The Chesapeake Bay is one of America’s most iconic natural places. It’s the largest estuary in the country and one of the most productive estuaries in the world. The bay is home to thousands of species of plants and animals, such as blue crabs and bald eagles, and 15 million Americans live along the bay’s shores. Locals and visitors come to the bay for fishing, boating, birding, crabbing and a slew of other recreational and economic activities.
Unfortunately, the bay is also one of the world’s most fragile bodies of water, and it’s been suffering for decades from excess pollution. Every impact we make on land ranging from Cooperstown, New York to Virginia Beach reaches the bay’s waters. Across this broad area, pollution from outdated sewage treatment plants, sprawling development, power plants burning fossil fuels, and agricultural fields glutted with fertilizer and livestock manure pours into the bay through a system of creeks, streams, and rivers. The result is annual dead zones in the water in which almost nothing can survive.
For 25 years states have been unable to control the pollution because they’ve relied on weak standards and voluntary measures. The only way to heal the bay is for leaders to commit to enforceable limits on all sources of pollution.
Recognizing the bay’s national value and the failure of governments to restore its health, President Barack Obama issued an Executive Order calling for a renewed federal commitment to the bay. Pres. Obama also created an entirely new position at the Environmental Protection Agency to oversee bay clean-up and appointed Chuck Fox, a longtime bay champion. Pres. Obama has charged the EPA and six other federal agencies with producing a new plan of action for the bay by May, 2010. While this is our best chance yet to restore the bay, any new plan will only be successful if it leads to enforceable pollution limits on all sources.
