Improved Inland Bays face new challenges, report finds
1:02 AM, Sep. 24, 2011
Delaware’s Inland Bays are showing subtle signs of improvement from an increase in summer flounder to a near disappearance of noxious sea lettuce that used to clog the estuary, litter the shoreline and force bay residents indoors to avoid the stench, according to a report card issued Friday.
But population growth and climate change present new challenges to make the bays fully swimmable and fishable and reduce nitrogen and phosphorus loads, said Chris Bason, lead scientist for the Center for the Inland Bays, who prepared the report.
The good news, Bason said, is “we’re not at the bottom of a tall hill” trying to climb to the top.
“We’re making steady progress but we’re not there yet,” said Collin O’Mara, secretary of the state Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control.
O’Mara praised the report, saying: “It’s strong on the science.”
The Inland Bays are one of Delaware’s recreational jewels attracting thousands of summer visitors who fish, sail or boat on the waterways and tributaries.
But the estuary has been the subject of more than four decades of research – starting with a commission appointed by the late Gov. Russell W. Peterson in 1969, to a University of Delaware College of Marine Studies white paper that outlined water quality and habitat degradation issues in the bays. That prompted Gov. Pete duPont in 1983 to appoint a task force to study the issues and come up with possible solutions.
Some have wondered if progress would ever be possible.
Ed Lewandowski, executive director of the Center for the Inland Bays, recalled a visit he made to Lt. Gov. John Carney’s office several years ago.
He recalled that Carney, now Delaware’s U.S. representative, cut to the chase: “Are the bays getting better or worse?”
Lewandowski recalled: “That’s a hard question to answer.”
But this latest report by the center takes a comprehensive look at the numbers and how close they are to meeting targets.
‘Turning point’
Back in the early 1980s, the biggest issue was pollution from municipal and industrial wastewater-treatment plants and runoff from agricultural operations in the watershed.
Former state Rep. Shirley Price on Friday recalled what it was like learning the ways of commercial fishing from her father.
“He taught me how to throw a net,” she said. “I can tell a fish from a ripple in the wave.”
She recalled that when she ran for the state House and was elected in 1996, she did so because she was so concerned about the bays.
“I knew what the bays were becoming,” she said.
Price on Friday said she believes there has been improvement but there is still work to be done.
“I want it to be swimmable,” she said. “I want to see that coal ash pile that has its toes in the bays gone. I think we’re on the right track. I see the bays better. For 25 or 30 years, I was out there for nine months out of the year. I got to see it all. We are reaching a turning point.”
The report used 31 environmental indicators to assess conditions in Rehoboth, Indian River and Little Assawoman bays.
The idea, Bason said, was to look at a set of standards that could see whether progress is being made.
Among concerns are that population has increased dramatically within all three watersheds.
“That puts a general stress on the environment,” Bason said.
In addition, the percentage of impervious surfaces – paved or built-over areas – has reached a tipping point in Rehoboth and Little Assawoman bays, he said.
Most researchers believe that 10 percent impervious surface should be an upper limit of land coverage in a watershed, Bason said.
But in Rehoboth and Little Assawoman watersheds, the impervious surface area now exceeds 10 percent, he said.
The potential impact: increased bacteria concentrations, chemical contamination and changes in water flow.
Nutrients
One of the biggest influences on the bays is the Indian River Inlet.
Prior to the 1930s, when the inlet was stabilized, it meandered, changed location and even closed off.
Bason said that between 1939 and 1991, the amount of water passing through the inlet over one tide cycle has increased 4.5 times. Most of this increase has occurred since 1970.
The likely impacts are increased flushing to rid the bays of excess nutrients, but it also could mean salinity increases in former freshwater habitats and a decrease in diversity of marsh habitats.
For decades, researchers have known that excess nitrogen and phosphorus were the key pollution concerns in the estuary, but Bason said there are some indications that nutrient loads from all sources have decreased. Farmers in the watershed operate using nutrient management plans, thousands of septic systems have been replaced by center wastewater treatment and municipal and industrial sewer plants have made upgrades or stopped discharging treated wastewater into the bays.
Bason said that even as improvements are occurring, there are concerns about the effect of additional population growth.
And if summers get warmer – as some suggest they might – it could have big impacts on restoration efforts.
Eel grass – once plentiful in the bays and an important nursery habitat for fish and crabs – is already at the southern limit of its range, Bason said. It was nearly destroyed by disease and pollution.
Any temperature increases could thwart further restoration efforts, he said.
Researchers aren’t sure why blue crab populations have declined in the bays, Bason said.
Oxygen levels still drop to deadly low levels in the bays and tributaries during the summer and that has an impact on fish, he said.
Instead of thriving in their nursery areas, they are forced to move to areas with healthy levels of oxygen in the water, he said.
But even with the work that still lies ahead, watershed residents like Capt. Bill Baker, a local bait and tackle store owner, believe the bays are getting better.
“We have made lots of strides,” he said. “My opinion is that the bays are a lot, lot better than they were even five years ago.”