By james art 
On December 9, 1983, I joined 700 other elected employees and citizens at George Mason University to witness the signing of the first Chesapiq Bay Agreement. It was just a single page document, but he made the states of the Bay and the US Environmental Protection Agency to launch a coordinated approach to restore this great but deteriorating mouth. At the time, I was a 30-year-old state senator.
It is tragic that Chesapeake remains significantly impaired and its overall water quality has only improved slightly after 41 years. This is despite the main efforts, including the entry into force of remarkable legislation and the cost of over $ 12 billion. The efforts of the alleged leaders to wash the harsh reality have sunk the urgent need for aggressive regulation of agricultural pollutants who undermine the recovery.
These “leaders” tend to ignore that the overall quality of the bay has barely improved in 41 years. The most data on the EPA Chesapeake Bay program clearly document this: only 29.8% of Chesapiq Bay and its tidal tributaries meet the basic standards of water quality dictated by the Clean Water Act (CWA). This means that 70.2% of the bay waters do not correspond to the quality of the water needed to flourish living resources, which is the most critical purpose of the bay program.
In 2002, 37.2% of the bay water met CWA requirements. So, the quality of the water deteriorated for a decade of supposedly intensified efforts to fulfill the mandatory reduction in pollution. As early as 1985, at the beginning of the measurements, 26.5% of the water meet these CWA requirements. This documents a slight improvement of 3.3 percentage points for 40 years to 100% requirement to achieve CWA.
The best thing that can be said is that despite the increase from 13 million to 18.5 million people in the catchment area, the water quality of the bay has not decreased.
This failure is mainly due to the lack of regulatory measures to limit pollutants (nutrients and sludge) from agricultural operations. Completely 90% of nutrients reductions to achieve basic CWA requirements should come from farms, far the largest source of bay contaminants, as they cover about 24% of the land mass. Second, pollutants from existing and new development should be considered, including the termination of the loss of forests and the planting of riverside buffers.
Despite the mandatory requirements to achieve the reduction of pollution imposed by EPA in 2010. After repeated voluntary measures, although countries were given 15 years to achieve such reductions by 2025, the countries failed to make it miserable to do so , including Maryland. The EPA’s response, the law enforcement agency, was the same as the State of the Bay – it delayed all sorts of sanctions and any new meaningful initiatives for years until a “new” plan was drawn up. The new plan was made in 2022. It will not be completed by the end of this year if then.
The reaction of the selected employees and the environmental community was cheeky. The successes are advertised as the diseases of eating flesh from contact with water and collapse and collapse of fishing continue. The oys are 3% of historical levels and yet success is claimed to be restoration. The critical grasses of grasses had to be restored to at least 185,000 acres, but the success was claimed when they recently hit 82,937 acres.
A strong decline, managed by land in the bay area in 2023, is advertised as it is ignored that in 2024 the dead zone was above its long -term average. The EPA Bay program came to the conclusion that the reduction of nitrogen from all sources was roughly overestimated by nearly 50%. This is partly related to the increased use of farm fertilizers, more farm animals and their excrement and the ineffectiveness of the best farm management practices, despite $ 2 billion in grants since 2010.
Despite these findings, EPA ignores them in the announcement of a recent two -year progress report, which uses outdated reductions.
Many internal persons have learned that the easiest way to work with the main reason for failure – agriculture – is to throw more money in voluntary programs that have not worked and neglect regulatory actions. Politicians, preservation leaders and some scientists have learned that workplace security, progress and cash awards come from the promotion of firearms to suppress the environmental fire, thus avoiding conflict.
Too many alleged leaders have become environmentally friendly mercenaries who want to avoid any stroke at the insistence on regulatory changes that impede the financial prospects of themselves or their organizations. You will repeatedly hear these eco -friendly mercenaries who have the great successes of the Bay program.
With such a cowardice and virulent anti -acological agenda of Trump and his previous attempt to kill the bay program by reducing all the funding, the dreams of a recovered bay that we all hugged in 1983 seem hopeless. At the age of 80, the resident of the reality is that after 54 years of intercession, my optimism was crushed, as Chesapik died the death of a thousand abbreviations on the altar of political expediency.
Gerald Winegrad (gwwabc@comcast.net) was the region of Big Annapolis as a Democrat in the House of Delegates in Maryland and the Senate for 16 years. He serves in the Committee of Chesapik Bay and is developing and helps to adopt law in Chesapik Bay.