| "The education we were doing was working, but we first needed to look deeper at water quality and make sure the conditions were right for the grass to be supported." | |
| Nancy Balcom, Connecticut Sea Grant College Program |
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Sometimes, even projects that are succeeding can fail. Connecticut discovered this the hard way when fruitful efforts to protect eelgrass beds from boat traffic were undermined by a sudden die-off of all the grass, which still has scientists scratching their heads.
"This was something that came completely out of the blue," says Nancy Balcom, extension educator for the Connecticut Sea Grant College Program. "We were blindsided by the fact that all the eelgrass died for what seemed no apparent reason. The education we were doing was working, but we first needed to look deeper at water quality and make sure the conditions were right for the grass to be supported."
The project that was working, Balcom explains, was a volunteer driven effort to place flags stating "Protect Eelgrass Beds" atop buoys in the Niantic River to help alert boaters to stay within the channels. Boat propellers can cut off eelgrass blades and stir up sediments, reducing the amount of nourishing sunlight that reaches the submerged vegetation.
Eelgrass beds had died off in the river prior to 1988, drastically reducing historically significant bay scallop populations, and closing the river to scalloping. By the late 90s, eelgrass began coming back, and Balcom says officials from nearby towns were anxious to encourage the beds, which are used by juvenile scallops as refuge from crab predators.
Volunteers approached Balcom with the "idea of putting something in the river to keep boaters from crossing the beds." Balcom liked the suggestion, but saw the need to educate the public about why the flags were being put in place, and the importance of the eelgrass.
While the 14 2-foot-by- 2-foot flags with bold print were being placed around the perimeter of the beds, Balcom drew up maps of the river and channel that also were posted for boaters to see. A brochure that she developed about the program was mailed to residents and placed in tackle shops and boatyards.
"It worked really well," Balcom says. "While not everybody stayed in the channel and avoided the beds, there was an obvious decrease in the number of blades cut by propellers, and a decrease in boats that cut through any way they wanted."
In 1997 and 1998, the beds seemed to be flourishing, she says. "In 1999, they were doing well initially, and then died off toward the end of the season. It didn't seem to have a wasting disease. It just died off and never came back."
While scientists are studying what happened, there are numerous theories about what might have caused the die-off, ranging from the effects of drought and tropical storms to low salinity and high nitrogen levels, Balcom says.
She adds that she still believes the flag program coupled with public education is a good idea that might work in other areas, and that she has gotten requests for information about the program from around the world.
"What we were trying to do was educational. We weren't trying to set new regulations and come down hard on boaters. It seemed to be a positive thing in the community," she says. "We were a little naive that just because the eelgrass was coming back, we thought we could protect it. Attention also should have been spent on why the eelgrass was coming back, and what could possibly cause its demise."
For more information on the "Protect the Eelgrass" flag program, contact Nancy Balcom at (860) 405-9127 or nancy.balcom@uconn.edu.
