chesapeake bay not improving

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Troubled Chesapeake Bay Needs New Protections, Says Enviro Group

 

A long-running voluntary effort to clean up the Chesapeake Bay has

been a big flop -- that's the basic assessment announced yesterday by

the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, a nonprofit conservation group. "All

the scientific data suggests that the bay is not improving," said

foundation President William C. Baker. The group called for creation

of a new governing body with the power to make and enforce rules and

levy taxes in six states, including Virginia, Maryland, and

Pennsylvania, in order to pay for cleanup. One of the most vexing

problems plaguing the bay is nitrogen runoff, which comes from

livestock operations and wastewater-treatment plants. Due largely to

nitrogen pollution, 40 percent of the bay is oxygen-starved this

summer, meaning that fish and plants have a hard time surviving; this

is the highest percentage of "dead water" in the bay since the

foundation began keeping stats 20 years ago.

 

straight to the source: Washington Post, Tim Craig, 22 Aug 2003

<http://www.gristmagazine.com/forward.pl?forward_id=1422>