Federation Blog

The X,Y,Z plot below was developed using the monitoring data that I collected, and was compiled by Dr. Muller at the United States Naval Academy. This plot is for July and indicates both a hypoxic (in dark red) and an anoxic (in black) zone from Liberty Marina toward the Rt 50 Bridge.  Hypoxic conditions are 2.0 mg/l or less and anoxic are 0.2mg/l or less.  This is one indicator used in the South River Scorecard for the River's health.--diana 

You all may not be seeing me out on the South River until spring.  This snow and ice has kept me from going on patrol or sampling, which gave me time to give the boat a new coat of bottom paint and an oil change for the Honda.  Hope to see you all on the river soon.---diana 

Andrew Muller pulling the anchor for me on the South River after we were done water quality monitoring.

I spent this weekend watching and calling the Maryland Department of the Environment on a barge that is performing very sloppy demolition work.  I will be taking MDE out on the water today to inspect the potential violations.

---Diana

 

 Yesterday the County started a great stream restoration project on the headwaters off of Gingerville Creek.  This section of Gingerville Creek is hidden away off of Riva Road.  The stormdrain/pipe drained much of the water from the surrounding area which includes Annapolis High School, Anne Arundel County offices, other misc. office buildings; in other words a lot of impervious suface.  This pipe carried so much water at such a high velocity that it created a 15 - 20 foot gorge. All of the sediment that was cut down was carried into Gingerville creek, South River.  This is only one of many restoration projects that need to be done across the South River Watershed- we need to slow the water down.

From left to right: Dr. Andrew Muller,USNA;  Dr. David Smith,USNA  Doug Wilson,NOAA; Congressman John Sarbanes, Peyton Robertson, NOAA

Today at the Annapolis City Dock, NOAA, the United States Naval Academy, and the City of Annapolis welcomed a new buoy for the Severn River.  The buoy is part of the Captain John Smith Chesapeake National Historic Water Trail.  For more information go to www.buoybay.org.

Diana

This morning as I was on my way into the office and dropped my son off at his school, I quickly noticed something horrible.  The school is undergoing expansion and the rain this morning quickly showed how poor the contractor was at proper sediment and erosion control.  All of this sediment will quickly make it's way into Glebe Creek.--Diana

Second Part of the story;  I took samples as the water was freely flowing into the stormdrain by inserting my hand with a bottle to obtain a proper sample, I then processed then in a laboratory and the following in the results I obtained:

Turbidity:  437  NTU (nephlometric turbidity units),  Orthophosphate: 0.29mg/l, Nitrate: 0.21 mg/l, Nitrite, 0.083mg/l.  The maximum turbidity that should be coming off of construction site is 40, this is about 9 times higher.

 

  Today I had the pleasure to work with US Fish and Wildlife Service in their lab while they performed necropsies and obtained samples from the catfish pulled from the South River on September 30, 2009.  The lesion on the right side of this catfish measured one inch long by 0.5 inches thick.  While this fish was swimming, the lesions were so big they bounced around.  The fish will be tested for liver cancer and skin tumors.  The area these fish were taken from was directly across from the ski zone in the northern part of the South River.  Again, as I have said before; the South River has no industry- but we have such toxic sediments and water quality that they produce catfish with major health problems.  On weekends I see people fishing off of Rt 50 bridge catching these catfish to eat.  What has the world come to when we allow ourselves to eat lesionous catfish.  No studies have been performed on the effect of human health and eating cancerous fish, but maybe it is time such a study is done.  There are no regulations or health advisories on this topic either, maybe it is time we do so.  I can not image feeding this to my children, in my opinion, this would be child abuse.  We have abused the South River enough- how much more can this poor ecosystem take?

Diana

 

Today I was out with USFWS performing the fall monitoring for our famous South River Cancerous Catfish.  The site was in the section near the ski zone in the northern part of South River.  With every catch the majority of the catfish had tumors, either on the face or back.  This is completely and utterly depressing to know that our river has no industry, but industry like water.  To know that where we have cancerous catfish, people are swimming, skiing, and fishing in waters with known problems.  Not only did the fish have horrible tumors, but they were anorexic.  Tomorrow I will be in the lab with USFWS helping to necropsy the catfish to help find the source.  But in the meantime --- Our river has a large problem.

-----Diana

 

Allow me to introduce the newest member of my family that will join me on Remedy with water sampling on the river.  Her name is Daisy and she is a 14 week old Chocolate Lab.