The Chesapeake Bay Crisis: Why Should I Care?
Lucy Hummer
“Save the Bay” is a phrase that has become incredibly sensationalized over the last decade or so. But why? What does it really mean? DC is located within the Chesapeake Bay watershed, and most of you probably already knew that. However, the definition, scale and ultimate repercussions of this fact are likely unclear. This is a sad truth, but it does not need to be this way forever. We should all care about the bay, and we should all do our part to ~save~ it.
According to our trusty friend dictionary dot com, a watershed is essentially a drainage basin, one which collects precipitation to ultimately flow into a surface water outlet such as a river or bay. Decoded, this just means all of the land where gravity pulls water towards one body as opposed to another. The Chesapeake watershed, then, includes six states and the District, all water ultimately flowing into our great Bay. The ecosystems found within this geographical region are diverse, rich, and beautiful. They are also unfortunately at great risk. Humans have continued to exhaust the resources of the watershed and abuse the Bay to the point of nearly killing it.
The use of the word ‘killing’ is extreme and often used as an alarmist tactic, but in this case it is entirely true. Toxins in water lead to a process called eutrophication, which means the amount of dissolved oxygen decreases over time. Fish, aquatic plants and other creatures then have less air to breathe, and in some cases sections of waterbodies can be literally classified as “dead”.
This matters to you and me for a variety of reasons. Beyond the general, ‘we should all care about our Earth, nature is beautiful, blah blah blah, etc etc etc’, the Bay holds many utilitarian purposes. As the diverse regions of land use around the watershed continue to degrade due to human influence, this leads to many unplanned consequences on the local economy and beyond. Those who live directly on the Chesapeake itself are affected by actions of those hundreds of miles away. I am from central Pennsylvania, nowhere even close to the Bay’s coastline. However, if I decided that I wanted to apply pesticides to my mom’s front lawn back home, within no time those chemicals would end up in the Bay, along with all of my neighbors’, too.
Every decision we make every single day has an ecological consequence, whether it be positive or negative. As we all know, the Earth operates under a series of cycles. I understand that it is not easy to visualize our ultimate impacts on the Earth. How could me choosing not to lay commercial pesticides at my mom’s house and then slapping a Save The Bay bumper sticker on my Kia Soul do anything at all? I see it the same way as I see voting. Everybody gets the whole concept of ‘make sure you go out and vote in elections, even though it seems like your voice doesn’t really have an impact’. I don’t see how this concept is ANY different. The Chesapeake Bay Watershed is a massive resource, one which is taken advantage of and degraded every single day. Especially as college students who live within the watershed, it is important to care. It should matter to you, and it does impact you. Not to be super dramatic, but the Bay is dying and she is beautiful and we must help her.
