Maryland Sees Low Blue Crab Harvests This Spring
Maryland blue crab harvests are reportedly low this spring, impacting the watermen, and some restaurants, whose owners are having difficulty obtaining affordable, local catch for consumers. (See The Baltimore Sun and The Fredericksburg Free-Lance Star). The annual Bay-wide winter dredge survey conducted earlier this year found that the Bay’s blue crab population has risen by over 1 million crabs from last year’s drastically low numbers. So why are harvests low so far this year?
According to the Virginia Marine Resources Commission (VMRC), a combination of factors could be contributing to low harvest numbers at this point in the season. While the winter dredge survey found that juveniles and female crab numbers were up (which is very important for sustaining and building up the crab population in future months), the males took a “huge hit” from cold-water temperatures this winter. Other contributing factors could be pollution, low reproduction levels, and predation. Marine species such as the blue catfish, red drum, and the cownose ray are common predators of the Chesapeake blue crab. The VMRC stated that the blue catfish, an invasive species with little to no predators of its own, has grown in population this year. (Stay tuned for more information on the blue catfish).
While it is too early for the VMRC to release data on harvest numbers at this point in the commercial crabbing season, commercial watermen submit harvest reports to the agency on a monthly basis. Data should be available by August.
**The commercial blue crabbing season (harvesting by crab pot) began March 17 in Virginia, and will end on November 30. Other methods of catching crabs (ie. pound nets, etc.) for commercial watermen are allowed May 1 through November 30. In Maryland, the commercial crabbing season runs April 1 through December 15.
Baltimore Crude Oil Terminal Placed on Hold for Environmental Concerns
By Neil Saunders
The Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE) recently placed on hold a Houston-based company’s permit application to ship crude oil through its Baltimore port terminal in Fairfield, Maryland. The company, Targas Resources, which presently owns one of the Fairfield terminals, which it uses to store and ship oil, natural gas, and petroleum products, sought the permit to allow shipments of crude oil to pass through the terminal as well. In its decision to temporarily deny the permit, MDE sighted a lack of information and insisted that additional information from Targas Resources was necessary before the agency would consider further review.
Maryland’s Oil Pollution and Tank Management laws require facilities operators to obtain a permit before they may transport or store more than 10,000 gallons of oil, including crude oil. The permit approval process requires, in general, that the applicant submit a contingency and clean-up plan in the event that a leak or spill occurs, and to maintain a facility that is properly equipped to prevent oil pollution and contain spills. These are important criteria to ensuring safety to surrounding neighborhoods and the Chesapeake Bay, and promising news that MDE has, at least in the interim.
Had MDE approved the permit, Targas Resources would have become the second company to ship crude oil through the Fairfield terminals, which sit along the Patapsco River just outside Baltimore’s Inner Harbor. Currently, Axeon Specialty Products ships tens of millions of gallons through its nearby terminal. According to MDE’s Oil Control Program, Axeon Specialty Products shipped over 100 million gallons of crude oil over the previous two years. According to a Sierra Club blog post, the Targas terminal would result in an additional 9 million gallon annually. More troubling is the fact that the potential impact area of an accident sits right in the heart of downtown Baltimore.
The shipment of crude oil carries added significance to the Bay area because of the rise in oil production in recent years, particularly from the Bakkan shale field in North Dakota. The rise in production has caused an increase in demand, which has led to increased shipping. Shipping crude oil, which is performed primarily by rail, poses risks to local populations and the environment. Just last year, a derailment in Lynchburg, Virginia, caused thousands of gallons of crude oil to spill into the James River. In 2013, a derailment in Quebec, Canada, resulted in spillage of over 1.5 million gallons of crude oil and caused an explosion that killed 47 people.
Time will tell if Targas Resources makes another attempt to obtain the permit from MDE. Hopefully, with enough local opposition, MDE will continue to reject it.
To read the Baltimore Sun article, please visit: http://www.baltimoresun.com/business/bs-bz-crude-oil-20150603-story.html
To read the Sierra Club blog post cited in this post, visit: http://www.sierraclub.org/compass/2014/12/baltimore-residents-oppose-oil-export-facility
2015 Blue Crab Regulations
Last Tuesday, May 26, the Virginia Marine Resources Commission (VMRC) held a public hearing on blue crab management. The issues voted on included dates for the crab management season (July 5, 2015 – July 4, 2016), the commercial crabbing season (March 17 – November 30), and the culling of sponge crabs (female crabs carrying eggs). The Commission voted to restrict the culling of sponge crabs from March 17 to June 15 of this year.
The commission also voted on bushel limits, agreeing to keep in place stricter limits for commercial crabbers that were enforced last summer in response to the extremely low crab population. To review, the VMRC voted in July of 2014 to reduce the harvesting of female and juvenile blue crabs by 10%, effective through July of 2015. These regulations were put into place after the 2013-2014 winter dredge survey found that only 297 million blue crabs were in the Chesapeake. From this number, there were less than 70 million female crabs of spawning age. These population numbers are low for the Chesapeake Bay. In 2012, there were 765 million blue crabs in the Bay. That number was cut by more than half in the two years that followed.
While the Bay’s blue crab population did slightly increase over the past year, to 411 million crabs, the stricter regulations have been kept in place to get crab numbers up to a healthier level, closer to the 765 million-population number of 2012.
Again, as last year, I would like to see the VMRC put harsher regulations in place for the culling of sponge crabs, making it illegal altogether for commercial crabbers to harvest female crabs carrying eggs, not just during a certain time period. In addition I would like to see Virginia restrict winter dredging of blue crabs for harvest. The VMRC agreed to put off a vote on winter dredging until later this fall. The VMRC has voted to restrict this activity over the past couple of years and hopefully will do so again. Winter dredging poses risks to the blue crab population, and is permanently restricted in the neighboring state of Maryland for this reason.
To see the Commission Meeting Summary from last Tuesday, please check out the VMRC link here: http://www.mrc.virginia.gov/Commission_Summaries/cs0515.shtm.
The Clean Water Rule and its Impact on the Chesapeake Bay
On Wednesday the EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers finalized the Clean Water Rule, which includes amendments to the Clean Water Act. The primary focus for this rule is on streams and wetlands that flow into larger bodies of water. While the changes ensure that the EPA is able to regulate the polluting of upstream wetlands and tributaries (which is good news for our nation’s waters), I wonder just how big of an impact this Rule will have locally, specifically on the Chesapeake Bay watershed.
Initially proposed last summer, the purpose of the Clean Water Rule is to provide clarification and greater definition to parts of the Clean Water Act that are hard to understand. While there was a lot of pushback from developers and agricultural interest groups, the Clean Water Rule did not create new permitting requirements, nor did it get rid of any standing exemptions or exclusions.
In fact, the Rule reinforces the protection of upland streams and wetlands, which feed into larger streams, rivers, and estuaries. According to the EPA, “The rule protects waters that are next to rivers and lakes and their tributaries.” The water quality of these larger bodies of water relies on healthy upstream tributaries and wetlands. While the Clean Water Rule does not change pre-existing regulations under the Clean Water Act, it provides clearer definitions, ensuring that certain waters of the U.S. (ie, upland streams and wetlands) are not overlooked, and are held to the same pollution permitting regulations and restrictions as downstream bodies of water.
Looking at the Rule from a local lens, the Clean Water Act amendments will benefit the Chesapeake Bay in areas where industrial pollution is more prevalent. The Rule will likely be able to help the EPA better regulate and protect upland streams and Bay tributaries where point source polluting is taking place. The Bay watershed extends into six states, and the District of Columbia, covering 64,000 square miles. Thousands of streams and acres of wetlands run into the larger rivers that feed directly into the Chesapeake. Ensuring that these streams and wetlands are subject to the same regulations under the Clean Water Act that larger bodies of water face, will ultimately ensure that waters flowing into the Chesapeake Bay are cleaner, making the mainstem of the Bay healthier.
However, the Clean Water Rule keeps in place a number of exemptions for agricultural groups. The Bay’s water quality issues stem from sedimentation and nitrogen and phosphorus runoff. The source contributing the majority of these pollutants is agriculture, whose actors are largely exempt from regulations and restrictions associated with the Clean Water Rule. While the Rule may do some good for our watershed, we will have to see how much an impact it will make in the long-run on improving the health of the mainstem of the Chesapeake Bay. I think the Watershed Implementation Plans, which the EPA has helped the individual watershed states develop, will ultimately have more of an impact on the Bay, if implemented effectively.
Phosphorus in the Chesapeake: Part VI
Part VI of the paper includes our final chapter on Maryland’s Phosphorus Management Tool (PMT), as well as the references and appendix for the entire paper.
Phosphorus in the Chesapeake Part V: Maryland Phosphrous Regulations
Chapter V provides an overview of phosphorus regulations in Maryland.
Cleaning Up Bay Tributaries
Interesting article in today’s Washington Post about a husband-and-wife led scientific team in Maryland experimenting with ways to clean up the tributaries of the Chesapeake Bay.
Phosphorus in the Chesapeake: Part IV
Part IV of Phosphorus in the Chesapeake includes a regulatory history of cleanup efforts in the Chesapeake Bay.
Phosphorus in the Chesapeake: Part III
You can find the third part of our Phosphorus in the Chesapeake paper below. This section deals with nutrient pollution in the Chesapeake Bay- its sources and impact on the watershed. For a full version of the paper, please email 4daleyk@gmail.com, and I will provide you with a copy. Thanks for reading!
Optimism Before the Crab Season
In spite of two bad years for crabbing in the Bay, our neighbor in White Stone is optimistic at the start of a new season. The picture shows his 200 pots freshly painted and ready to go last weekend. Usually they are green, but due to some manufacturing problem, the antifouling paint is yellow this year. Hopefully the crabs will find yellow an attractive color.
The VMRC has published a press release with a preliminary look at the winter dredge survey results. (http://www.mrc.virginia.gov/VMRC_2015_Crab_WDS_Survey_Results.pdf).
And this article in the New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/03/opinion/sunday/manil-suri-mathematicians-and-blue-crabs.html?ref=opinion&_r=0 , registration on nytimes.com required) talks about the mathematical models used to predict the crab population. The article makes the point that these models are often not accurate predictors.
The VMRC press release comments that ‘Spawning-age females are the cornerstone of stock rebuilding’. But Virginia’s restrictions on keeping sponge crabs are looser than Maryland’s. VMRC plans a public hearing on the crab regulations for May 26.
– Gary Greenwood
Chesapeake Bay environment and water quality blog 