"Sea Level Rise Is Unlocking Decades-Old Pollution"

"Salt water creeping upland could release legacy fertilizer into the Chesapeake Bay."

"In 2015, Kate Tully visited farms near the eastern shore of the Chesapeake Bay. She was investigating whether sea level rise had caused brackish water to move upland, a process called saltwater intrusion—evidence of which she found in the form of increased salinity in the fields and surrounding ditches. When the researchers viewed the sites on Google Earth, they could even see white rings around the farms where water had evaporated and left salt.

“It’s crazy,” says Tully, an agroecologist at the University of Maryland, College Park. “You can taste it. You put your finger on the field, and it’s salty.”

Saltwater intrusion was killing the area’s soy, corn, and wheat, which couldn’t tolerate the rising salinity."

Roberta Kwok reports for Hakai January 10, 2018.