How's everybody doing with all that rain? You folks have gotten rain like I've only seen in Mobile, NOLA and Iquitos, Peru. maybe you've got a whiff of what global warming has in store for you (just kidding!).

Hope life and property are okay.

My place is fine, but up towards the Potomac and North/East is flooded to hell. Some are saying higher levels than Agnes. My parents relayed that someone drowned near Raleigh over the weekend.

I leave Wed for a trip, and am worried that the fresh water and mud from the tributaries are going to kill the fishing through at least August.

Yeah, that's a very real potentiality. We get that around here pretty regularly later in the summer, especially after tropical systems. Chesapeake has been leading the way in learning how to deal with the non-point source ag and garden pollutants. Hope it will pay-off for this storm.

Real nice to be able to eat Rappahanock Oysters and rockfish out of the bay these days.

We already escaped one disaster this year--a sewage plant 75 mi. up the Potomac (DC, of course) had a power outage that caused a pretty large fish kill and some bacterial blooms about a month ago up there. Luckily it fizzled out before it hit the mouth.

As of 6am this morning we had 8 inches of rain recorded at Dulles since last Thursday and nearly 6 of that 8 on Sunday; which was incredible. It did not rain consistenly on Sunday, but when rained it poured. In between each deluge the humidity was mid 90%. I was soaked, rain or not. Reminded me of time spent Singapore, Miami, or New Orleans; step outside and sweat. More rain today and forecast thru Wednesday. Today travel to DC was affected: tunnels flooded, rain lines under water, etc. More rain this week will exacerbate this. The lake behind my house is up about a foot. Luckily it's a long way up the hiil to my basement.
regards,
Mark
Fairfax, VA

It's been raining like the Amazon here for 3 days now. Just saw more lightning so I guess the storm will start again soon.

My damn drain pipe in the basement entrance stopped, and water seeped through the door and made a mass in my basement. Luckily it is unfinished so only the concrete floor got wet. I just happened to check the basement and saw the water. If I did not happen to check, I can only imagine the damage.

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95 R129
04 Infiniti G35.5 BS
10 X204

I used to live on the southern end of Kent Island right by Romancoke Pier. How are they fairing? Is the bay rising because of all the rain, or is there simply a tremendous current out to the ocean?

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Thank You!
Fred
2009 ML350
2004 SL600
2004 SL500
1996 SL600
2002 SLK32
2005 CLK320 cabrio
2003 ML350
1997 C280 Sport

Did not hear anything about the Bay flooding. Only creeks and the like. Mostly the city streets as they have poor drainage system.

Kent Island, yes, its a nice place. Anywhere on the rive or by the Bay is nice.

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95 R129
04 Infiniti G35.5 BS
10 X204

Well now, among ye may fret aboot the squall in the backyahd,the skoi bein'dahk 'n all,bit nature got a way'o keepin'even thinks what affect the accurences hyaraboots.

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Lots of local road closures and flooding. even some major flooding; I 95 was closed for a time Monday morning. I had a 6-8 mile detour trying to get home Sat. night. The shortest alternative route ran by South hampton MILL---didn't think that sounded like the right choice.

Local fisherman already think the fishing will not return until mid-late Aug.

Wish we could get some cooperation from PA and NY who dump a bunch of crap into the Susquehana and it all ends up in the Bay.

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1982 300SD " Wotan" ..On the road as of Jan 8, 2007 with Historic Tags

Back when I was in the USN I was Oil King on a LPD. We carried about 750,000 of fuel oil (later, JP-5) for the boilers and about 20K of Avgas for helicopters. We went to the yards in Philly for drydock and a whole bunch of systems improvements including conversion to JP-5 from fuel oil. So I had to strip the tanks of all oil. First we were dang near empty when we arrived. Then we off-loaded something like 40,000 gallons. Then I had to use a stripping pump to completely evacuate all of the fuel tanks with the waste going into a 20k contaminated oil storage onboard. There wasn't 20k, more like a thousand gallons, mostly water. So they brought a special kind of barge alongside called a donut. I pumped the stripping waste into the donut. theoretically the lighter fluids (oil, avgas, etc) would float to the top of the donut and the waste water would descend down to the bottom of the bottomless collar of the donut. The shipyard would then pump the contaminated oil into some containment system of their own.

Even though I had just fallen off the turnip truck before joining the Navy, I had a bad feeling about what we were doing. But this was before Nixon's environmental legislation so it was okay. I guess the Navy probably sent 1-3 ships per month to the yards for major repairs resulting in probably 1k-3k gallons of contaminated water pumped into the river. Multiply that by 40 years of naval usage and you have an idea of the contamination from one well-run facility that contaminated the Chesapeake. How many shipyards are in the Chesapeake? Now the suburban population is expanding exponentially into the farmed areas. Everybody on a neighborhood or a 4 acre ranchette thinks they have to have a dark green lawn and no bugs. All of that run-off, largely uncontrolled, enters the estuaries of the Chesapeake.

It's going to take millennia to completely decontaminate that whole estuary of the shipyard and industrial waste alone. The problem of suburban waste is probably even more intractable. I guess a reasonable question to ask would be when will the contamination reach an inconsequential level?

Bot,
All that waste oil you pumped out went into the Schukyll and then the Deleware. I guess some could have come into the Chesapeake through the C&O, but I think the flow is into the delaware from the C&O. So I think your contribution to the Chesapeake is/was negligible.

But you are correct about the urban sprawl and the effects on the Susquhana drainage basin. Look at the area drained by that river and see what effect that has on the Chesapeake!

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1982 300SD " Wotan" ..On the road as of Jan 8, 2007 with Historic Tags

A look at a map and by golly, you're right! All of this Chesapeake guilt I've been carrying for decades was geographically misplaced. Darn!

B

I was scratchin' my head on that one too, wondering how I could make a daytrip for some cheesesteaks next week

On the VA side, the James was the most prominant historical problem that is blamed for the rockfish moratorium. Richmond polluters. Potomac was bad too and now is worse than the James imo.

Is that a Dundalk accent I'm hearing?

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" We have nothing to fear but the main stream media itself . . . ."- Adapted from Franklin D Roosevelt for the 21st century

OBK #55

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