The Bay

We begin tonight with an environmental mystery.

...debris along the beach as far as the eye can see.

( news reports overlapping )

A large fish kill has struck

along the shoreline of the Sebastian Inlet State Park.

.

Biologists tell us there were up to a million...

She captured reams of dead fish

Fishery staff are baffled at what caused

these hundreds of dead fish...

Up to 5,000 blackbirds

fell within a one-mile area...

Roughly two million...

Dead fish on the shores of Rio de Janeiro...

Two million fish here along Chesapeake Bay...

Thousands of birds started falling from the sky...

...investigation is ongoing...

They got me up 4:00 in the morning,

told me we had birds falling out of the sky.

Reporter: Scientists don't know what killed them.

Man over speaker: To your left--

look over to your left.

Okay, you can see that's where the footage

about where you can, uh, address...

- what that was about, okay? - Okay, sounds good.

Okay, why don't we start off? If you could just

fill us in with basic details...

Okay.

Uh, my name is Donna Thompson.

I was a Communications major

at American University

covering the July 4th festivities

in Claridge, Maryland, on July 4th, 2009.

No cam-- hey.

This is the first time I am speaking publicly

about the disaster that happened.

- I was there. - ( sirens blare )

Let's follow it.

Man over computer: You okay, Donna?

Donna?

- Yeah. - Okay?

- Are we gonna be all right? - Yeah, I'm sorry.

I thought this was gonna be a little easier to talk about.

Okay, tell me when you're ready and, um,

you can continue.

- Okay. - I know it's hard. Go ahead.

Um...

my name is Donna Thompson.

For three years, I and a few others

have been trying to speak out about what happened

in Claridge, Maryland,

on July 4th, 2009.

But sometimes words have no impact.

But now, with the help of a website

- all of the digital information - ( crowd chattering )

that was recorded that day has been obtained.

All of the digital information that was confiscated.

Now, I don't know if anyone

is gonna be watching this.

I don't know if anything is gonna happen to me

as a result of me putting this out there,

but I do know that

I can't move on with my life

until this story is told.

You know, it's just, um...

it's hard to explain what this town used to be like.

Well, it's 6:00 in the morning

with "Mike in the Morning" on this beautiful day,

Good morning, Chesapeake, and good morning, America.

- Listen, I'm your marathon man. - ( bell rings )

- ( firework pops ) - What does that mean?

Hopefully you're gonna be with me day and night

as I am with you and we can celebrate.

I can't think of a better way to celebrate

than a little music from the heartland.

Donna's voice: I used to come here every summer

with my folks.

It's hard to explain what this town used to be like.

I mean, it was fun.

It was where I had my first crab dinner,

my first summer kiss.

So, uh, that's the mayor right there.

Mayor John Stockman.

He actually used to run a vacuum cleaner shop,

and then one day he just up and got everyone

to vote for him for mayor.

Right there, that's Martin and Helen Wycoff.

They were both involved in a lot of community service programs.

Um, their whole family actually died that day.

Cameraman: Three, two, one.

Good morning, Maryland.

- Oh, wait. Sorry. - Cameraman: It's okay.

Donna's voice: Honestly, why didn't anyone tell me

my pants were too tight?

I'm sorry. It's just that every time I look at this footage,

it's...

it's a little difficult, and I have this tendency

to overcompensate a little bit.

- So... - Man over computer: So you use humor, uh,

to hide those emotions.

- I understand. - Right.

I mean, maybe you should've gotten

a voice actor or something to do this.

- I don't know. - ( record scratches )

Okay, okay. I gotta stop this.

I've been getting too many phone calls,

too many complaints.

For those of you who do care,

it is Aaron Copland.

That's a piece from "Our Town."

What do you say we kick the energy up a little bit, huh?

Donna's voice: I was just a summer intern.

I was just so excited I was gonna be

actually interviewing people.

I think it's every girl's dream to be Miss Crustacean.

I hope it's the beginning of something much, much bigger.

I want to thank my parents for their support

and my sister Taylor for always being there for me.

Good morning, Maryland.

This is Donna Thompson, and I'm in Claridge, Maryland.

Claridge is the host of our annual

Eastern Chesapeake July 4th party.

And I will be here all day to cover the events.

It is my great pleasure to announce

the beginning of the 57th Annual

Claridge Crab Eating Spectacular.

Am I in the frame?

Donna's voice: So, this is good old Claridge.

It was founded in 1903,

supposedly by a fisherman who ran around here

and liked it so much that he started a crab restaurant.

- What's your name? - Tyler.

And have you been preparing for a while for this?

Not very.

Donna's voice: All of it is, or was,

a whole population of 6,200.

There's a pretty big chicken industry,

a bunch of restaurants,

and a whole lot of money is made from summer tourism

on the water here.

Barker: Good job! Who's next? Who's next?

- Me! Me! Me! - I wanna get dunked.

Donna's voice: Oh, God. This is my first interview ever

I think I made him do this interview like four different times.

I think I even told him his hair dried fast

because he's bald.

- Yep, it does dry fast, yeah. - ( laughs )

So, I think we can show just about everybody

that comes on down a really good time.

Yeah. Cool.

I had no idea how culpable he was

for what was about to happen.

- ( water sloshing ) - ( police radio chattering )

Donna's voice: The first signs that something was very wrong

happened six weeks before July 4th.

It was on the news, but I don't think anybody

- and knew what was going on. - ( splashing )

Newscaster: The bodies of two scientists were found

in the Chesapeake Bay last night after having been

reported missing for more than 36 hours.

The cause of death was listed as unknown,

although medical examiners found numerous wounds on the body

that might be consistent with shark bites.

The two scientists were oceanographers

working to measure pollution levels in the bay.

Donna's voice: These were two oceanographers.

One from the Cousteau Institute

and another from the University of Maryland.

They were keeping a video diary of their research

and sending it to the Chesapeake Environmental Council.

Red algae here and here

does indicate bacterial growth.

Now Natural Resources,

they think it's feeding off the nutrients in the water

from the chicken runoff.

- That's a strange attack. - Yes, it is.

Anchor: You don't hear about shark attacks in the bay, normally.

Anchor #2: Well, I think bull sharks can be aggressive.

- a couple of attacks last year, maybe? - Here and there.

- Anchor #2: Yeah. - It is brackish throughout the Chesapeake Bay

and bull sharks have been known

Anchor #2: I gotta tell ya. It makes me a little nervous.

We have a boat and go out in the bay all the time.

Sam: They got the results on the water analysis.

- Oh, yeah? - Yeah.

What do you have?

Uh, mercury levels way above standards,

polycyclic acids, OPs,

PCBs that haven't been legal in 20 years.

- ( camera clicking ) - Sam: Endocrine disruptors, pharmaceuticals,

Viagra, estrogen, DDT,

- trace amounts of GRDF. - Jacqueline: Phew.

I mean, pretty much you name it,

- it's in there. - ( police radio chattering )

I mean, looky here.

Naw.

This whole stream of toxin is following the current.

The what's following the what?

- You have a very thick accent sometimes. - Sam.

This whole stream of toxin is following the current.