Drive east from Washington and eventually you run smack into the middle of the Chesapeake Bay, the massive estuary that stretches from the mouth of the Susquehanna River at Maryland's northern tip and empties into the Atlantic 200 miles away near Norfolk, Va.
The Chesapeake is home to oysters, clams, and famous Maryland blue crab.
It's the largest estuary in the United States.
And for a long time, it was one of the most polluted.
Decades of runoff from grassy suburban yards and farm fields as far north as New York state, plus sewage and other waste dumped by the hundreds of gallons, made the Chesapeake so dirty that by 1983, the crab population had plummeted to just 2 percent of what Capt. John Smith saw when he explored the bay in the 1600s.
For years, people tried to clean it up. States and the federal government spent millions of dollars. The first effort began in 1983 — officially launched by President Ronald Reagan in his 1984 State of the Union Address.
And each time, the cleanup efforts failed. The bay's health wasn't getting much better.
By 2009, when the Chesapeake Bay Foundation sued the Environmental Protection Agency in an attempt to get the EPA to do more to clean up the bay, the Chesapeake'sdead zone was so big it often covered a cubic mile in the summer.
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DelMarVa's Premier Source for News, Opinion, Analysis, and Human Interest Contact Publisher Joe Albero at alberobutzo@wmconnect.com or 410-430-5349
12 comments:
Kneejerk fear mongering.
ohhhh now that we are talking about cutting funds we are actually making progress in saving the bay
"Decades of runoff from grassy suburban yards... sewage and other waste dumped by the hundreds of thousands of gallons..."
And of course, my little septic tank (not..)
As long as this keeps up, nothing will change.
Who is going to take on the rich mega-mansion owners and the municipal sewage overflows? Hmmm??
A cubic mile would be a mile wide by a mile long by a mile deep. A mile is 5,280 feet.
Which portions of the bay are 5,280 feet deep? Inquiring minds want to know. They must have hired a laid off climate fear monger to generate their stats!
Lucky for us Capt. John Smith gave Pocahontas his flash drive with his crab survey data so we can make an accurate comparison.
i call BS. how about making va, and pa do more to stop polluting the bay? those who are not contributing should be forced to! of course they should send all the money to me so I and my family and friends can all draw an awesome salary and put out BS like this!
So throwing $100 bills in the bay will stop dead zones?
Bay pollution comes from Exelon's Constawango Damn and malfunctioning sewage plants.
9:13am Ready to look stupid? To late.
you application of math and basic formulas is on par with a 3rd grader.
Congrats.
All well informed comments. So do you all ever think that maybe you aren't as smart as you think you are...hmm... Most of us eat oysters and crabs. Perhaps a clean bay means less toxins in our fokd? I know I know, I'm a snowflake, libtard, etc.
Oh wait, I voted for trump.
PA pollutes the bay and Marylanders gets punished. Virginia has far fewer crabbing and fishing restrictions. MD does a crab survey and punishes Marylanders.
I really like Larry Hogan but he needs to start fighting for the people who put him in office instead of worrying about the next election. I'd rather he lost because he drastically changed the state than won by doing nothing to upset the liberals.
Give it a rest. He works for all marylanders, not just you and your kind. This partisan stuff has to stop.
I know, I know, I'm a snowflake.
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