What’s Happening?
The Thing About Protecting Our Streams

by Luke Reilly and Emily Richardson

Our streams are getting sick and wildlife is dying.  Would you believe me if I said that it was all our fault? “What could be the consequences?” you ask, “How can I help?” You will learn this and a lot more if you read on, and learn how to save our streams before it is too late.

For our school’s community service project, we did something called stream monitoring; we put up a net in Rocky Run and started kicking up rocks. What were we looking for? We were looking for Benthic Macroinvertebrates (creatures that live on the bottom of rocks). There are two general types of Benthic Macroinvertebrates (we’ll just call them “bugs”). There are bugs that are intolerant to pollution, and others that are tolerant to pollution. When you find a lot of intolerant bugs, then you know that the stream is doing OK, because if it were bad, then the intolerant bugs wouldn’t be there; sadly we didn’t find one intolerant bug.

Well, now that you know what is there, you are probably wondering why.  There are two main problems that cause this “stream sickness” that has affected many streams. First, there is erosion. Every time it rains, dirt and fertilizer wash into the streams. The dirt clouds the water and gets into the lungs and gills of the fish and other life in the stream. That kills the fish and other life. Second, the streams can be contaminated with too much fertilizer that also washes into the streams, along with the dirt. When too much fertilizer washes into a stream, it causes huge amounts of algae to grow in the water.  The algae thrive on the fertilizer, but when algae die they are decomposed by bacteria that use up most of the oxygen. The fish and life then have to leave—or die. One third of the Chesapeake Bay is a dead zone (and not the kind where you don’t get any cellphone bars), because of these huge algal blooms.

So, we are finally to the part when you learn how you can help. There are easy things you can do about the erosion and excess nutrient problems. You can help prevent erosion by planting a rain garden (a small garden that works like a mini-wetland), using a rain barrel to catch water off your roof, and washing your car on the lawn instead of on the driveway (to slow the runoff).  You can cut down on nutrients by following the instructions on fertilizer labels and throwing pet waste in the trash instead of leaving it on the ground.  You can help with river cleanups, like the one that we did, or to help get garbage out of the river, and tell your friends to tell their friends and families to do these things to help our rivers get better. We can help the streams, rivers, and Chesapeake Bay.  We can save our wildlife; we can make a difference.

Find out more at www.bayjournal.com and www.epa.gov/owow.

Emily and Luke are sixth-grade students at Canterbury Woods Elementary School.