Did you know that anything left on the ground has the possibility to end up in our local waterways? Litter, fertilizer, oil from vehicles and even pet waste can be conveyed by urban runoff right to the Chesapeake Bay or other water body. A common misconception is that the water that goes down the storm drain is filtered or treated before it is returned to natural waterways; well it’s not! When you flush the toilet, run the dishwasher or wash clothes, that wastewater flows through the sanitary sewer system to a treatment facility, but pet waste or other pollutants carried by stormwater end up in our local rivers, lakes and streams untreated.
Covering 4,479 square miles, the Chesapeake Bay is the largest estuary in the United States. It lies off the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by Maryland and Virginia. The Chesapeake Bay’s drainage basin covers 64,299 square miles and is in six states: New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia. More than 150 rivers and streams drain into the bay.
In the 1970s, the Chesapeake Bay was discovered to contain one of the planet’s first identified marine dead zones, where hypoxic waters were so depleted of oxygen that they were unable to support life, resulting in massive fish kills. Today the bay’s dead zones are estimated to kill 75,000 tons of bottom-dwelling clams and worms each year, weakening the base of the estuary’s food chain and robbing the blue crab in particular of a primary food source. Crabs are sometimes observed to amass on shore to escape pockets of oxygen-poor water, a behavior known as a “crab jubilee.” Hypoxia results, in part, from large algal blooms, which are nourished by the runoff of residential, farm and industrial waste throughout the watershed.
One of the easiest and most effective ways to combat these algae blooms is to control the amount of phosphorous and nitrogen that reach our waterways. It is easy to point a finger at fertilizers and farm runoff, but what If I told you that almost all of us have the ability to make a difference? And that it takes only seconds a day to do so? You probably wouldn’t believe me but it’s true; all you have to do is Scoop the Poop!
Dog waste is a detriment to our local waterways. It contains nitrogen, phosphorous and dangerous levels of bacteria. It has a higher phosphorous concentration than cow or swine manure and just one ounce of dog waste contains 23 million microorganisms of bacteria. One study showed as much as 90% of the fecal coliform in urban stormwater was of non-human origin, mostly dog. The average dog produces ¾ pound of waste a day; that’s 274 pounds a year. There are around 200,000 dogs in Hampton Roads; think of the difference it would make if everybody would picked up after their pets!
The Chesapeake Bay has long been known for its bountiful marine life and beautiful views, but this environment and the people and businesses that rely on it are in danger if we continue to allow dog waste to enter into our waterways. It’s up to us, as citizens of Hampton Roads, to work together to do our part to Save the Bay.
This blog post was submitted by Tevin Stokley, summer intern with City of Suffolk Public Works Engineering.