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The Chesapeake Bay is in Trouble

August 16th, 2009 Posted in Organic & Chemical Pesticides

Many people that live in the northeastern part of the United States are familiar with the Chesapeake Bay area in Maryland and Virginia. What most people are not familiar with is how much trouble it is in. The Chesapeake Bay is in trouble for many reasons, including over-crabbing and pollution, but one of the main reasons is due to the harmful pesticides that are running into the Bay from farmers’ lands in adjacent Maryland and Virginia.

The Chesapeake Bay is the largest estuary, a body of water where fresh water and ocean water meet, in the United States.

The Bay is now having issues with intersex fish and a decline in the frog and crab population, which deals heavily with the fishing sector of the economy in this area. The threats have become so increased though, that not only the local and state governments, but the federal government has been getting involved as well.

The chemicals that show up are the by-products of the pesticides the farmers use. However, the chemicals are not just from farmers; they are the product of household chemicals that are washed down in the sewers that flow into the Bay. These chemicals are causing endocrine, growth and reproductive defects in the fish and frogs in the Chesapeake Bay. This also harms the crabs in the Bay, as well as the Bay grasses surrounding.

This not only is a threat to all of the animals and the ecosystem that is and surrounds the Bay, but is a threat to that economy as well. The government took notice of this, and after many issues arising in the late 1970s, a needed solution became apparent. In 1983 the Chesapeake Bay Program was established, and has been renewed many times since then. It involves Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Delaware, West Virginia, New York and the District of Columbia. These states are committed to restoring the Chesapeake Bay to what it once was, not only for economic reasons, but to restore the ecosystem of the area as well.

To help the efforts of not only the Chesapeake Bay, but water sources everywhere, switch to EcoSMART natural insecticide products, the safe alternative pesticide.