Bay Day held to educate residents on ways to clean waterways in the Pines

The quality of the waterways in Ocean Pines has been a concern for years.  The community held its innaugural Bay Day Sunday, in collaboration with Maryland Coastal Bays Program, to get its residents involved in improving the health of its water.

With about a thousand residents living on waterfront property, folks in Ocean Pines have a lot of say when it comes to what flows into the St. Martin River, and other local waterways.

"We are uniquely positioned with the bay the river our natural trees and everything else that it's just a great area to be in, but it also requires us to do a lot too," said the general manager of the Ocean Pines Association, John Bailey.

The river received a D+ grade in the most recent report from the Maryland Coastal Bays Program.  We're told that's actually an improvement in recent years, thanks in part to recent environmental legislation and a new dam system to help clean the water coming from local chicken farms.

"It's nothing that's going to get you in trouble, but there are bacterias that come in that we had a problem in Ocean City a few years ago where a gentleman got a bacterial infection, we don't want that to happen here," said Tom Janasek, Chairman of the Ocean Pines environmental and natural assets committee.

A special event at Sunday's Bay Day was the Ocean Pines Canal Challenge, where residents are given a cup to throw into their local water ways.  The samples are dropped off at the event where experts will find out what's in their water, how it got there and how home owners can be more environmentally friendly.

"We look at dissolved oxygen, we look at chlorophyll, we look at nutrients, we look at the presence of absence of hard clams and submerged aquatic vegetations," said Frank Piorko, director of the Maryland Coastal Bays Program.

Finding out what's in the water is the easy part.  It's now up to locals to take the initiative to do what they need to do to make a difference, including conserving water, and reducing pesticide and fertilizer use.

Ocean Pines residents make up about a quarter of the 40,000 people who live in the Maryland Coastal Bays Watershed full-time.