I was born in Maryland, where my uncle was a compass adjuster and nautical instrument manufacturer. I used Chesapeake Bay as an example of an estuary in an Introductory Oceanography course at the University of Texas at Austin. When I began teaching an introductory course entitled “How to Live with a Planet” I used Chesapeake Bay as an example of problems caused by the proliferating human population in a coastal environment. I considered myself reasonably well read on issues involving Chesapeake Bay. Then in 1998 I moved to a small creek (Spencer’s Creek) three miles up the Little Wicomico River in tidewater Virginia’s Northern Neck.

The first winter I wondered why the water remained green. The owner of a nearby marine railway told me that when he was a boy he could “fill a skiff with doublers” in the creek. “Doublers” are male and female crabs swimming together in the water and mating, and I have never observed the phenomenon in the creek. His father complained that his oyster grounds, at the mouth of the creek, are no longer productive. A neighbor told me that when she was young she could take her skiff in the creek and collect enough oysters for dinner. I have found one live oyster in the creek. These massive changes have occurred in a few decades.

It is obvious that because the small creek is three miles from the open Bay, water quality problems must have a local cause. The salinity in all creeks decreases toward the headwaters because of groundwater discharge and runoff, making it unlikely that water quality problems are caused by saline water from the Bay.

I emplaced several vertical PVC pipes between my drain-field and the creek so I could measure groundwater nitrate. I also began measuring the nitrate concentration in shallow water wells tapping the water table (unconfined) aquifer that many people, like myself, use as a domestic water supply. It became immediately obvious that the cause of the degraded water quality in the creek is the same as for Chesapeake Bay. Excess nitrate and phosphate (nutrification), mostly from groundwater discharge and not from runoff, causes the prolific growth of tiny suspended plants (phytoplankton), clouding the water and preventing bottom dwelling (benthic) plants (Submerged Aquatic Vegetation or SAV) from growing. The phytoplankton die, sink to the bottom and rot, creating black, oxygen-free (anoxic) mud that stinks of hydrogen sulfide. In summer, if stratification or layering develops in the water column, the water on the bottom becomes oxygen depleted to the point that benthic organisms like oysters are killed and Dead Zones develop.

Nowhere had I read that the degraded water quality in small creeks like Spencer’s Creek is caused by nutrient-rich groundwater, or that summer dead zones are common. Nowhere had the role of agriculture in causing the nutrient-rich groundwater been emphasized. The scientific literature contains all this information, but it has not reached the public or political consciousness and it certainly is not widely understood. In trying to improve citizen education I joined a local organization, the Northumberland Association for Progressive Stewardship, or NAPS, and submitted “Stewardship Tips” to several local newspapers (posted at www.napsva.org.)

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