Expedition: The Capt. John Smith Water TrailA Rich and Balanced Bay | John Smith's Voyages | Voyage Reenactment
Getting Around | Maps | Books | Blog | Get Involved | Links A RICH & BALANCED BAYSince 1988, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation’s (CBF) annual State of the Bay Report has described a Bay system languishing at about one-quarter of its potential, a far cry from the Bay Capt. John Smith traveled 400 years ago. The baseline for the State of the Bay index is the rich and balanced Bay that Smith described. We score that Bay a theoretical 100. In 2006, with 17 million people living in the Chesapeake watershed, the State of the Bay score was just 29. While we will never again see a Bay score of 100, Smith’s accounts provide a foundation for our vision of what’s possible in our lifetimes—a restored Chesapeake, fed by healthy rivers and clean streams; sustainable populations of crabs, fish, and oysters; thriving water-based and agricultural economies; and a legacy of success for our children and grandchildren. Can We Do It? A Saved Bay by the Numbers
(numbers reflect CBF's State of the Bay health index)
100 John Smith's pristine Bay
70 CBF's goal for a "saved" Bay by 2050
50 CBF's goal for a "stable" Bay
40 CBF's goal for an "improving" Bay by 2010
29 CBF's 2006 rating--a Bay still dangerously out of balance |
Science has provided a "blueprint" for a saved Bay, our region's leaders have committed to improving water quality substantially by 2010, and the Bay states have created tributary strategies to implement that blueprint. At CBF, we define a saved Bay as one with a health index of 70, and we believe that goal is achievable by 2050. As an interim goal, we see a substantive improvement from today's score to 40 by 2010 as ambitious but largely attainable if and only if the states continue to accelerate the rate at which they implement their tributary strategies and if the federal government steps up, takes action, dedicates funding, and acts responsibly as a full partner to the region's commitment. We hope the Capt. John Smith Chesapeake National Historic Trail will allow people from around the world to share in CBF’s vision and inspire them to join us in our work to save this national treasure.  State of the Bay: Past, Present, Future Explore the Chesapeake of Capt. John Smith with our interactive map. Vist 20 different areas along the trail and experience the changes brought on by colonization, progress, and population growth. Take a glimpse of what the future may hold.
The State of the Bay 1608
Rich & Balanced Habitat | Rich & Balanced Fisheries | Pollution Levels Habitat
 Forested Buffers
1608 Health Index - 100
2007 Health Index - 56
The Chesapeake watershed and tidal basin encompass 110,000 miles of streams and shorelines. In 1608, as noted by Jamestown colonist Gabriel Archer, virtually all of them were buffered by riparian forests. In the northern and higher elevations those forests grew white pines, hemlocks, and other evergreens. Lower areas held extensive hardwoods, with giant stands of loblolly pines on high ground and around the salt marshes. They made up the core of the Bay's "Great Green Filter."  Wetlands
1608 Health Index - 100
2007 Health Index - 42
The total area of tidal and non-tidal wetlands in 1608 was a little over 3,500,000 acres. In low spots in the forests, along stream banks, in the great meandering curves of the tidal rivers, and along tidal shorelines, those marshes supplemented the forests in cleansing the waters. Thus they are often called "lungs and kidneys of the Bay." In addition, they provided bountiful habitat and food for mammals like muskrats and beaver; birds like ducks, geese, swans, eagles, ospreys, and herons; and many species of fish and crabs. Plants with nutritious seeds, like wild rice, and with tubers, like arrowhead, were important staples in the diets of the native peoples.  Underwater Grasses
1608 Health Index - 100
2007 Health Index - 18
Aerial photography from the late 1930s and reliable first-hand reports from the 1950s provide a picture of what the Chesapeake looked like when Bay grasses scored over 50 on our scale, covering at least 200,000 acres of possible habitat. Analyses of sediment cores dated to the early 1600s, however, indicate that even these 20th century reports were pale by comparison with what existed when the Jamestown colonists arrived. The clarifying effects of the forests and wetlands provided water clear enough to support grasses out to depths of nine feet. The beds were larger, thicker, and more diverse. They served as habitat and food for a huge biomass of Bay creatures, from grass shrimp, sea horses, and juvenile fish to wintering waterfowl like canvasback ducks and blue crabs. Their great expanse supported an ecosystem many times richer than what we see today.  Resource Lands
1608 Health Index - 100
2007 Health Index - 29
With no hard surfaces and virtually no development beyond small, transient native American villages and a population density of only 1.6 people per square mile, the Chesapeake watershed was mostly open forest and wetland. All of its 64,000 square miles functioned together as the "Great Green Filter." Today, population density is 250 people per square mile, a 15,000% increase. No ecosystem can absorb a change that great without showing major harmful effects. Rich & Balanced Habitat | Rich & Balanced Fisheries | Pollution Levels Fisheries  Blue Crabs
1608 Health Index - 100
2007 Health Index - 36
With widespread, dense underwater grass beds and only minor harvest pressure from native people, the Chesapeake's blue crabs lived well and long, possibly eight years or more. Today, diminished habitat and harvest pressure make it rare to find a crab older than three years. To be sure, plenty of young and soft crabs fed rockfish, sea trout, great blue herons, river otters, and other predators. But this tough, prolific omnivore flourished throughout the entire Chesapeake estuary, right up to the limit of tide in the rivers.  Rockfish
1608 Health Index - 100
2007 Health Index - 71
Rockfish have a natural life span of 30 years, though today most are caught by age 15. In 1608, their numbers were higher even than they are today, but they also had a more natural age structure than now, with substantial numbers of older fish that weighed up to 125 pounds. In 1608, the Bay's diverse food web was stable enough to nourish the large population of this consummate Chesapeake fish as well as a wide variety of seasonal migrants from the Atlantic, such as sea trout, drum, and sheepshead.  Oysters
1608 Health Index - 100
2007 Health Index - 4
In 1608, many of the Chesapeake's oysters lived as long as 15 years, growing shells over a foot long. When they died, their shells helped build reefs that broke the surface at low tide, even in deep water, making them hazards to navigation for the Jamestown colonists' ships. Those reefs served native Americans as easy food sources: they simply paddled their canoes out to the reefs and picked what they needed. The immense numbers of oysters constituted a major natural filter system, straining algae from a volume of water equal to the Bay's every three days or so. Meanwhile, those live reefs provided bases for a rich, diverse benthic (bottom) community on whose food web depended fish, crabs, and waterfowl. Those oysters were truly keystone species for the Chesapeake ecosystem.  Shad
1608 Health Index - 100
2007 Health Index - 10
In the spring of 1608, several billion American and hickory shad, blueback herring, and alewives entered the Chesapeake's rivers to spawn. They ran up those rivers well past their heads of tide, reaching deep into central Pennsylvania and even into southcentral New York, as well as the eastern slopes of the Blue Ridge Mountains and the Alleghany Plateau. Their numbers ensured not only successful spawns but also fresh, nutritious fish to birds like bald eagles, as well as mammals from river otters and black bears to humans. Rich & Balanced Habitat | Rich & Balanced Fisheries | Pollution Levels Pollution  Toxics
1608 Health Index - 100
2007 Health Index - 27
There were certainly toxic compounds in the Chesapeake ecosystem in 1608. Capt. John Smith could readily attest to the excruciating power of the stingray's spine and mature pokeweed plants packed enough poison to sicken any human who ate them. All of these compounds, though, were natural products of the ecosystem, and none was dispensed broadly enough to unbalance it.  Nitrogen
1608 Health Index - 100
2007 Health Index - 17
Phosphorus
1608 Health Index - 100
2007 Health Index - 23
In 1608, the flow of nitrogen into the Chesapeake was 25-50 million pounds per year, and phosphorous was less than one million pounds per year. The Bay ecosystem was balanced, using this "diet" of fertilizer to grow enough underwater grasses, wetland plants, and phytoplankton (microscopic, drifting plants) to fuel a rich and diverse food web. Waste from the 100,000 native people in the watershed had become part of those balanced totals. Today, nitrogen and phosphorus pollution from 16 million people and 19 million farm animals are more than 10 times these historic values, contributing significantly to an unbalanced system.  Dissolved Oxygen
1608 Health Index - 100
2007 Health Index - 16
Any "drowned river valley" estuary like the Chesapeake Bay becomes "stratified" as fresh water flowing seaward floats above the denser salt water brought in by the tides. This stratification of fresh and salt water layers makes it difficult for oxygen from the surface to reach deeper channels and the Bay life that lives there. Heavy rainfall with its additional influx of fresh water increases the stratification. In 1608, however, stratification was moderate as the region was in a period of drought, which lasted until 1612. In addition, the balanced ecosystem used nitrogen and phosphorus flushed in from the rivers with great efficiency, so bacterial decay activity in deep water rarely reduced the oxygen concentrations there to lethal levels for fish and crabs, even under the most extreme conditions.  Water Clarity
1608 Health Index - 100
2007 Health Index - 14
Water clarity experienced by John Smith and his crew was six to eight times greater than the two-to-four-foot average we see today thanks to the Bay's natural filters (including forested buffers, wetlands, and oysters). The muddy flow of sediment we see after heavy rains in rivers with heavily developed watersheds was all but absent, as were the heavy blooms of blue-green and brown algae--fed by excessive nitrogen and phosphorus--that today close beaches, damage shellfish beds, block light from underwater grass beds, and tigger oxygen-depleted "dead zones." Additional Resources More Resources
|