Jul 17, 2009 4:07 pm US/Eastern
Disappearance Of Underwater Grasses Causes Concern
ANNAPOLIS, Md. (WJZ) ―
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Critical plants are vanishing from the Chesapeake Bay.
CBS
What has been a worry in the Chesapeake Bay is now cause for concern for the rest of the world. The disappearance of coastal, underwater grasses is a concern for environmental experts.
Alex DeMetrick reports critical plants are vanishing everywhere.
Some days, Dr. Bill Dennison's job as a University of Maryland researcher is all wet. It's unavoidable when your specialty is underwater grasses.
Dr. Dennison is worried because the latest study shows a 58 percent reduction in grasses worldwide.
"In fact, when we added it up on a global scale, we lose about a soccer's field worth of seagrass every 30 minutes since 1980," said Dr. Dennison.
Huge loads of sediment carried downstream in runoff can smother grasses. Algae blooms fed by nutrients washed off the land block the light. The algae has also killed vast tracks of grass in the bay and it's happening around the globe.
What is most worrying, only 10 percent of the world's coastal grasses were able to be surveyed. Add in what's happening to the other 90 percent, and that soccer field lost every 30 minutes, multiplies. That's half a field of grass lost in the time it took to watch this report.
Human activity and lost sea grasses have a direct connection. It's estimated more than one billion people live in watersheds that impact the grasses.
(© MMX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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