Letters

Dear Be-the-Bay,

We just love our new rain barrel. It filled up to the overflow in one nights rain.

Robert Lynch

Williamsburg, VA

March 2008

Dear Be-the-Bay,

Just read the article about your company in Pleasant Living. Your site is great, and I'm going to print some of your fact sheets and newsletters for family members. Wanted to say thank you. Your "Have a Nice Bay" shirt is a real winner.Good luck.

Joy Gwaltney

March 2008

Dear Be-the-Bay,

Good luck with your new enterprise! Like you, I remember swimming, fishing, and crabbing in the Bay without thinking about bacteria, harmful algal blooms, or toxic compounds.

Perhaps if I'd just moved to the Bay I would think differently about it. Maybe I would think of it as a place where no one swims. But my childhood memories are strong ones. The question for us growing up was always, "When are we going to Gloucester?"

Some may think of Gloucester Point as the home of the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, which of course it is, but when I was a kid Gloucester meant a long stretch of shoreline bordered by marsh grass (spartina) and wide shallows covered with eelgrass. There crabs and toad fish waited to bite your bait or your toe. Eels slithered through the grasses and sometimes between your legs. Snails crawled up spartina leaves and probably played an important ecological function that we've largely overlooked. Those same snails (I'm embarrassed to say) a few times became ammunition for my cousin and me as we continued to fight the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, and World Wars I and II along the river. (On other days we carried the battle into the trees and down the furrows of nearby corn and soybean fields.)

Those summers in Gloucester put saltwater in my veins, and since then I've sailed, paddled, or swum in just about every part of the Bay from Norfolk to Havre de Grace. And like you, I've watched with sadness as the Bay's gotten worse. There are still places that take me back to the old days, like Mobjack Bay and parts of the Eastern Shore. We have to protect what's left. I wish you the best of luck as you support restoration projects that can help keep nutrients, sediment, and toxic compounds out of the water and put oysters and other filter feeders back in. We need all the help we can get.