More signs of failing bay restoration
On March 15, 2023, Gov. Wes Moore wrote to the U.S. secretary of commerce pleading for money because of an “ongoing commercial fishery disaster in the Maryland waters of the Chesapeake Bay. … Since 2012, landings of seven of Maryland’s marquee commercial fishery species have declined between 27% and 91%. The dockside value of these species has likewise declined between 12% and 85%.”
The species included blue crabs, rockfish, white and yellow perch, and eels. The request for funding for a disaster declaration was blamed on invasive species — blue and flathead catfish and snakeheads. From 2012 to 2022, the loss to watermen and the overall seafood industry was in the tens of millions of dollars. Moore noted in fishing for funding that: “It is my hope that a full evaluation will clearly qualify Maryland for federal fishery disaster assistance.”
Maryland’s congressional delegation followed with its own letter to milk the federal cash cow, urging the Biden Administration to “prioritize” Maryland’s request. This request was the first from any state to cite invasive species as the reason for a fishery disaster. Causes used in the past for such federal funding included hurricanes, droughts, marine heat waves and oil spills.
In 2008, Maryland and Virginia received $10 million each in grants from the commerce department after plummeting crab harvests were declared a fishery disaster, the first and only such declaration for the Chesapeake. Years of intensive harvest along with water quality declines and loss of bay grasses, which serve as crab nurseries, were the likely cause. Maryland paid affected watermen to do crab surveys, improve habitat and collect abandoned crab pots in the bay.
States have made 127 requests for federal fishery disaster declarations over the last three decades, triggering grants ranging from $100,000 to more than $200 million. However, on Dec. 12, 2023, the commerce secretary refused to take the bait and denied the request for a fishery disaster declaration.
She cited the failure to document a big enough impact on Maryland’s commercial fishery revenues from invasive fish.
In reality, the substantial loss of bay grasses, poor water quality and failure to properly regulate harvest were major factors in fishery declines. The near-total collapse of the once abundant shad and soft clam fisheries and of sturgeon preceded the introduction of blue catfish. Both sturgeon species are now federally listed as endangered.
The shad fishery, once the largest by weight in the bay, has been closed for 43 years and has not recovered. The collapse was not because of blue catfish nor was the crash of the bay’s oyster population still at no more than 2% of their historically high levels more than a century ago. Blue crab landings also have declined radically over the last 50 years and this downward trend was occurring unrelated to blue catfish.
There is no doubt that the blue catfish devours blue crabs and many fish species. It is a voracious predator whose population has exploded since the foolish introduction of this largest North American catfish by Virginia fisheries staffers in the 1970s to establish a new sportfishing species.
They are native to the freshwater Mississippi, Missouri and Ohio river drainages.
Virginia believed that these catfish would not spread to saltier waters after being released into the freshwater reaches of the James, York and Rappahannock rivers. They were dead wrong.
This catfish has spread into all of the major tidal rivers in Virginia and Maryland. Noticeably, Virginia did not join in the federal disaster declaration attempt, perhaps because they were on the hook for causing the problem. It seems to me that Maryland and its complaining watermen should sue Virginia for damages caused by this amazingly stupid introduction.
Blue catfish can reach five feet and weigh more than 100 pounds and can consume 9% of their body weight daily. They not only eat crabs and fish, but devour crayfish, clams, mussels, frogs and any other available aquatic food sources.
The state is trying to control their numbers, but the cat(fish) is out of the bag and controlling it is akin to herding and controlling free-roaming cats — a very difficult task. The Maryland Department of Agriculture has $1 million to pay food banks to purchase blue catfish fillets and is ramping up its marketing efforts. It is encouraging state colleges and other institutions, as well as chefs, consumers, restaurants and grocery stores to use blue catfish.
Last summer, the Maryland congressional delegation announced a $3.8 million federal allocation supporting loans to seafood processors to expand blue catfish use. Maryland’s Department of Natural Resources hired a staffer to coordinate state management of invasive fish species and pledged to increase monitoring and research programs for blue catfish. Sport and commercial fishermen are being urged to target this invasive predator, with no fishing limits.
Instead of seeking a federal declaration of a Chesapeake fishery disaster, Maryland and its DNR should be focusing on the real disaster — the collapsing formal bay restoration plans. Maryland joined the EPA and other bay states in capitulating on the EPA mandates for mandatory nutrient and sediment reductions set 13 years ago.
Maryland should reignite efforts to meet those EPA bay-saving pollutant reductions by ramping up control of agricultural pollutants. Restoration of fisheries depends on good water quality. Disturbingly, 72% of bay waters remain polluted under the federal Clean Water Act.
These polluted conditions prevent healthy bay grass beds from recovering, which serve as vital fishery nurseries providing refuge and food for juvenile blue crabs, young striped bass and many other organisms.
The abject failure to meet the 185,000-acre goal set for 2010 impinged on fishery recovery as just 41% of the goal has been met. Blue catfish had nothing to do with the decline of these essential grasses nor with the increasing human flesh-eating diseases from water contact.
DNR also needs to properly regulate the harvest of declining species — not only the ones it acknowledges are disasters but for the oyster, shad, and soft clam. Instead, DNR has been pandering to harvesters. Enforcement is also lacking.
The overfished rockfish population is again in serious trouble as DNR tried to block needed restrictions imposed by an interstate fishery body recently and DNR refuses to restrict commercial harvest as it has done with recreational harvest.
There is no doubt the scourge of blue catfish must be dealt with, but while we deal with this hungry predator, DNR must restrict the harvest of both the species it considers a disaster and the others left out.
And, as importantly, it must adhere to its commitments to attain the reductions in nutrients and sediment that were supposed to be met by 2025 and convince the governor to make bay restoration a priority.
Both the governor and the secretary of DNR are in pivotal positions to lead the way on achieving a restored Chesapeake.
Moore is chair of the Chesapeake Executive Council of bay state governors and the EPA; the DNR secretary is chair of the Principal Staff Committee for the six bay states. Both are linchpins in deciding the course of the next steps for bay restoration under the EPA Bay Program.
Gerald Winegrad represented the greater Annapolis area as a Democrat in the Maryland House of Delegates and Senate for 16 years. Contact him at gwwabc@comcast.net.