The “dead zone” in the Chesapeake Bay this summer could be one of the largest in the last two decades, ecologists from the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science and the University of Michigan said.
A dead zone is an area of low oxygen that can kill fish and other aquatic life. It’s the result of well-above average river flows from increased rainfall since last fall, which has washed extra nutrients into the bay.
Those nutrients fuel the growth of microscopic plants. As the plants sink and die, they鈥檙e broken down by bacteria in a process that consumes oxygen, said the forecast’s co-author Jeremy Testa. 鈥淢ost of the big organisms we鈥檙e familiar with can鈥檛 survive there,鈥� he said.
The dead zone is expected to be about 2.1 cubic miles in size, according to the scientists, which would make it among the four largest in the past 20 years.
But Testa cautions against reading too much into the one prediction. “The weather can cause blips that happen for a year or two, and they don鈥檛 necessarily mean that the bay has turned its course and is back on a downward trajectory,鈥� he said. 鈥淚t just means that things go up and down over time.鈥�
A dead zone is only one feature of the Chesapeake Bay that is measured in terms of overall health, and the phrase is actually a misnomer because聽there鈥檚 plenty of microbial life living there, Testa said.
