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recently been called America's most endangered natural habitat. They are almost unbelievably fertile places, with involved biological cycles that can convert the fertility into usable food at rates per acre far exceeding those of the finest farm land; in terms of money, one recent set of experiments indicates the possibility of attaining an annual shellfish production on tended beds worth over $26,000 an acre. Furthermore, aside from the direct harvest of this wealth from estuaries each year by commercial and sport fishermen, these in-between waters make an indispensable contribution to the entire Atlantic coastal fishery, an industry worth a billion dollars a year. The reason for this is that at least 70 percent of coastal fishes spend some essential part of their life cycle within an estuary--spawning there, or passing through on their way to spawn in running fresh streams, or moving in as fry from the rivers or the open sea to find a "nursery" in one of the varied estuarine habitats--bays, marshes, sandy shorelines, mudflats, tidal creeks, or weed beds. The oysters from the famous beds in the Saint Mary's River off of the lower Potomac are mainly condemned as unfit for consumption because of local sewage pollution, and these beds are not the only unfit ones, for towns and resorts in the region have been growing and sanitary facilities have not been keeping pace. Already some arms of the superb natural harbors formed by the tributary creeks are noxious with discharges from boats at big marinas, and gravel dredging is stirring up silt to smother bottom life, including shellfish. As Tidewater agriculture revives and modernizes, pesticides and artificial fertilizers are coming to be as much a part of the scene there as in other farming regions, and may be expected to influence the estuary--in fact, they undoubtedly already are doing so in subtle ways with effects not yet apparent. Yet most of this part of the river is still beautiful and continues to yield good harvests of seafood. The Potomac River Fisheries Commission has been alert to obvious dangers and has moved against them where its powers have permitted, and natives of the area are increasingly alert in protecting the estuary. Many of them depend on it for a living, most are oriented toward it for their pleasures, and until lately a good many of them counted on it for transportation. In a number of different ways, it matters in their lives. And that fact o
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