St. Mary's River Watershed Association urges watershed restoration action strategy after long-term monitoring shows summer low-oxygen events

The St. Mary's River Watershed Association presented data from more than a decade of monitoring showing recurring summer low dissolved-oxygen events and reduced water clarity in the St. Mary's River and urged the county to join a two-year watershed restoration action strategy (RAS) to compile past studies and set restoration priorities.

Bob Paul (St. Mary's River Watershed Association) and Joe Anderson (chair, St. Mary's River Watershed Association) told the planning commission the association has collected multi-year data at numerous tidal and non-tidal sites since 1999 and that the evidence points to land-use runoff and episodic high-precipitation events as the primary drivers of algal blooms, sediment loads and summer bottom-water oxygen depletion. Paul said the association’s work shows the river has “depressed oxygen down here in the bottom…