The rains have finally let up, but they’ve dealt a serious blow to the Chesapeake Bay’s oysters — and to the people who make a living harvesting, cultivating or restoring them.
Oysters need at least a little salt in their environment to live and a bit more to thrive. The record-setting downpours that began last year and continued through the first half of this year flushed so much freshwater into the Chesapeake that salinity sank to abnormally low levels.
“What a rough beast of a year that was,” said Martin Gary, executive secretary of the Potomac River Fisheries Commission. “Everybody got hammered by it.”
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Jeremy Cox & Timothy B. Wheeler
October 03, 2019
Fisheries,Politics + Policy 
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Managing the Chesapeake Bay requires sound policies that reduce pollution and protect ecosystems within it’s 64,000-square-mile watershed. Those policies — often expensive — not only need to be scientifically sound, but must be defensible in the political process at the national, state and local levels. A robust debate is often part of that process. Ultimately, the success of efforts to protect the region’s environment require both sound policy making and political support.
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