Hi everyone. Thanks for joining us this evening.
My name is Suzanne Bricker, as Bruce has said.
I want to thank Bruce and also Molly
for allowing me to share my work with you.
The first thing I'd like to do
is tell you what the word eutrophication means.
The origin of that word means well-fed
and it means, basically, nutrient pollution.
So, what I want to tell you about today
is the research that we've been doing since the early 1990s
to look at the status of eutrophication in coastal
water bodies of the United States and elsewhere,
and also, intriguingly, what shellfish aquaculture –
and if I forget to say it later, I want to say that we –
we're focused on shellfish aquaculture
but we also include wild shellfish.
So, if I forget to say that later,
I'd like to say that now.
The big question, "Can shellfish improve water quality?"
Before I begin, I'd like to acknowledge my co-authors
whose names you see here.
I've been working with them for quite a long time.
It is not only a multi- disciplinary team of people
but also an international team.
It's been really fun to work with them
because I've learned so much from my colleagues.
What I'd like to do is show you a picture of some of them here.
This isn't all of them.
As you can see, some of them have been added on.
If you look in the first row here,
you'll see that we actually had a representative from the bayou
who attended most of our conferences.
So, I am especially grateful to them
for allowing me to be a mouthpiece.
But what – the reason for showing this is to emphasize
that this is not only my work but rather the work of all these
and more people that I will be telling you about today.
So, starting out with this: What is eutrophication?
Is it a problem? As I've already said,
nutrient pollution is basically what that means.
When we have excess nutrients coming into the coastal waters,
that immediately causes algal blooms.
When those algal blooms die, they decay
and they use up oxygen in that process.
They also cause the water to be cloudy.
So, that kills off seagrasses
which are important habitat nursery areas
for some kinds of fish. In fact, what we've discovered
is that 65 percent of U.S. estuaries
have moderate to high eutrophication
or nutrient-related impacts.
So, in this figure, in the bottom, what you see is –
on the left-hand side of the panel –
the kind of water body we'd like to see with lots of oxygen
and a lot of seagrass.
Some phytoplankton which is microscopic algae in the water
that's food for fish and oysters.
As you move from the left to the right,
that is representative of increasing nutrient inputs.
What you see on the very right-hand side is a situation
that we would rather not see
which is high-level impacts from nutrients
which include your losses of seagrass
because of the water cloudiness, different kinds of algae
that can cause illnesses and kill fish,
low dissolved oxygen which kills fish.
So, these indicators that you see,
these five – submerged aquatic vegetation,
chlorophyll A, nuisance and toxic blooms, macroalgae,
and dissolved oxygen –
are the indicators that we use in order to evaluate
what the level of the nutrient pollution
or eutrophication is in water bodies.
So, going on. So, what about nutrients? What's the problem?
Well, as I mentioned, it's too much of a good thing.
It's a little bit like when we overeat.
It is a nitrogen, which is the nutrient we will focus on
because that's the one that is most problematic in waters
that have salt in them.
So, the marine and near-shore coastal marine waters.
So, it's a building block for all kinds of life,
however when you have too much, it causes problems.
Those include algal blooms, loss of seagrasses,
because of the cloudiness as I've mentioned,
and low dissolved oxygen, which kills fish.
So, I thought it might be useful to see,
"What does it really look like in real life
and where does it happen?"
So, here is a panel of four photos.
You see a very heavy algal bloom in Potomac River, Maryland.
That's probably three-quarters of an inch or an inch thick.
In Corsica River, Maryland,
you have fish kills from low dissolved oxygen.
In Florida Bay, colonizing algae are killing out the seagrasses.
You can see the turbidity in the water is cloudy.
Then Caloosahatchee Bay, Florida.
Now, you may have heard of red tides
which can cause respiratory illnesses
and also they're considered harmful algal blooms.
They can cause other kinds of like amnesia problems,
diuretic illnesses.
What you see here is not a red tide bloom.
They don't have to be red. But they still can be harmful.
In this next slide, you'll see other pictures.
In the left-hand top picture, in Venice,
Italy, they have problems
with colonizing algae on their steps there.
In Washington State, in Hood Canal, Washington,
you've got problems.
In Qiangdao, China, they had these massive algal blooms
when the Olympics were there several years ago.
I think the lower right-hand picture
really is very compelling. So, this is what it looks like.
Part of the reason for showing you
these photographs is to say in the United States
is not the only place that these problems occur.
They actually occur all over the world.
Some of the colleagues that I have,
have worked in these different places.
So, we try to share information about how to evaluate it
and also what to do about it.
So, where do nutrients come from?
There are different sources
and they're basically divided into two kinds.
One is a point source and that's shown on this slide;
wastewater treatment plants.
I'd like to talk a little bit about that.
While they do remove many nutrients in their affluent
or their discharge, there still is –
there still are levels of nutrients
that are discharged to coastal waters.
They actually do a good job, but they don't remove 100 percent.
You also have animal feeding operations.
Then, in this picture, you see a pipe
which is very typical of a point source.
Non-point sources are from septic systems,
from lawn runoff, from urban runoff
and these other things you see here.
When you drive your car, you're contributing
to atmospheric deposition of nutrients.
So, there are many ways to reduce nutrients.
The point sources are the easier
one between point and non-point sources.
You can also see, from the previous slide,
here, that point sources
are smaller than non-point sources.
Part of the reason for that is that we've been successful
in reducing nutrient discharges from point sources.
Now we have the challenge of addressing
the non-point sources.
Just as an example, in Long Island Sound,
which I'll tell you about in a little bit –
that's my case study
that I would like to talk about –
point sources are 25 percent of nitrogen input.
Non-point sources are 75 percent.
In Great Bay-Piscataqua estuary which is up in New Hampshire
and partly in Maine,
point sources account for 32 percent
and non-point for 68 percent.
In the Choptank River Estuary, here in Chesapeake Bay Region,
point sources contribute 10 percent
and non-point sources 90 percent.
So, it does depend where you are.
In other words, if you're in an urban area
or an agricultural area,
you may see more nutrients in an agricultural setting
because you have more runoff than in a city setting.
The other thing to note
is that eutrophication is a natural process,
but because of human activities in the watershed,
we have accelerated that process to many times
the natural rate of eutrophication.
So, we have 65 percent of U.S. estuaries
that have moderate to high level nutrient impacts.
We know that nutrient management measures have worked,
as I said, especially for the point sources.
Non-point sources have also, but they're more difficult,
just because there's not one point of entry
that you can address.
So, the discussion has been how to be more effective
at nutrient management.
So, one of the things that has been discussed
is this idea that bivalve shellfish.
So, the ones that filter with syphons
such as oysters and clams and mussels
that they may actually help to remove nutrients.
So, the other thing to note is –
well, let me go to the next slide
and what I call the mighty bivalve
because of what they are able to do.
We call this bioextraction of nutrients.
Through their filtering activities,
these bivalve shellfish remove
particulates and detritus from the water.
By doing so, they actually remove nutrients from the water.
So, here, we see several different kinds of shellfish.
One of the most striking shellfish
I've ever seen is this Geoduck Clam
which occurs in the Pacific Northwest.
Then, we have clams and mussels of different kinds.
Then, the star of our show, the Eastern Oyster,
or Crassostrea Virginica.
Now, I think that all of you have probably heard
that oyster levels in Chesapeake Bay, certainly,
but it's true worldwide have declined
to about one percent of historical levels.
The reason that that's not good,
besides the fact that there aren't as many to eat,
is that, for example, in Chesapeake Bay,
100 years ago, there was a huge population of oysters
that was able to filter
the whole volume of Chesapeake Bay in one week.
The populations we have now, it takes more than a year
to filter that same amount of water.
So, our focus is to look at the Eastern Oyster
and, as a representative of shellfish,
to see about how they might contribute
to nutrient remediation
or nutrient removal in our water bodies.
So, why would we consider doing that besides what I've said?
Well, eutrophication is a problem in the U.S.
and also globally.
As I've said, point source controls have been successful.
The other thing to know about that
is when the technologies increase,
they become much, much more expensive
so that the economic returns are not beneficial.
So, that's one reason for looking at alternative measures.
Non-point sources are more difficult to control.
As I've said, land-based reductions of nutrients
in management measures have been successful,
but at this point,
they have not shown expected water quality improvements.
So, oysters can filter a huge amount, as we've said.
So, that's why we wanted to look at, in a robust way,
how well they might do
to contribute to nutrient management,
to nitrogen management in particular.
So, we designed a study in Long Island Sound.
The questions that we wanted to answer
were what the eutrophic condition
or the nutrient-related water quality
was in that water body, in Long Island Sound.
We also know – and part of the reason
for choosing that place is that
they have a very well-developed oyster aquaculture industry.
In addition to that, we wanted to then
look at the value of the ecosystem service.
So, when I say that, the ecosystem service, that –
what we're talking about is the benefit
that these shellfish provide to the water body.
So, the one that we're most focused on here
is the cleaning capacity.
So, their ability to remove nutrients. But there are others.
So, for example, shoreline stabilization,
improvements of water quality – sorry – clarity.
Then there are also some cultural services.
But none of these did we evaluate.
But I just wanted to let you know that nutrient removal
is not the only ecosystem service that they provide.
The big question is this one in bold, "Can shellfish
– and in this case, oysters – improve water quality?"
Can they remove nutrients?
Then, an intriguing corollary to the value of that system
is whether in a nutrient credit trading program,
which are being set up in many water bodies around the U.S.,
would those oyster growers be able to be compensated
for the work
that the oysters are doing to improve water quality?
So, we'll talk a little bit about that, also.
So, here's our study site, Long Island Sound.
The reason for showing you this map is that,
in these blue dots are places that we have either completed
or are doing work in this same framework
that I'm about to talk about.
Studies have also been conducted in Europe and China.
Since I'm going sampling tomorrow in Chesapeake Bay,
I wanted to let you know
that the overlapping dots here in Chesapeake Bay
is an ongoing project that maybe Bruce will allow me to come
and talk about in another time.
But we are doing the same kind of work
right here in our own backyard.
So, this is the framework, the bioextraction framework
which is in Long Island Sound,
what we use with that multi-disciplinary team.
I just have to tell you, again,
that I learned a lot from the people
whose disciplines were different from mine and the results
that I will show you will seem like,
"Oh, that's really easy," and it wasn't.
But it was really gratifying.
So, what you see here is that we have field measurements.
We used both system scale eutrophication models.
We use, also, a system scale ecological model.
We use a local scale farm production model.
We use an economic model.
Catchment models which tell us how much nutrient is running
from the watershed into the water.
We also did growth measurements in the lab.
So, in addition to being multi-disciplinary,
it had a lot of what I would call moving parts
within the project.
The ones in red are the ones I'll talk about.
The first thing that I want to tell you about
is the eutrophication assessment,
which is on the left-hand side, this ASSETS.
That stands for Assessment of Estuarine Eutrophication Status.
So, we're looking at the eutrophication status
in Long Island Sound,
which is an estuary, which just to define that,
an estuary is where sea water and fresh water mix.
Then on the upper right-hand side,
that's our third component, the economic model.
In the middle, I'll tell you about our system scale modeling
with the, primarily, with the EcoWin model.
So, this is a picture, again, of Long Island Sound, a map.
You'll see it's shared by Connecticut and New York.
Here are some quick facts at the bottom.
It's about 3,200 square kilometers.
Residence time is fairly long.
It has, as you would imagine, a highly developed watershed.
It includes Hartford,
Connecticut and also New York and that region.
What you'll see in the map are – in red –
we blocked out sections of Long Island Sound.
Even though it's shared by Connecticut and New York,
we were only able
to get information enough for Connecticut.
So, when I say Long Island Sound,
I'm actually referring to the Connecticut side of Long Island
Sound, which is what we studied.
So, I draw your attention to the very western portion,
which is called the Narrows,
and the very eastern section, which is called Eastern.
Because, this next slide, shows data for bottom water
dissolved oxygen.
What you see is this for January through December
for the Narrows on the left-hand side,
and for the Eastern zone on the right-hand side.
So, the first thing to draw your attention
to is that this is in milligrams per liter.
You can see the scale on the left-hand side goes from zero –
now, zero milligrams per liter is considered anoxic.
That will kill fish and other organisms
that need oxygen to survive.
It goes up to 16 milligrams per liter.
What you see in that blue –
I'm sorry – red line, dashed line,
is the four milligrams per liter line.
At four milligrams per liter, that concentration is low enough
that organisms that can move will move out of the area
because it's stressful to them, biologically stressful.
So, there are two other observations to make.
In the Eastern – the data on the Eastern side
show no levels
that are even close to four milligrams per liter
which means that that water is fine for fish
to live in and oysters.
In the Narrows, you'll see that in the summertime,
there is, every single year,
a drop of dissolved oxygen below four milligrams per liter
and almost down to zero.
So, what this tells us is that we do have
some nutrient-related problems in Long Island Sound.
So, that data and other data including measures
of how much microscopic algae,
the phytoplankton, how much is in the water.
We call that Chlorophyll A.
It's an indicator of how much algae is in the water.
So, that's the measure that we use.
So, we use dissolved oxygen. We use Chlorophyll A.
We look at the occurrence of nuisance blooms
and toxic blooms of algae.
We also look at the occurrence of blooms of macro
algae such as sea lettuce which that float –
it looks like lettuce. It floats around in the water.
You may have seen it if you're boating
or if you're on the beach.
Then, again, dissolved oxygen. Here's this picture again.
From no or low impact on the left-hand side
to high impact from nutrients on the right-hand side.
In our eutrophication assessment,
we use three indices.
What we're trying to do is put together a picture
of what's the primary cause.
So, nutrient inputs from the water body
and also how fast the water moves through,
what the condition is based on these five indicators,
and then also our final thing is what will happen next.
What will happen next based on what kind of management programs
are being implemented?
What kind of population changes are expected in the future?
That's the least robust of our indicators or our indices.
So, let's go forward and I want to summarize the results
for you of the assessment we did in Long Island Sound.
So, this is the influencing factors.
We use two things to look at that index.
We look at nutrient loads and we look at residence time.
So, at the bottom, you'll see these colored circles
and then what that indicates with respect to the rating.
So, for example, nutrient loads are considered moderate.
They are 50,000 metric tons of nitrogen
that are discharged per year into Long Island Sound.
Here are, again, some photographs
of where that comes from; point and non-point sources.
Because the residence time is also moderate –
so two to three months is, with that amount of nutrient
coming into the system,
that is enough time for algal blooms to develop.
Once that happens then they die off
and sink to the bottom,
then that's when you begin to have problems.
So, the influencing factors, together –
the nutrient loads and residence time –
give the influencing factors a moderate rating.
The condition rating overall is considered moderate high.
Now, for these five different indicators,
we look at the concentration, we look at spatial coverage,
and we look at frequency of occurrence.
We look at that over an annual period
as I showed with the data in the dissolved oxygen.
For example, using dissolved oxygen –
you'll see that's the third one down – that's in yellow
because of the biologically stressful concentrations occur
over a high area every year. You'll see that macro algae,
losses of seagrasses and nuisance
and toxic algal blooms
have either a low or no indication of problems.
But Chlorophyll A is high.
It's red, which means it's a high impact
because the concentrations are high
and those high concentrations occur over a large area
every single year.
So, those indicators taken together give the condition,
the eutrophic condition a rating of moderate –
I'm sorry – moderate high.
So, then we go to the future outlook.
Actually, that's a little bit more optimistic.
What you see here in green is that nutrient loads
are expected to decrease in the future.
Because the residence time will remain the same,
it is considered moderate.
But the two together provide a more optimistic view
which is that in the future, as nutrient loads decrease,
that there will be some improvement.
If you look at the picture on the bottom,
you'll see that there are two ways for the –
as you move from left to right of a water body to go.
Either can worsen or it can improve.
Our future outlook for Long Island
Sound is that it will improve.
Now it improves – the green color indicates
that it improves on a slower level than it could,
but still it is improving. So, that's optimistic.
So, the other thing we do with these three indicators
or these three indices – the influencing factors,
condition and future outlook – is to roll them
together to provide one rating for each system
so that we can compare one to the other.
In our national study, we looked at 141 systems.
So, for Long Island
Sound, that rating would be considered poor.
But this is an improvement from bad,
which is what it was considered in the early 2000s.
These data are for 2008 to 2012. So, we can see, optimistically,
these things are improving which is really nice to know.
So, the next thing is to consider, then,
"Well, how might oysters be useful or how can they help?"
The way that we are trying to figure that out in this study
was to use –
yes, we use models to look at the bioextraction of nutrients.
Our model is called EcoWin. It is a system scale model.
So, it looks at the entire – and if you remember,
when I say entire what I actually mean is
Connecticut side of Long Island Sound.
So, what did we want that model to do?
We wanted it to be able to estimate nitrogen
removal by oyster aquaculture within Long Island
Sound of Connecticut.
So, we wanted to apply a model that would grow oysters
in order to estimate
that nitrogen removal by all the farms that are there.
Then what we did was we wanted to compare that removed amount
to the incoming nutrients
which, remember, is 50,000 metric tons per year,
and then estimate the economic or the dollar value looking at,
"How much is that worth?"
So, we needed an oyster growth model
for Long Island Sound, which we did not have.
We took the model EcoWin.
We tagged and developed for estuaries for Europe.
What we did was developed an oyster growth model
that we could then integrate into that model
for growing Crassostrea Virginica,
the Eastern Oyster, rather than Pacific Oyster,
which was the original model species.
What you see here are, in the red circle,
which are the diamonds to the very left-hand side,
and what you see here is time in days
and you see a shell length.
So, you have one single oyster growing over two or three years.
You'll see that we used old data as well.
So, we developed this growth curve for the model
in order to simulate the production of oysters
and also nutrient removal by aquaculture.
So, here's the way the model looks.
In the background, you can see the input.
In the foreground,
you can see what the model automatically creates.
It's a mass balance.
So, I show you this to say that the phytoplankton and detritus –
so the particulates in the water –
are filtered out by the – they're eaten by the oysters.
Some of that goes into tissue and shell growth
and some of it is excreted.
So, what is assimilated into tissue and shell
is no longer available to grow algae
or to start the problem of eutrophication.
So, that's the kind of thing that we were trying to measure.
So, in this next slide, we used that growth model to –
and in – let me back up. So, the Long Island Sound,
part of what was attractive to us to do this modeling
there is that they already had a high-resolution,
three-dimensional model
called System Wide Eutrophication Model.
The timeframe that it operates on,
the simulation, is one year.
The focus for that was water circulation and water quality.
So, it looked at nutrients and dissolved oxygen
and salinity and temperature.
In this picture, the blue thin lines
are the boxes on one layer of the SWEM model,
the System Wide Eutrophication Model.
It had 10 layers and 230 boxes on one layer.
So, it had 2,300 boxes that simulate
how the water moves back and forward
and exchanges from box to box in the Sound.
What you also see superimposed here are,
in green, the approved aquaculture areas;
in the darker blue is conditional;
the lighter blue is restricted; and in red is prohibited.
So, we used those aquaculture areas,
plus water quality and physical and also legal.
For example, we did not want to simulate
growth of the oysters and production of oysters
in places where they would not be allowed to grow.
So, what we did was we merged those –
that high-resolution model into 42 boxes
for our ecological model,
which, as you see in this table, has a decadal time.
So, it has a ten-year timeframe of simulation.
That's what we need in order to simulate aquaculture growth
and the water quality that's associated with that.
In addition, that timeframe is what is important
to look at the economics.
So, what we did was we merged these two models
and made it into a model that could push the water around
and the substances and, in addition, grow the oysters
and give the results that we needed to use
for the economic analysis.
So, this next slide shows the output
from that system wide model. What we're looking at
is actually the nutrient removal mass balance.
So, what you see for – shellfish filtration in the green boxes.
So, that is in kilograms of carbon units
how much phytoplankton is removed
and how much detritus is removed.
So, how much is filtered out by the oysters.
When you look at the box on the right,
we have converted those carbon units into nitrogen units.
What you see is that algae and detritus are removed.
They have a negative sign in front of them.
The excretion, feces,
and mortality actually add nitrogen to the water.
But the balance of what, if you remember, what they eat,
they assimilate some and then they excrete some.
Just like we do, right?
So, the mass balance of that is, actually,
a removal of 656,377 kilograms per year of nitrogen.
That's in the current aquaculture acres, 5,250 acres.
So, one question we also were wondering is,
"How much could we expand aquaculture in Long Island
Sound in the Connecticut side and at maximum acres?
How much nutrient would that remove?"
So, what we see here is the result of that.
1,337 metric tons per year.
So, what we did was to compare what the oysters are removing
compared to what nutrients are coming in.
What you see here is that one-point-three percent
removal of the incoming nitrogen by current aquaculture
up to a maximum of two-point-seven percent
of incoming nitrogen.
Now that, I have to tell you, was a little bit disappointing.
But what you need to remember is that every little bit helps.
That's one thing.
The second thing is that the statistic for shellfish
and any seafood here in the U.S.
is that we import more than 90 percent of what we consume.
So, in addition to maybe taking
what seems like only a little bit of nitrogen out,
you're still producing seafood for people to eat,
producing it here domestically and in a sustainable way.
So, that's actually really very exciting.
So, the next question is – and might make you feel better –
is, "How much is that nutrient removal worth?"
Oh, and one last comment about that.
As the nutrient inputs continue to decline
because nutrient management
measures are designed to do that,
so all the time we're improving our nutrient management
so that the 50,000 metric tons of nitrogen
now will not be 50,000 metric tons later.
We're expecting them to decrease,
if you remember from the eutrophication assessment.
What that will mean is that relatively speaking,
the removal by the oysters will at least look
or be relatively more important.
So, – but still, how much is that worth?
So, the way that we did the analysis for,
"What is the value," is by using what we call
and avoided cost or a replacement cost method.
What that method assumes is that these shellfish are doing –
if you recall, we called it ecosystem service.
So, they're actually providing a water cleaning service.
If they didn't do that,
then some other kind of management or service
would have to be used
in order to replace the service that they provide.
So, the way that we develop an estimate of how much it's worth
is by looking at the costs for those other management measures.
So, for example,
how much does it cost a wastewater treatment plant
to remove the same amount of nitrogen
that all those oysters are removing?
Then, we assign that value to the removed nitrogen.
So, the different management or the alternative management
measures that we are using for that estimate
are wastewater treatment –
and you can see here from this slide,
we use the annualized capital and operating and maintenance
costs of the load reductions that they provide.
We also use costs of agricultural best management
practices such as the cost to implement cover crops
on a per acre basis. Then, the third one that we used
was urban best management practices.
That is using the costs to construct wet
ponds such as the ones that you see along highways and so forth.
So, those are the three alternative management measures
that we use to make our estimates.
So, our replacement costs or our voided cost for nitrogen
removal in Long Island Sound are shown in this table.
So, what I'd like to direct your attention to first
is the dollars per kilogram nitrogen removed.
So, the first three are, say, eight milligrams per liter
under management approach, five milligrams,
and three milligrams per liter.
If you recall earlier, I said wastewater treatment,
as you increase the removal of nitrogen in the waste flow,
it becomes more and more expensive.
So, actually, that's exactly what you see here.
If you have a less stringent kind of removal, it's –
and you have eight milligrams of nitrogen
per liter coming out of the pipe at the end,
the cost to remove the other is $32.00 per kilogram,
where if you're more stringent
and lower it to three milligrams per liter,
it's almost $100.00 per kilogram.
Then the agricultural best management practices,
they're the least costly to remove one kilogram of nitrogen.
The urban best management practices are the most costly.
Some of that has to do with buying land
in order to make those wet ponds
and holding ponds in urban areas.
But then, if you look on the column on the right,
the total value in millions of dollars per year
for current acres,
the range is $8.5 to $230 million per year.
So, that actually is a fairly significant number
if you use the maximum possible acres for aquaculture,
the maximum value increases to $470 million per year.
So, that is a fairly large number.
The big question is, "So, what about payment for that service?"
Those oysters are doing a lot of work that's very valuable.
So, the question is,
"Will growers be paid for the nitrogen removal service
that their oysters are providing?"
I would like to say that they will be,
but it is at least under discussion.
In a well-developed nutrient credit trading program,
that might actually happen. But that has not happened yet.
It is being discussed but it has not happened.
However, one very exciting result of the work
that I and my colleagues and other people have been doing
is that Chesapeake Bay Program, in December 2016,
approved the use of harvested oyster tissue as a nitrogen
and phosphorus removal best management practice.
What does that mean? That means that the jurisdictions
that are required to remove nitrogen
that is being discharged into the water body
because they've been evaluated and found to be –
have undesirable eutrophic conditions,
the plan that is made to reduce the nutrient loads can now
include harvest of one or two million oysters.
So, that is very, very exciting and, I think, answers
fairly well the question that we wanted to answer which is,
"Can the shellfish help water quality?"
The answer here is yes, it can.
In Mashpee, Massachusetts,
they are already using harvested oysters for nutrient management.
I just read in the newspaper this week that,
in Maryland freshwater streams, mussels are being restored
specifically for water quality improvement.
In Denmark, they also have fields of mussel ropes
that are specifically used for nutrient control.
So, the answer about whether oysters and other shellfish
can help improve water quality, the answer is yes.
It's gaining momentum not only here in the United States,
but around the world, which is – it's very exciting.
In fact, the first paper ever to come out to that –
exploring this concept was done in Sweden in 2005.
So, it's really gratifying to know that that concept
is now actually being used to improve water quality.
So, I just have a couple of additional slides.
The first is in my closing observations
that we were using Long Island Sound,
which is one of those 65 percent of U.S. estuaries
which have moderate to high-level nutrient
related impacts, in a bad way.
So, we were using that as an example to say
that additional nutrient management is needed.
What we're trying to do is be creative
and look at alternative management measures
that can complement traditional land-based measures.
Oysters and other shellfish are a very promising method.
We've used models and, as you could see,
it really reduces the financial and the time costs,
not to mention environmental and social time costs of,
for example, implementing and trying to figure out
whether oysters are useful for nutrient management.
So, models are extremely useful and have shown us
really what we want to see,
which is that oyster aquaculture can remove nitrogen inputs,
one-point-three to two-point-seven percent
of nitrogen inputs in Long Island Sound.
The comment I have about that
is because it's looking only at aquaculture
that actually it is an underestimate
because the wild harvested oysters, clams,
they're also doing the same kind of service.
So, this one-point-three percent of current acres
is actually probably higher.
We also have not included denitrification
which is a bacterially-mediated process
that removes nitrogen in oyster reefs.
So, this is very promising.
While we might have been a little disappointed
at the low percentage of nitrogen
inputs compared to what's coming in,
it is an underestimate.
The ecosystem service value is quite significant.
The value of the decreased hypoxia, what you see here,
shoreline stabilization,
there's other kinds of ecosystem services
aren't even included here.
So, I think that we have shown very optimistically
what oysters can do
and what this kind of a project can highlight.
Then, finally, you may all be wondering
what can you do to help.
One of the things is just to keep it on your mind
and be mindful of your personal actions
that contribute to nutrient pollution.
Oyster gardening and oyster
planting with Department of Natural Resources
and Chesapeake Bay Foundation, Maryland Sea Grant,
that is one thing that can really help.
I learned from Chris Judy,
who's the director of the Maryland DNR Shellfish Division,
that the Maryland DNR Maryland Grows Oysters,
you can actually hang oysters off your dock.
If the Maryland Grows Oysters is active in your tributary,
then you can be signed up by the Maryland DNR.
But if it's not, you still can do that same thing
via the Chesapeake Bay Foundation.
So, if you are interested in doing that,
you can look them up online or contact me
and I'd be happy to hook you up with the contact information.
Sea Grant has also developed a how-to guide
called Oyster Gardening for Restoration and Education
that might be of interest.
So, oyster gardening and oyster planting
is one really great way to do that.
But you can also build a rain garden at your house,
at your church, at your school
that will reduce the amount of nutrients
that are running off into any tributary.
You can ride a bike instead of taking a care.
You can reduce your fertilizer use or,
because that's not always practical,
be mindful of when you use it.
For example, don't put fertilizer out
when you know there's going to be a really heavy rain
and it might just all wash off anyway.
In any case, join your local riverkeeper or watershed action
planning or watershed steward group.
These are some – just a few ideas
for how you might be able
to personally help nutrient management.
Then, finally, eat more shellfish
so that you would support your oyster and clam
growers and nutrient removal.
So, this is my last slide.
We've already answered this question.
Oysters and other bivalve shellfish
can help improve water quality and also provide seafood.
There you see them doing their work.
So, thanks very much.
I'm very happy to be able to share our work with you.
If you have any questions,
I would be quite happy to answer them.
Hi Suzanne. This is Bruce, and I'm back.
Thank you so much for that presentation
and just taking it away when I got cut off earlier.
Oh, you were cut off? [Laughs] Okay.
Hey, I forgot to say, you can try the models yourself.
Then, there's my address.
So, anyway, Bruce, did you see any questions on the –
or does anybody have questions for me?
Yes, actually we do have a few questions.
So, you may want to keep your screen on.
Here are a few questions for you.
Oh, okay.
We'll take just a few.
Then we're going to pass it over to Molly
who actually has a presentation on some –
Oh, great.
Yeah, three-dimensional learning,
resources all focused on oysters for use in the classroom.
Great.
So, one question is,
"Considering harmful algae doesn't have to be red,
how can one tell the difference
between harmful algae and benign algae?"
That's a very, very good question.
The species of algae is what makes them toxic or not toxic.
So, there are – so let's talk about
for eating oysters and clams and so forth.
Health department in every estuary
are looking at whether or not those filter-feeders,
those bivalve shellfish are actually taking in algae
that are toxic.
So, they are doing tests of the water.
I'm not sure of the exact test they do,
but these things are monitored.
I could give you information about who to contact in NOAA
about the exact tests that are done, for example.
The Department of Natural Resources
has a really nice description in their Eyes on the Bay,
the Chesapeake Bay program site
that talks about harmful and nuisance algae.
So, I'm not sure that answers, very well, your question,
but they – the species of algae is what makes the difference.
Some species are toxic and some are not.
Then some that aren't toxic like these
– they're called Brown Tides – the algae is so tiny
that it clogs up the filter-feeders' siphons
and they die.
So, that's also been a problem in the past.
So, whoever that is, if you would write a note to me,
I'd be happy to – if you want to.
Or you could look just at the Eyes on the Bay site
and look under their nuisance and toxic bloom –
they have a link to that.
Thanks Suzanne. I'm going to ask one more question to you
and then we're quickly going to take it over to Molly.
Then, afterwards, we can go back and address
some other questions that people have.
Great, okay.
This question – actually,
if you'd like to pull up a website,
you may, on your screen. The question is,
"Do you know of a source for eutrophication data
for someone's local watershed?"
Oh, it depends where it is. So, for example – let me –
I'm going to put this back up for –
and I'll tell you why in a second.
So, if you are in the Chesapeake Bay Region area
and in Maryland, in particular,
the Maryland DNR and Eyes on the Bay – oops –
have a long-term monitoring program since 1984.
You can access those data online or,
if you can't manage to do that,
they do have people who can help you do that.
So, that's one source of the data.
Here, the reason I pulled this up
is that the Chlorophyll A and dissolved oxygen,
they also have nutrient concentrations.
So, that's one source of data.
Another source of data is your riverkeeper association,
because there are just absolutely fabulous citizen
monitoring networks that are in place
and doing monitoring of the same kind of things
that the state and federal agencies are doing.
So, if you look in your – wherever you are in your local
watershed or riverkeeper association,
they should be able to provide you data
or send you to a place that can access data.
Actually, you could sign up really to help
to gather data, too. I mean it's really exciting.
So, that would be my answer to that
is the Eyes on the Bay, the Maryland DNR site,
and/or look in your riverkeeper or watershed association,
because all of those groups do monitoring.
Thanks. You know what?
What I'll do is I will send Suzanne
copies of everybody's questions
so she can get back to you directly,
if it's relevant, if she's planning to this evening, yes.
[Crosstalk]
Oh, great, because I think I talked a little bit too long.
Sorry about that.
No, no. It's absolutely fine.
We'll come back to some more questions,
but I certainly want to get my colleagues,
my friend and colleague, Molly, on the line.
Molly, the – your mic is hot and the screen is yours.
So, why don't we turn it over to you
for the second half of our presentation or the third half.
Okay, thanks Bruce, and thanks Dr. Bricker.
That was fantastic. I learned a lot.
Hello, everybody. Thanks for joining us, again, tonight.
In a very brief few minutes, I'm going to talk to you about
how Oysters in the Chesapeake Bay,
the learning sequence, came to be.
I'm going to give you a quick overview of the sequence
and then I'm going to share some resources
that relate to topics in Dr. Bricker's presentation with you.
As I said, Oysters in the Chesapeake
is a kindergarten through 12th grade learning sequence
and it's based on concepts of three-dimensional learning.
For NOAA, it was the first of its kind to be developed.
So, why did four educators from NOAA
decide to undertake this endeavor
– and quite an endeavor it was. It was a few years ago
and the next generation science standards
had just been released.
We, as an organization, a group of educators,
wanted to learn how to use them
to inform our future product development.
We created lots of activities in the past and lesson plans
and we –
but we recognized the need for different kind of product
as educators started to fill their toolboxes or file cabinets
or online storage with three - dimensional learning resources.
Why oysters, of all things,
or all the things that NOAA does?
We wanted something that was important to NOAA's work
and relevant to a local audience.
We're located in Maryland where,
besides the illustrious blue crab,
many people do enjoy eating oysters.
Tributaries of the Bay had just been chosen
as NOAA habitat focus areas for oyster restoration.
So, those two things came together at the right time.
It took us about three years to produce Oysters
in the Chesapeake, for several reasons.
While a couple of us had been classroom educators
and we understood the concept of 3D learning
and had used it in theory, some in our classrooms,
we had to understand how to navigate the NGSS.
The best practices about how to do that were still evolving.
So, we wrote and wrote and wrote again,
and wrote again, all without quitting our day jobs.
Finally, we had a product that we were proud
of that we released last year.
Okay, the product is divided into three grade-level bands;
elementary, middle, and high school.
Each one of these builds on the one before it.
The activities progress from very simple –
in kindergarten,
which I'll give you an example of – to more complex.
They go from the role of oyster shells to in-depth activities
using issues investigations in high school.
The elementary sequence is more of a demonstration
of what's possible with kindergarten to fifth graders
and has one lesson per grade level.
The activities in this section touch on the knowledge
and the skills needed in later grades.
The middle school section is separated into two modules.
I saw that the author of our middle school session,
Peg Steffen, is on with us tonight.
Good to "see" you, Peg.
The first module explores the changes
in the physical characteristics of the Chesapeake Bay,
since 1608, when John Smith first sailed into the Bay,
and it moves onto investigations of water quality
and investigations and research on land
use factors that affect the Bay.
The second module explores the role of oysters
and water quality, just as Dr. Bricker discussed,
harvesting and oyster diseases and management
strategies to improve the water quality and health of the Bay.
The high school section has four modules
that explore more of the history of oyster-related issues.
It also includes investigation
of sustainable resource management,
evaluation of habitat requirements for oysters,
and research leading to stewardship actions
for oysters in the Bay, all at age-appropriate levels.
Okay, so that was a down and dirty real quick overview.
Just to going back for a second –
I skipped over it – at the bottom of this slide
is the URL for where you can find this.
If you Google Oysters in Chesapeake Bay,
it will be the fourth resource that you find.
I did that just today to figure that out.
Okay, here's a sample lesson from the elementary lessons.
This is kindergarten.
As you can see from Dr. Bricker's presentation,
this is a very complicated subject.
It can very in-depth with many great minds working on it.
If you're going to present it to kindergarteners,
you have to make it simple.
The essential question that we used for this lesson was,
"What role do oysters play
in cleaning the water of the Chesapeake Bay?"
The teachers and the students have a tub of water
and they add various items like food coloring,
foam peanuts, pencil shavings, piece of plastic bags,
straws, all kinds of stuff,
whatever they have handy and they put it in the water.
Then they talk about whether or not
they would like to go swimming in that water.
I'm sure you will get lots of, "Ew,"
and, "Ugh, I don't want to go in there."
So, if you don't want to go in there,
we talk about how to clean it up.
They try different things like kitchen tongs or their hands,
if they're brave, shovels, all those different things.
Then the teacher brings out a filter.
They pour the dirty water through the filter
and talk about what happens, what they see,
and how there are filters like this in nature.
Next, the students get a tub of small items
like little toys or something.
They put in a couple spoonfuls of Cheerios and a cup of sand.
They have to design a filter to remove the Cheerios
but leave everything else behind.
So, the kids aren't necessarily going to build this
but they can draw pictures of it
and they can explain how their filter works.
This is the engineering part of this lesson.
The lesson ends – excuse me – with the teacher reading
a picture book about oyster filtering
and the students draw a picture.
They can either tell or try to write a simple story
about how oysters helps clean the water.
Now, let's move onto middle school.
Okay, "It Takes a Watershed to Raise an Oyster."
This is just one of the lessons in the modules.
In this module, students are investigating watersheds
and land-use factors
that influence water quality in the Bay.
Students look at data from a local watershed
monitoring station
and find the health of a waterway that's near them.
I looked up, using the tool, the closest river to me,
and that's the Anacostia River.
If you look on the bottom left-hand corner,
you see the monitoring sites in and around Chesapeake Bay.
The report card that I used pops up
and it gave the Anacostia a grade of F,
which if you've ever seen the Anacostia is not surprising.
But the report card did have a positive
and that's very important when you're working with students
is to show them positive
and not stick on the gloom and doom.
It helps to empower them to take action.
So, they can take the data from the report card
and add it to their toolbox for use later in the module.
Next, they use maps of the land-used areas
in parts of the Bay and examine land use
and compare it with local stream health.
They learn about point and non-point source pollutants
and determine local sources of that around them.
I use the, "How's My Waterway," tool by the EPA today
and I found out that the stream at the bottom of my street,
which is Rock Creek –
if any of you have been to or been around Washington, D.C.,
you know Rock Creek Park and Rock Creek
is a very important part of the area.
It's a very important green space around here.
Rock Creek has a lot of issues.
But the tool also showed things that my neighbors
and I can do to improve the quality of Rock Creek.
Again, a positive spin.
So, students take all this information and they use it
to consider the ways that pollution factors can be managed
or reduced to improve water quality.
By the end of the lesson,
they develop a simple management plan of best practices
to improve the Chesapeake Bay's water quality.
I apologize for speaking so fast.
I'm trying to use our time wisely.
All right, here is a sample high school lesson from a module.
So, this lesson focuses on habitat requirements
for oysters,
including what they need to survive
and what they need to reproduce in the Chesapeake Bay.
The activities focus on biological
as well as physical parameters.
The students learn about the connection
between the biotic and abiotic conditions in the Chesapeake
and the effects of those on the Eastern Oyster.
They analyze current water quality data
from the Chesapeake Bay
using the Chesapeake interpretative buoy system.
One of those buoys is in the lower left-hand corner.
They compare that data with the oyster requirements
of different life stages.
The life stage of the Eastern Oyster is top right image.
Students also look at the habitat requirements
for the Eastern Oyster such as water temperature,
dissolved oxygen, type of substrate they prefer
and the depth they prefer to grow in.
They coalesce all this data and develop
a picture of the best possible site for oyster restoration.
Using that and the information available
on the Oyster Decision Support Tool from NOAA,
they identify two to four actual real-life sites
in and around the Bay where oysters can be restored.
Each student chooses one final site
and gives a presentation to the class
about why that's the best place
to start an oyster restoration project.
As a culminating activity,
the students choose the best restoration site
from the presentations their peers gave
and they prepare a report
for the "Secretary" of Natural Resources
where they describe the location of their choice
and the reasoning behind their choice.
Okay, that is a down and dirty overview of this resource.
I encourage everybody to take a look at it.
What I've shown you is just the tip of the iceberg.
There is a lot more in there that's fantastic
to share with your students.
Yes, some additional resources that I just wanted to share
with you guys was that
NOAA's National Estuarine Research Reserve System
is a terrific series of – I think it's 28
or 29 protected areas around the United States
and in estuarine environments that Suzanne was talking about.
They have an entire series of,
I believe there are free teacher workshops that are field based
and they're all around the country.
I really – they've got the schedule up now.
I urge you to go and sort of take a look
and see all of the wonderful resources that are there
that you can take advantage of over the course of the summer.
I also wanted to give a plug out to NOAA's National Centers
for Coastal Ocean Science
that I know Suzanne works very closely with.
Yeah, actually I'm part of that group.
There you go. So, you work very closely with them.
Yeah, there are just many other resources and areas of interest
and topics that focus on coastal resilience
and focus on different kinds of research that are going on.
So, I urge you, if you are looking to check out
some additional subjects,
check out NOAA – as we like to say
NCCOS, National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science.
Lots of subjects for you.
Also, if you want to learn a little bit more about oysters,
I found these two sites through the NOAA fisheries;
Oyster Reef Habitat and through NOAA's Chesapeake Bay Office,
topic on oysters. This is pretty much everything
you ever wanted to know about oysters
but were afraid to ask or maybe you want to ask.
But they're on those pages. So, check them out.