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.
