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Fuel For Thought
Most streams, many wetlands could lose protection
Federal agencies commit to restoring Bay ecosystems
When Bay region officials learned four years ago that zebra mussels had been found in the headwaters of the Susquehanna River, they responded with letters to New York officials urging them to stem the spread before it was too late.
Nothing happened.
The zebra mussels have since become firmly lodged in two lakes in the Susquehanna’s headwaters, and are steadily moving downstream.
“Things could have been done early on,” said Tom Horvath, a scientist with the State University of New York’s Oneonta Biological Field Station, who has been monitoring the mussels’ progression down the river. “They no doubt came in through a boat launch that could have been better maintained or protected. You lose out when you don’t take the preemptive steps.”
But things may change in the future.
Representatives from mid-Atlantic states, from New York to North Carolina, have formally joined forces in the ongoing battle against zebra mussels, snakeheads, purple loosestrife and other unwanted aquatic invasive species.
In April, representatives from state and federal agencies, along with a host of other interested parties, officially launched the Mid-Atlantic Regional Panel on Aquatic Nuisance Species—a federally recognized body aimed at coordinating state efforts and luring new federal support to help fight common enemies.
“Instead of doing things state by state, or not talking to each other, the panel will help with coordination so we are not all duplicating efforts,” said Julie Thompson, a biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Chesapeake Bay Field Office. “We are actually working on a larger geographic area than what we were doing with the Chesapeake Bay Program.”
The panel grew out of a recommendation from the Bay Program’s now defunct Invasive Species Workgroup. That workgroup was charged with fulfilling a Chesapeake 2000 agreement commitment of ranking nonnative species with the potential to cause significant harm to the Bay.
It drafted plans for the Bay’s six most problematic species—zebra mussels, mute swans, nutria, water chestnuts, purple loosestrife and phragmites. But in doing so, its members concluded that the problem species deserved attention beyond the Bay Program and should be dealt with by setting up a regional panel under the national Aquatic Nuisance Species Task Force.
The task force, established under a 1990 law, works to coordinate research and policy issues nationwide and can make small grants available to regional panels to help write and implement plans dealing with problem invaders in their areas.
Aquatic invaders, sometimes called “biological pollution,” pose a major threat to the nation’s waterways, including the Chesapeake Bay. The final report of the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy, appointed by President Bush, last year called invasive species “one of the greatest threats to coastal environments and can contribute substantially to altering the abundance, diversity and distribution of many native species.”
Whether arriving in the ballast holds of ships as the zebra mussel did, dumped from a fish tank like the snakehead, or intentionally released such as the nutria, invasive species have the potential to shake ecosystems by their very foundations.
MSX, one of the diseases that have devastated the Bay’s native oyster populations, is thought to have hitched a ride into the region on nonnative oysters used in experiments during the 1950s.
Zebra mussels and other exotics are thought to be responsible for a sharp drop in the abundance of several species at the base of the Great Lakes food web, and scientists have warned that the region’s $7 billion recreational and commercial fishery could be at risk.
In the Great Lakes, controlling zebra mussels cost municipalities and industries about $70 million a year between 1989 and 1995. The costs escalate as it continues to spread: Over the next decades it’s expected to cost industry and water users another $3.1 billion.
Yet of the more than $600 million spent in 2000 to address the nonnative species problem, 90 percent went to the U.S. Department of Agriculture to address insects and other crop pests. Less than 1 percent was dedicated to combating aquatic invasive species, the ocean commission reported. It said there was a critical need to increase funding, improve agency coordination and educate the public about the problem.
Despite the magnitude of the issue, combating—and even monitoring—foreign invaders is typically not an explicit responsibility for most agencies.
“It is sort of an orphan issue, and it competes with a lot of other issues,” Thompson said. “It’s important to really pool our resources among the states and make sure that we are not just doing things randomly, that we are really trying to work together strategically to prevent and control invasive species.”
The panel’s goals include improving monitoring to find new species while they are still easy to deal with and writing “rapid response” plans to eradicate problematic species.
Rapid response plans would identify key agencies and experts to be contacted when something turns up. When the northern snakehead, a voracious predatory fish, first turned up in Maryland in 2002, no one at first was sure exactly what it was. “It took them a while to figure out who to call to identify the fish,” Thompson said.
The plans might even identify the types of permits that would be needed to allow the use of chemicals to rid an invader from a pond or stretch of stream.
Rapid response plans may also identify funding sources to deal with problems. In 2002, zebra mussels were found in a Northern Virginia quarry. But state officials are still trying to come up with enough money—about $800,000—to eradicate the population before the mussels are accidentally spread by divers or others using the quarry.
Besides working to fend off new invaders, the panel will develop regional management strategies to deal with problem species that are already here, such as purple loosestrife, a plant introduced in the 1800s that crowds native plants out of wetlands, degrading their habitat value.
Initially, the panel will review the six plans developed by the Bay program with an eye toward adopting them as regional priorities. But it will also work to broaden the scope—and the constituencies—beyond those of the Bay program.
“It’s important that we who have been Bay Program signatory partners pick up our chairs and move them back a step and make room in the circle for these other partners and make sure we do justice to their issues and concerns as well,” said Mike Fritz, living resources coordinator with the EPA’s Bay Program Office. “It is a broader partnership that we want to use to our advantage to leverage more attention and funding for the issue.”
The panel includes representatives from Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Delaware, West Virginia, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, and the District of Columbia. It also includes representatives from federal agencies, universities, environmental organizations, industry groups and others.
Other high priorities identified by the panel include improving outreach and communication with boaters, pet owners and other groups who can play a role in preventing the spread of invasives. That, too, may mean working with new groups.
At the national level, a partnership between the national task force and an industry trade group, the Pet Industry Joint Advisory Council, led to the development of an educational campaign called “Habitattitude,” which aims to teach pet owners not to release their fish, turtles or other animals into the wild. More than 13 million households have aquariums, and water gardens are becoming increasingly popular.
Habitattitude materials already appear in 2,000 pet stores nationwide, and its logo is already on 20 million fish bags and 4 million fish boxes.
More help may be on the way. At the federal level, Rep. Wayne Gilchrest, R-MD, recently introduced the National Aquatic Invasive Species Act, which would strengthen federal efforts to prevent new invasions as well as provide more funding to regional panels to implement their programs.
“The Chesapeake Bay is very vulnerable to invasions of exotic species spread by ballast water from ships, from recreational boats, the release of pets, and through other sources,” Gilchrest said. “A coordinated effort at the ecosystem level is essential to their control or elimination and to prevent future invasions.”
In the Chesapeake Bay region, there are more than 200 aquatic species that are known to be invaders—of which 46 are considered to be nuisances. The sheer number of invasions may make the task facing the new regional panel seem impossible. But efforts to delay the advance of species buys time for new, and better control technologies.
“Who knows what might pop up in the future,” Horvath said. “If you can keep them out for a while, you are hedging your bet that something might be around to help you out.”
Least Wanted Species Wreaking Havoc on Bay & Its Resources
The six priority species identified by the Bay Program because of the threat they pose to the Chesapeake and its watershed include:
Mute Swan: A native to Eurasia, the mute swan has long been cherished for its beauty and was imported to this region in the late 1800s to grace private ponds. In the early 1960s, five escaped into the wild, and their population has since mushroomed to more than 4,000 on the Bay.
Nutria: A native of South America, they were imported to Maryland’s Eastern Shore in the 1930s in a failed attempt to bolster the fur industry. The nutria were released into the wild, where they chew away at the roots of the plants that hold together the soil of low-lying marshes. Without the root mat cementing the marsh together, the land is literally washed away with the tides. Since the 1950s, nutria have helped to turn about 6 square miles of marshes in Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge into open water. Losses in other Dorchester County, MD, areas are thought to measure in thousands of acres, and scientists say the rate of loss has accelerated as the nutria population has boomed.
Purple Loosestrife: A wetland plant native to Europe, purple loosestrife was introduced to North America in the 1800s where, free of its natural enemies, it has spread rapidly. An individual plant can produce more than 1 million seeds, which are easily transported by water, wind, animals and humans.
Phragmites: A tall perennial wetland grass that grows 3–13 feet tall, phragmites is sometimes referred to as a common reed. It spreads through creeping roots and can quickly create a dense mat of roots that crowds out other species. It is unusual among invasive species in that it is native to North America, although some have suggested the aggressive strain may have been introduced from Europe. Others say that human activity has hastened its spread because it quickly dominates disturbed soils.
Zebra Mussel: A native of the Caspian Sea in Eastern Europe, the zebra mussel was introduced to North America around 1985 by ocean-going ships releasing ballast water in the Great Lakes. A single zebra mussel can produce up to 40,000 eggs a year. Adults can grow into dense colonies of up to 60,000 per square meter, clogging water pipes and fouling buoys, locks and other solid surfaces.
Water Chestnut: An aquatic plant native to Asia, the water chestnut was first reported in Massachusetts in 1859 and has since become an invasive plant known for its aggressive growth. One acre of water chestnut can produce enough seeds to cover 100 acres the next year.
