I am glad to see our local Eastern Shore politicians taking a proactive stance on the Chesapeake Bay clean up effort. Commissioner Fithian is correct when saying “the people overseeing the (cleanup) have been doing all kinds of nitpicky things,” and spending a lot of taxpayer money in the process, while imposing a lot of questionable regulations that is causing financial hardship, wasted energy, etc.
And yet the Conowingo Dam looms,like a dark cloud, over the Chesapeake Bay. Common sense would tell you to scrap all these wasteful “feel good” expensive programs like rebuilding every residential septic in the bay waters area, as well as water barrels, rain gardens, living shorelines, cover crops, bio this and bio that as the list goes on.
I have been a sailor my whole life and every sailor knows that to reach your destination you must plot a proper course, when compared to the bay clean up, no proper course has been plotted. A perpetual industry has been created that will never clean up the Bay, they have started at the wrong end of a problem. Focusing on the small sources of the problem while ignoring the pollution sources that will have a high positive impact on Bay water quality. The Susquehanna River, which carries more than half the fresh water that enters the Bay, has about 2 dozen dams. The main ones are in the lower part of the river, Safe Harbor Dam, Holtwood Dam and Conowingo Dam, all were built early in the 20 century and all are 100% silted in except the Conowingo Dam which is about 95% silted in.
According to the USGS web site, if this system were operating at optimum, has the potential to remove 70% of the sediment, 40% of the phosphorus and 2% of the nitrogen from the fresh water entering the Chesapeake Bay, in its present state it is barley functioning at all. Environmentalists are unwilling to “grab the bull by the horns” and deal with this problem that would truly have a high impact on bay water quality. We need to have people involved in the process who are truly interested in cleaning up the Bay and not just keeping the process going indefinitely.
For starters this could be accomplished by designing a water shed wide strategy that prevents as much stormwater from entering the Bay as possible, after all “the pollution is in the stormwater.”
Sam Owings
Chestertown Md
Mr. Owings is a Queen Anne’s County grain farmer and president, founder of High Impact Environmental.
Joe Diamond says
Sam,
You picked a tough one!
I read where the owners of the dam say it would take $48 million a year to dredge just what arrives each year. They also mention that in 15 to 20 years Connowingo will be completely silted and 100% of whatever arrives there will pass through.
So what can be done. The Susquehanna drains Pennsylvania…and NY. Any chance they will pay to replace or dredge the existing dam?
Joe
samuel Owings says
Joe,
According to the USGS web site it will only be a couple of years before the Connowingo basin is completly silted in, this dam system in the Susquehanna is something that should take top priority in regard to the Bay clean up.
Sam
Joe Diamond says
Yes,
I saw the same analysis in the Chesapeake Bay Journal. If nothing is done there will be problems. There is no incentive for the upstream population (PA &NY) to do more than has been done. Enforcement of existing regulations should help but probably won’t happen. Even the dewatering of the silt in the dams is a big issue. None of this is a surprise to anyone. Deferred maintenance has allowed things to get to this tipping point.
I lost track of a similar issue in the Norfolk, VA harbor. Wonder how they ended up?
Joe