One of the craziest ideas ever -- and it just might work

I was thinking the other day about what could be done to significantly affect and improve the health of the Chesapeake Bay on a short-term basis. A lot of untied threads of thought wove together for me to come up with this crazy idea. The thing is, if the right people could be convinced that this should be done, it really could work. It would require vested interests to look beyond the mathematics and profits of short-term gain and do something that would have a significant impact, as both a demonstration of how to change an ecological trajectory for the better and with actual, measurable, visible, useful improvements.

So here's the idea: make the Chesapeake Bay (CBay) a huge menhaden fish farm. And later searching found that I'm not the only one thinking this.

Hear it out.

Menhaden is overfished in the Bay; anybody that knows anything about the ecology of the Bay will admit it. Menhaden are a key intermediary in the estuarine and oceanic food chain. They are filter feeders (this is CRITICAL), so they don't have to eat zooplankton to get fat, they actually eat phytoplankton.

An overabundance of phytoplankton is plaguing the CBay due to excessive nutrient inputs from agriculture and urbanization. This leads to increased turbidity -- otherwise known as "the water is cloudy", and also, more significantly, so-called "dead zones" on the bottom where oxygen gets used up when the overabundance of phytoplankton sinks and gets eaten by bacteria -- a process which uses up oxygen (called "respiration" -- bacteria do it, we do it, just about every Animalia does it).

Furthermore, prized sportfish -- rockfish/striped bass (I call 'em stripers) are hurting because the menhaden is overfished. They are underweight and diseased. Other fish that would eat menhaden are probably in the same, ahem, boat.

Menhaden is overfished because of one company and one usage: Omega Proteins, which catches the menhaden and turns it into fish meal, to be fed to other fish on fish farms, or to livestock Links #2 and #7 below mention how this might not even be necessary; and it's expensive. Old habits die hard, and no politician wants to do something that would cause people to lose their jobs, especially in an impoverished rural coastal region like Virginia's Northern Neck.

But what if the long-term plan actually made the situation better? That's the beauty of this crazy idea.

Here's the plan, in a nutshell. Shut down the menhaden fishery in the CBay -- but not the Atlantic -- for 3-5 years. Let the CBay population recover. Given the abundance of phytoplankton in the polluted CBay and the lack of filter-feeding competition, they ought to go nuts (and studies show the marine reserves allow for astoundingly rapid recoveries of overfished stocks, if you just give the d*mn fish a chance!) This could even help oyster recovery if the waters where reestablishment efforts are being attempted get cleaner.

Letting the menhaden populations recover should help improve the water quality of the CBay, because the bigger menhaden populations will attack the overabundant phytoplankton problem. This should reduce the bottom dead zones (helping out the crabs), get seagrass beds recovering due to improved water clarity (already worked in Tampa Bay) and give the stripers something more to eat. Meanwhile, the employees of Omega Proteins can a) still work with menhaden caught in the Atlantic, or b) get aid to get through the moratorium, because they is already precedent to do this with crabbers! The articles say that the menhaden fishery is worth a paltry $22 million a year! That's chicken feed (PAUSE FOR EMPHASIS) in the Reinvestment and Recovery Act!!! (And one article linked below puts the value of sportfishing at $2 billion. For those familiar with the phrase "order of magnitude", that's 2 orders-of-magnitude. Otherwise known as 100 times more money.)

So in this 2-for-1 deal, we let the menhaden get oily-fat and populationally happy dealing with the effects of urban and agricultural pollution that has made the Bay an ideal place for them to grow, and the populations rebound, and then Omega Proteins can harvest them *sustainably* for other fish farms around the world and for animal feed -- though I'm not sure that's necessary. The current conditions in the CBay should make it an ideal large-scale menhaden fish farm. (And yes, I know that this probably amounts to ecological geo-engineering, but it's really about returning balance to a drastically unbalanced estuarine ecosystem). This doesn't mean we shouldn't collectively try to address the underlying problems in the CBay watershed, but the current track record of how that's working can be summed up in two words: IT ISN'T.

There's actual precedent on a natural scale that this could be successful. Early in this century, the mussel populations in Narragansett Bay bounced back, big-time. There was enough of them to make the water in NBay remarkably clear. And then, very sadly, they got hit with an anoxic event that killed them off massively. (And this might not have happened if the NBay menhaden populations were robust!) The thing about CBay menhaden is that most of the populations can survive low oxygen levels in the Bay (though there have been fish kills in anoxic tributaries).

So that's the plan. To rephrase a famous catch phrase from a TV show:

"Save the Menhaden. Save the Bay." (Even the syllables work.)

The problem is Virginia. Virginia needs to step aside and let the Feds help Omega Proteins cope with a 3-5 year moratorium. And Omega Proteins needs to realize its corporate responsibility to the health of the CBay and give this plan a chance.

The other thing about this is: former Representative Wayne Gilchrest already introduced legislation to do this!! See 1st link below.

Supporting material:

Menhaden
1. This Act may be cited as the `Atlantic Menhaden Conservation Act'.

2. The Most Important Fish in the Sea

3. The sad story of menhaden

4. Cardin proposes bill to increase Bay funds, make cleanup legally binding has this crazy idea in it:

"The proposal would also place a moratorium on commercial menhaden fishing in the Bay-which has been criticized by recreational anglers and some scientists. Menhaden are important food for fish such as striped bass, and also filter algae from the water. The ban on menhaden fishing would stay in place until the secretary of commerce determines that menhaden catches in the Bay do no harm to its water quality or ecology."

5. Menhaden
includes this:

"An impact study by Southwick Associates indicates that the Reedville operation results in a positive economic impact of 45 million dollars annually of which the State of Virginia is the primary beneficiary.. That needs to be compared to the value of the recreational fishery in Maryland and Virginia. Currently that fishery amounts to more than 2 billion dollars annually and supports about 16,000 jobs. Feedback from that segment indicates declines in income because it is getting harder to find gamefish. Studies of rockfish dietary needs indicate declining health due to lack of food. While it is difficult to put a number on the negative economic impact on recreational fisheries there is not much question that it it exceeds by a significant margin the loss of the industrial harvest of Menhaden."

6. Greenpeace menhaden wars (not as exciting as whale wars, but I'm glad they think it's important). This article contains this precious nugget: "They have now demonstrated that their real agenda is to put Omega out of business, even if it means risking the safety of Omega's fishermen," spokesman Toby Gascon said. [Which sounds an awful lot like the scientific Japanese whalers.]

7. Use of Turkey Meal as a Replacement for Menhaden Fish Meal in
Practical Diets for Sunshine Bass Grown in Cages (careful, it's a PDF)

Narragansett Bay mussels

8. Study: Bay lost billions of mussels

9. “Dead Zone” Summer Killed Billions of Ocean State Mussels

10. The case of the dead shellfish