Pollution In Chesapeake Bay Area

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Right below Maryland there is a peninsula called the Eastern Shore of Virginia.
This is the place I have lived at for all my life. This is also the place where a common environmental issue is occurring. This is the issue of nitrogen and phosphorus pollution into our waterways. Though it might not seem like we could cause much pollution since we are a tiny place that barely is visible on maps we have both factories and farmland that produce run off that effects our bodies of water, especially the Chesapeake Bay. The Bay has “. lost 98 percent of its oysters, about 80 percent of grasses, and nearly 50 percent of forest buffers.” (Foundation) and looking at those percentages there is a problem.
Because the Eastern of Virginia is such a rural area …show more content…
The main concern with this run off is how it is causing “dead zones” in the Chesapeake Bay. These dead zones are areas where too much nitrogen and phosphorus have caused the booming growth of algal blooms. These blooms float on the water and block the sunlight to underwater grasses. This leads to less or no oxygen production in these areas. Which leads to the bigger problem, that without oxygen both shellfish and fish can struggle to live or not even be able to live in this area at all. These blooms also raise the pH levels which cause the perfect conditions for parasites to grow and reproduce rapidly. This is not only harmful to life in the Bay but also life outside of it since both people and animals can get sick from toxic algae, animals such as pets are more vulnerable which can result in the death of the animal because of both their liver and nervous systems being …show more content…
the EPA rolled out a pollution diet that required Maryland, as well as other states within the Chesapeake Bay watershed, to reduce the amount of nitrogen and phosphorous reaching the bay each year.” (Geiling). There should be more legislation to help regulate the amount of phosphorus and nitrogen going into the Bay or ways to divert the pollution into another area where it will be both useful and not harmful to any form of life. There are so many advantages to finding the proper operation of septic systems, though the disadvantages would be the cost and the amount of time it would take to be able to force it upon companies to follow through with setting up systems to get rid of this waste without it ending up in the
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