Broken Promises on the Chesapeake Bay
The Chesapeake Bay area is one of the most beautiful places in the country, and the inability of officials to control upstream pollution is a sad tale:
Government administrators in charge of an almost $6 billion cleanup of the Chesapeake Bay tried to conceal for years that their effort was failing -- even issuing reports overstating their progress -- to preserve the flow of federal and state money to the project, former officials say.
The cleanup, which had its 25th anniversary this month, seems doomed to miss its second official deadline for achieving major reductions in pollution by 2010.
The goal of rescuing North America's largest estuary was formally entrusted in 1983 to a group of federal, state and local authorities under the loose guidance of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The task: controlling runoff from 4.8 million acres of farmland, installing upgrades at more than 400 sewage plants and managing the catch of more than 11,000 licensed watermen.
But the agencies charged with the cleanup have never mustered enough legal muscle or political will to overcome opposition from the agricultural and fishing industries and other interests.
Instead of strengthening their tactics, though, they tried to make the cleanup effort look less hopeless than it was.
made a bigger impact on the clean up of the Chesapeake Bay if the money went to projects that educate farmers and help pay for fencing and tree plantings along the streams and rivers that feed the Chesapeake. The farmers also need to learn about no till farming techniques and return to organic farming. Still the big issue is having enough stream buffers to prevent organics and pollution from entering the streams and eventually dumping into the Chesapeake.
until lobbying reforms are seriously addressed the money will continue to fly out the door with nary an action to benefit the cause... why isn't anyone surprised at this?
I am aware that Pennsylvania is devoting more money to cleaning up streams and rivers which should help.
Chesapeake Bay Facts
2 Trillion Tons of Polar Ice Lost in 5 Years, and Melting Is Accelerating
Can we blame that big ball of hydrogen in the sky?...or is the debate closed?
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/...
audit-prosecute-incarcerate
Solar warming!
In 1800, when the U.S. was new, there were unlimited free resources and no environmental constraints, and the stage was set for capitalism.
That stage began closing down around 1970 and finally shut its doors this past September.
The only people still hanging around the stage doors are those who didn't get the message.
are still selling, and some suckers are still buying, tickets to the play.
Unless you were a Native American aka Indian. :)
discussing Marx's ("Das Kapital") argument about how capitalists (i.e., beginning back in the late 18th century) got their "initial" (my term) capital. Two of the ways were robbery and forced displacement of native peoples.
So, yeah.
A lot of the problem comes from upriver, in Pennsylvania. So it's hard for the states to regulate what other states are doing. Several years ago, the nutrients were so high in the bay from agriculture upriver that a huge algae bloom occurred. Then, when the dieoff of the algae followed, the water became anoxic, causing much of the life to die. Now, there is a layer of "black mayonnaise" on the bottom (a black gelatinous material that is created by dead organic matter). So any new life gets choked off before it can thrive.
The only way to turn back the clock on the death cycle in the bay is to stop the runoff from upriver. Fertilizer and manure has to be prevented from running off into the river (at least in the same quantitites that has been). That's the only way the problem is going to end. The only way.
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