The News & Advance
Published: March 25, 2008

Have politics diminished the will to clean up the polluted Chesapeake Bay? Or is it bureaucratic foot-dragging that results from not having enough money to make a difference?
Given that politics drives the flow of money committed to one cause or another, it’s probably a mixture of both.
In any event, as The Washington Post reported the other day, the regional effort to clean up the bay has fallen behind schedule — way behind schedule. It has reached the point where there’s no chance of meeting the 2010 deadline that promised a return to the bay’s health.
And that’s bad news for the crabs and oysters and other seafood delicacies that once made the bay’s bounty the envy of seafood lovers around the world.
With five state governments and the District of Columbia involved in planning the bay’s cleanup, it’s little wonder the effort has fallen behind schedule.
Leaders at the Environmental Protection Agency now say they are working on a plan that could turn the cleanup around. They say it’s an innovative plan, but one that won’t be ready for three years.
The plan envisions a tally of all pollution that the bay can safely absorb. Then it would divvy up the total among the hundreds of sewage treatment plants, storm-sewer systems and farm fields that contribute pollution in the form of phosphates, nitrogen and other substances to the bay. With those results, polluters who contribute more than their share could be punished.
The new approach has received mixed reviews, at best. Commenting on the 2011 starting time, Jon Capacasa, director of water protection for the EPA’s mid-Atlantic region, said, “If we shorten the time period, you’re either compromising the science or you’re compromising the public engagement process.”
Some environmental activists aren’t buying that. “All it’s going to do is buy three or four more years for the bureaucrats and the politicians,” said Bill Matuszeski, who headed the EPA’s Chesapeake Bay Program from 1991 to 2001. “Ultimately,” he said, “it won’t help a bit.”
It has been nearly 25 years since state and federal officials signed a pledge to work together to protect the bay. But there is still too much pollution, too little oxygen and too few crabs.
Preston Bryant, Virginia’s secretary of natural resources and a former representative of Lynchburg in the House of Delegates, may have put that 25-year effort in its best light when he said, “We’ve done a good job of keeping things from getting worse. But we’re certainly not making tremendous, quantifiable progress.”
Postponing the earlier plans to restore the bay’s health is disappointing to those who believe the bay is a critical part of life in the states that share its waters. Boating, fishing and swimming have been important recreational pursuits. The seafood industry has relied on the bay for its livelihood for centuries. Its future has been less than rosy for years.
Restoring the bay’s health has never been part of the debate. The procedures, their cost and the time it takes have always been debated.
And that needs to change. A healthy Chesapeake Bay is important to future generations — especially Virginians.