Human Health Effects of Chesapeake Bay Pollution

We've talked in the past about the eutrophication damage that is caused by nitrogen and phosphorous pollution in the Chesapeake Bay, but we haven't given much attention to the health threat this pollution presents to the people living in the Chesapeake Bay watershed area.  Here, Lisa Dirks summarizes the human health implications of excessive N and P pollution and how GreenHarvest™ can help to ameliorate them.

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Harmful impacts associated with nitrogen and phosphorus run-off are not isolated to local marine and wildlife in the Chesapeake Bay.  Scientists are becoming increasingly aware of the human health threats associated with bay water pollution.  The Chesapeake Bay is a watershed that covers six states (New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, and Washington D.C.), 64,000 square miles, and is home to more than 17 million people (Pelton 2009).

In 2009 the Chesapeake Bay Foundation published a report authored by Tom Pelton entitled, “Bad Water 2009: The Impact on Human Health in the Chesapeake Bay Region.”  This report identified five issues that citizens and governments should consider a formidable threat.  These five include vibrio, cyanobacteria, nitrates, cryptosporidium, and mercury. GreenHarvest would act as an ameliorating agent to at least three of these.

“VIBRIO The combination of warmer waters, nutrient pollution, and other factors in the Chesapeake Bay are contributing to the growth of bacteria called Vibrio that can cause life-threatening skin and blood infections and intestinal illnesses, according to Dr. Rita Colwell, former director of the National Science Foundation and current Distinguished University Professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and University of Maryland, College Park. Although infrequent, the number of annual Vibrio infection cases reported in both Virginia and Maryland has increased in recent years. In Virginia, the number has more than doubled over the last decade, from 12 in 1999 to 30 in 2008. Reports of infections have also risen in Maryland, but a change in reporting requirements in that state in 2003 complicates the picture there. In both states, it is unknown how many of these cases come from eating or handling shellfish from other regions. Nutrient pollution is nitrogen and phosphorus from many sources, including stormwater runoff from streets, farm fields, barnyards and lawns; discharges from sewage plants, septic tanks and industries; and air pollution from power plants, factories and vehicles that settles into the water.

CYANOBACTERIA Nutrient pollution and warmer weather also stimulate the growth of harmful algal blooms. Blue green algae, also known as cyanobacteria, can cause liver disease, skin rashes, nausea, and vomiting. Dr. Peter Tango, Chesapeake Watershed Monitoring Coordinator for the U.S. Geological Survey, recently co-authored a report that called harmful algal blooms a “significant and expanding threat to aquatic life, human health, and regional economies.” Between 2000 and 2006, Dr. Tango tested waters with cyanobacteria blooms and found that 31 percent had enough toxins to make the waters unsafe for children to swim in.

NITRATES Polluted runoff causes not only low oxygen “dead zones” in the Chesapeake Bay, it also can hurt the health of rural families that drink from private wells. Recent studies found that between 21 percent and 60 percent of wells tested in Pennsylvania’s lower Susquehanna River Basin had nitrate levels exceeding public drinking water standards. Drinking water with too much nitrates can raise the risk of cancer, nervous system deformities in infants, hemorrhaging of the spleen, and other problems.” (Pelton 2009)

In summary, beyond the benefits GreenHarvest provides for plants and soils, it also ameliorates health problems amongst local residents and significantly assists in reaching the EPA cap on phosphorus and nitrogen run-off in the Chesapeake Bay.  According to a recent study, the replacement of chemical fertilizer with GreenHarvest could reduce nitrogen pollution by 18.2% (EPA goal is 25%) and phosphorus pollution by 18% (EPA goal is 24%).  These reductions would decrease the incidence of eutrophication, marine ecosystem die-offs, and medical issues associated with vibrio, cyanobacteria and nitrates.  GreenHarvest will do this while maintaining statistically identical yields to chemical fertilizer, reducing erosion, increasing beneficial microbial growth, and at a lower cost than conventional fertilizer. 

References

Chesapeake Bay Foundation. 2010. Water pollution in the Chesapeake Bay. Chesapeake Bay Foundation. http://www.cbf.org/Page.aspx?pid=913

Chesapeake Bay Program. 2009a. Nitrogen. Chesapeak Bay Program, Annapolis. http://www.chesapeakebay.net/nitrogen.aspx?menuitem=19412.

Chesapeake Bay Program. 2009b. Phosphorus. Chesapeake Bay Program, Annapolis http://www.chesapeakebay.net/phosphorus.aspx?menuitem=19424.

EPA and Chesapeake Bay Program. 2010. Fact Sheet - Chesapeake Bay total maximum daily load (TMDL) driving actions to clean local waters and the Chesapeake Bay.http://www.epa.gov/reg3wapd/pdf/pdf_chesbay/BayTMDLFactSheet8_6.pdf

Pelton, T. 2009. Bad water 2009: the impact on human health in the Chesapeake Bay region. The Chesapeake Bay Foundation. http://www.cbf.org/Document.Doc?id=328