waterways will stabilize shorelines, remove pollutants from runoff and provide much-needed shade to underwater habitat. The 150 miles of streams that were opened up to increase fish passage will allow migratory fish to reach their once-blocked spawning grounds. And the 15 new public access sites that were added to a list that includes over one thousand more will give watershed residents and visitors new opportunities to boat, fish, observe wildlife and connect with the Bay.

Bay Program partners also estimate that significant steps have been taken toward meeting the Bay’s “pollution diet,” as partners move 20 percent closer to their goal for reducing nitrogen, 19 percent closer to their goal for reducing phosphorous and 30 percent closer to their goal for reducing sediment.

“While we clearly have a lot of work to do, the Bay is resilient and we have reason for hope,” said Bay Program Director Nick DiPasquale. “We know this complex ecosystem will respond to restoration efforts and we expect to see encouraging results in 2012 data as it comes in over the course of the year.”

Learn more about Bay Barometer or read the full report.

Restoration Spotlight: Restaurants recycle oyster shells to bring bivalve back to Bay

On a winter morning in Annapolis, Md., a snow-covered truck pulls into the parking lot of a local seafood restaurant. A man in white boots and rubber gloves steps out of the cab, a metal door swings open behind the building and plastic trash cans full of oyster shells are exchanged between restaurant chef and shell recycler.

The trade is just one stop on a route that connects the 130 members of the Shell Recycling Alliance: a group of restaurants, caterers and seafood wholesalers that save their unneeded shells—some in five-gallon buckets, some in 14-gallon trash cans, some in 55-gallon wheeled bins—for pick up by Tommy Price.

Price is a Special Programs Specialist with the Oyster Recovery Partnership, a conservation group that has for two decades worked to restore oysters in the Chesapeake Bay. As a driver in the partnership’s fleet of trucks—which are complete with shell recycling logos and oyster-themed license plates—Price has watched the Shell Recycling Alliance grow, generating more than 1,000 tons of shell that are an integral piece in the oyster restoration puzzle.

Sent to an environmental research lab and oyster hatchery on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, the shells are cured, power-washed and put to work as settling material for the billions of oyster larvae that are planted to replenish reefs across the Bay.

Over the past two centuries, native oyster populations have experienced a dramatic decline as habitat loss, disease and historic over-harvesting have taken their toll. But by filtering water, forming aquatic reefs and feeding countless watershed residents, the bivalves have become an essential part of the Bay’s environment and economy.

It is this link between businesses and the Bay that inspired Boatyard Bar and Grill to sign on to the Shell Recycling Alliance.

“The Bay is a huge economic engine for this area,” said restaurant owner Dick Franyo. “Look at what we do here—it’s all about fishing, sailing, ‘Save the Bay.’ It’s where we come from. It’s what we think about.”

Franyo, who sits on the Chesapeake Bay Foundation’s board of trustees, has upheld a conservation ethic in much of what his restaurant does. It donates at least one percent of its annual revenue to environmental organizations; it composts all of its food waste; it recycles oyster shells alongside glass, metal and plastic; and it spreads the word about the restoration efforts that still need to be made.

All Shell Recycling Alliance members are given brochures, table tents and “Zagat”-style window stickers to use as tools of engagement, teaching customers and clientele about the importance of saving shell.

“Shell is a vital ingredient in oyster restoration,” said Stephan Abel, executive director of the Oyster Recovery Partnership. “It’s like flour in bread.”

Indeed, it has become such a valuable resource that a bill has been proposed that would give individuals and businesses a $1 tax credit for each bushel of shell recycled.

“The Bay, restoration and oysters—it’s all one story,” Abel said. And without oyster shells, the story would be incomplete.

About Catherine Krikstan - Catherine Krikstan is a web writer and social media specialist at the Chesapeake Bay Program. She began writing about the watershed as a reporter in Annapolis, Md., where she covered algae blooms and climate change and interviewed hog farmers and watermen. She lives in Silver Spring.

Chemical contaminants persist across Chesapeake Bay watershed

Chemical contaminants continue to afflict the Chesapeake Bay watershed, raising concern over water quality and the health of fish, wildlife and watershed residents.

Close to three-quarters of the Bay’s tidal waters are considered impaired by chemical contaminants, from the pesticides applied to farmland and lawns to repel weeds and insects to the household and personal-care products that enter the environment through our landfills and wastewater. But so-called “PCBs” and mercury are particularly problematic in the region, according to a report released last week by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS).

Both PCBs—short for “polychlorinated biphenyls”—and mercury are considered “widespread” in extent and severity, concentrating in sediment and in fish tissue and leading to fish-consumption advisories in a number of rivers and streams.

The District of Columbia, for instance, has issued such advisories for all of its water bodies, asking the public not to consume catfish, carp or eels, which are bottom-feeding fish that can accumulate chemicals in their bodies. While the District’s Anacostia and Potomac rivers raise the greatest concern in the watershed when it comes to fish tissue contamination, a November report confirmed that many Anacostia anglers are sharing and consuming potentially contaminated fish, sparking interest in reshaping public outreach to better address clean water, food security and human health in the area.

While PCBs have not been produced in the United States since a 1977 ban, the chemicals continue to enter the environment through accidental leaks, improper disposal and “legacy deposits”; mercury can find its way into the atmosphere through coal combustion, waste incineration and metal processing.

Exposure to both of these contaminants can affect the survival, growth and reproduction of fish and wildlife.

The Chesapeake Bay Program will use this report to consider whether reducing the input of toxic contaminants to the Bay should be one of its new goals.

Read more about the extent and severity of toxic contaminants in the Bay and its watershed.