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Recurring
Gaining Ground in Jersey People; Awards; Species &
New Jersey’s Barnegat Bay has long been a haven both for many wildlife
Habitats; Restorations;
species and for humans attracted by recreational and commercial opportunities. Report Cards; Products;
Development has also brought threats including growth in impervious cover Funding
which has resulted in soil compaction and losses in groundwater recharge and
protective vegetation. Recently, an innovative stormwater management initiative Atlantic CoastWatch is a bimonthly
gives promise of revitalizing a key ecosystem in a crowded state. newsletter for those interested in the
environmentally sound development
Traditionally, explains David Friedman of Ocean County’s Soil Conser- of the coastline from the Gulf of
vation District, the principal means of managing stormwater is via basins to Maine to the Eastern Caribbean.
collect water. Some 3,000 of these exist within the Barnegat Bay watershed and
are widely viewed as a primary way to improve water quality, replenish and help Coastal News Nuggets, a weekly
maintain wetlands. news headline summary, is available
through our web site:
(Continued, p. 7) www.atlanticcoastwatch.org.
2
Atlantic CoastWatch
Vol. 7, No. 6 Sayings
A project of the Sustainable From Maine Heritage, the newsletter published by the Maine Coast
Development Institute, which Heritage Trust, this article “Eating the Scenery,” by its president, Jay Espy:
seeks to heighten the environ-
Advocates for land protection often encounter the quip “you can’t eat
mental quality of economic the scenery.” This skeptical response suggests that lands conserved for their
development efforts, in coastal scenic value fail to generate revenues or jobs. Yet in point of fact, Mainers
and in forest regions, by commu- increasingly do “eat” the scenery. Recent studies show that nature-based
nicating information about better tourism is one of the fastest growing sectors of the expanding tourist economy.
policies and practices. SDI is Tourism is already Maine’s largest employer and generates $2.5 billion in gross
classified as a 501(c)(3) organiza- state product, exceeding the combined contributions of agriculture and fisheries.
tion, exempt from federal income Tourist dollars drive the economy along Maine’s coast where three-fourths of the
tax. state’s 44 million annual visitors come.
Since many of these basins do not function as they should, the Among the hazards that stream and
Barnegat Bay Estuary Program in partnership with a cluster of federal and pond dwelling fish and frogs face is
state agencies has launched a creative effort to make them work more like living a new zinger: the toxicity of com-
ecosystems. The problem with many of the basins is that their soil, compacted monly used antidepressants such as
by heavy machinery and bared of vegetation, becomes no longer able to perco- Prozac and Zoloft (SSRIs) in surface
late rainwater down to the groundwater deep below the surface. water and wastewater. What aquatic
biologist Marsha Black at the
Water collected in the basins tends to stay there, to become breeding University of Georgia has de-
pools for mosquitoes. Reductions in groundwater recharge occur. The Barnegat tected, she reports, is delayed sexual
partners, however, have introduced a “dig and drop” process that restores the development in fish and delayed
basins. First, the usually highly acid soils are treated to encourage the growth of metamorphosis in frogs. She recom-
vegetation. Then compost from recycling centers is spread across the bottom of mends the use of technologies that
the basin. Finally, the basin is seeded with native tree and shrub species to form remove SSRIs from wastewater.
a rain garden. As roots take hold, they become conduits for the rainwater to apps.caes.uga.edu
percolate as it should.
Environmental Defense (ED)
Results of the trial phase are convincing. One basin that before restora- reports serious health risks from
tion held water for all 29 years since it was built now becomes dry within a day mercury “hot spots” in 10 states
after a major rainstorm, thus eliminating mosquito breeding habitat and increas- including Maryland, Pennsylvania,
ing the rate of groundwater recharge. Restoration of another basin abruptly North Carolina, South Carolina, and
ended persistent flooding problems in a downstream apartment building. Florida. In such areas, says the ED
study, mercury mostly emanating
To date, only 3 of the estuary’s basins have been restored. But because from unregulated coal-fired power
these trial efforts have been so successful, the Barnegat Bay Estuary Program plants enters waterbodies and
says that similar measures elsewhere in the watershed have become a “top contaminates fish. People eating
priority” for the future. Moreover, says Friedman, “if we start constructing new mercury-laden fish, the report
basins properly, it will make a big difference in addressing a critical Atlantic continues, may encounter severe
coastal issue over the longer term.” www.ocsd.org neurological problems. EPA an-
nounced regulatory measures, but
ones not strict enough to satisfy ED,
which favors a 90% reduction. A
Salmon Rules Snag Farms spokesman for the Edison Electric
Institute, an industry advocate, told
Last spring US District Court Judge Gene Carter ordered two of The Washington Post that other
Maine’s largest fish farms to stock their pens only with North American rather studies “suggest that hot spots are
than European strains of Atlantic salmon. Worthy in principle, the ruling de- not a major health concern.”
signed by the US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) failed in practice because www.edf.org
no batch of fish could pass such a rigid genetic test.
This year the Chesapeake Bay
It’s easy to tell a purely European fish from a purely North American Foundation awards the bay a score
one, said FWS supervisor Mike Bartlett in a Bangor News interview. But the of 28 relative to its “pristine” score
lines begin to blur when the genes become muddied after decades of hybridiza- of 100 at the time of Captain John
tion as fish farmers sought to produce the strongest and fastest growing speci- Smith’s 17th century explorations.
mens. And even though the companies hastened to buy fish said to be geneti- The Bay’s condition has remained
cally North American from Canadian hatcheries, their samples all flunked the generally stable since the early
rigid FWS test which classifies a lot as non-native if even one fish out of hun- 1980s. CBF’s goals are for it to
dreds fails. achieve a 40 rating by 2010 and 70 by
2050.
Last fall, after no sample passed the test, FWS lowered the bar, allowing
more fish with hybrid ancestry to be certified without exposing Maine’s virtually Many marine species use noise to
nonexistent stocks of wild salmon to any major threat. The change was an communicate, reports National
example of “adaptive management” at FWS according to one spokesman. Geographic. Included, according to
two new scientific studies, are
Said the FWS’s Jamie Geiger: “We are doing the most appropriate Atlantic and Pacific herring which
thing for wild fish, and to make sure that a responsible aquaculture industry can “create high-frequency sounds by
continue in Maine.” But the change came too late for at least one major salmon releasing air from their anuses.”
farming company, Atlantic Salmon of Maine, which shut down both its Maine Online, the Geographic helpfully
hatcheries because neither had been able to pass the FWS’ original genetic test. provides an “audio sample.”
Atlantic CoastWatch
Sustainable Development Institute
3121 South St., NW
Washington, D.C. 20007
Products
Coral Doctor Builds Gene Pool
Marine biologist Tom Wolcott, of North
Carolina State University, is attaching eraser- At the tropical research center of the Mote Marine Labora-
sized, microchip-equipped “backpacks”to tory in Summerland Key, Florida, biologist Dave Lackland is building
pregnant female crabs in the Chesapeake Bay. a genetic bank of corals collected from Florida reef tracts as far north
If a fisherman catches a “robo-crab,” reports as the Dry Tortugas. He collects fragmented corals, primarily from boat
Capital News Service, backpack instructions will groundings, then carefully nurtures them in shallow tanks.
help its return so Wolcott can record data on its
travels for mating and laying eggs. Of 200 robo- One purpose of the project is to discover the best and simplest
crabs released in October, Wolcott has gotten way to raise coral. Lackland’s methods range from using outdoor tanks
more than 25 chips back from crabs serving the depending fully on natural light, to an indoor system where corals live
cause of science. in manmade saltwater and are lit only by 400 watt halide lights. His
coral farm helps researchers by providing them with a convenient
At Rutgers University, engineers Thomas J. “library.” And when part of a reef in the Florida National Marine
Nosker and Richard W. Renfree began Sanctuary gets damaged, farm-raised corals from the collection are
fiddling around with two common kinds of available for reintroduction into the natural ecosystem.
plastic trash: high density polyethylene (HDPE)
used for milk containers and detergent bottles, “I get to save coral fragments, play coral doctor, and put my
and polystyrene, used for disposable forks and babies back out there,” he said in an interview published in the Miami
knives. The engineers found that a blend of the Herald. “If you really want to help the environment, I can’t think of a
two can make a pretty sturdy building material. better job.” Though commercial aquarium dealers and others raise
A bridge built of this composition has been some corals, Lackland knows of no one else who is doing so in order to
carrying vehicles across a river in New Jersey’s protect genetic diversity.
Pine Barrens. The cost: $75,000 vs. $350,000 for
a conventional wooden bridge.