Eat your crabs, and have their backs, too

For many of us, Memorial Day marks the beginning of summer and the pleasure of steamed, Chesapeake Bay blue crabs. This weekend, I have a simple request: Eat your crabs, and have their backs, too.

Chesapeake Bay blue crabs need our help. Recent results of the annual bay-wide population survey show that crabs are at their lowest level in the survey’s 33-year history. More worrying is the trend in young crab numbers, which have been low for three consecutive years, and the record low number of mature male crabs.

While scientists are still trying to diagnose the exact causes, we do know there are important actions we can take to help crabs now. The most critical of these is reducing the amount of pollution that flows into the bay, and Pennsylvania is our biggest opportunity to do so.

To understand why, it’s helpful to look at the life cycle of a blue crab. When you sit down to pick crabs, you’re connected to an incredible journey that spans the entire length of the Chesapeake Bay — and the communities who depend on it.

These “beautiful swimmers,” as they are often called, begin their lives adrift as tiny, microscopic organisms in the Atlantic Ocean. As they grow, they begin to move into estuaries like the Chesapeake Bay, where they find food and shelter in meadows of underwater grasses. The grass beds offer protection from predators, especially for young crabs and females at their most vulnerable time: after they shed their shells and mate. The watermen who ply the bay’s waters — and bring in a blue crab catch that is valued at millions of dollars each year — know well that robust grasses equal abundant crabs.

But in the Chesapeake Bay, the grass beds that crabs rely on are under threat from unchecked pollution that washes from the land in Pennsylvania and the rest of the bay watershed. Roughly half of this pollution flows down the Susquehanna River, which provides half the bay’s fresh water from the uplands of New York and Central Pennsylvania. Sediment clouds the water, choking out the sunlight the grasses need. Excessive nutrients from fertilizers, manure, and sewage drive massive blooms of algae that also block light and deplete the water of oxygen when they decompose.

All of this makes the blue crabs’ perilous journey from ocean to bay and back again even more strenuous. Moreover, climate change is fueling stronger storms that can send pollution-filled floodwaters downstream. Extreme heat places additional stress on underwater grasses while also reducing the amount of oxygen in the water. Invasive species like blue catfish are yet another predator for young crabs.

While some of this is not in our control, we can alleviate a major source of stress by reducing nitrogen, phosphorous, and sediment pollution. Achieving this at the scale needed will take all of us working together and increased investments in green infrastructure.

Here in Pennsylvania, the state legislature is considering a measure, the Pennsylvania Clean Streams Fund, that would allocate $250 million in federal pandemic relief funds to restore and protect rivers and streams throughout the entire state. Half of the investment would go toward conservation practices that reduce agricultural runoff, one of the state’s most significant sources of pollution.

The fund would also invest in practices that treat acid mine drainage and abandoned mine land, as well as directing resources to community efforts to reduce polluted stormwater runoff and flooding.

This legislation is desperately needed. Nearly 28,000 miles of rivers and streams are impaired by pollution in the Keystone State. The fund would provide critical financial and technical resources to farmers and communities working for the clean water on which we all depend, including blue crabs downstream.

Blue crabs connect us in more ways than one — geographically, economically, and culturally. When you pick crabs together, you’re part of a community. We’ve been reminded these past hard years of just how important that is.

Hilary Falk is president and CEO of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation. @chesapeakebay