Here is what I heard/learned:
- Crabbing has been ok this season in some area of the creek. The past couple of week’s crabs in this area were trying to get out of the water when the dissolved oxygen levels became too low. You could practically pick them up according to local residence.
- Foul smells were experienced last week near the head of the creek. Most likely caused by a severe Phytoplankton bloom off Ft. Smallwood on the Patapsco River on September 10th & 11th. http://mddnr.chesapeakebay.net/newmontech/contmon/eotb_results_graphs.cfm?station=FortSmallwood
- Another neighbor reported seeing an algae bloom in all of the shallower upper reaches of the creek. It is likely the same thing is going on in Rock Creek as in the Patapsco River. Once you get closer to White Rocks marina, the bloom is not so obvious. The aerators are helping, but you can see they “push” the algae to shallower areas nearby. Dissolved oxygen during the daytime is typically high or very high levels; as the algae photosynthesize and produce oxygen…it’s at night time; when the sun isn’t fueling photosynthesis; that DO levels drop significantly…So right around dawn is when DO would be at its lowest and the potential for fish kills would be at its highest. One of the other negative effects of the algae blooms is increased turbidity (cloudiness in the water…) because that reduces light penetration through the water column affecting the successful growth of underwater grasses. Of course the ultimate cause of the bloom is nutrient enrichment. The nutrients come from a lot of sources in our watershed.
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