Bad New With Grass

[indoe]

I just saw the new this morning and they said the  grass in the Chesapeake Bay was in bad shape becouse of the hard rain we recived this week. They said that 30 percent of the grass have been killed becouse of the settlment run off. The mud and nutriant run off is killing the bay. The waste plants are not helping ether.   This sucks!!! The state has to do something about all this pulution going into the bay! Everyone knows that the grass has a large part of keeping the bay healthy and is the nurcery for all the young marine life. It is the life line for the future. This stinks!!!  

[madcrab]

  I think I've seen this somewhere before on this site, but I think we need to introduce some sort of hybrid or exotic grass/plant into the bay that would actually help us out.  Usually introduced exotic species are a detriment, but we need all the help we can get and an overly productive grass would help us out greatly, I believe.  Only the future will tell.  ;

[mikesr]

Indoe,  
 You right about the waste treatment plants.  They are out of date.  Each time we geta heavy rain the diluted untreated sewage goes right to the river and bay.

[Steve]

http://www.blue-crab.org/news/index.php

[jack1747]

Stop worrin about ur yard.  Thats the first step.  Quit trying to have the greenest, weedfree, putting green lawn on the block.  I dont mean u guys, I know u care.  Its too many people and to much runoff.  When I was a kid there was hundreds of feet of woods between any stream and a lawn.  Now I see the small feeder streams run'n across folks lawns or an open plowed field.  Today we need to use less and less chemicals because there is less and less natural buffers to protect the bay.

YELLING ON:  ITS THE POLLUTION!!! YELLING OFF

Just read my post about my poor oysters.

[madcrab]

  I'm glad you specified your use for CAPS!  

[cartmancop]

Don't forget that those darn mute swans are eating up this grass too.  We need to kill every last one of those birds on the bay.  They are not from here and are only damaging this eco system.

[madcrab]

  I second that!!  

[Joe Crabs]

Hey since we really can't crab on Weds. how about a bird hunt wed. A little environmental cleanup work. Maybe we can even right it off as some charity or tax deduction. or just let them sit and feed our friends.

[madcrab]

  Tell me when and where Joe and I'm there!!  

[kingcrabber]

Joe..I'm with Madcrab...but be forwarned..my shootins' been off lately ..jes make sure you and everybody else is behind me whence the shootin' comences ........

[Joe Crabs]

It's sounds like there are enough of them that you just need to point in the right direction.

[madcrab]

  Yep, just point the gun in front of you, close your eyes, and pull the trigger.  You're bound to get one or two, at least!!  

[Crabslayer]

To many homes and developments along the waterfront.  Those swans were around back when I was a kid loooooooooooong time ago.  Had lots of grass until Agnes hit.  Now you can't even take oysters from some of the rivers since they are polluted with feces.

[jack1747]

yep, i agree. it was Agnes.  Two years after she roled thru the grasses were gone.  Think back if you were around back then.  SAV didnt just slowly go away.  Puff it was gone.

[Crabslayer]

You are right Jack.  People will think I'm shootin the bull, but before Agnes hit  I remeber my father and uncle catching 13 bushels and then some on two 600' trotlines.  My mother and aunt used their roller nets and caught dozens of soft crabs (they would even have a contest to see who caught the most.)  There were fish galore especially enormous yellow perch and schools of white perch.  Door mat sized flounde, etc...  This was in the Wye area.  Man they were the days!  To this day I cant even wrap any grass around my prop!

[jack1747]

yep, had to row out past the grass line for sure.  no way you could motor into any creeks with an outboard

[cartmancop]

I'm Joe on Wednesday's.   Yes there have been swans on the bay for a long time, but not the Mute swans.  They are relativiely new and extreemly destructive to any new grass trying to grow.  The problem is that the tree hugging hippies keep stopping the DNR from taking care of the problem.  DNR has also been seeding large areas of the bay in an effort to help in the grass recovery.

[Crabslayer]

Sorry cartmancop, but the mute swans were here in the early part of the 1900's.  5 escaped back in 1962 ten years prior to Agnes.  Agnes did more destruction to the bay and it''s tributaries than most storms combined that had hit MD.  Agnes was so strong that it even flooded Towson which is perched pretty darned high.

[briancrabber]

OK, here's an interesting thing that came across my mind.

I wasnt around for it but I have all the news stories about it my grandfather saved plus all his recollections.  If anyone in here remembers, Hurricane Hazel.

If you do, and I havent heard this, but its a thought. Do you remember if the aftermath of her impacted the enviornment as much as Agnes did?

And if so, how long would you say it took things to recover? Obviously, during Agnes there was alot more pollution and caustic runnoff put into our water from her however there had to be parallel's between the two.

[jack1747]

Hazel did not dump anywhere near the amount of rain that Agnes did.  Basicly Agnes flushed the Susquehana River Valley clean and into the Bay

[Crabslayer]

Jack, I agree.  As I said in my previous posts (and Hazel was way before Agnes) That the crabbing and fishing were great.  Plenty of grass.  I remeber the water clarity that you could see the crabs walking up to your handlines.  Come Agnes and BAM!

[briancrabber]

I guess the difference was that Hazel was a coastal rip and Agnes went inland disemboweling all the harmful ingredients into the ocean huh