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August 2026 Riverkeeper Report
Holy salty water batman! I'm sure it was hard to miss the the explosion of jellyfish we had this summer. While jellies are common in our waterways this late in August, they did seem to show up earlier than usual this season. This is likely because our salinity levels, or how salty the water is, are much higher than usual.
The average salinity we see around this time of year is around 8 parts per thousand (ppt), but we're seeing closer to 12 or 13ppt. Although we don't "grade" salinity, these fluctuations can have impacts and indications.
The pros to saltier water:
- Our oysters are likely thriving! Oysters spawn in salty, warm water. If our salinity levels are higher than usual as we travel upstream, that may result in more oysters spawning in those areas. Great news for water quality and oyster habitat!
- Higher salinities are likely due to the drought conditions. Less rainfall this year so far may be promising for our water quality in general as we tend to see better water quality during drought years. Less rainfall means less polluted runoff entering our waterways!
The cons:
-Many other critters love the salty water, including jellyfish and the oyster diseases MSX and dermo. Vibrio bacteria also tend to increase in these salty waters. Be sure to utilize the NOAA predictive modeling tool for vibrio probability.
Despite salinity being notably higher than usual in previous years, our Riverkeeper and monitoring department is right on track for our typical field season. Our bacteria monitoring program ends on Labor Day weekend and our tidal monitoring program only has 2 months remaining. On top of all of that, are in the middle of processing our third and final underwater grass species of the season.
Last month, in partnership with the Dept of Natural Resources and Anne Arundel Community College, Arundel Rivers harvested sago pondweed from multiple large beds on the Severn River. In the 6+ years I have been doing this underwater grass work, I have never seen a grass bed so lush and dense before! The amount of small fish swimming through the grasses was amazing to see and the clarity was as if we were at the Caribbean. It was a true visual representation of how important these grass species are to our rivers. Arundel Rivers hopes to establish beds just like these in our own local rivers on the South, West, and Rhode. Our team processed over 500,000 sago seeds last month! We are now working on widgeon grass- harvested from the Choptank River last week. Stay tuned for our final numbers of the year in the next riverkeeper report.
Luckily, we're starting to see success at some of our past underwater grass plantings! We have seen horned pondweed, sago pondweed, and widgeon grass growing at restoration sites on all three rivers this summer! An encouraging sign to us and even more of an incentive to plant more seeds!
See you on the river,
Elle Bassett
South, West, and Rhode Riverkeeper
