Opinion ID: 2814626
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Chesapeake Bay, 1608–1972

Text: Before Europeans settled the Bay, it supported much sea life. As two associates of John Smith wrote, “Neither better fish more plenty or variety had any of us ever seene, in any place swimming in the water, then in the bay of Chesapeack.” Walter Russell & Anas Todkill et al., The Accidents that Happened in the Discoverie of the Bay, in 1 The Complete Works of Captain John Smith (1580–1631) Philip L. Barbour, ed., 224, 228 (1986). The fertile land of the watershed and the beauty and commercial value of the Bay proved attractive. By 1950 about 7,000,000 people lived in the watershed; today it is home to 17,000,000, and by 2030 the population may reach 20,000,000. 15 The watershed area not only sustains its growing human population; it also supports a great deal of commerce, including fishing, shipping, farming, and tourism. All these activities, as well as other incidents of daily life, contribute pollutants to the Bay. As a result, it is plagued by dead zones with opaque water and algae blooms that render significant parts of it unable to support aquatic life. Surrounding jurisdictions recognize that the Bay absorbs far too much nitrogen, phosphorous, and sediment to be the healthy ecosystem it once was. These threats to the Bay (and to the livelihood of many who depend on its bounty) have been known for a long time both to scientists and to observant lay people. As a Pulitzer-Prize winning chronicler of Bay life put it: Coliform bacteria indices, atomic plant pass- throughs, siltation-caused reduced photosynthetic capabilities, oxygen deprivation, nutrient loading and the doubling rate . . . I doubted many watermen understood the full threat of their quiet and insidious workings. Perhaps it was easier to put it the way they do. You look hard at the water and sometimes it seems like it’s getting a little old and tired, a little messy. Simple as that, if anyone cares to notice. William W. Warner, Beautiful Swimmers: Watermen, Crabs and the Chesapeake Bay 273–74 (1976).1 1 Warner wrote in the afterword to the 1994 edition of his book, “There is . . . no doubt that the Bay’s natural resources have seriously eroded since” Beautiful Swimmers was first published. William W. Warner, Beautiful Swimmers: Watermen, Crabs and the Chesapeake Bay 293 (1994). 16