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Monthly Reports

Fish Kills Continue

Ocean Sharks Endangered

Shark Fishing Banned

Fish Trap Prey

Shark Fishing Banned In Southern Ocean

A regional fisheries management group whose members include China, Japan, the United States and several European countries has imposed a moratorium on shark fishing in the Southern Ocean, which surrounds Antarctica. Environmentalists hailed the decision by the Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources as a preemptive move that could protect the population from overfishing. French officials proposed the moratorium amid concerns over widespread harvesting of shark fins as well as shark fishing in general. Some fishing companies seek out deepwater sharks for their rich liver oil, used mainly for pharmaceuticals. The sharks grow slowly and have a hard time rebounding if their stocks are depleted. Sonja Fordham, policy director for the Ocean Conservancy's shark program and another advocacy group, the Shark Alliance, called it "a landmark agreement in shark conservation" and said fisheries managers "must begin to err on the side of caution."

Fish Can Team Up to Trap Prey

Can fish cooperate as they hunt for food, with one species flushing out prey that another then captures and eats? This provocative possibility is raised by the unusual case of the grouper and the giant moray eel. The two live alongside each other in the Red Sea and, according to a study in the Public Library of Science/Biology, they sometimes act as a one-two punch as they hunt the coral reefs.

The moray eel hunts in the crevices of the reefs, since its long, thin body can slide into narrow spaces. The grouper hunts in open waters around the reef and can keep fleeing prey from escaping. The result is that the two together can flush and trap prey better than each could on its own. Using snorkels to follow the fish for up to three hours at a time, Redouan Bshary of the University of Neuchatel in Switzerland found that groupers and eels spent more time together than would be expected by chance and did appear to hunt together.

Bshary also found that groupers seemed to actively recruit moray eels through a curious head shake they made close to the eel's head, which resulted in the eel coming out of its crevice. Those previously unknown head shakes especially intrigued the researchers. "The simplest explanation," they wrote, "is that these signals indicate only the motivation of the grouper to engage in hunting, which then becomes positively associated with hunting success for the moray eels."

Warmer Seas Leave Fish Gasping

Warming oceans, one of the major consequences of global climate change, are making another marine species feel like a fish out of water, scientists report. Biologists have known for years that global warming is linked to declining fish stocks, but a new study of eelpouts-big-headed fish that resemble eels-is the first to go deeper and see how warmer seas are linked to how fishes take in oxygen. Scientists at the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in Germany studied the relationship between sea temperature and eelpouts counts in the Southern North Sea, combining data from the field with lab investigations of eelpout physiology.

The researchers not only found that the oxygen levels in the waters of the North and Baltic seas have dropped due to increasing temperatures over the past 50 years, a factor that reduces fish populations. They also found that eelpouts need more oxygen in warmer waters, a second factor that is reducing their numbers. Difficulty in taking up oxygen via respiration and blood circulation, caused by the warming waters, proved to be the key factor in diminishing the size of the fish stock. The study, published in the Jan. 5 issue of the journal Science, also noted that the population of eelpouts dropped as average summer temperatures increased.

The impact was also observed in the short term such that eelpout numbers decreased the year immediately after a warm summer. Animals tolerate a limited range of environmental conditions. Anything out of their tolerance window can cause damage. Fish in the North Sea have evolved to tolerate a wider range of temperatures than fish elsewhere due to the large seasonal fluctuations there. However, warming waters and their impact on oxygen supply can stress fish to the point that their thermal tolerance range is thrown off and they perish, the scientists said. In the future, eelpouts could prove to be important bioindicators that would help experts assess what might happen to other marine species in the region, the scientists said. Worldwide, warming waters can be expected to strain species that require lots of oxygen, forcing them to either relocate to cooler waters or face extinction, the authors write.

Trout Threatened by Global Warming

ROANOKE, Va. (AP) - Researchers warn that if current climate projections hold true, warmer temperatures could mean fewer trout in Virginia's 2,300 miles of wild trout streams. *And one model indicates rising temperatures could take 97 percent of the trout habitat in the southern Appalachians by 2100. "A warmer climate. That doesn't sound so bad," said Patricia Flebbe, a researcher with the U.S. Forest Service's Southern Research Station in Blacksburg. "And 2 or 3 degrees doesn't sound like much. It might mean it won't be so cold in the winter. Or I might run my air conditioner more."

Trout can't survive water temperatures above 76 degrees for very long and suffer when temperatures are 72 degrees over a long period, said Nathaniel Gillespie, a fisheries scientist with the conservation organization Trout Unlimited. "Trout are a cold-water fish," he said. "That's just the way they're designed." Average air temperature in the U.S. has increased 0.6 degrees Celsius in the past 100 years. Estimates of the increase by 2100 range from 3 degrees to 5.5 degrees Celsius. And wild trout populations will virtually disappear from Virginia if temperatures increase 4.5 degrees Celsius, according to Flebbe's study published in the journal Transactions of the American Fisheries Society.

There are other factors that also can have an impact on the trout population in Virginia, which has more streams than all of the eastern United States combined. A recent brook trout study shows the most immediate threats to the native fish are agricultural land management, urbanization and introduced species _ brown and rainbow trout, Gillespie said. All wild trout are threatened by changing land use and rising temperatures.

"The analysis doesn't take into account any type of mitigation that people might do," Flebbe said. "Not so much to try to fix it, but work to provide the fishing experience." For instance, more streams may be stocked with trout. And while Virginia already puts 1.25 million trout raised in five hatcheries into streams and lakes each year, those trout won't support populations year-round because the fish will only survive long enough for people to catch them.

"Stocked trout are just for people's enjoyment," said Gillespie. Wild trout are different, he said. "They're part of the food chain and part of the ecosystem."

Plankton's Influence on Clouds

Phytoplankton, microscopic plants that live in the ocean in vast quantities, may play a role in cloud formation, which in turn may have an effect on how much sunlight reaches and warms Earth's surface, a surprising study has found. Researchers from the Georgia Institute of Technology and North Carolina State University discovered the link between clouds and the biosphere as they were examining increases in cloud cover over part of the Southern Ocean that encircles Antarctica.

Using satellite observations, they found that the increased cloudiness coincided with a large phytoplankton bloom. The scientists theorize that oxidation of the chemical isoprene, which phytoplankton emit, produced airborne particles that helped double concentrations of cloud droplets in the region. The team calculated that the increased cloudiness reduced the absorption of sunlight by the same amount that has been observed in the more polluted areas of Earth.

The researchers, who reported their findings in the Nov. 2 online edition of the journal Science, suggest the study could point toward new ways to curb global warming. "Studies like this one may help reshape the way we think about how the biosphere interacts with clouds and climate," said Georgia Tech assistant professor Athanasios Nenes, who co-authored the paper. "We can now see very strongly the influence of marine biology on oceanic clouds."

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CHESAPEAKE BAY

A Revitalized Chesapeake May Be Decades Away

EPA Official Warns of Slow Progress Toward 2010 Goals

The multibillion-dollar cleanup of the Chesapeake Bay, which government officials had pledged would succeed by 2010, will likely miss that deadline by a wide margin -- and, at the current pace, might drag on for decades more, an Environmental Protection Agency official acknowledged yesterday. Rich Batiuk, an associate director of the EPA's Chesapeake Bay Program, made that projection at a meeting of the Chesapeake Bay Commission, an advisory group that includes state officials from Maryland, Virginia and Pennsylvania.

His talk was a blunt, and public, admission of something that the EPA had conceded in an agency report last year. A pledge to "save the bay," made six years ago in the so-called Chesapeake 2000 Agreement, is falling drastically short. "If we go at the current rate that we're doing, we're talking about restoring the Chesapeake decades from now, a generation or two," Batiuk said. The news means a continued struggle for one of this area's most cherished bodies of water, one that Washingtonians turn to for seafood, sailing, recreational fishing and weekend scenery. It is also bad news for such Chesapeake tributaries as the Potomac River, where the pollution and runoff bring mud, algae blooms and dangerous chemicals on the way to the bay.

Batiuk's assessment was not news to many environmentalists, who have said for years that roads and suburbs in the watershed were growing too fast and that cleanup efforts at farms and sewage plants were moving too slowly for the deadline to be met. Some of them said yesterday that they were heartened that the EPA was admitting the shortfall but wished the acknowledgment had come sooner. "Duh," said Roy Hoagland, a vice president of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, after hearing Batiuk's talk in Annapolis. "We've been arguing for at least four years that in order to reach those goals, they need to accelerate implementation [of cleanup efforts]. . . . That is not new information."

Bay cleanup has a history of broken deadlines. In 1987, local and federal officials pledged to clean up the estuary by 2000. The current agreement, written after the first one failed, was signed by the governors of Maryland, Virginia and Pennsylvania, the mayor of Washington and the administrator of the EPA. The officials pledged to make enormous improvements in everything from low-oxygen "dead zones" to underwater grasses to oyster populations. *In the 6 1/2 years since, Batiuk said, there have been notable successes: The northern bay has seen a huge regrowth of the grasses, which provide oxygen and shelter for aquatic life. Changes at sewage plants around the watershed have reduced their output of nitrogen and phosphorus, two pollutants linked to dead zones downstream.

But the overall picture, Batiuk said, shows a cleanup effort that is far off the pace set out in 2000. Crab populations are still below historic levels. The amount of oxygen, which fish and crabs need to live, is just 29 percent of the goal set for 2010, he said. The bay's native oysters are at just 7 percent. Even underwater grasses, which are doing slightly better than other indicators, stand at just 42 percent of the level they're supposed to reach by 2010. "If you draw that line out there," Batiuk said, pointing to the slow upward trend in their population, "you're at about 2040 for the grasses to come back."

One major reason for the shortfall, Batiuk said, was rapid population growth in the bay's watershed, which stretches 64,000 square miles from southern Virginia to Cooperstown, N.Y. An additional 800,000 people moved in between 2000 and 2005, bringing more neighborhoods, more cars, more lawns -- all sources of bay pollutants -- and canceling out improvements, he said. But environmentalists have also blamed local governments, and the bay program itself, for not being more aggressive.

They have said the past six years have been consumed by research efforts and voluntary pollution-reduction programs, when new laws or stringent enforcement might have accomplished more. One advocate of a more confrontational approach was sworn in as Maryland's attorney general Tuesday: Douglas F. Gansler (D), who has pledged an "all-out assault" on bay polluters. The Chesapeake Bay Foundation has also pushed the Maryland legislature to do more in the new session, calling for a "green fund" of up to $50 million a year for pollution-reduction projects.

Batiuk's talk yesterday reflects a serious shift in rhetoric for the EPA's bay program. For years, program officials had maintained that the 2010 goal was still within reach. But last year, bay program Associate Director Mike Burke said, officials were asked to submit goals for an EPA-wide strategic plan. Employees would be evaluated on their progress toward the goals, Burke said.

If the 2010 deadline is not met, officials said, state governments could be made to compile a "pollution budget" for the bay, listing what is coming downstream now, where it comes from and by how much it needs to be reduced. In the meantime, a new Chesapeake agreement, with another deadline, could also be worked out.

But the past two decades have soured some people on agreements. Bernie Fowler, a former Maryland state senator who has been an outspoken voice for the Patuxent River and the bay, said he was tired of people making promises that the bay would be fixed soon. "A lot of those very people have left the planet and haven't seen it done," said Fowler, who is 82. "I don't want that to happen to me."

Health of Chesapeake Bay Declines, CFB Finds

ANNAPOLIS, Md. - The health of the Chesapeake Bay is worse than last year because of the failure of state and federal governments to stop the flow of nitrogen and phosphorus pollution, a bay watchdog group said in a report. In its sixth annual "State of the Bay" report, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation gave the estuary a score of 27 out of 100 possible points, down one point from the 2002 rating. Foundation President William C. Baker blamed the bay's ailing health on state and federal governments, which he said aren't living up to their agreement to help restore the bay by 2010.

If the agreement was fully implemented, the bay's health rating would be 40, the foundation said. The governments have yet to "implement any decisive actions that will, in fact, begin to reduce nitrogen and phosphorus pollution, the prime cause of the bay's illness," Baker said in a news release. The rating is the average of scores given in 13 categories focusing on habitats, pollution levels and fisheries such as blue crab and rockfish. The group said the decline was the result of increased nitrogen and phosphorus pollution, which comes from sewage-treatment plants, agriculture, and neighborhoods and cities. The private foundation's scientists said they did see a few improvements - including more forest buffer restoration and a boost in the population of shad.

The bay foundation changed its baseline score for underwater grasses, after receiving new information that historic levels of the grasses were lower than previously thought. The foundation then revised the scores it gave the bay's health in previous years, raising last year's rating to 28 instead of 27. According to the Chesapeake Bay Foundation's report, the excess rain the area received in 2003 was both a good news/bad news situation. It was good for water tables, but bad news for the bay.

During the summer, the bay's "dead zone" was among the largest in the 20 years, with numerous fish kills, red tides and harmful algal blooms. "Dead zones" are devoid of oxygen, which is critical for the survival of fish and shellfish, such as crabs and oysters. Scientists say low levels of oxygen can kill them or drive them away. Researchers blame low levels primarily on nutrient runoff, which causes algae blooms that deplete the water's oxygen supply. For the first time, that zone extended farther into the waters of Virginia, a CBF official said during Bay Appreciation Days at Sandy Point Park two weeks ago.

Bay Water Efforts Faulted Few Plants Fight Nutrient Pollution, Study Says

Only 10 of the more than 300 wastewater treatment facilities in the Chesapeake Bay watershed use state-of-the-art technologies that are vital to improving the bay's water quality, according to a study by the Chesapeake Bay Foundation. The analysis found that more than two-thirds of the plants do not use any technologies to remove high levels of nutrient pollution from their waste streams. States do not regulate excess nitrogen, the top source of pollution ailing the estuary.

Report Finds Bay Restoration in Peril

A new report finds that Chesapeake Bay restoration efforts are at risk of failure without bold, new investments. The Chesapeake Bay Blue Ribbon Finance Panel report, Saving a National Treasure: Financing the Cleanup of the Chesapeake Bay, calls for the commitment of $15 billion in state and federal funds to reduce pollution, and the creation of a new Chesapeake Bay Financing Authority to manage restoration funding.

"The Bay will not be saved unless funding of this magnitude is provided, and pollution control laws are vigorously enforced," said Chesapeake Bay Foundation (CBF) President William C. Baker, a member of the panel. "Without the funds and the enforcement, it will be impossible to meet the court ordered deadline for Bay restoration." As part of a consent decree in a court case calling for full enforcement of the Clean Water Act, the major Bay watershed jurisdictions committed to reducing pollution sufficiently to remove the Chesapeake Bay from the federal Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) "Dirty Waters List" by 2010.

The states and federal government signed the Chesapeake 2000 Agreement committing to take action, but with only six years left to achieve that goal there has been little improvement in water quality. "The Chesapeake Bay is a national treasure, and its present condition a tragedy," Baker said. "Business as usual will not get the job done. When the Bay Program's Executive Council meets in December, it must not only endorse the new financing authority, but also bring forward a binding plan, with timetables to implement the Chesapeake 2000 Agreement." The Chesapeake Bay Program's Executive Council (EC) is made up of the governors of Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia, the mayor of Washington D.C., the administrator of the EPA, and the chairman of the Chesapeake Bay Commission.

The EC appointed the 15-member Chesapeake Bay Blue Ribbon Finance Panel, which developed the report and is made up of business leaders, financial and economic experts, government officials and regional leaders. The panel has been working for the last seven months to develop innovative solutions to find funding for the multi-billion dollar restoration effort.

No Chesapeake Bailout In President's Budget

Programs Cut, $1 Billion Request Denied

For the past year, politicians and environmentalists in the Chesapeake Bay watershed have looked to the Bush administration as an unlikely white knight. Specifically, they hoped the federal government would contribute as much as $1 billion to jump-start the bay restoration program, a creaking, 22-year-old bureaucracy that environmentalists say has made only slow progress. They got their answer last month, with the release of the president's proposed 2006 budget. The budget, which included belt-tightening across the government, contained no billion-dollar windfall for the Chesapeake and, in fact, cut some bay-related programs. It left many around the bay with hopes dashed -- or at least delayed. "It's a disappointment," Virginia Gov. Mark R. Warner (D) said in a telephone interview yesterday. "This is a national treasure. It's one that needs a strong federal partnership."

The idea of a federal bailout for the Chesapeake Bay had picked up steam this year as local officials and environmentalists became increasingly disenchanted with the partnership running the cleanup efforts. Founded in the early 1980s, it includes Maryland, Virginia, the District, Pennsylvania and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Some environmentalists say the cleanup has been hampered by marathon planning sessions, while the bay's problems with pollution and oxygen-consuming algae blooms have not improved significantly. To break this logjam, state officials and area members of Congress asked Bush to designate the bay a "National Treasure" through executive order -- and to commit $1 billion to the bay in fiscal 2006, which begins in October.

Around the same time, a group of U.S. House members made a less staggering, but still large, request. They asked for $130 million in new money for the bay, including $50 million to clean up sewage plants and $75 million to cut down on pollution from farms. How much of this new funding showed up in the 2006 budget? "As far as we can tell, zero," said Peter Marx, a senior fellow at the Northeast-Midwest Institute in Washington, who assisted the House members with their request. Officials said it was difficult to determine exactly how much money was earmarked for the bay in the massive budget proposal or to know if it had gone up or down overall.

The EPA's budget for Chesapeake-related programs was cut, from about $22.8 million in fiscal 2005 to $20.8 million in the president's request. Other reductions involved the EPA's state revolving loan program, which lends money to pay for fixing up sewage plants and other water-quality projects. Benjamin H. Grumbles, the EPA's assistant administrator for water, said the president's budget showed there was continued support for the bay, even in tight fiscal times. "There's a slight cut," he said. "But there's also a strong commitment toward restoring the Chesapeake."

But to many environmentalists, the message was clear. "It's time to move on to Plan B," said J. Charles Fox, former head of the Maryland Department of Natural Resources. "This should literally shut down any debate about whether the federal government is going to solve these problems." The problem is, there's not much of a Plan B for the Chesapeake. Some environmentalists would like to see the cooperative approach tossed overboard in favor of a regulatory crackdown on polluters. But that would mean a huge bureaucratic overhaul. So, instead, many seem determined to proceed with Plan A, hoping that Congress will be more generous toward the bay than the White House was. "We'll work at it, certainly," said Sen. Paul S. Sarbanes (D-Md.). "But, you know, we're not in the majority. His [Bush's] troops, they set the parameters." For his part, Warner said he and Maryland Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R) were planning to visit Capitol Hill soon in support of an even larger request. They want the federal government to kick in $12 billion over the next five years to fund the Chesapeake cleanup, with the states in the bay watershed contributing a combined $3 billion.

CBF and Partners Seek to Reduce Pollution From Power Plants

CBF Staff Bill would help protect Bay from effects of air pollution To reduce pollution of the Chesapeake Bay, CBF and other environmental partners will be looking for your help to pass legislation to reduce air pollution. Approximately one-third of the nitrogen entering the Bay comes from air pollution, with coal-fired power plants the largest source, yet only one power plant in Maryland is using available technology to reduce nitrogen pollution. Nitrogen pollution from power plants contributes to widespread dead zones and harmful algal blooms in the Chesapeake Bay and its tidal rivers. Last year, the Bay's dead zone-an area of water with too little oxygen to support a healthy ecosystem-covered 35% of the main stem of the Bay.

The proposed legislation, called the "4P" (four pollutant) bill, requires significant reductions in nitrogen oxides, mercury, sulfur dioxide and carbon dioxide emissions from Maryland's coal-fired power plants. The bill's passage will dramatically reduce pollution and help protect human health, as well as water quality in local rivers and the Bay. Each year, the power plants in Maryland release an astounding 133 million pounds of nitrogen and 3,200 pounds of mercury, in addition to 492 million pounds of sulfur dioxide (a major cause of acid rain) and 24 million tons of carbon dioxide (the main global warming gas). Coal-fired power plants are the largest source of mercury, emitting more than 50% of the mercury released into the air in Maryland, but not one plant uses available technology to control mercury emissions.

Mercury deposited in the watershed has resulted in numerous statewide fish consumption advisories due to mercury pollution, including a recommendation that women eat only one meal per month or less of rockfish caught in the Bay. Pollution from power plants also adds to the unhealthy air quality in our cities. The Baltimore and Washington metropolitan areas have among the worst air quality in the country, failing to meet EPA's air quality standards for ozone. Nitrogen oxides produced by power plants are a major component of ozone smog, a cause of asthma attacks and respiratory illnesses. The "4P" bill is similar to legislation passed in Massachusetts and New Hampshire, and CBF will work with the Maryland Public Interest Research Group, the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, and other partners to urge lawmakers to act now to reduce air pollution.

 

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Accumulating River Sludge Threatens Bay

Just upstream from Conowingo Village, Md., piled up for miles along the Susquehanna River bottom, is 200 million tons of environmental conundrum. It's muck, for lack of a better word: dirt, coal dust and particles of manure brought down by the Susquehanna and trapped behind the massive Conowingo Dam. The muck has been building up here for more than 75 years, stopped just at the doorstep of the Chesapeake Bay. Now, the gargantuan muck pile has become a hot topic among scientists trying to fix the bay. They worry that in the next two decades, it could fill all the space behind the dam, forcing any new sediment -- and the pollutants it contains -- straight through to the bay.

Floods and hurricanes could exacerbate the problem, dumping huge amounts of sludge over the dam in a single stroke. Many scientists have concluded that it would be better for the bay's fragile ecosystem if the muck was gone. But all their efforts keep coming back to the same problem: There's enough crud to fill the MCI Center 219 times. "What do you do with it?" asked Jean Kapusnick, a civil engineer with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which handles dredging at harbors nationwide. The Conowingo, which generates hydroelectric power, is one of three major dams on the lower Susquehanna.

The blockages have their environmental sins -- they hinder the migration of fish, for one -- but they do one thing that has made them some of the bay's best friends. They catch dirt. This happens because the dams cause the river to slow down and pool. As the current slackens, scientists say, much of the dirt in the water settles out. In all, scientists estimate, at least 55 percent of the Susquehanna's sediment is trapped in this way before it can make it to the Chesapeake.

But at some point, the buildup becomes a problem. Once the space behind the dam is filled, new material will get pushed through the dam's turbines or floodgates and head downstream. "What comes down is going to go over, basically," said Mike Langland, a hydrologist with the U.S. Geological Survey. If that happens at the Conowingo Dam, scientists say large increases in two key pollutants would flow down the Susquehanna to the bay. The amount of dirt, which could bury oyster beds and block out sunlight needed by underwater grasses, could double. And the levels of phosphorus, which feeds algae blooms that deplete the bay's oxygen, could go up by perhaps 70 percent, according to scientific estimates.

The first Susquehanna dam to hit its capacity was Holtwood, in Pennsylvania. It was built in 1910 and by 1920 could hold no more dirt. The next to fill was the Safe Harbor Dam, also in Pennsylvania, which reached capacity 19 years after it was built in 1931. The two dams still perform their primary function -- producing electricity -- but no longer catch sediment flowing downstream. Now, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, the only barrier left is the Conowingo, which was built in 1928 just about eight miles north of the Chesapeake. "It's now shifted," Langland said. "Conowingo is taking the hit." And what a hit: Langland estimates that about 1.6 million tons of sediment are deposited in the Conowingo reservoir every year. That includes manure-laden soil from Lancaster County, Pa., old coal from mines near Scranton, and mud from eroding stream banks as far away as western New York.

It's difficult to see this muck from the surface -- especially in winter, when the river is coated in ice. But the scientists who have scooped it up from the bottom say it is not a pretty sight. For one thing, the decay of plant and animal matter turns it black and gives it a sulfur odor. For another, it's so waterlogged and gooey at its topmost layer that it resembles rotten mayonnaise.

"It's an organic ooze," said Richard I. McLean, a scientist at the Maryland Department of Natural Resources who has taken samples of the sludge. Farther down, scientists say, the muck becomes darker and more dense. That's where things really get gross. "You go from mayonnaise to pudding," McLean said. "Then you get the hard clays, and then you get about, like, hockey puck material." Some people, including McLean, think that the muck is not such a big deal. He reasons that the Conowingo will never actually be filled, because hurricanes and floods are always scouring big chunks of the stored-up mud and creating new storage room.

But many other scientists are worried. By their calculations, the dam could fill with dirt in 20 to 30 years, and any new sediment would flow into the bay. For now, no one is sure how big an environmental problem that would be, because natural currents might keep many problems north of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge. Still, most scientists agree: "More isn't going to be better," said Thomas W. Beauduy of the Susquehanna River Basin Commission, a council of regional governments. One answer to the worries about the muck would be to dredge the river, creating new storage room behind the dam. But even officials at the Army Corps of Engineers are leery of this task.

They ask: How many train cars would be required to haul that much muck away? And, most important, where would they put it? "These are the questions we never got to," said Daniel Bierly, a section chief in the Corps' Baltimore District. That's because the Corps has not been able to find anyone to pay for a feasibility study -- even in the study-laden culture of the Chesapeake Bay bureaucracy. "The problem is that it takes millions of dollars just to do the feasibility study," Beauduy said. "And the results of that study may be that it's not feasible." Perhaps the best way to gauge the difficulty of such a project is to look at the dredging behind the Embrey Dam -- a smaller blockage on the Rappahannock River in Fredericksburg.

Before the Virginia dam was blown up last February, the Corps paid to dredge a lot of the accumulated muck. It took six months of near-constant work, and $3.1 million dollars, according to the Corps. The Conowingo Dam's muck pile is more than 900 times larger. With the dredging idea on hold, scientists have been forced to turn to a more long-term fix: reducing the amount of pollution that's coming down the Susquehanna in the first place. That would require reducing runoff from hundreds of sewage plants and thousands of farms, across a huge watershed stretching from Pennsylvania's Amish country to Cooperstown, N.Y. Until that happens, the Conowingo muck will be a nagging worry for scientists downstream. "I would say it's at a low boil, but it's constant," said Kim Coble, Maryland executive director of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation. "Every day that the sediment load gets bigger, it's a concern."

Advocates For Bay To Sue The EPA

Foot-Dragging On Cleanup Alleged

The Chesapeake Bay Foundation will file a lawsuit against the Environmental Protection Agency today, signaling a more aggressive strategy for a group that has grown increasingly frustrated over the slow progress in cleaning up the bay. The lawsuit, a copy of which was released yesterday, accuses the federal agency of dragging its feet as sewage plants across the region pollute the bay's waters. Specifically, the suit asks that the EPA respond formally to the bay foundation petition submitted in December seeking limits on the amount of nitrogen released from such plants. "Our only recourse is to litigate," said William C. Baker, the bay foundation's president. "We've tried . . . to give EPA a chance to fulfill its promises."

The suit is one of several recent legal steps initiated by environmental groups, which traditionally have relied on consensus, rather than confrontation, with government agencies in the effort to clean up the bay. The foundation already is suing Virginia over what it believes were lax pollution permits issued for a sewage plant in Onancock and a Philip Morris industrial plant. And Maryland watermen are considering a class-action lawsuit against polluters, including sewage treatment plants and manufacturers that dump into the bay's watershed. The key issue in the legal action to be filed is nitrogen, which along with phosphorus serves as food for huge algae blooms in the bay. Scientists blame these algae for creating "bad water" where fish and crabs cannot breathe. For those trying to clean the bay, the problem is that nitrogen comes from everywhere, including from animal manure that washes off farm fields and from leaky septic systems.

The more than 350 sewage plants in the Chesapeake Bay watershed account for about 21 percent of its nitrogen, according to the EPA. In its petition filed in December, the bay foundation noted that almost none of those sewage plants had permits that limited nitrogen pollution and asked the EPA to remedy that. EPA regulators responded with a draft proposal that eventually would impose such permits on most of the plants. That plan, if authorized by EPA leaders, could be implemented by spring, agency officials said yesterday. "There's no disagreement with the bay foundation that this is a necessary next step," said Jon Capacasa, an official at the EPA regional office that oversees the bay. But the federal agency has not provided a formal answer to the bay foundation's demands, and Baker said the draft proposal contains "weasel words" that might allow the EPA to back out of key provisions. So the bay foundation decided to go to court, asking a federal judge in the District to speed up the EPA's formal response.

Baker said that environmentalists are frustrated that the bay has made so little progress in the three decades since the cleanup began, and particularly in the four years since the signing of the landmark Chesapeake 2000 agreement. That agreement -- signed by the EPA, the D.C. mayor and the governors of Maryland, Virginia and Pennsylvania -- set a goal of removing the Chesapeake from the national "impaired waters" list by 2010. With nearly half the time gone, most of the efforts are still in the planning stages, and Baker said his organization has lost patience with the EPA. "We think that 4 1/2 years is enough time to determine that they are not interested" in moving more quickly, he said. Still, some observers, including Bill Matuszeski, who formerly oversaw the EPA's Chesapeake cleanup effort, worry that lawsuits might bog down the process further. "Tying this whole issue up in court isn't going to move it forward at all," he said.

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POTOMAC RIVER

Rock Creek Park Fish Threatened

The USGS has released a report on the chemical and ecological health of Rock Creek in Washington, D.C. The report documents the results of a two-year study of chemical contaminants in the sediments and the health implication of these chemicals to white sucker, a common bottom-dwelling fish that lives in the stream. Hazardous chemicals were found in the sediments of Rock Creek at levels that sometimes exceeded guidelines for the protection of aquatic animals. These chemicals included insecticides, heavy metals such as lead, mercury, and chromium, polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), and PCBs.

The USGS scientists determined that some of the hazardous chemicals present in the stream and bed sediments also were found in white sucker. Negative health impacts on the fish included a variety of microscopic lesions, parasites, and abnormal development in the gills, liver, kidneys and gonads of the fish. In one year of the study, male gonads were less developed and typical spawning behavior was not observed, but no direct connection was made between chemicals in the fish and spawning success. Health effects in this species of fish in Rock Creek were significant, but were not as severe as those found in more urbanized streams in the region, such as the Anacostia River.

No direct cause and effect was determined for chemical exposure and compromised fish health. But a substantial weight of evidence indicates that these white sucker which are bottom feeding fish and low-order consumers in Rock Creek are experiencing some reduction in health. White sucker are not a common food fish for people. Scientists took sediment and fish samples at Peirce Mill in Rock Creek Park in the District of Columbia. The study was a joint effort by USGS scientists from the Maryland Water Science Center, Patuxent Wildlife Research Center, and National Fish Health Research Laboratory, and was supported by the National Park Service, and the D.C. Department of Health.

Snakeheads Appear at Home in the Potomac

The northern snakehead fish seems to be expanding its territory in the Potomac River, government researchers say, after a year in which the toothy Asian transplant has appeared in new places and at higher concentrations across the area. In the third year that the fish has been studied in the Potomac, scientists are starting to build a portrait of the snakehead at home in the area.

Some of the most frightening concerns have been dispelled: The fish turn out to be well-nigh helpless on land (early reports said the snakehead could wriggle short distances out of water), and the creatures haven't gobbled up or driven out the Potomac's famous bass. But worries remain, because the snakeheads are reproducing rapidly and starting to push outward.

"It looks like they're becoming pretty solidly entrenched, as far as establishing that beachhead here in the Potomac," said Steve Minkkinen of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Over the past year, the snakeheads have spread out and become endemic in about 15 miles of the Potomac and some of its tributaries south of Washington from a home base of two creeks in Virginia, he said. That has switched scientists' focus from eradication to coexistence. "As much as we can, we're just trying to collect information," Minkkinen said.

The story of snakeheads in the Potomac may have begun as early as 1998 or perhaps as late as 2002. The key event, scientists believe, was when a male and female were dumped into the water and found each other in Fairfax County's Dogue Creek. Since then, that stream, along with nearby Little Hunting Creek, has become the epicenter of the Potomac's snakehead population, scientists say. Now, the two creeks are also the area's premier snakehead laboratory, as researchers seek to understand the life the fish have created in an alien home. One obvious conclusion: Snakeheads are thriving.

Virginia state scientists who use electric current to stun and capture fish in these creeks used to catch one snakehead every five hours. In 2006, they got 6.9 fish an hour, nearly 35 times more. But the snakeheads don't appear to have had a serious impact on the river's largemouth or smallmouth bass, which are also top predators in the river. Scientists say they believe this might be because the snakeheads prefer shallower water or different prey. "A bass is probably more likely to eat one of them" than a snakehead eat a bass, said longtime guide Ken Penrod, who said he hadn't seen any change in the bass fishing. "It's a lot about nothing, I think."

But scientists say they still have a lot to learn. They're unsure how the snakeheads nest, for instance. In their native habitat, they are said to clear out a "doughnut hole" in a thicket of underwater vegetation and lay their eggs there. But this year, a Virginia biologist spotted a cloud of 500-plus snakehead babies -- orange and black, with a minuscule version of the distinctive snakehead mouth -- swirling in Little Hunting Creek. It was a nest, but there was no doughnut hole. "The fish aren't behaving here the way they might be expected to behave in Asia," said John Odenkirk, a snakehead expert and a biologist with the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries. Researchers are similarly confused about whether the river's snakeheads migrate.

In 2005, Dogue Creek was suddenly full of hundreds of fish heading upstream, so thick that fishermen snatched out at least 80. This may have been a freak event caused by a large rainfall -- or it may have been the first running of an annual ritual. Researchers are keeping watch to see what happens this year. What little scientists do know about the snakehead's habits was gathered this spring, when Odenkirk inserted small tracking devices into the body cavities of 20 fish. He found them to be mainly homebodies, lurking in the same weedy and shallow spots week after week.

But some strayed farther afield: Fish No. 1204 crossed the deep midsection of the Potomac to visit Maryland's Piscataway Creek. Fish 1301 disappeared completely, meaning that it was perhaps speared by a heron, caught by an angler or just moved so far away that Odenkirk can't get the signal. "It tells me that some obviously are bucking the trend and being a little more adventurous and crossing the main-stem Potomac," Odenkirk said.

The 2006 year's catch of snakeheads has made it clear how widespread the fish have become. In Maryland, the fish have been found across an unprecedented swath of creeks in Prince George's and Charles counties. On the Virginia side, snakeheads have moved north from their epicenter to a creek near Belle Haven Marina in the Alexandria section of Fairfax. To the south, Odenkirk said, their numbers have increased substantially in the Occoquan River basin, on the border between Prince William and Fairfax counties.

They've also appeared in another place puzzlingly far afield: Kenilworth Park and Aquatic Gardens in the District. In the late spring, more than 500 baby snakeheads and a handful of larger adults were found in ponds there, having eaten almost every other fish in the water. D.C. officials think that this may be a separate population of snakeheads, descended from fish dumped directly in the aquatic gardens. But because the ponds share connections with the Anacostia River, there's some chance the D.C. snakeheads might be adventurous specimens from the Potomac. For all that's known about the snakeheads' expanding reach, much more is still in question. Odenkirk and two assistants set out on the Occoquan in a shallow boat with a spindly metal claw dangling from its front. They were electro-fishing. After a few minutes in Massey Creek, a tributary of the Occoquan, a mottled green shape thrashed in the water. Nick Lapointe, a Virginia Tech graduate student, scooped a long net, bringing up a roughly seven-inch snakehead. "Yeah, baby!" Odenkirk exulted. "I saw those speckles, and I knew exactly what he was," Lapointe said. "Beady little eyes," said Ryan Saylor, a technician. In the spring, Odenkirk's team had not found any snakeheads in this inlet. But Wednesday, they found two, which he said were probably siblings born in the creek last year. So if two were caught, how many more could there be here? "Hundreds?" Odenkirk speculated. He looked back at an acres-wide expanse of snakehead-friendly shallow water and thick grasses. "I mean, you look behind us, they've got all that habitat. They could be anywhere."

Intersex Fish Are Found in Potomac

Intersex fish have been found in the Potomac River in Washington, D.C., where scientists have discovered immature eggs in the sex organs of male smallmouth and largemouth bass. "It indicates a problem we need to be concerned about," says Vicki Blazer, the fish pathologist at the U.S. Geological Survey, who has studied the problem since 2003, after a large fish kill in the south branch of the Potomac.

Blazer first noticed the intersex abnormality in 2004. "We need to try to figure out what's going on." But so far, scientists have not been unable to pinpoint exactly what contaminants have caused this abnormality. And since the health of a fish indicates the health of the water, environmentalists have asked if the contaminants affecting the fish pose any danger to the millions of people whose tap water comes from the Potomac. "We know pollution is in the water," says Ed Merrifield, executive director of the Potomac Riverkeeper, an environmental group. "All water runs downhill. If they can't tell us what the problem is, how can they tell us it's not in our water? There may be a danger."

So far, Washington's water utilities say they've found no evidence that tap water taken from the Potomac is unsafe. "There is no indication we have any public health concerns with our finished water," says Charles Murray, the general manger of the Fairfax County Water Authority, which depends on the Potomac River as the water source for half of its 1.4 million northern Virginia customers. Murray is confident that the barriers and water treatment systems in place can remove a broad range of compounds. "We'd like to know more, but at this point are we concerned that what we have in place is not protecting the public health? No."

The first intersex fish in the area were found three years ago in a West Virginia stream, 200 miles upstream from Washington. After that unusual discovery, scientists set up testing sites all around the region. According to Blazer, last month's testing at three tributaries that empty into the Potomac found that more than 80 percent of all male smallmouth bass were growing eggs. "It was certainly surprising," she says. "The south branch of the Potomac is in the rural areas of West Virginia.

We tend to think of environmental problems only in urban areas." The intersex abnormality does not change a fish's appearance. It can be detected only under a microscope. And while Blazer says she cannot say definitively what is causing the fish to possess both male and female characteristics, she believes the results suggest that the abnormalities stem from "endocrine disrupters" - which act as a kind of "short" in hormone systems - in the Potomac River and its tributaries. Over the last decade, environmentalists have raised concerns over pollutants that mimic hormones; they've caused mutations in several animals, including alligators, polar bears and frogs.

Ten years ago, scientists discovered frogs with extra legs, and males with ovaries. Blazer believes the intersex abnormality cannot be blamed on just one pollutant but on several pollutants acting together. "Many of the chemicals we're finding [that cause this mutation] are something we all use," she says. "They're not just chemicals used by big industry. They're pharmaceuticals, beauty products that everyone uses and discards. They're pesticides and herbicides used in yards." In 1996, Congress passed the Food Quality Protection Act, which requires the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to test pesticides and chemicals for their potential to act as endocrine disrupters. But developing the tests was "technically challenging," says Clifford Gabriel, director of the EPA's Office of Science Coordination Policy.

Ten years later, the EPA still hasn't tested any chemical. "It's not a straightforward process," says Gabriel. The agency wants to "make sure we have appropriate tests to make sure we are picking up on possible endocrine disruption." The EPA expects to be ready with the first tests of potential endocrine disrupters by the end of 2007. Endocrine disupters are nothing new to water utilities, which have banded together to try to advance the science and learn more about this far-reaching problem. The four water utilities that depend on the Potomac River for their supply of drinking water want more details on Geological Survey's findings, and what they might mean for people. "While it's very true the health of the fish indicates the health of the river," says Jeannie Bailey, the public affairs officer at Fairfax County Water Authority, "it doesn't necessarily translate to humans." Other area utilities echoed Bailey's comments, saying that people should be far less susceptible to the river's pollution than fish are, because of their larger bodies and different hormone systems. And unlike fish, they're not constantly exposed to the water.

But environmentalists don't buy that argument. "No more than I would buy that argument for why mice get tumors," when exposed to certain chemicals, says the Potomac Riverkeeper's Merrifield. " Just because [the fish are] a lot smaller … those tumors shouldn't be there." On one point both sides agree: The Geological Survey's findings raise more questions than answers about what causes the abnormalities in the fish, and what possible effects they may have on humans.

Sex-change chemicals in Potomac

An investigation into the cleanliness of rivers feeding Washington's Potomac River has revealed the presence of sex-changing chemicals. Pollutants which contain the chemicals, known as endocrine disrupters, were found in several tributaries and in the smallmouth bass fish living within. The US Geological Survey (USGS) study followed the discovery of high numbers of intersex fish in the Potomac basin. Endocrine disrupters can mimic or block hormones in the body. Either naturally occurring or man-made, they can interfere with the endocrine system causing birth defects and reproductive irregularities.

The Potomac River is fed by rivers and streams in Maryland, West Virginia and Virginia. All samples contained detectable levels of at least one known endocrine-disrupting compound, including samples from fish without intersex Douglas Chambers, USGS scientist The USGS investigators found pesticides, flame retardants, and personal-care products containing known or suspected endocrine disruptors in all eight sites that were tested. The chemicals were also found in all of the smallmouth bass examined by the team. "We analysed samples of 30 smallmouth bass from six sites, including male and female fish without intersex and male fish with intersex," lead scientist Douglas Chambers said. "All samples contained detectable levels of at least one known endocrine-disrupting compound, including samples from fish without intersex." Looking for cause

In an effort to pinpoint the source of the pollution the scientists studied wastewater and run-off from several sites. They discovered that wastewater effluent - both treated and untreated - agricultural and pest control activities and industrial wastewater all contributed to the problem. Of particular concern was municipal effluent, which contained a cocktail of at least seven compounds containing endocrine disruptors. "Antibiotics were detected in municipal wastewater, aquaculture, and poultry-processing effluent, with the highest number of antibiotics and the greatest concentrations found in municipal effluent," the USGS wrote in its report. The discovery that there were high numbers of intersex fish present in the Potomac basin was made by accident in 2003, when scientists began investigating unusually high numbers of fish deaths.

Congress Conducts Hearing on Potomac Chemical Issues

The discovery of seemingly high concentrations of intersex fish in new locations in the Potomac River resulted in a congressional hearing at which federal regulators, agencies including ICPRB, and environmental groups testified. The October 4 hearing before the House Government Reform Committee, chaired by Rep. Tom Davis (Va.) Heard testimony that there is concern among all parties, but that much research remains in identifying chemicals that may be involved, and whether contaminants that can mimic the human hormone estrogen and that are being increasingly found in the environment in minute amounts pose a human health threat.

The hearings came after news reports that more male fish were being found with eggs in their testes, revealed after microscopic examination. Researchers are finding fish with the problem in a number of locations in the Potomac watershed, most recently, largemouth bass sampled near the Woodrow Wilson Bridge in the District. Scientists with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) who found the intersex condition investigating fish kills and disease in the upper watershed, think the problem may be caused by endocrine disrupting chemicals in the environment.

A first kill of smallmouth bass with lesions occurred in the South Branch Potomac in 2002. Similar fish kills and disease have been observed in areas of the Shenandoah watershed in subsequent years. No strong link has been drawn between the intersex condition and the fish kills (see March/April 2006 Reporter). After the discovery of the intersex condition, further research has primarily yielded more questions about the types of chemicals present in the river, and how efficiently they are removed by wastewater and drinking water treatment processes.

Many thousands of chemicals in everyday use, including birth control pills, cosmetics, pesticides, agricultural chemicals and feed hormones, personal care products, and a wide range of other substances can mimic estrogen. Many of the chemicals are only partially removed from the waste stream. More of the chemicals are removed by water treatment processes, although the substances are not regulated or regularly tested for.

Through a series of presentations delivered by representatives from metropolitan area water suppliers, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, USGS, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Natural Resources Defense Council, ICPRB, and Potomac River Keeper, the overriding message to the committee was that what is not known dwarfs what is known, that there is reason to be concerned by the little that is known, and that significantly more resources will be needed to learn what we should.

Testimony delivered by ICPRB Executive Director Joseph Hoffman focused on the need for coordination and cooperation among many agencies in addressing what is both a growing regional and national issue. Hoffman noted that the water suppliers and ICPRB already are addressing the issue through the Potomac Basin Drinking Water Source Protection Partnership, a group formed to help focus resources on threats to the sources of drinking water, such as the Potomac and its tributaries.

A workgroup of the partnership is focused on emerging contaminants, including endocrine disrupting chemicals. The workgroup is keeping the partnership members up-to-date on new research and developments. Water suppliers also noted the partnership involvement, as well as the need for basic research into the chemicals that is beyond the means of individual utilities. Those utilities have banded together under the American Water Works Association, which has funded several million dollars of research. For its part, EPA representative Benjamin Grumbles noted that the agency was accelerating its efforts to categorize and research the growing number of substances.

Catfish in Md. River Have High Cancer Rates

Catfish from Maryland's South River have a skin cancer rate as high as any found in the nation and the second-highest liver cancer rate in the Chesapeake Bay watershed, and both are probably caused by polluted runoff, a study released yesterday says. In the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service study, more than half the brown bullheads -- a type of catfish -- sampled from the South River had skin tumors, the highest incidence in 14 years of bay watershed testing. The rate matches that found in Great Lakes bullheads, which had the nation's highest.

One-fifth of the South River bullheads tested had liver cancer, a rate second only to that of the Anacostia River, where studies in 2001 showed nearly 70 percent of bullheads had liver tumors. "The fish are clearly exposed to cancer-causing agents, and at this point, we really don't know what chemicals are responsible," said Fred Pinkney, the Fish and Wildlife Service biologist who conducted the study. "We suspect it's from [polluted] runoff." The agency hopes to pinpoint the carcinogen by next year if it finds money for additional work.

The initial study was partly paid for by the South River Federation, a nonprofit group that monitors the 12-mile river, which flows through Anne Arundel County into the bay just south of Annapolis. Bullheads are used in river studies because they live and feed on the bottom, where toxins accumulate; they don't migrate far; and they metabolize certain carcinogens just as humans do. Despite the alarming findings, Richard McIntire, a Maryland Department of the Environment spokesman, said the state is not likely to issue a catfish consumption advisory for the South River. "This has been a known problem for quite some time," McIntire said. "If you catch any fish that looks strange," he added, "throw it back."

The state also has no plans for advisories on swimming and other recreational use, based on cancer findings, he said. Drew Koslow, the federation-appointed riverkeeper, said anglers eat the South River's catfish, perch and pickerel. The river has a water-skiing course and several community beaches. "A lot of kids and adults swim in the river, [and] we don't have the authority to close it to swimming" or fishing, Koslow said. Route 50 and other roads cross the river, so "maybe it's coming from the runoff off the highway -- or ski boats," he said of the pollution. "We don't have a lot of industry on the river, so we're pushing hard to figure out what's going on and deal with it."

The South River Federation contributed $3,200 to the initial study. Pinpointing the source of the disease would cost about $5,500, Koslow said. "We're hoping we can get some grant dollars to cover it." In the Anacostia, Fish and Wildlife scientists linked liver tumors in bullheads to polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), found in urban runoff laden with car exhaust residue, pavement sealants and asphalt particles. But so far researchers are puzzled about what is causing the tumors in South River fish. There, PAHs in river bottom samples are far lower than in the Anacostia. Further, many more South River bullheads show signs of skin cancer than do Anacostia bullheads.

OCEAN

Scientists Say Sea Grasses Face Global Crisis

Sea grass threat raises specter of marine deserts

Cambridge, Md. - An international team of scientists is calling for a targeted global conservation effort to preserve seagrasses and their ecological services for the world's coastal ecosystems, according to an article published in the December issue of Bioscience, the journal of the American Institute of Biological Sciences (AIBS).

*The article "A Global Crisis for Seagrass Ecosystems" cites the critical role seagrasses play in coastal systems and how coastal development, population growth and the resulting increase of nutrient and sediment pollution have contributed to large-scale losses worldwide. "Seagrasses are the coal mine canaries of coastal ecosystems," said co-author Dr. William Dennison of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science. "The fate of seagrasses can provide resource managers advance signs of deteriorating ecological conditions caused by poor water quality and pollution Among its findings, the study analyzed an apparent disconnect between the scientific community's concerns over seagrass habitat and its coverage in the popular media.

While recent studies rank seagrass as one of the most valuable habitat in coastal systems, media coverage of other habitats - including salt marshes, mangroves and coral reefs - receive 3 to 100-fold more media attention than seagrass systems. "Translating scientific understanding of the value of seagrass ecosystems into public awareness, and thus effective seagrass management and restoration, has not been as effective as for other coastal ecosystems, such as salt marshes, mangroves, or coral reefs," said co-author Dr. Robert Orth of the Virginia Institute of Marine Science. "Elevating public awareness about this impending crisis is critical to averting it."

"This report is a call to the world's coastal managers that we need to do more to protect seagrass habitat," said co-author Dr. Tim Carruthers of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science. "Seagrasses are just one of the many keys to maintaining healthy coastal ecosystems and their biodiversity." Seagrasses - a unique group of flowering plants that have adapted to exist fully submersed in the sea - profoundly influence the physical, chemical and biological environments of coastal waters. They provide critical habitat for aquatic life, alter water flow and can help mitigate the impact of nutrient and sediment pollution. The study was funded by the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS) through the National Science Foundation.

*The University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science is the principal research institution for advanced environmental research and graduate studies within the University System of Maryland. UMCES researchers are helping improve our scientific understanding of Maryland, the region and the world through its three laboratories - Chesapeake Biological Laboratory in Solomons, Appalachian Laboratory in Frostburg, and Horn Point Laboratory in Cambridge - and the Maryland Sea Grant College.

The world's sea grass is shrinking because of urban and industrial pollution, raising the specter of underwater prairies turning into marine deserts of shifting sands that could decimate some fishing industries. Shrimp would be one of the first marine species threatened if sea grasses disappear and lobsters are also near the top of the endangered list, scientists say. Open-ocean fish such as tuna would escape at first but eventually the effects of sea grass loss would spread throughout the marine system. When sea grass dies sand becomes more mobile, creating sediment erosion and gradually ending other forms of life.

"People would quite happily use terms like 'marine desert,"' said Alan Butler, a scientists at Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization. "People don't find the place so attractive for swimming or fishing and holiday-making," said Butler, who has completed a national review of Australia's sea grass resources. Australia's estimated 20,000 square miles of sea grass contain half the world's estimated 70 species - more than anywhere else in the world.

But scientists estimate that in the past 15 years 173 square miles of its sea grass has been lost. Pollution killing sea grass CSIRO's report contains the sobering news that Australia's urban sprawl was responsible for major sea grass losses off the coast of the southern Australian state of Victoria, Western Australia and north of Sydney. "We're certainly having big areas of losses in certain places, most associated with major population centers or major industrial centers," Butler said.

The injection of nutrients and toxins into marine systems from agricultural runoff and sewage plants, siltation due to land erosion and industrial pollution all contribute to the loss of sea grass, the report says. A total of about 110,000 acres of lost sea grass in Australia compares with documented losses of around 220,000 acres in the United States by 1996. Scientists say losses are believed to be comparable throughout the industrialized world, with the Gulf of Mexico, areas off Florida and Southeast Asia perhaps hardest hit.

"It's all pretty much the same, it's all due to too much pressure from humans. We're (Australia) probably no worse than anywhere else," said CSIRO marine ecologist Marnie Campbell. "If we don't stop putrefaction the sea grasses will disappear and the algae won't grow." Chain reaction Shallow meadows of sea grass - not seaweed or kelp but flowering green plants related to land plants - are a direct food source for green turtles and other marine life, a host for microscopic food and a nursery for some fish. The biggest commercial impact from lost sea grass would be felt by shrimping industries, say scientists. A

ustralia's Gulf of Carpentaria tiger prawns, which provided $136 million worth of exports in 1998-99, would be hit first by sea grass areas turning into desert. Lobsters, Australia's most valuable seafood export at around $275 million last year, would also be affected by any loss of sea grass and seaweed areas off the north coast of Western Australia. Tuna, another major catch in Australian waters, particularly for Japan's sushi and sashimi markets, would not be immediately affected as they swim in the open ocean, away from sea grass meadows, but eventually they too would suffer. "If sea grass beds disappear fisheries are going to suffer," Butler said. "You'd see big changes in marine systems."

EXXON CUTS VALDEZ SUIT DAMAGES

AP - A US federal appeals court has cut in half a $US5 billion ($A6.4 billion) jury award for punitive damages against Exxon Mobil Corporation in the 1989 Valdez oil spill that smeared black goo across roughly 2,400 km of Alaskan coastline. The case, one of the nation's longest-running, non-criminal legal disputes, stems from a 1994 decision by an Anchorage jury to award the punitive damages to 34,000 fishermen and other Alaskans. Their property and livelihoods were harmed when the Valdez oil tanker struck a charted reef and spilled 42 million litres of crude oil.

*It is the third time the appeals court in San Francisco ordered the Anchorage court to reduce the $US5 billion award, the nation's largest at the time, saying it was unconstitutionally excessive in light of US Supreme Court precedent. This time, in its two-to-one decision, the court ordered a specific amount in damages, while its previous rulings demanded a lower court to come up with its own figures. "It is time for this protracted litigation to end," the court said. US District Judge H Russel Holland of Anchorage begrudgingly complied in 2002, reducing damages to $US4 billion. Irving, Texas-based Exxon again appealed. The following year, the appeals court ordered Holland to revisit his decision, this time balancing it against a new 2003 Supreme Court ruling that said punitive damages usually could not be more than nine times general damages. The Anchorage jury awarded $US287 million in general damages - and issued punitive damages 17 times that amount.

*Holland, appointed by president Ronald Reagan in 1984, declared Exxon's conduct "reprehensible" and set the figure at $US4.5 billion plus interest, ruling that the Supreme Court's precedent did not directly apply to the case. Exxon again appealed, and argued that it should have to pay no more than $US25 million ($A32 million) in punitive damages, which are meant to punish a company for misconduct.

*The company, whose $US36.1 billion ($A46.1 billion) in earnings last year were the highest ever by any US corporation, said it has spent more than $US3 billion ($A3.83 billion) to settle federal and state lawsuits and to clean the Prince William Sound area. The company earned about $US5 billion ($A6.39 billion) when the spill occurred. In October, Exxon Mobil reported earnings of $US10.49 billion in the third quarter, the second-largest quarterly profit ever recorded by a publicly traded US company.

*In 1994, a federal jury found recklessness by Exxon and the captain of the Valdez, Joseph Hazelwood, who caused the tanker to run aground. That finding of malfeasance made Exxon liable for punitive damages. The plaintiffs alleged Hazelwood ran the ship into a reef while drunk and Exxon knew he had a drinking problem, but left him in command of tankers.

Maryland's air is called carcinogenic

Auto emissions rules may tighten

"The risk of cancer from all air toxins was at least 10 times higher... "

"Nationwide, levels of toxic pollutants are on average slightly worse than in Maryland -- 41.5 times higher than the benchmark.

Virginia's average is 32, while the District of Columbia's average is 53.5."

BETHESDA, Md. -- Maryland's air has alarming levels of cancer-causing toxins, an environmental group said Wednesday as part of a push to make the state the 12th to adopt a more stringent alternative to the federal government's auto emissions standards. Environment Maryland presented data released earlier this year by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

*The figures are based on 1999 pollution levels, but the group said pollution probably has gotten worse since then, as driving has increased. The risk of cancer from all air toxins was at least 10 times higher than the EPA benchmark for carcinogens in each of the state's 23 counties and the city of Baltimore, according to Environment Maryland, a recent spin-off from the Maryland Public Interest Research Group. The government's benchmark for carcinogens is a cancer risk of one in 1 million, meaning exposure at the threshold would cause one of every 1 million people to get cancer during a lifetime of exposure.

*Nationwide, levels of toxic pollutants are on average slightly worse than in Maryland -- 41.5 times higher than the benchmark. Virginia's average is 32, while the District of Columbia's average is 53.5. "It's just staggering the level of cancer-causing pollutants that are in the air that you and I are breathing," Brad Heavner, state director of Environment Maryland, said at a news conference. "We know this pollution comes predominantly from motor vehicles. We also know there's proven technology to reduce those emissions greatly." Adopting the alternative emissions standards, which are set by the State of California, would reduce levels of three major pollutants 57% to 79%, Environment Maryland said.

*Because it began regulating vehicle pollution before the federal government, California is allowed to set its own rules. Other states have the option of choosing to follow California's standards rather than the federal government's less-stringent requirements. So far 10 states -- Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington -- have followed California's lead. Legislation that would have adopted the California standards previously failed in Maryland, but supporters plan to introduce it again next year. Peter Kitzmiller, president of the Maryland Automobile Dealers Association, said his group is pushing for an independent panel of engineers and scientists to look at whether California's rules would benefit Maryland.

ENVIRONMENT

Global Warming Contributes to Hurricanes

The Bush Administration is blocking release of a report suggesting that global warming may be contributing to the frequency and strength of hurricanes, the journal Nature reported. The possibility that warming conditions may cause storms to become stronger has generated debate among climate and weather experts, particularly in the wake of the Hurricane Katrina disaster. A series of studies over the past year or so have shown an increase in the power of hurricanes in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

The strengthening, many storm experts say, is tied to rising sea-surface temperatures. Researchers said that most of the increase in ocean temperature that feeds more intense hurricanes is a result of human-induced global warming. Not all agree, however, with opponents arguing that many other factors affect storms, which can increase and decrease in cycles. The possibility of global warming affecting hurricanes is politically sensitive because the administration has resisted proposals to restrict release of gases that can cause warming conditions.

Rock Creek Park Fish Threatened

The USGS has released a report on the chemical and ecological health of Rock Creek in Washington, D.C. The report documents the results of a two-year study of chemical contaminants in the sediments and the health implication of these chemicals to white sucker, a common bottom-dwelling fish that lives in the stream. Hazardous chemicals were found in the sediments of Rock Creek at levels that sometimes exceeded guidelines for the protection of aquatic animals. These chemicals included insecticides, heavy metals such as lead, mercury, and chromium, polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), and PCBs.

The USGS scientists determined that some of the hazardous chemicals present in the stream and bed sediments also were found in white sucker. Negative health impacts on the fish included a variety of microscopic lesions, parasites, and abnormal development in the gills, liver, kidneys and gonads of the fish. In one year of the study, male gonads were less developed and typical spawning behavior was not observed, but no direct connection was made between chemicals in the fish and spawning success. Health effects in this species of fish in Rock Creek were significant, but were not as severe as those found in more urbanized streams in the region, such as the Anacostia River.

No direct cause and effect was determined for chemical exposure and compromised fish health. But a substantial weight of evidence indicates that these white sucker which are bottom feeding fish and low-order consumers in Rock Creek are experiencing some reduction in health. White sucker are not a common food fish for people. Scientists took sediment and fish samples at Peirce Mill in Rock Creek Park in the District of Columbia. The study was a joint effort by USGS scientists from the Maryland Water Science Center, Patuxent Wildlife Research Center, and National Fish Health Research Laboratory, and was supported by the National Park Service, and the D.C. Department of Health.

 

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Congress Conducts Hearing on Potomac Chemical Issues

The discovery of seemingly high concentrations of intersex fish in new locations in the Potomac River resulted in a congressional hearing at which federal regulators, agencies including ICPRB, and environmental groups testified. The October 4 hearing before the House Government Reform Committee, chaired by Rep. Tom Davis (Va.) Heard testimony that there is concern among all parties, but that much research remains in identifying chemicals that may be involved, and whether contaminants that can mimic the human hormone estrogen and that are being increasingly found in the environment in minute amounts pose a human health threat.

The hearings came after news reports that more male fish were being found with eggs in their testes, revealed after microscopic examination. Researchers are finding fish with the problem in a number of locations in the Potomac watershed, most recently, largemouth bass sampled near the Woodrow Wilson Bridge in the District. Scientists with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) who found the intersex condition investigating fish kills and disease in the upper watershed, think the problem may be caused by endocrine disrupting chemicals in the environment.

A first kill of smallmouth bass with lesions occurred in the South Branch Potomac in 2002. Similar fish kills and disease have been observed in areas of the Shenandoah watershed in subsequent years. No strong link has been drawn between the intersex condition and the fish kills (see March/April 2006 Reporter). After the discovery of the intersex condition, further research has primarily yielded more questions about the types of chemicals present in the river, and how efficiently they are removed by wastewater and drinking water treatment processes.

Many thousands of chemicals in everyday use, including birth control pills, cosmetics, pesticides, agricultural chemicals and feed hormones, personal care products, and a wide range of other substances can mimic estrogen. Many of the chemicals are only partially removed from the waste stream. More of the chemicals are removed by water treatment processes, although the substances are not regulated or regularly tested for.

Through a series of presentations delivered by representatives from metropolitan area water suppliers, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, USGS, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Natural Resources Defense Council, ICPRB, and Potomac River Keeper, the overriding message to the committee was that what is not known dwarfs what is known, that there is reason to be concerned by the little that is known, and that significantly more resources will be needed to learn what we should.

Testimony delivered by ICPRB Executive Director Joseph Hoffman focused on the need for coordination and cooperation among many agencies in addressing what is both a growing regional and national issue. Hoffman noted that the water suppliers and ICPRB already are addressing the issue through the Potomac Basin Drinking Water Source Protection Partnership, a group formed to help focus resources on threats to the sources of drinking water, such as the Potomac and its tributaries.

A workgroup of the partnership is focused on emerging contaminants, including endocrine disrupting chemicals. The workgroup is keeping the partnership members up-to-date on new research and developments. Water suppliers also noted the partnership involvement, as well as the need for basic research into the chemicals that is beyond the means of individual utilities. Those utilities have banded together under the American Water Works Association, which has funded several million dollars of research. For its part, EPA representative Benjamin Grumbles noted that the agency was accelerating its efforts to categorize and research the growing number of substances.

EPA Backtracks on Easing Toxin Rule

The changes would raise the threshold for reporting releases of toxic chemicals in detail from 500 to 5,000 pounds and would allow companies to report every other year instead of annually.

Under pressure from Democratic senators, the Bush administration has modified its proposal to ease public reporting requirements for companies that handle or release toxic chemicals. The Environmental Protection Agency has proposed new rules for the Toxics Release Inventory, an annual accounting of more than 650 chemicals that industry releases into the air, land and water. The changes would raise the threshold for reporting releases of toxic chemicals in detail from 500 to 5,000 pounds and would allow companies to report every other year instead of annually.

In response, New Jersey Democratic senators Frank Lautenberg and Robert Menendez in July blocked confirmation of Bush's nominee to head the EPA's Office of Environmental Information, Molly O'Neill. EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson, in a letter obtained by The Washington Post, has written to the two senators telling them that he is revising the proposal to restore the requirement for annual reports. "Your perspective on the program is invaluable to us," Johnson wrote.

The EPA had been tinkering with its proposal since shortly before this month's midterm elections, but Johnson's letter highlights how the political climate has shifted since the Democrats won control of the House and Senate. The administration is not likely to bend on its top environmental priorities, such as climate change, but it may make concessions on other fronts. James L. Connaughton, who chairs the White House Council on Environmental Quality, said in an interview after the elections that the administration may be able to make common cause with Democrats on some issues.

"The history of environmental legislation is a history of reasonable balance," Connaughton said. "At the end of the day, if you want to see progress on the environment, you got to strike that reasonable balance." Lautenberg, who said he will release his hold on O'Neill's nomination but will continue to fight any effort to weaken the toxin-reporting requirements, said the administration's new flexibility underscores how lawmakers' stance is likely to change over the next two years. "Unlike the last six years, the Bush administration will no longer get a free pass from Congress," he said in a statement. "Democrats will now control the EPA's budget and will run the committees that oversee the agency's activities. EPA will be held accountable for every abuse and misreading of the law it engages in."

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Congress created the Toxics Release Inventory program 20 years ago in the wake of the 1984 Union Carbide disaster in Bhopal, India, where an accidental release of toxins killed and injured thousands of people living near the plant. U.S. toxic releases have dropped sharply since companies were compelled to file the reports, but some complain that the regulation is too costly. The EPA had calculated that industry could save $2 million a year by reporting its releases every other year. It would save an additional $7.4 million by no longer having to report in detail on toxic releases between 500 and 5,000 pounds or on releases of persistent toxins such as lead and mercury below 50 pounds.

Sean Moulton, who directs federal information policy for the public policy watchdog group OMB Watch, said the proposal emphasized saving money for the agency and industry over protecting the public's health. "The EPA just hasn't done its homework on these proposals," Moulton said. "They haven't done the research on whether there are serious health risks [associated with] the different thresholds they're proposing."

Alex Fidis, a staff attorney at the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, an advocacy organization, said the EPA could reduce the regulatory burden on industry by developing software to help companies calculate their harmful releases and file their reports electronically. The EPA plans to issue a final rule on the reporting program "by the end of the year," said spokeswoman Jennifer Wood. She said officials are weighing the more than 100,000 comments they received, many objecting to the changes. "EPA's working to making a good program better," Wood said. Lautenberg said he would continue to press the administration to abandon the new rule.

Safety Warning - Clean Your Beverage Cans

A woman went boating on Sunday taking with her some cans of coke which she put into the refrigerator of the boat. On Monday she was taken to the hospital and placed in the Intensive Care Unit. She died on Wednesday. The autopsy concluded she died of Leptospirosis. This was traced to the can of coke she drank from, not using a glass.

Tests showed that the can was infected by dried rat urine and hence the disease Leptospirosis. Rat urine contains toxic and deathly substances. It is highly recommended to thoroughly wash the upper part of soda cans juice cans, and beer cans before drinking out of them. The cans are typically stocked in warehouses and transported straight to the shops without being cleaned. A study at NYCU showed that the tops of soda cans are more contaminated than public toilets (i.e.) full of germs and bacteria. So wash them with water before putting them to the mouth to avoid any kind of fatal accident.

Bush Administration Political Appointee Reverses Endangered Species Protections for Nation's Wildlife.

Conservation groups are calling for an investigation of the Department of the Interior's Deputy Assistant Secretary Julie McDonald and her decisions to repeatedly deny protection to some of the nation's most imperiled species, despite scientific findings and the recommendation of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Ignoring the provision of the Endangered Species Act directing that "[e]ach federal agency shall, in consultation with and with the assistance of the Secretary, insure that any action authorized, funded, or carried out by such agency . . . is not likely to jeopardize the continued existence of any endangered species or threatened species or result in the destruction or adverse modification of [critical] habitat of such species" 16 U.S.C. § 1536(a)(2), McDonald has abused her authority and position in the name of development and industry interests.

A senior Bush political appointee at the Interior Department has rejected staff scientists' recommendations to protect imperiled animals and plants under the Endangered Species Act at least six times in the past three years, documents show. In addition, staff complaints that their scientific findings were frequently overruled or disparaged at the behest of landowners or industry have led the agency's inspector general to look into the role of Julie MacDonald, who has been deputy assistant secretary of the interior for fish and wildlife and parks since 2004, in decisions on protecting endangered species.

The documents show that MacDonald has repeatedly refused to go along with staff reports concluding that species such as the white-tailed prairie dog and the Gunnison sage grouse are at risk of extinction. Career officials and scientists urged the department to identify the species as either threatened or endangered. Overall, President Bush's appointees have added far fewer species to the protected list than did the administrations of either Bill Clinton or George H.W.

Bush, according to the advocacy group Center for Biological Diversity. As of now, the administration has listed 56 species under the Endangered Species Act, for a rate of about 10 a year. Under Clinton, officials listed 512 species, or 64 a year, and under George H.W. Bush, the department listed 234, or 59 a year. The dispute is the latest in a series of controversies in which government officials and outside scientists have accused the Bush administration of overriding or setting aside scientific findings that clashed with its political agenda on such issues as global warming, the Plan B emergency contraceptive and stem cell research.

 

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Two-thirds of world's resources 'used up'

The human race is living beyond its means. A report backed by 1,360 scientists from 95 countries - some of them world leaders in their fields - today warns that the almost two-thirds of the natural machinery that supports life on Earth is being degraded by human pressure. The study contains what its authors call "a stark warning" for the entire world. The wetlands, forests, savannahs, estuaries, coastal fisheries and other habitats that recycle air, water and nutrients for all living creatures are being irretrievably damaged. In effect, one species is now a hazard to the other 10 million or so on the planet, and to itself. "Human activity is putting such a strain on the natural functions of Earth that the ability of the planet's ecosystems to sustain future generations can no longer be taken for granted," it says.

The report, prepared in Washington under the supervision of a board chaired by Robert Watson, the British-born chief scientist at the World Bank and a former scientific adviser to the White House, will be launched today at the Royal Society in London. It warns that: · Because of human demand for food, fresh water, timber, fibre and fuel, more land has been claimed for agriculture in the last 60 years than in the 18th and 19th centuries combined. · An estimated 24% of the Earth's land surface is now cultivated. · Water withdrawals from lakes and rivers has doubled in the last 40 years.

Humans now use between 40% and 50% of all available freshwater running off the land. · At least a quarter of all fish stocks are overharvested. In some areas, the catch is now less than a hundredth of that before industrial fishing. · Since 1980, about 35% of mangroves have been lost, 20% of the world's coral reefs have been destroyed and another 20% badly degraded. · Deforestation and other changes could increase the risks of malaria and cholera, and open the way for new and so far unknown disease to emerge.

In 1997, a team of biologists and economists tried to put a value on the "business services" provided by nature - the free pollination of crops, the air conditioning provided by wild plants, the recycling of nutrients by the oceans. They came up with an estimate of $33 trillion, almost twice the global gross national product for that year. But after what today's report, Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, calls "an unprecedented period of spending Earth's natural bounty" it was time to check the accounts. "That is what this assessment has done, and it is a sobering statement with much more red than black on the balance sheet," the scientists warn. "In many cases, it is literally a matter of living on borrowed time. By using up supplies of fresh groundwater faster than they can be recharged, for example, we are depleting assets at the expense of our children." Flow from rivers has been reduced dramatically.

For parts of the year, the Yellow River in China, the Nile in Africa and the Colorado in North America dry up before they reach the ocean. An estimated 90% of the total weight of the ocean's large predators - tuna, swordfish and sharks - has disappeared in recent years. An estimated 12% of bird species, 25% of mammals and more than 30% of all amphibians are threatened with extinction within the next century. Some of them are threatened by invaders.

The Baltic Sea is now home to 100 creatures from other parts of the world, a third of them native to the Great Lakes of America. Conversely, a third of the 170 alien species in the Great Lakes are originally from the Baltic. Invaders can make dramatic changes: the arrival of the American comb jellyfish in the Black Sea led to the destruction of 26 commercially important stocks of fish. Global warming and climate change, could make it increasingly difficult for surviving species to adapt. A growing proportion of the world lives in cities, exploiting advanced technology. But nature, the scientists warn, is not something to be enjoyed at the weekend. Conservation of natural spaces is not just a luxury. "These are dangerous illusions that ignore the vast benefits of nature to the lives of 6 billion people on the planet. We may have distanced ourselves from nature, but we rely completely on the services it delivers."