Environmental Economic Impact of Pollution in the Chesapeake Bay Essay

The Chesapeake alcove is the nations largest estuary with six major tributaries, the James, the Potomac, the Susquehanna, the Patuxent, the York, and the Rappahannock Rivers, feeding into the verbalize from various locations in Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania, and the District of Columbia (Chemical Contaminants in the Chesapeake Bay store Discussion 1). These areas depend on the Bay as both an environmental and an economic resource. Throughout the last 15 years the Chesapeake Bay has suffered from rattling(a) levels of contamination. Nitrogen and phosphorous from waste irrigate treatment plants, farmland, air pollution, and development on the whole lead to trim down water clarity and lowered oxygen levels, which molest fish, crabs, oysters and underwater mucklees (Key Commission Issues 1). There are other types of pollution in the bay laurel such as toxic chemicals, but because nutrient pollution is the most significant and most widespread in the Bay its effect s are the most harmful to fisheries. Nitrogen and phosphorous fuel algal blooms which cloud the water and block sunlight from reaching underwater grass beds that provide food and habitat for waterfowl, juvenile fish, blue crabs, and other species (Blankenship 11-12). alga plays a vital role in the food chain by providing food for small fish and oysters. However, when there is an overabundance of algae it dies, sinks to the puke of the Bay, and decomposes in such a manner that depletes the oxygen levels of the Bay (11). The reduced oxygen levels in the Bay reduce the carrying capacity of the environment and these jobless areas sometimes kill off species that can not migrate to other areas of the Bay, such as oysters (11). Increased abundance of algal blooms also take to the overabundance of harmful and toxic algae species and sources such as the microbe Pfiesteria, which was responsible in 1997 for eating fish alive and making haemorrhoid of people sick (12). The heightened awa reness of diseases that can be contracted through with(predicate) consumption of contaminated fish also has an economic impact. Therefore, the excess levels of due north and phosphorous have fueled an overabundance of algal blooms, which has reduced water clarity and lowered oxygen levels, affecting many species within the bay and ultimately the industries that rely on these species. The signing of the 1987 Chesapeake Bay Agreement label the first joint vent... ...ablehttp//www.virginia-beach.va.us/cityhall/planning/cbay.html (4 Nov. 1999).Fish Health in the Chesapeake Bay Estimate of Seafood History Losses. Available http//www.mdsg.umd.edu/fish-health/pfiesteria/pfeconomics/sld005.html. (22 Nov. 1999).Glibert, Patricia M. and Daniel E. Terlizzi. Nutrients, Phytoplankton, and Pfiesteria In the Chesapeake Bay. Available http//www.arec.umd.edu/policy/Pfiesteria/terlizzi/terlizzi.htm (22 Nov. 1999).Impacts of Diseases and ase loathly Oysters Available http//biology.uro regon.edu/classes/bi130/webprojects/15/oyster.html (22 Nov. 1999).Key Commission Issues Available http//www2.ari.net/cbc/ obsolete/cbc_issu.htm(4 Nov. 1999).Lipske, Michael. Getting to Know You National Wildlife, v33. (1995) 24-29.Parker, Doug. The Economic Costs of Implementing the Maryland peeing Quality Improvement Act of 1998. Available http//www.arec.umd.edu/policy/Pfiesteria/parker/parkertext.html (22 Nov. 1999).Santopierro, George D., and Leonard Shabman. Can Privatization Be Inefficient? The Case of the Chesapeake Bay Oyster Fishery. Journal of Economic Issues, v26 n2 (June 1992) 407-415.