As part of the Scaling Up: Future of Environmental Decisions workshop (2-7 June 2013), I wrote "Singing the Chesapeake Bay Blues". Apologies to my colleague Howard Ernst, who wrote an excellent book "Chesapeake Bay Blues", for adopting his book title into the song. This workshop was sponsored by the Ecological Society of America, with National Science Foundation funding.

Singing the Chesapeake Bay Blues

We threw off the lines from the Solomons pier

Aboard the Rachel Carson with our sampling gear

We headed out into the Chesapeake Bay

On a spectacular warm summer day

We were in search of the famous dead zone

Overboard went the CTD and the winch gave a groan

With the data streaming, we watched oxygen disappear

The dead zone was there, have no fear

Good news, we found the dead zone! Oops, that's bad news

And it is why we're singing the Chesapeake Bay Blues.

Osprey flying overhead and bait fish on the go

The Bay put on a very nice show

We looked up and saw Calvert Cliffs and the Naval Air Base

We looked down and saw the secchi disappear without a trace

We tracked chlorophyll, color and turbidity

Which compromise Chesapeake water quality

Collecting these data while underway

Trying to understand Chesapeake Bay

We are looking for some scientific clues

As to why we're singing the Chesapeake Bay Blues.

We steamed up into a Chesapeake tributary

The Patuxent River with depths that did vary

Up past the Chesapeake Biological Laboratory

Where scientists study this magnificent estuary

Dredging for oysters, we pulled up some shells

Oysters, barnacles, mussels and sea squirts as well

We trawled with a fishing net - didn't catch much

We pulled in croaker, perch, bay anchovies and such

Not catching fish and a secchi who's sight we did lose

That is why we're singing the Chesapeake Bay Blues.

The Scaling Up crew converged in Baltimore

Analyzed data and generated graphs galore

Working for several days and nights

Preparing talks with some good insights

Bright young minds thinking about the Bay

Giving me hope that things will be OK

They are surely going to leave a trace

And make the world a better place

So on a future Rachel Carson cruise

We won't be singing the Chesapeake Bay Blues