| "It was important after the episode to connect all the dots and put a whole picture together so that people could understand." | |
| Michael W. Fincham, Maryland Sea Grant College |
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It was like an episode from The X-Files television series—a bizarre organism in Maryland seemed to be killing fish and causing skin lesions, confusion, and short-term memory loss in humans. While the scientific and medical community rushed to try to solve this ecological mystery, a maelstrom of national media attention stirred political conflict and public hysteria, and led to an economic crisis in the state’s fishing industry.
With Sea Grant’s goal of educating the public about science and marine issues, a writer and film producer with Maryland Sea Grant College produced an Emmy-award-winning documentary that followed the unfolding real-life drama.
The Pfiesteria Files examines how the regulatory, scientific, and environmental communities, as well as the media, reacted to the fish-kill episode and helped put the environmental and societal issues into a larger context.
"Sea Grant programs have a real role to play in these types of situations," says Michael W. Fincham of Maryland Sea Grant College, who wrote, edited, and produced the one-hour documentary. "We are an honest broker of scientific information and can examine and explain controversial scientific findings from all sides."
This was valuable for Sea Grant to do for Maryland ’s 1997 Pfiesteria episode, Fincham says, because " Pfiesteria invaded people’s living rooms."
The media was "competing like mad to stay on top of this," Fincham explains. "The overall effect was to blow it out of proportion, I think."
"It was important after the episode," he says, "to connect all the dots and put a whole picture together so that people could understand—the theory being that if you could help people understand what had happened, then they will be better prepared when later news comes out about Pfiesteria or other toxic blooms."
Fincham believes this was accomplished by the documentary, just not as quickly as had been planned. The Pfiesteria Files , co-produced by Maryland Public Television, had the unfortunate timing of first being scheduled for broadcast on September 11, 2001.
The documentary was re-released a year later and won a 2002 Emmy for best documentary.
Since its original broadcast, the documentary has received numerous airings on Maryland Public Television and several other major awards. Maryland Sea Grant has used the documentary for education purposes and plans to update the documentary next year to mark the 10th anniversary of the state’s Pfiesteria episode.
"The Pfiesteria story is not finished," Fincham says. "Pfiesteria remains in the public and media memory as an example of a major toxic episode that had major health implications."
He adds, "We captured an episode in our history that people will turn to. . . Our focus is to explain the implications and applications of current research to contemporary marine issues."
To order a copy of The Pfiesteria Files, point your browser to www.mdsg.umd.edu . For more information on how the documentary was produced, contact Michael Fincham at (301) 405-6382, or fincham@mdsg.umd.edu.
