The magnificent Chesapeake Bay.
A beautiful, bountiful and
essential part of our area.
An economic lifeline.
An environmental necessity.
Bay is vital, but it's also quite fragile.
The health of the Chesapeake
Bay actually starts 350 miles
from here in upstate New York.
I'm going to take you there
and I'm going to show you how
chocolate butter and ice cream are
actually making the water quality
of the day better for everyone.
Over the next half hour,
join me in exploring the ways
we protect this local treasure.
These are the unforgettable stories
of the Chesapeake Bay.
Hello, I'm Adam longo.
I'm going to start this half hour
by addressing water pollution,
its effects on the Bay,
and efforts to stop it in the fall of 2020,
the Chesapeake Bay Foundation and
the Attorneys General of Virginia,
DC, Maryland and Delaware,
they sued the EPA.
Now that lawsuit alleges that New York
and Pennsylvania aren't doing enough to
keep the Chesapeake Bay water clean.
So I took a road trip to investigate
what our neighboring states to
the North are doing and if it's
enough to help save the Bay.
On the Chesapeake Bay here near Kent Island,
Maryland, and the quality of the
water where we are right here is very
much dependent on what happens 350
miles away in Cooperstown, New York.
That's where the Susquehanna River
begins and where many of the problems
begin for the Chesapeake Bay.
You see all the water here in New
York dot C Go Lake will ultimately
flow South to the Chesapeake Bay,
but along the way, this water is
going to pick up a lot of toxins.
We're talking about farm fertilizer,
sewage, industrial waste,
cow and chicken manure,
and all of that stuff is what's
killing the fish, the crabs and
the oysters in the Bay because
it's sucking all of the
oxygen right out of the water.
Doctor Beth McGee with the
Chesapeake Bay Foundation.
Obvious but important question, why
is clean water in the
Chesapeake Bay so important? A
lot of people move to Maryland because of
the Bay they'd like to fish in the Bay.
They like to swim in the Bay.
A commercial fishing is big crab industry.
You know striped bass,
which is a a favorite fish.
So drives the economy.
Our New York and Pennsylvania
living up to their end of the
bargain to keep the Bay clean.
Pennsylvania no New York maybe?
This is no till strip here and
I haven't really planned it.
I did plan from clothes.
Wendy Walsh, we're here
in Tioga County, New York.
You are a project manager for
the Upper Susquehanna coalition.
We're here on Twin Brook farms.
We're here on Marvin's farm.
Why did you bring us out here today?
Would you want us to see?
I wanted to give you an
example of conservation
work that's happening in the watershed
and the upper parts of the Susquehanna
River watershed to show the impacts
that we're making and the benefits that
we're providing to the Chesapeake Bay.
So this is the riparian
forest buffer. Our buffer is
naturally filtering nitrogen,
phosphorus sediment that's
coming off the hillside.
Keeping it out
of the stream, that's critical.
I mean, having something like that
is super important. Absolutely.
So the riparian buffer is just
one component of several
that have been incorporated on this farm,
correct? What are some of the things
that you've done here on the farm?
Built fence is what I could make and
then managed water systems for it.
Obviously made of water tank.
You sound like you want to
incorporate a lot of environmentally
friendly practices here,
but then there's also a kind of
a financial part to that too.
Where. I'm sure
you can't do everything you want
to do because drive you out of
business exactly, and that's some
of the problems that farmers have.
Agriculture is the largest pollution
source coming into the Bay.
Pennsylvania has a huge farming industry,
and so the the challenge.
Really, there is getting their
32 something thousand farms to
do things that we need to do
for clean water.
So we've made our way downstream.
Now we're in Lancaster County,
Pennsylvania at the Turkey Hill
ice cream factory with Derek Frye.
Derek, you work here.
You say that the Chesapeake
Bay is important to you.
It's important to Turkey Hill.
Show us the receipts, prove it.
What are you guys doing?
Any farm that supplies us with
milk has signed on and agreed
that they will participate in all
of the clean water regulations.
So that's new treatment
management wastewater.
So that's a prerequisite.
To do business with us.
Janet Keller, we're here on
the farm in Lancaster County,
Pennsylvania, and you work for
a local milk producers Coop.
So tell us about that.
Tell us what we're doing here.
So I work for Maryland and
Virginia milk producers.
We are working with the alliance
for the Chesapeake Bay to support
our dairy farmers and putting in
conservation practices on their farms.
It is absolutely your life
and you're thinking, greed. Pennsylvania
doesn't touch the Chesapeake Bay.
Your property doesn't
touch the Chesapeake Bay.
Just to be Frank,
do you care about the Chesapeake Bay?
I mean, does it matter to you?
Is there a connection
between what you do here in
the Bay? Well, I guess they're thinking
that your water, your water flow.
If if you, you know,
pollute your streams here.
Eventually it empties out into the Bay,
so you can affect the Bay, but honestly,
your people out there with all the
asphalt fertilizing their lawns
10 times heavier than have to be.
Probably can you put them all together?
They'll do as much damage as we will.
I think
this is a manure storage pit and
this will allow the farm to collect
all of the nutrients that the cows
are producing in their manure and
apply it to the land at the best
times of year. To do that, to
have a manure pit like this is helping
to keep all of the bad stuff from
flowing into the streams and then
ultimately into the Susquehanna, right?
Yep. You have to sell these farmers
on these conservation practices.
Is it a hard sell?
Farmers want to do
the right thing and many times.
Doing the right thing is not cheap.
How much of the things that they've
done on this farm are making a
difference for the quality of the
water and for the Chesapeake Bay?
I think it's made a huge
difference over the years.
The more and more people realize
that these practices do make a
difference and for what they
can do for the quality of life,
the profitability,
the efficiency of the farms they're
implementing them more and more and
you can see that in the statistics
of the runoff that's in the Bay of
the nutrients that are in the Bay.
It's gone down over the last several years.
By the way, Hershey's chocolate and
landolakes butter also in Pennsylvania.
They have programs similar
to the one at Turkey Hill.
Well, now let me bring you up to
speed on that lawsuit from the EPA,
the Chesapeake Bay Foundation says there
are active settlement discussions underway,
but every day without a solution is
another day that 10 to £15 million
of nitrogen and phosphorus based
fertilizer and other water toxins
flow right into the Susquehanna River
and on into the Chesapeake Bay.
An annual report.
By the University of Maryland
helps us keep track of how the
Chesapeake Bay is doing.
The latest report card paints a picture
of an ecosystem on the verge of failure.
It shows two years of hot spells
have killed off underwater
grasses and hurt baby crabs,
while more droughts and extreme weather
wash even more pollution into the water.
Environmental scientists Doctor
Bill Dennison says climate change
is altering things so fast,
restoring the Chesapeake to what it
used to be isn't possible anymore.
That's our challenge.
We have to reimagine the Bay.
We're not trying to restore
the Bay to 1950 or John Smith.
We are talking about a future
Bay which is going to be very
different than the Bay that we've
had or the Bay that we have today.
One success story is the
Anacostia River Tunnel in DC.
It catches storm water and trash and has
already reduced sewage spills by 95%.
You know fishing is one of
the great pastimes of the Bay.
But the faces piloting the
waterways are changing.
There's a big push to get more
black captains back on the Bay,
and oysters are one of the
day's greatest resources,
but they're in danger.
Not so fast, says two cousins who
supply a lot of our areas restaurants.
They're on a mission to help
oyster lovers and also help
keep the bays water clean.
There's a desperate effort underway to
replenish a dying breed of Maryland,
watermen and women on the Chesapeake
Bay WS9 meteorologist Caitlin
McGrath goes in depth to explore
what's behind the diminishing
number of minorities in aquaculture.
Head out on the waters of the
Chesapeake Bay and you won't find
many black boat captains anymore.
Their numbers are dwindling fast,
but the next generation stands determined
to prevent their total extinction.
The idyllic waters of the Chesapeake Bay.
They looked exactly like this in the 1600s.
That's when the first African
Americans saw this bountiful
body of water.
And as we open the book of the base history,
their contributions leap off
the pages, Waterman and boat,
builders cooks and oyster harvesters.
Turning the page to the present day.
It's the Shirley B3,
the head boat of the oldest living
black captain on the Bay today.
84 year old Montreal Wright. I
started coming out with my dad
when I was five going on six.
His son, 63 year old Captain Lamont
Wright is the next chapter and he's
hoping to bait some hooks to preserve
a dying legacy and endangered species.
Minorities in aquaculture
years ago there was so many black captains,
that's all the blacks did.
If they wanted to make some money now.
This is no blacks Harley involved in it,
so my goal is to make this a living legacy.
For the Black Waterman and the
black captains of the Chesapeake.
The Black Waterman of the Chesapeake
Bay has the same kind of impact as a
Tuskegee Airmen that they have the same
kind of impact as a Buffalo soldier.
But their story has just began to be told.
And that story continues with the
third generation of the family
you're meeting in this story.
I was five years old. I started on
my grandfather, Montreal right spoke
27 year old Cedric Cooper says
it's his grandfather's work ethic
that's driven him to his destiny.
This is something that I feel that
I have no other choice but to get
into because he's worked too hard.
I want my son to go ahead and take
over and and and and enjoy and have
a good way of life if somebody.
Will step up and do something.
Right now. It's over.
This isn't just something that
we should like talk about.
We need to be like active about
our engagement. Amani Black
has spent the past five years
as a commercial oyster farmer.
In that time, she says, not encountering
one other woman of color.
I come from a 200 year old long
line of watermen and skipped a few
generations and came back to me.
I was really moved by the conversations of
diversity and inclusion in marine sciences.
All the boat captains are over
the age of 60 and so right there.
That is, a generation that is just slowly
and slowly fading away with no real
younger people coming up behind them.
To me it's it's alarming,
and so that's why you know,
I think that minorities and agriculture came
at a perfect time.
Imani's nonprofit Mia Minorities in
aquaculture and quite poetically,
minorities in aquaculture
are Mia missing in action?
Her goal to enlist them to entice them
back to the Bay. It's
not just about internships and mentorships,
but it's about career development skills.
It's really giving people the tools
to create a viable and sustainable
career on their own terms.
In reality, it's really just paying homage
to all the people that came before me.
All the people that I still know,
like great captains that are
still out here doing doing great
things on the Chesapeake Bay.
African Americans are and
amphibious body of people
Vince Leggett. Wrote the book on black
contributions to the Chesapeake,
literally as a historian,
a black man and a champion of the Bay.
What we've tried to do is preserve
the history and the heritage of the
Bay to show that we weren't just
cramped pickers and oyster Shuckers,
but owners of seafood processing plants,
owners of boats on sailmakers,
owner of five star restaurants.
He's rooting for the rights he's
pulling for Amani to carry on
a proud tradition of blacks.
On the Bay for another 400 years and beyond.
On the Chesapeake Bay.
Caitlin McGrath, USA 9
Chesapeake Bay oysters good for your health.
The water quality and the local
economy but they are facing an
enormous threat to Virginia.
Cousins are tackling that problem.
From a Chesapeake Bay farm to your table,
let's talk everything oysters.
Now oysters are absolutely essential
for aquatic life in the Bay,
so from harvesting them to serving them,
it is crucial that that process
happens in a sustainable way.
Once again, W A9's Caitlin McGrath
with us to show how a Virginia
company is helping its customers
while also helping the Bay.
The Rappahannock Oyster Company in
topping Virginia is a family business
passed from Grandfather to grandson,
Pretty Sweet desk, right.
Cousins Ryan and Travis Croxton
have been running the place for the
last 20 years, helping protect one of
the region's most cherished resources.
We're not taking from nature.
We're actually adding to it.
How does that work?
Well, these aren't wild
oysters. They're grown in
a protected environment.
The idea is while we're farming these,
the wild population gets a chance to rebound.
Patrick Oliver is one of the
companies oyster farmers.
He's helping the native oysters
rebound from decades of disease and
overharvesting that depleted the
Chesapeake oyster harvest to less than
1% of what they once were. It's work
that thousands of lives depend on.
Without the oyster you, you don't
get these effects that allow for
a healthy ecosystem.
According to the Chesapeake Bay Foundation,
adult oysters filter up to
50 gallons of water a day,
each with fewer of these natural cleaners.
All aquatic life was at risk.
But thanks to oyster farming
that's starting to change.
Rappahannock operations happen
across 150 acres of the Chesapeake.
Most of the action happens
beneath the surface.
That's where more than 10 million
oysters of all different sizes live
in nearly 5000 cages along the bottom,
they arrive from hatcheries,
tiny and full of potential.
By the time they leave,
they're a lot bigger and a whole lot tastier.
What happens in between is a complex
process that's closely monitored.
That's got it over the course
of roughly a year and a half.
Oysters are grown removed.
Sorted by size and left to grow a little
more. Rinse and repeat until they're ready
for market and it's a high bar to get picked.
Most of these oysters actually
go back out in the water.
We're really only kind of cherry
picking the best oysters for market
Oliver. Make sure that each oyster
gets enough care, not just to survive,
but to be healthy. And of course tasty
to the well trained tongue. He says.
It's obvious they're from the Chesapeake
part of Rappahannock's own operation is
a tasting room right across the street.
But accessibility is important too,
and one of croxon's top
priorities. We also want
to be able to make wishes affordable
and available to just about anybody.
Altogether, Croxson says the company puts
out between 6 and 8,000,000 oysters a year.
Some years farm
production in the Chesapeake even
exceeds the wild oyster harvest.
Croxton says that's the whole point.
We've definitely seen an explosion
of of interest, both in consuming
oysters and in growing them.
So I think it's it's here to stay.
I wouldn't call it a fad 20 years later.
Lessons to learn the past and the
present for young and old, you'll hear
about the Calvert Marine Museum next.
From the past to the future,
the only constant for the Chesapeake
is change the Calvert
Marine Museum in Solomons,
Maryland helps document that evolution
at the mouth of the Patuxent River.
These exhibits educate people of all
ages about the day's paleontology,
marine life and maritime history,
protecting the story of the Chesapeake
to share with future generations.
Thanks for watching unforgettable
stories about the Chesapeake Bay until
next time I'm Adam Longo for W USA 9.