Tuesday’s collision of the container ship Dali into Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge and the nearly immediate collapse of the span into the chilly waters below reminds us just how unforgiving and deadly maritime accidents can be. Upon termination of rescue and recovery operations, salvage and cleanup will be prioritized as the next steps in the long-term process of reopening the navigable waters to ship traffic and construction of a new bridge. Part of the effort will include monitoring for leaks of fuels and other hazardous materials from the ship, its damaged cargo containers, and vehicles and equipment that were on the bridge when it failed.
Damage to the hull of the Dali and to the cargo containers on her deck could lead to leaks of hazardous liquids or other materials into Chesapeake Bay. (United States Army Corps of Engineers Baltimore image)
On the waters and shores of today’s Chesapeake, numerous county, state, and federal agencies, including the United States Coast Guard, monitor and inspect looking for conditions and situations that could lead to point-source or accidental discharges of petroleum products and other hazardous materials into the bay. Many are trained, equipped, and organized for emergency response to contain and mitigate spills upon detection. But this was not always the case.
Through much of the twentieth century, maritime spills of oil and other chemicals magnified the effects of routine discharges of hazardous materials and sanitary sewer effluent into the Chesapeake and its tributaries. The cumulative effect of these pollutants progressively impaired fisheries and bay ecosystems leading to noticeable declines in numbers of many aquatic species. Rather frequently, spills or discharges resulted in conspicuous fish and/or bird kills.
One of the worst spills occurred near the mouth of the Potomac River on February 2, 1976, when a barge carrying 250,000 gallons of number 6 oil sank in a storm and lost its cargo into the bay. During a month-long cleanup, the United States Coast Guard recovered approximately 167,000 gallons of the spilled oil, the remainder dispersed into the environment. A survey counted 8,469 “sea ducks” killed. Of the total number, the great majority were Horned Grebes (4,347 or 51.3%) and Long-tailed Ducks (2,959 or 34.9%). Other species included Surf Scoter (Melanitta perspicillata) (405 or 4.8%), Common Loon (195 or 2.3%), Bufflehead (166 or 2.0%), Ruddy Duck (107 or 1.3%), Common Goldeneye (78 or 0.9%), Tundra Swan (46 or 0.5%), Greater Scaup (19 or 0.2%), American Black Duck (12 or 0.2%), Common Merganser (11 or 0.1%), Canvasback (10 or 0.1%), Double-crested Cormorant (10 or 0.1%), Canada Goose (8 or 0.1%), White-winged Scoter (Melanitta deglandi) (7 or 0.1%), Redhead (5 or 0.1%), gull species (10 or 0.1%), miscellaneous ducks and herons (13 or 0.2%) and unidentified (61 or 0.7%). During the spring migration, a majority of these birds would have made their way north and passed through the lower Susquehanna valley. The accident certainly impacted the occurrence of the listed species during that spring in 1976, and possibly for a number of years after.
Of the 8,469 birds killed by the February 2, 1976, oil spill on the Chesapeake, 51.3% (4,347) were Horned Grebes. Many of them would have migrated north through the Lower Susquehanna River Watershed during the coming spring.
The Federal Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1972, commonly known as the Clean Water Act, put teeth into the original FWCPCA of 1948 and began reversing the accumulation of pollutants in the bay and other bodies of water around the nation. Additional amendments in 1977 and 1987 have strengthened protections and changed the culture of “dump-and-run” disposal and “dilution-is-the-solution” treatment of hazardous wastes. During the late nineteen-seventies and early nineteen-eighties, emergency response teams and agencies began organizing to control and mitigate spill events. The result has been a greater awareness and competency for handling accidental discharges of fuels and other chemicals into Chesapeake Bay and other waterways. These improvements can help minimize the environmental impact of the Dali’s collision with the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore.
Oil spills and other pollution in the Chesapeake can impact populations of migratory fish including the anadromous Hickory Shad which are presently transiting the bay on their way to the waters of the Susquehanna below Conowingo Dam.
SOURCES
Roland, John V., Moore, Glenn E., and Bellanca, Michael A. 1977. “The Chesapeake Bay Oil Spill—February 2, 1976: A Case History”. International Oil Spill Conference Proceedings (1977). 1977 (1): 523-527.
At this very moment, your editor is comfortably numb and is, if everything is going according to plans, again having a snake run through the plumbing in his body’s most important muscle. It thus occurs to him how strange it is that with muscles as run down and faulty as his, people at one time asked him to come speak about and display his marvelous mussels. And some, believe it or not, actually took interest in such a thing. If the reader finds this odd, he or she would not be alone. But the peculiarities don’t stop there. The reader may find further bewilderment after being informed that the editor’s mussels are now in the collection of a regional museum where they are preserved for study by qualified persons with scientific proclivities. All of this show and tell was for just one purpose—to raise appreciation and sentiment for our mussels, so that they might be protected.
Click on the “Freshwater Mussels and Clams” tab at the top of this page to see the editor’s mussels, and many others as well. Then maybe you too will want to flex your muscles for our mussels. They really do need, and deserve, our help.
With the gasoline and gunpowder gang’s biggest holiday of the year now upon us, wouldn’t it be nice to get away from the noise and the enduring adolescence for just a little while to see something spectacular that isn’t exploding or on fire? Well, here’s a suggestion: head for the hills to check out the flowers of our native rhododendron, the Great Rhododendron (Rhododendronmaximum), also known as Rosebay.
The Great Rhododendron is an evergreen shrub found growing in the forest understory on slopes with consistently moist (mesic) soils. The large, thick leaves make it easy to identify. During really cold weather, they may droop and curl, but they still remain green and attached to the plant.
Thickets composed of our native heathers/heaths (Ericaceae) including Great Rhododendron, Mountain Laurel, and Pinxter Flower (Rhododendron periclymenoides), particularly when growing in association with Eastern Hemlock and/or Eastern White Pine, provide critical winter shelter for forest wildlife. The flowers of native heathers/heaths attract bees and other pollinating insects and those of the deciduous Pinxter Flower, which blooms in May, are a favorite of butterflies and Ruby-throated Hummingbirds.
A close relative of the Great Rhododendron is the Pinxter Flower, also known as the Pink Azalea.
Forests with understories that include Great Rhododendrons do not respond well to logging. Although many Great Rhododendrons regenerate after cutting, the loss of consistent moisture levels in the soil due to the absence of a forest canopy during the sunny summertime can, over time, decimate an entire population of plants. In addition, few rhododendrons are produced by seed, even under optimal conditions. Great Rhododendron seeds and seedlings are very sensitive to the physical composition of forest substrate and its moisture content during both germination and growth. A lack of humus, the damp organic matter in soil, nullifies the chances of successful recolonization of a rhododendron understory by seed. In locations where moisture levels are adequate for their survival and regeneration after logging, impenetrable Great Rhododendron thickets will sometimes come to dominate a site. These monocultures can, at least in the short term, cause problems for foresters by interrupting the cycle of succession and excluding the reestablishment of native trees. In the case of forests harboring stands of Great Rhododendron, it can take a long time for a balanced ecological state to return following a disturbance as significant as logging.
Ruffed Grouse (Bonasa umbellus) may be particularly sensitive to the loss of winter shelter and travel lanes provided by thickets of Great Rhododendron and other members of the heather/heath family. (Vintage 35 mm image)
In the lower Susquehanna region, the Great Rhododendron blooms from late June through the middle of July, much later than the ornamental rhododendrons and azaleas found in our gardens. Set against a backdrop of deep green foliage, the enormous clusters of white flowers are hard to miss.
Great Rhododendrons sport an attractive blossom cluster. The colors of the flower, especially the markings found only on the uppermost petal, guide pollinators to the stamens (male organs) and pistil (female organ).To this Bumble Bee (Bombus species), the yellowish spots on the uppermost petal of the Great Rhododendron may appear to be clumps of pollen and are thus an irresistible lure.
In the Lower Susquehanna River Watershed, there are but a few remaining stands of Great Rhododendron. One of the most extensive populations is in the Ridge and Valley Province on the north side of Second Mountain along Swatara Creek near Ravine (just off Interstate 81) in Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania. Smaller groves are found in the Piedmont Province in the resort town of Mount Gretna in Lebanon County and in stream ravines along the lower river gorge at the Lancaster Conservancy’s Ferncliff and Wissler’s Run Preserves. Go have a look. You’ll be glad you did.
Great Rhododendron along Route 125 along the base of the north slope of Second Mountain north of Ravine, Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania.Great Rhododendrons beginning to bloom during the second week of July along Swatara Creek north of Ravine, Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania. Note how acid mine drainage continues to stain the rocks (and pollute the water) in the upper reaches of this tributary of the lower Susquehanna.
Fifty years ago this week, the remnants of Hurricane Agnes drifted north through the Susquehanna River basin as a tropical storm and saturated the entire watershed with wave after wave of torrential rains. The storm caused catastrophic flooding along the river’s main stem and along many major tributaries. The nuclear power station at Three Mile Island, then under construction, received its first major flood. Here are some photos taken during the climax of that flood on June 24, 1972. The river stage as measured just upstream of Three Mile Island at the Harrisburg gauge crested at 33.27 feet, more than 10 feet above flood stage and almost 30 feet higher than the stage at present. At Three Mile Island and Conewago Falls, the river was receiving additional flow from the raging Swatara Creek, which drains much of the anthracite coal region of eastern Schuylkill County—where rainfall from Agnes may have been the heaviest.
1972- From the river’s east shore at the mouth of Conewago Creek, Three Mile Island’s “south bridge” crosses the Susquehanna along the upstream edge of Conewago Falls. The flood crested just after covering the roadway on the span. Floating debris including trees, sections of buildings, steel drums, and rubbish began accumulating against the railings on the bridge’s upstream side, leading observers to speculate that the span would fail. When a very large fuel tank, thousands of gallons in capacity, was seen approaching, many thought it would be the straw that would break the camel’s back. It wasn’t, but the crashing sounds it made as it struck the bridge then turned and began rolling against the rails was unforgettable. (Larry L. Coble, Sr. image)1972- In this close-up of the preceding photo, the aforementioned piles of junk can be seen along the upstream side of the bridge (behind the sign on the right). The fuel tank struck and was rolling on the far side of this pile. (Larry L. Coble, Sr. image)2022- Three Mile Island’s “south bridge” as it appeared this morning, June 24,2022.1972- The railroad along the east shore at Three Mile Island’s “south bridge” was inundated by rising water. This flooded automobile was one of many found in the vicinity. Some of these vehicles were overtaken by rising water while parked, others were stranded while being driven, and still others floated in from points unknown. (Larry L. Coble, Sr. image)2022- A modern view of the same location.1972- At the north end of Three Mile Island, construction on Unit 1 was halted. The completed cooling towers can be seen to the right and the round reactor building can be seen behind the generator building to the left. The railroad grade along the river’s eastern shore opposite the north end of the island was elevated enough for this train to stop and shelter there for the duration of the flood. (Larry L. Coble, Sr. image)2022- Three Mile Island Unit 1 as it appears today: shut down, defueled, and in the process of deconstruction.1972- In March of 1979, the world would come to know of Three Mile Island Unit 2. During Agnes in June of 1972, flood waters surrounding the plant resulted in a delay of its construction. In the foreground, note the boxcar from the now defunct Penn Central Railroad. (Larry L. Coble, Sr. image)2022- A current look at T.M.I. Unit 2, shut down since the accident and partial meltdown in 1979.
Pictures capture just a portion of the experience of witnessing a massive flood. Sometimes the sounds and smells of the muddy torrents tell us more than photographs can show.
Aside from the booming noise of the fuel tank banging along the rails of the south bridge, there was the persistent roar of floodwaters, at the rate of hundreds of thousands of cubic feet per second, tumbling through Conewago Falls on the downstream side of the island. The sound of the rapids during a flood can at times carry for more than two miles. It’s a sound that has accompanied the thousands of floods that have shaped the falls and its unique diabase “pothole rocks” using abrasives that are suspended in silty waters after being eroded from rock formations in the hundreds of square miles of drainage basin upstream. This natural process, the weathering of rock and the deposition of the material closer to the coast, has been the prevailing geologic cycle in what we now call the Lower Susquehanna River Watershed since the end of the Triassic Period, more than two hundred million years ago.
More than the sights and sounds, it was the smell of the Agnes flood that warned witnesses of the dangers of the non-natural, man-made contamination—the pollution—in the waters then flowing down the Susquehanna.
Because they float, gasoline and other fuels leaked from flooded vehicles, storage tanks, and containers were most apparent. The odor of their vapors was widespread along not only along the main stem of the river, but along most of the tributaries that at any point along their course passed through human habitations.
Blended with the strong smell of petroleum was the stink of untreated excrement. Flooded treatment plants, collection systems overwhelmed by stormwater, and inundated septic systems all discharged raw sewage into the river and many of its tributaries. This untreated wastewater, combined with ammoniated manure and other farm runoff, gave a damaging nutrient shock to the river and Chesapeake Bay.
Adding to the repugnant aroma of the flood was a mix of chemicals, some percolated from storage sites along watercourses, and yet others leaking from steel drums seen floating in the river. During the decades following World War II, stacks and stacks of drums, some empty, some containing material that is very dangerous, were routinely stored in floodplains at businesses and industrial sites throughout the Susquehanna basin. Many were lifted up and washed away during the record-breaking Agnes flood. Still others were “allowed” to be carried away by the malicious pigs who see a flooding stream as an opportunity to “get rid of stuff”. Few of these drums were ever recovered, and hundreds were stranded along the shoreline and in the woods and wetlands of the floodplain below Conewago Falls. There, they rusted away during the next three decades, some leaking their contents into the surrounding soils and waters. Today, there is little visible trace of any.
During the summer of ’72, the waters surrounding Three Mile Island were probably viler and more polluted than at any other time during the existence of the nuclear generating station there. And little, if any of that pollution originated at the facility itself.
The Susquehanna’s floodplain and water quality issues that had been stashed in the corner, hidden out back, and swept under the rug for years were flushed out by Agnes, and she left them stuck in the stinking mud.
It’s a hot summer weekend with a sun so bright that creosote is dripping from utility poles onto the sidewalks. Dodging these sticky little puddles of tar can cause one to reminisce about sultry days-gone-by.
Sometime in July or August each year, about half a century ago, we would cram all the gear for seven days of living into the car and head for the beaches of Delmarva or New Jersey. It was family vacation time, that one week a year when the working class fantasizes that they don’t have it so bad during the other fifty-one weeks of the year.
The trip to the coast from the Susquehanna valley was a day-long journey. Back then, four-lane highways were few beyond the cities of the northeast corridor and traffic jams stretched for miles. Cars frequently overheated and steam rolled from beneath the hoods of those stopped to cool down. There were even 55-gallon drums of non-potable water positioned at known choke points along some of the state roads so that motorists could top off their radiators and proceed on. Within these back-ups there were many Volkswagen Beetles pausing along the side of the road with the rear hood propped up. Their air-cooled engines would overheat on a hot day if the car wasn’t kept moving. But, despite the setbacks, all were motivated to continue. In time, with perseverance, the smell of saltmarsh air was soon rolling in the windows. Our destination was near.
At the shore, priority one was to spend plenty of time at the beach. Sunbathers lathered up with various concoctions of oils and moisturizers, including my personal favorite, cocoa butter, then they broiled themselves in the raging rays of the fusion-reaction furnace located just eight light-minutes away. Reflected from the white sand and ocean surf, the flaming orb’s blinding light did a thorough job of cooking all the thousands of oil-basted sun worshippers packing the tidal zone for miles and miles. You could smell the hot cocoa butter in the summer air as they burned. Well, maybe not, but you could smell something there.
By now, you’re probably saying, “Hey, why weren’t you idiots wearing protection from the sun’s harmful U.V. rays?”
Good question. Uncle Tyler Dyer reminds me that back in the sixties, a sunscreen was a shade hung to cover a window. He continued, “Man, the only sun block we had was a beach ball that happened to pass between us and the sun.”
A beach ball doesn’t cast much of a shadow. (NASA Solar Dynamics Observatory base image)
During several of our summertime beach visits in the early 1970s, we got a different sort of oil treatment—tar balls. We never noticed the things until we got out of the water. Playing around at the tide line and taking a tumble in the surf from time to time, we must have picked them up when we rolled in the sand.
Uncle Ty wasn’t happy, “Man, they’re sticking all over our legs and feet, and look at your swim trunks, they’re ruined. And look in the sand, they’re everywhere.” The event was one of the seeds that would in time grow into Uncle Ty’s fundamental distrust of corporate culture.
Looking around, tar balls were all over everyone who happened to be near the water. Rumor on the beach was that they came from ships that passed by offshore earlier in the day. The probable source was the many oil spills that had occurred in the Mid-Atlantic region in those years. During the first six months of 1973 alone, there were over 800 oil spills there. Three hundred of those spills occurred in the waters surrounding New York City. The largest, almost half a million gallons, occurred in New York Harbor when a cargo ship collided with the tanker “Esso Brussels”. Forty percent of that spill burned in the fire that followed the mishap, the remainder entered the environment.
When it was time to clean up, we slowly removed the tar from our legs and feet by rubbing it away with a rag soaked in charcoal lighter fluid or gasoline. Needless to say, our skin turned redder than it had already been from sunburn.
Letting swimmers and wildlife roll around in the sand is no longer the preferred method of cleaning up tar balls from man-made oil spills. Here, President Obama examines tar balls resulting from the April 20, 2010, B.P. Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico. An organized cleanup effort followed this May 28, 2010, visit to the polluted Port Fourchon beach in Louisiana.
After a full day in the surf, we’d be on our way back to our “home base” for summer vacation, a campground nestled somewhere in the pines on the mainland side of the tidal marshes behind our beach’s barrier island. There, we’d shake the sand out of our trunks and savor the feeling of dry clothing. As the sun set, the smoke, flicker, and crackle of dozens of campfires filled the spaces between the tents and camping trailers. Colored lights strung around awnings dazzled sun-weary eyes as night descended across the landscape. We’d commence the process of incinerating some marshmallows soon after. Then, sometime while we were roasting our weenies and warming our buns, we’d hear it.
His device didn’t have a very good muffler. It sounded like a rusty old lawn mower running on the back of a rusty old truck that didn’t sound much better. And you could see the cloud rising above the campsites around the corner as he approached. It was the mosquito man, come to rid the place of pesky nocturnal biting insects. Behind him, always, were young boys on bicycles riding in and out of the fog of insecticide that rolled from the back of the truck.
Curious children seen following the mosquito man in a 1947 Universal Newsreel.
One was wise to quickly eat your campfire food and put the rest away before the fog rolled in. You had just minutes to choke down that burned up hot dog. Then the sense of urgency was gone. Everyone just sat around at picnic tables and on lawn chairs bathing in the airborne cloud. A thin layer of insecticide rubbed into the skin along with the liberal doses of Noxzema being applied to soothe sunburn pain will get you through the night just fine.
By the early 1970s, fogging of campgrounds to eliminate nuisance mosquitos was conducted using primarily the insecticide carbaryl (Sevin). Prior to that, in the years following World War II, DDT was the one-trick pony for killing everything everywhere. In 1947, the youth of San Antonio, Texas were subjected to repetitive direct spraying with DDT to eliminate the “germs” responsible for poliomyelitis. It was a misguided use of the pesticide. (Universal Newsreel image)Don’t you kids know that there’s sodium nitrite and saturated fat in those luncheon meats you’re eating? And the bread, aren’t you concerned about all that gluten? Oh, and by the way, they’re spraying you down with DDT again. It really happened in 1947 in San Antonio, Texas. (Universal Newsreel image)
Perhaps the most memorable event to occur during our summer vacations happened at the moment of this writing, fifty years ago.
We were vacationing in a campground in southern New Jersey. Our family and the family of my dad’s co-worker gathered in a mosquito-mesh tent surrounding a small black-and-white television. An extension cord was strung to a receptacle on a nearby post, and the cathode ray tube produced the familiar picture of glowing blue tones to illuminate the otherwise dark scene. There was constant experimentation with the whip antenna to try to get a visible signal. There were no local UHF broadcasters and the closest VHF television stations were in Philadelphia, so the picture constantly had “snow” diminishing its already poor clarity. But we could see it, and I’ll never forget it.
Neil Armstrong steps off the landing gear pad to be the first human to walk on the moon. July 20, 1969, 10:56 P.M. E.D.T. (NASA image)Armstrong left the field of view of the LEM-mounted camera for minutes at a time as he completed various tasks. TV viewers heard audio of his conversations with partner Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin and Houston Mission Control during these interludes. It was definitely not coverage designed for the short attention span of typical TV audiences. (NASA image)Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin descends the ladder on the LEM’s landing gear to reach the moon’s surface 19 minutes after Armstrong. (NASA image)Because NASA used a different video format than broadcast television, images seen at the time of the moon walk were of poor quality, produced by aiming a TV camera at a NASA monitor. Quality still images, including this one of Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin descending to the lunar surface, were available only after the astronauts returned exposed film to earth for processing. (NASA image by Neil Armstrong)Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin overlooking the LEM “Eagle” at Tranquility Base. (NASA image by Neil Armstrong)Neil Armstrong took this iconic image of Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin using a Hasselblad camera. His reflection can be seen in Aldrin’s visor. (NASA image by Neil Armstrong)Neil Armstrong (1930-2012), first man on the moon. (NASA image)
SOURCES
Andelman, David A. “Oil Spills Here Total 300 in ’73”. The New York Times. August 8, 1973. p.41.
Cortright, Edgar M. (Editor). 1975. Apollo Expeditions to the Moon. National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Washington, DC.
They can be a pesky nuisance. The annoying high-frequency buzzing is bad enough, but it’s the quiet ones that get you. While you were swatting at the noisy one, the silent gender sticks you and begins to feed. Maybe you know it, or maybe you don’t. She could make you itch and scratch. If she’s carrying a blood-borne pathogen, you could get sick and possibly die.
To humans, mosquitos are the most dangerous animal in the world (though not in the United States where man himself and the domestic dog are more of a threat). Globally, the Anopheles mosquitos that spread Malaria have been responsible for millions and millions of human deaths. Some areas of Africa are void of human habitation due to the prevalence of Malaria-spreading Anopheles mosquitos. In the northeastern United States, the Northern House Mosquito (Culex pipiens), as the carrier of West Nile Virus, is the species of greatest concern. Around human habitations, standing water in tires, gutters, and debris are favorite breeding areas. Dumping stagnant water helps prevent the rapid reproduction of this mosquito.
In recent years, the global distribution of these mosquito-borne illnesses has been one of man’s inadvertent accomplishments. An infected human is the source of pathogens which the feeding mosquito transmits to another unsuspecting victim. Infectious humans, traveling the globe, have spread some of these diseases to new areas or reintroduced them to sectors of the world where they were thought to have been eliminated. Additionally, where the specific mosquito carrier of a disease is absent, the mobility of man and his cargos has found a way to transport them there. Aedes aegypti, the “Yellow Fever Mosquito”, carrier of its namesake and the Zeka Virus, has found passage to much of the world including the southern United States. Unlike other species, Aedes aegypti dwells inside human habitations, thus transmitting disease rapidly from person to person. Another non-native species, the Asian Tiger Mosquito (Aedes albopictus), vector of Dengue Fever in the tropics, arrived in Houston in 1985 in shipments of used tires from Japan and in Los Angeles in 2001 in wet containers of “lucky bamboo” from Taiwan…some luck.
Asian Tiger Mosquito in action during the daylight hours, typical behavior of the genus. This species has been found in the area of Conewago Falls since at least 2013.
Poor mosquito, despite the death, suffering, and misery it has brought to Homo sapiens and other species around the planet, it will never be the most destructive animal on earth. You, my bloodthirsty friends, will place second at best. You see, mosquitos get no respect, even if they do create great wildlife sanctuaries by scaring people away.
The winner knows how to wipe out other species and environs not only to ensure its own survival, but, in many of its populations, to provide leisure, luxury, gluttony, and amusement. This species possesses the cognitive ability to think and reason. It can contemplate its own existence and the concepts of time. It is aware of its history, the present, and its future, though its optimism about the latter may be its greatest delusion. Despite possessing intellect and a capacity to empathize, it is devious, sinister, and selfish in its treatment of nearly every other living thing around it. Its numbers expand and its consumption increases. It travels the world carrying pest and disease to all its corners. It pollutes the water, land, and air. It has developed language, culture, and social hierarchies which create myths and superstitions to subdue the free will of its masses. Ignoring the gift of insight to evaluate the future, it continues to reproduce without regard for a means of sustenance. It is the ultimate organism, however, its numbers will overwhelm its resources. The crowning distinction will be the extinction.
Homo sapiens will be the first animal to cause a mass extinction of life on earth. The forces of nature and the cosmos need to wait their turn; man will take care of the species annihilation this time around. The plants, animals, and clean environment necessary for a prosperous healthy life will cease to exist. In the end, humans will degenerate, live in anguish, and leave no progeny. Fate will do to man what he has done to his co-inhabitants of the planet.
The Bald Eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) is again a breeding species in the Susquehanna River watershed. It is generally believed that during the mid-twentieth century, Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) pesticide residues accumulated in female top-of-the-food-chain birds including Bald Eagles. As a result, thinner egg shells were produced. These shells usually cracked during incubation, leading to failed reproduction in entire populations of birds, particularly those that fed upon fish or waterfowl. In much of the developed world, DDT was used liberally during the mid-twentieth century to combat Malaria by killing mosquitos. It was widely used throughout the United States as a general insecticide until it was banned here in 1972. (Editors Note: There is the possibility that polychlorinated biphenyls [P.C.B.s] and other industrial pollutants contributed to the reproductive failure of birds at the apex of aquatic food chains. Just prior to the recovery of these troubled species, passage of the Clean Water Act in 1972 initiated reductions in toxic discharges from point sources into streams, rivers, lakes, bays, and oceans. Production of P.C.B.s was banned in the United States in 1978. Today, P.C.B.s from former discharge and dumping sites continue to be found in water. Spills can still occur from sources including old electric transformers.)To substitute any other beast would be folly. Man, the human, Homo sapiens, the winner and champion, will repeatedly avail himself as the antagonist during our examination of the wonders of wildlife. He is the villain. The tragedy of his self-proclaimed dominion over the living things of the world will wash across these pages like muddy water topping a dam. There’s nothing I can do about it, aside from fabricating a bad novel with a fictional characterization of man. So let’s get on with it and take a look at “A Natural History of Conewago Falls”. Let’s discover the protagonist, the heroic underdog of our story, “Life in the Lower Susquehanna River Watershed.”
Over the top today.
SOURCES
Avery, Dennis T. 1995. Saving the Planet with Pesticides and Plastic: The Environmental Triumph of High-Yield Farming. Hudson Institute. Indianapolis, Indiana.
Eaton, Eric R., and Kenn Kaufman. 2007. Kaufman Field Guide to Insects of North America. Houghton Mifflin Co. New York.
Newman, L.H. 1965. Man and Insects. The Natural History Press. Garden City, New York.
