DATE: Monday, April 21, 1997                TAG: 9704190006

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B6   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Editorial 

                                            LENGTH:   37 lines

SEA-GRASS RESURGENCE THE INCREASE COULD BE MERELY A CYCLICAL CHANGE.

Sea grass on the Chesapeake Bay floor often is likened to a canary in a coal mine. When the canary keels over, miners know the air has gone bad and they'd best skedaddle. When sea grass dies, environmentalists know the water's going bad and we'd all best . . . best what?

While miners can flee a mine, we can't flee the planet.

Since we can't, staff writer Scott Harper's report Tuesday that sea grass in the Bay increased by 6 percent in 1996 is exceedingly good news.

Too much could be made of the increase, of course, but generally speaking sea grass has been making a comeback since its historic low of 40,000 acres in 1984. The grasses now cover an estimated 63,400 acres of shallow bottom.

The Chesapeake Bay Foundation's goal is 225,000 acres of sea grass beds, which provide food and shelter for baby crabs and fish and absorb nutrient pollution from sewage treatment plants, farms and lawns. Scientists say 30 times more young crabs live in grass beds than in areas without them.

Ann Jennings, staff scientist for the foundation, said the increase in sea grass could be merely a cyclical change, with reductions occurring later. But there's a good chance, she said, that efforts to save the Bay are contributing to the resurgence of sea grass.

``We need to continue to make the strides we're making,'' she said, ``but to keep in the back of our minds that we have a long ways to go.''

Now is the wrong time, she said, to slacken our efforts. If the 6 percent growth rate could be maintained, the total sea-grass acreage would double every 12 years and the Chesapeake Bay Foundation goal could be reached in a little over 20 years. That's a worthy dream.

The job of saving the Bay becomes ever more difficult, of course, as the population around it increases, but we'd be fools to stop trying.

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