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River both thrives, suffers
Trip down Potomac shows both the problems and vitality of big river
Date published: 8/20/2009 By Rob Hedelt ON THE Potomac River Get close enough to see down through the light chop and there's an underwater forest, towers and tangles of wild celery, coontail, hydrilla and water star grass, strands of grasses moving lazily The water outside the grass beds is brownish-green and murky, full of sediment. Inside it, the water is clearer, calmer and--if the grasses could be parted for a look--full of aquatic life making use of the predator-evading cover. It's a different story some 70 miles down the Potomac, off of Bonum Creek in Westmoreland County. There, a wide plume of mahogany-colored water extends a mile or two into the river in the shape of a fat turkey leg. Its well-defined edges and bright color indicate it may be an algal bloom, a rapid increase in the growth of algae often associated with an excess of nutrients, like phosphorus. These blooms can lead to a rapid decrease of dissolved oxygen in the water, and have been linked in recent summers to dead zones around the bay. This possible bloom is spotted just upriver from a spot where, three days earlier, Bay Foundation water testing detected a serious "dead zone" some 26 feet below the surface where no aquatic life could survive. The two very different spots are indicative of the health of the river: thriving by some measures in some spots, hurting and nearly dead by different measures at others. Earlier this week, I joined two staffers from the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, traveling nearly 90 miles in the river and various creeks from Hope Springs Marina on Aquia Creek to Kinsale on the Yeocomico River in Westmoreland County. The purpose of the trip--to get some measure of the river's overall health, through everything from water testing to chats with watermen along the way.
Date published: 8/20/2009
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