November 2007

I know how does that work with getting people off-grid? Well look at it as a cautionary tale of what not being self-sufficient and responsible in our resource usage of running a home can lead to. Yes, I know most of the dead zones in the Chesapeake Bay are attirbuted to commercial, but let’s just go with the flow on this one. I’m from Maryland and not being able to have crabs because the Bay isn’t being cleaned up like we were promised is a life changing event here.

Yes, I know we are not to that yet but with only a third of the population of the early ’90’s when the population really started to drop, it’s not just a nightmare. Since harvesting is less the half, 48.9 million pounds,of what it was at its peak, over 100 million pounds, over fishing being a main cause doesn’t really fit. Since sturgeon and shod have already disappeared with oysters hot on their tale, it’s starting to look like our’s favorite crustasian thinking about being next. We have started programs to oyster farm, but you can’t do that with the crab, so the only way to fix it is to get rid of the dead zones still in the bay.

While we may not see the extinction of the crab, we may see the extinction to the luxury of eating them if the population keeps dropping. With that we can now add waterman to the extinction list here in Maryland. I have heard of some stories of waterman turning to oyster framers, but that won’t work for them all and it still doesn’t clean up our Bay.

For something that has been in the works for so long and due to be finished by 2010, it’s amazing that the citizens of this state are not being more alarmed that the one thing the both sides of the bay have in common is still damaged and in some parts dying. The signs are up letting people know where the watersheds are, we have been told for over 10 years what not to do to make it worse, our children learn about it from elementary school, yet it is still able to be ignored.

If our government says that because they don’t have the billions of dollars needed to clean up the farmlands/septic systems, upgarde sewage plants, etc. Then maybe us as individuals need to stop just listening to the news stories, looking at the signs, and really hear and see them. We as a population are just as responsible for what we let run through our fields, roads, and waterways. If we want to live in a state that says it wants to be clean and healthy maybe we need to show the government and our neighbors what that looks like. You wouldn’t tell a child they need to change while you …