While you might think the rainy spell we've been experiencing would undercut the Michigan scientist's forecast of a smaller dead zone in the bay, that isn't necessarily true, says Joel Blomquest, who monitors mid-Atlantic streams and rivers for the U.S. Geological Survey. Blomquest said the upper half of the bay watershed in Pennsylvania and New York did not experience the wet weather we've had here in Maryland. Consequently, despite our downpours, the overall flow of freshwater into the bay has not been high, he said.
Scavia acknowledged that freshwater flows have increased in recent weeks, though, and hedged his forecast. While he still expects the Chesapeake dead zone to be a lot smaller, he says it will probably be on the high end of the size range he predicted.
While things are looking up, however temporarily, for the Chesapeake Bay, Scavia predicts that the Gulf of Mexico's "dead zone" this summer is likely to be one of the largest ever measured. The Mississippi and Atchafalaya rivers ran 11 percent above average this spring, feeding heavy doses of nitrogen into the gulf. It hasn't helped, either, scientists say, that nitrogen concentrations in those rivers have nearly tripled over the past 50 years from human activities.
