Chesapeake Bay Runoff Case Study

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The Chesapeake Bay Runoff is polluting North America's greatest waterway. More than 50 rivers run into the bay and all the gray water from highways and roads end up in the bay unfiltered. So all the oil, trash and fuel and carbon is running into there. The bay has lost 80 to 90 percent of the underwater grass that acts as a filter for pollutants that enter the water. Also is habitat to several species of birds and fish. The pollution has also declined the population of fish such as striped bass, hickory shad, yellow and white perch.
The Chesapeake system is 64,000 square miles drainage basin and is fourteens-fifteenths dry land. The shear size of the bay and water systems is short of amazing the 200 mile long and 25 mile wide bay host to more …show more content…
Some of the efforts was proceeded on several fronts, ranging from the control of toxic chemicals to better fisheries management. Also they permanent capped pollution from human sewage, even as human population continued to grow. Understanding why land runoff has become such a factor in the quality of Chesapeake Bay. Is the average depth is less then 22 feet and has less then a tenth the volume of water of the costal and inland bodies of water. It is now generally acknowledged that the Bay cannot be restored to health without dramatic reductions in pollution from the land. Control of the more traditional sources, like sewage and industrial discharge pipes, is not enough.Another issue is rain that used to soak into the soil, now flows quickly and directly down gutters and drains and into streams. The stream is subject to fierce flooding for a few hours. The water that used to seep underground, replenishing the water table, has run off from the, paved roads and highways. The runoff of "nutrients," the nitrogen and phosphorus that are prime culprits in the bay's decline, is several times as great from farmlands as it is from any other
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