Live Green: Maryland Coastal Bays Program

BERLIN, Md. – The Maryland Coastal Bays program’s mission aims to protect our bays and wildlife here on the Shore.

Their mission started in 1996 and became what is known as a National Estuary Program. They have been protecting five Maryland watersheds which include Assawoman Bay, Chincoteague Bay, Isle of Wight Bay, Newport Bay and Sinepuxent Bay. Director Kevin Smith said some of the coastal bays have been affected by poor storm water management.

“Back in the day, up in Delaware and Selbyville, there were rendering plants up there where they were processing chickens and other animals. A lot of that waste went directly into the creeks, which eventually made its way down into the coastal bays,” said Smith

Their main focus is Newport Bay because of poor storm water management.

“We got a grant from the state of Maryland; it’s a five-year grant to focus on improvements in the Newport Bay watershed,” said Smith. “What that means is that we’ll be working with the town of Berlin and Worcester County to improve the water quality by putting in some storm water management where none existed previously.”

He added the program has also been working against declining wildlife populations and habitats.

“We’re seeing water temperatures increase and it has an impact on underwater grasses, submerged aquatic grasses, seaweed, basically,” said Smith. “These underwater grasses are really important to water quality and to habitat. What we would like to see is the density of these grasses increasing, and we’re not really seeing that now.”

What the program has also been seeing is island loss, which has been happening for the last thirty years.

“We have a lot of iconic bird species, what are called colonial bird nesting species,” said Smith. “They don’t have the places to nest anymore. In some cases, like black skimmers, we’re not seeing them nest here at all anymore, which this used to be a nesting area for black skimmers, and we’re seeing a 90% drop in the population.”

These islands are not for birds to nest, but for horseshoe crabs and diamondback terrapins to lay their eggs as well.

“Horseshoe crab lays millions of eggs, but a lot of those eggs get eaten by shorebirds. So, they really need an abundance of habitat to lay millions of eggs so that they can continue maintaining a healthy population. Same thing with terrapins; their nests get predated by raccoons and foxes and crows.” Smith said.

Besides habitat loss and development, there are other ways wildlife populations have been impacted.

“Crab pots can be a killer for Terrapins,” said Smith. “People harvest, catch horseshoe crabs and use it for bait conk traps and things like that.”

The program has multiple partnerships which include Worcester County, the town of Ocean City, the town of Berlin, Department of Natural Resources, Department of the Environment, National Park Service and others.

Smith said they have come up with a Comprehensive Conservation Management Plan, which is a roadmap that says who’s responsible for doing what, and how they maintain the health of our bays over time. They create a new plan every ten years. They also conduct monthly water quality testing on not only the bays, but streams too, because whatever flows into the streams, eventually ends up in the bays.

“We’re going out and we’re checking our water quality parameters, which are things like temperature, PH, amount of nutrients in that water, salinity, conductivity, Chlorophyll-A, which is an indicator of how easily plant life can grow, whether or not there’s algae in the water and if there is, what kind of algae because some algae is toxic,” Smith explained.

Toxic algae is not only are harmful to wildlife, but people as well.

“You’re not thinking about the quality of the water necessarily, but as soon as the quality of that water goes down, and all of a sudden you’re not catching fish anymore, all of a sudden there’s more harmful algae blooms, all of a sudden it’s not pretty, then that’s when you start thinking about water quality and how it affects you,” said Smith.

There are ways people at home can help, besides volunteering.

“Planting native vegetation is a huge thing that you can do, not only to help the waterway itself, but it also helps so many other species that live around here,” said Smith.  “Whether it’s native birds and caterpillars and things like that, it’s all tied together.”

To learn more about their mission, check out their website.