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Letter: VIMS, VMRC caving to commercial interests

Editor, Gazette-Journal:

It is with great anguish that I write this letter. It is a letter that I feel in my heart I must write. The Chesapeake Bay is a great national treasure. It was named Chesapeake by the Indians, and it meant "Waters of Many Fish and Shellfish." My generation and the next generation have just about over-harvested the bay until it is on the edge of its demise.

Five years ago, the crab population was at an all-time low. The oysters are 99 percent depleted. Our wonderful shad fish are wiped out, as well as the Atlantic Blue Back Herring. Menhaden, a filter cleaner of the bay, are 80 percent depleted since 1990.

The Virginia Institute of Marine Science documented the fact that half the bay—the upper half—was oxygen depleted. No marine body can live without oxygen. Underwater bay grasses are the beginning of the food chain. They are the main pollution fighters. They take in carbon dioxide, which are pollutants, and give off oxygen. At this point, wi...

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