Chesapeake Bay Health

I’ve been living an hour or so from the Chesapeake Bay for about 25 years now. It’s a gorgeous body of water, stretching from north to south beyond the horizon. It glitters in the sun and there’s usually a line of supertankers waiting to make their way under the Bay Bridge spans.

All that’s just fine. But each new report details worsening conditions. Despite what seem to me to be significant efforts on the parts of citizens, we’re just not making significant progress in saving the Chesapeake.

I’m determined to understand this a bit more. To learn why it’s so difficult to make a difference in the life of this bay. And to discover what we can realistically do – as individuals – to make things out.

First up – What is the Chesapeake Bay?

Second – What are indicators of Bay health?

Chesapeake Bay Update

Bad news from the Chesapeake Bay Foundation. Their 10th Annual State of the Bay report shows no significant progress in pollution reduction. That’s discouraging in the extreme, given the attention that’s been focused on the problem for a decade.

They’re calling for the EPA “to use every possible tool available to stop” the trashing of the Bay. For starters, they’d like strict pollution reduction criteria under the Clean Water Act. Specifically, they want the EPA to stop issuing permits for new development projects that increase pollution, to require reductions in polluted runoff, and to deny air pollution permits for every new coal-fired power plant that pollutes waterways in the region. And they want the EPA to do it now.

Given the EPA has the regulatory authority – not to mention the mandate – to do all this, it’s preposterous it hasn’t already been done. The Bay ecosystem is vital to this region and beyond. There’s no way we can know all we do about the interdependence of ecosystems and take the position that the Bay is only a concern for the Mid-Atlantic. And there’s no way we can turn our backs on our role in the continued decline of this treasure.

There are so many environmental problems without a clear place to start. This is not one of them. We know that runoff carries pollutants to the waterways. We know that pollution in the air winds up in those same waterways. We know that new development, if not done with reduction of runoff in mind, contributes to pollutants that, along with industrial and sewage treatment discharges, wind up in the waterways.

There’s absolutely no excuse for letting this go on any longer when there’s so much at stake and such clear action that can be taken.