Outdoors Maryland; 1710

Outdoors Maryland is made by NTT to serve all of our diverse communities and is made possible by the generous support of our members. Thank you. Outdoors Maryland Chesapeake Crossroads is made possible in part by the Maryland Department of Natural Resources. Inspired by nature guided by science and by the Keith Kimball foundation supporting management of living resources and habitats reduction of pollution and citizen engagement in the Chesapeake Bay the Campbell foundation investment in action and by telling Creek foundation supporting efforts to promote a healthy environment an informed public in a peaceful world. More information is available online at Town Creek at DND dot org. It's a cold winter morning in the small Waterman's harbor of one no no on deal Island.

A dim light at the local store beckons the men to work. The Chesapeake Bay soon awakens to the low rumble of marine engines. Some 10 miles away in the small working harbor of Tyler and on Smith Island a similar scene unfold. Bill Clayton likes to start work before first light to get the benefit of a full day on the water. Today he's running later than usual. The oyster season is almost over and like other watermen he's anxious to catch the limit he's allowed. There's a beautiful morning you'd wait wait don't wait without say you made it there you voted yes. Were headed over exotic place where you want always to rock out. Great. Oh

they both reported well going in the same area. With our great boat already talking about. This fleet of war boats headed for an oyster Rogge is a timeless portrait of life on the Chesapeake Bay an era when millions of bushels of oysters were harvested each season. But those days of plenty are no longer. Over harvesting disease and the environmental decline of the bay's ecosystem. Have taken a heavy toll over the years. Not just on oysters. But the entire fishery. For the waterman of the Chesapeake Bay what's at stake is not just the baby's health but their livelihoods as well. Their communities their heritage. Today the Chesapeake Bay stands at a crossroads. In the cold winter months of December through March. The Chesapeake Bay returns to the

waterman. Few recreational boats venture out in these harsh conditions. It becomes as it once was a working back. For generations the Bayswater men have cloistered in the winter. It used to be the big money crowd. Now for most of these men. The meager oyster harvest only helps to pay some of the bills until the more lucrative crabbing season begins in the summer. The base oyster harvest remained relatively abundant until the mid-1980s. When the onset of two diseases and assets and dermal devastated population. Bill Clayton is working on the rock by 6:30 in the morning. The rock is a large mound of oyster shells that hadn't been touched for decades until last

year when Waterman discovered a healthy Oyster Bar. Like other watermen in Tangier Sound. Clayton uses a power dredge which helps him go into deeper water. There he finds a promising sign for oysters. Everybody said if you don a really healthy water the wife called it always. Oysters. One of the boys here and I did Ronald McDonald are. Very good. Like many other Smith Alan Waterman Clayton has been catching his full limit of 12 bushel baskets almost every day he's gone out this winter. Seven don't work you don't know why. The other night. But Mother Nature has not been so kind to the water men 100 miles north and Tang was working on the Chester river. Herman Heinz Field and his son Fred have always stood in this part of the Chester river for

decades. It is considered one of the better oyster reserve areas in the upper mid section of the bay. But this morning. They're the only boat around. It's now you've been coming out here or you're pretty much all your life. And you're being what I know want to come out here but it will bring a point. No boats and few wasters. The Chester river. And Tangier so. Two different stories. To different areas. But both in the same body of water. For Chesapeake Bay Waterman. It's always been a puzzle to find out where the best catch will be some years it was close to home. But other years far away to survive they've had to adapt to a fishery that's constantly changing to a body of water that is in constant flux. The Chesapeake Bay is a complex mix of salt water brought in from the ocean by the ebb and flow of the coastal tides and freshwater fed from streams and rivers.

Like the shellfish and fin fish they harvest the watermen have had to be flexible depending on the rains and the tides to guide them. Each season provides different challenges. For scientists to the Chesapeake Bay holds many mysteries and the winter months many difficult tasks. This research team from Maryland's Department of Natural Resources is studying the spawning fish population in the Severn River on an icy March day. Among the rivers casualties the yellow perch that's a big yellow perch. Oh it's got a tag in it too. Once a common fish here its population

has sharply declined. Jim up off is the head of the research team. We're doing a lot more or less a census. 257 female we get you know how many sex ratios for some species Lankes. We also do some tagging. This is a nice male yellow perch believes the yellow creature endangered by areas of low dissolved oxygen caused by pollutants that washed down from communities that lined the river. In terms of habitat conditions we would consider this a stressed habitat. The bulk of the year these fish have to figure out how to live here in water and it really is not very supportive. Kind of one of the basic things you have to breathe. When I was a kid the Severn River was a famous place to go yell a profession. That's gone. We've you know we shut it down to harvest some people do probably get to do a little catch and release fishing.

But by and large a big chunk of what was the quality of life here is gone. Yellow perch to 36 male. Scientists and environmental officials are looking at many of the bays more populated tributaries as bellwethers what they can expect is the watershed increasingly urbanize. I love the boy. First. I got. This new water monitoring belief funded by Noah is being placed in the Patuxent River. There's a narrowing here and it's sort of a nice place in the river to collect some of the data that they're looking for to see what's coming down the river. Jim Coles is a faculty research assistant with the University of Maryland. The buoy will provide scientists with new information on water quality and the presence of low

dissolved oxygen or what's called anoxic condition. Years ago we were monitoring oyster bars in these areas. We noticed that the oysters there were dying not because of the disease because we test for that. But that they had low oxygen conditions and they weren't able to survive the long term exposure to those conditions. Cole says this Billy will now alert them when anoxic conditions are moving down the river. The process of oxygen depletion starts in the Chesapeake tributaries and then moves into the bay. Scientists blame manmade pollutants treated sewage and a deadly mix of chemical nitrogen and phosphorus that pour into the bay when it rains causing algae blooms that suffocate the bay. Years of efforts to curb this pollution have had little impact a dramatic view of the Chesapeake Bay from one of NASA's satellites helps to provide

perspective on how extensive these anoxic areas called Dead zones have become. Last year they took up nearly 35 percent of the volume of the bay's water most of it in the main stem of the bay where the shipping channels are located. And experts say the overall volume of the dead zone is increased. Then the dead zone certainly is a cause for concern but I do think it also turned a lot of public attention and focus back on that day. For scientists like Stephanie Reynolds of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation improving the bay's water quality is key to any effort to help the bay recover. We can say I think that our fisheries are not in great shape in the Chesapeake are Chesapeake as a whole is not in great shape we've got water quality problems. Our blue crab population has steadied out a little bit unfortunately it's day but out near historical low we've lost about 90 percent of our oyster population in a day which means we've lost 98 percent of that really critical filtering function and we're hoping that what we can

bring that goes to population and that that will start a snowball effect helping the water quality helping the other species. Throughout the Chesapeake oyster restoration continues to be a central part of the effort to bring the bay back oysters filter sediment from the water creating a cleaner Chesapeake Bay. Scientists are even studying the feasibility of introducing a non-native species of oyster from Asia called area Kansas which are resistant to disease in the Chesapeake. But for now much of scientists efforts are still focused on bringing back the native oyster. Here at Kent Island the Chesapeake Bay Foundation. Oyster restoration vessel the Patricia Campbell plows its way through Kent narrows. The destination. A new Oyster sanctuary on Prospect Bay. More than 130 concrete oyster reef balls will be lowered into the water.

At home. And. Really. Across the bay at another oyster sanctuary. Dr. Ken painter of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science is looking at poor visibility in the water for his divers. It's probably pitch black down there. Dr. painter has been involved in the oyster restoration effort for more than 10 years. He believes the bay's recovery depends on restoring the oyster population. I think restoration of a large scale reef building filter feeder is going to be critical to restoring the whole Chesapeake Bay care system. This side of the mouth of the seven river had always been considered a healthy one but

today the divers find oysters whose shells have been destroyed. To see how all these shows are really eroding it's a boring sponge that causes trouble. Some of them look like they're becoming pretty brittle. Dr. painter believes the bay is facing a crossroads. We know what we need to do in terms of reducing the impacts of development on the watershed. We know what we need to do in terms of reducing nutrients and reducing pollutants that are dumped into the bay. The Crossroads is how to get all those things done. The longer that we wait the more important that crossroad becomes. But for Herman hind field any changes may be coming too late. He's 71 years old. He doesn't foresee any quick turnaround in the bay's fortunes. And he's not sure how much longer he'll be oystering. Oh never and never shall come back. I know that. His son Fred is also not that optimistic.

Today they may only get three bushels enough to pay for fuel but not much more is not better here it's getting worse every year. Five years ago they come here to the same place here in the UK 15 18. And it's just gone now. Certainly for most water men the glory days of working on the Chesapeake are gone. Pete Lesher is the curator of the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum and an expert on the history of the Chesapeake. One of the impressions that we get in looking at photos of the Bay of century goes is that this was a place that was dominated by commerce that was dominated by the fisheries the Chesapeake was justly famous. Even the world over for oysters at one point in time the Chesapeake was producing more oysters than any other place in the world. There were whole communities around Chesapeake Bay that were really built around the wealth of seafood in general and oysters in particular. This was a

place that was dominated by skip Jacks and go to work boats. The impression that you get from some of these historic photographs is boy there are an awful lot of oystermen out there chasing these bivalves off the bottom of the Chesapeake Bay going back to the. Peak of the oyster industry in the 1870s and 1880s. We had as many as maybe 12000 oysterman. After these oysters. Today it's a different story. There may be 6000 active watermen in Maryland but only 200 are harvesting oysters this winter season. Many of the old oystering and crab towns around the bay are you willing to change. Condos in marinas replacing crab shacks and oyster shucking houses. And the Skipjack America's last remaining fishing fleet under sail. So loved by many Marylanders are now down to only a handful of boats that work regularly. Ever hear of.

Delmas Benton is one of the last of the Skipjack captains. He doesn't use the sales much anymore because they're too tattered. The boat was built in the early 1900s and the engine that drives the oyster dredges is vintage 1970 Delmas but knows he's working on an antique go out of work and water. Another problem is finding crew. It's cold unpleasant work tedious and unchanging. On this frosty 20 degree day in Tangiers sound Benton had trouble finding four men to run the dredges. He says there are a few in the younger generation learning how to operate these boats. Going at the rate of Waterman coming out at the back when I thought a year about I mean down almost out of the hands of a common law work on the water. Now I'm not online I'm. At Howard on the water right now.

Despite the difficulties Benton says he's not quite how I wonder what. You know. That's the way our Daniels feels. He's the oldest of Maryland Skipjack captains. At 83 years old he's been working on the water since the 1930s. I'm number one way to just go and work I would go to work and. Whatever the nearest Harbor would lower tail and go and then a national sad state is good for there have beautiful wildlife. On the water and quiet. Are our food have gone away. Maybe they'll be back next year. That's the way we look at it. This winter was a tough one for Daniels. His wife was in the hospital and his best friend another Waterman died they found the

exact nature to just say up on the road about water and this point in that same experience I had. He was all on each other at the funeral service. He paid tribute to his old friend or a man with a net. Man with a dread. Try. Counting could do that but the sea is still pro-life but its knowledge is well known and its change its mission and its all way to the throne. But this was a poem about the past. Today the bay is giving less and less each year to the throng of watermen that seek its bounty total catches in the bay have dropped by nearly a third in the past half century. The diversity of the catch is also declined. Or trying to work all the facia up forward so we can get them had I had a pocket.

River fisherman like Eddie Callaway can still catch it on the Nanticoke River but they have to release them by law. I think they said it picked up for last two or three years but it meant dying terribly any used to harvest Shad in the 1960s when he was young. And very little of an animal right. Nothing like it used to be. In his working life he's seen the decline of shad and herring and the number of fishermen on the Nanticoke River all but disappear. It's unreal how. Time has changed and you know it was all local people that you know defaced and trapped. It was. It was nothing to come by here and you know you see twenty five boats every day when you were faking it you know to everybody I mean you know it was a little table. But today the only boat accompanying the Callaways is a research team with Maryland's Department of Natural Resources. They're taking a sample of the herring catch and what may be one of the healthier rivers in the Chesapeake Bay watershed. I'm moving to scale so

we can determine the age. Dale one rich heads up this research team. We don't seem to have the problems with the dead zones in the Nanticoke. I think for a couple reasons. You have strong currents and you don't have the development you don't have the bad water coming in near the extent like you have on the savanah. Intend your sound they don't see that many dead zones either. Compared to some areas of the bay there is still little development here on Smith Island not much seems to have changed over the decades. It's a place where stacks of crab pots and painted crab shacks and harbors filled with old working boats still dominate the landscape. There are even some young waterman to be found here. Continuing the traditions of. Smith Island offers a glimpse of the Chesapeake of the past a place which still moves to the old rhythms of the bay's seafood business.

Along with many of the other women in Tyler and Louise Clayton picks crabs in the summer but in the winter she attends the local store several days a week. She says it's been a good year for the Smith Island watermen but she's heard about the problems at the other end of the bay and Rockoff say isn't that. Great. The way that. News travels fast in the waterman's grapevine it's always been a tight knit community. Yeah war or old Iraq by late March Louise's husband Bill Clayton is almost through the rigors of the winter oystering season. It's been harsh weather but it's been one of his better years. Still he knows from bitter experience how quickly things change on the bay. He also knows how important the baby's health is to his own survival.

They say by next year only for next year only. So we put a buy a good year of time. To build Clayton working on the water is not just reaping the bounty of the bay. Not just a job. It's also a way of life that connects them with past generations of water men who have dredge the same oyster buyers. With the same hardships in the same cold winter wind in their faces. That are kind of. Trying to hold back you know but wronger. Like many other Chesapeake Bay Waterman. Bill Clayton will be around next year to take whatever the bay will offer because for him there is no better way to make a living. Show gray and say it's so strong. And then shake your treasured all day long and I am a cat. And one thing I know.

She ain't so great and amazing the heart that the she demands respect and with that we can play. The boy. Urged. Her to. Drop into our website at w w w dot MPP dot o r g

to send us your comments and suggestions. Outdoors Maryland Chesapeake Crossroads is made possible in part by the Maryland Department of Natural Resources inspired by nature guided by science and by the Keith Campbell foundation supporting management of living resources and habitat reduction of pollution and citizen engagement in the Chesapeake Bay. The Campbell foundation investment in action and by Town Creek foundation supporting efforts to promote a healthy environment and informed public in a peaceful way more information is available online at Town Creek at DND dot org. Outdoors Maryland is made by NPT to serve all of our diverse communities

and is made possible by the generous support of our members. Thank you.