Poll puzzler: Marylanders love bay, but don't have much to do with it
Despite our lousy economic conditions, Marylanders overwhelmingly care about the bay and want to see it cleaned up - by regulation, if need be, and with more government spending, even if it means raising their taxes.
Those are some of the highlights of a new public opinion poll released Friday by the Chesapeake Bay Trust. The telephone survey of 1,015 residents last November found that Marylanders still care deeply about the bay. "Making the Chesapeake Bay clean and healthy" is their overwhelming concern, with 36 percent ranking it "extremely important" while another 50 percent considered it "very important."
As someone who writes a lot about the bay, the poll had some encouragement -- more than half of those polled say they are "more interested ..... in hearing about the health of the Chesapeake Bay" today than they were just a few years ago. Only 10 percent say they are less interested.
The Chesapeake Bay Trust says that particular finding demonstrates that there is no flagging of public interest in restoring the bay. Maybe so, but is the public any more ready to do something about it?
The poll found that nearly half, 49 percent, think the health of the bay and its rivers and streams is getting worse. Given all the publicity about the bad grades the bay and its tributaries have received from EPA, the University of Maryland and environmental groups like the Riverkeepers and the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, you've got to wonder why a strong majority don't think the bay is getting worse.
Yet 73 percent said the bay's pollution problem is so big it will require some government regulation, as opposed to 21 percent who believe incentives and voluntary actions are enough. About two thirds also favor spending more public money on it, even if state leaders said more taxes would be needed.
Most of the results summarized so far seem to suggest an aware and engaged public. But the poll also revealed to me the fundamental disconnect most Marylanders have with the bay. Only 11 percent said they frequently fish or crab, and only 8 percent said they go boating or frequently swim in the bay or Atlantic Ocean. A somewhat higher percentage indicated they spend time outdoors hiking, gardening, biking or birdwatching.
And nearly three-quarters of those polled said they do not live in a watershed, with only 13 percent even willing to try naming their watershed.
The most solid connection that Marylanders seem to have with the bay is through their stomachs -- 32 percent said they frequently eat fish or seafood, a higher percentage than seen nationally.
So the poll offers some contradictory messages. It's by a nonprofit charity with an interest in selling Chesapeake Bay plates and giving grants to community groups and others trying to engage the public in cleaning up the bay. Taking the trust poll findings at face value, it's apparent that the public cares a lot about the bay on one level, but not enough to really get to know the bay.
That poses a real challenge, I think, for those who hope that the public takes responsibility (ownership, if you will) for restoring the bay. How can they if they don't really understand that they all live in a watershed of some sort? The public may not be tired of saving the bay, but do they really understand what's going to be required to save it?
What do you think? Do you know what watershed you're in? Can you love something mostly in the abstract? And can you really work to save what you don't understand?
I report on the environment and Chesapeake Bay. A native of West Virginia, I have focused mainly on Maryland's environment since moving here in 1983. Along the way, I've crewed aboard a skipjack in the bay, canoed under city streets up the Jones Fall from the Inner Harbor, and gone deep underground in a western Maryland coal mine. Recently, I have been covering the growth and development transforming the landscape. I love seafood, rambles in the country and good stories. I hope to share some here.
Comments
The poll is probably illustrative of a lot of things. For one thing, access to the Bay, or simply access to outdoor recreation, isn't necessarily easy for many Marylanders.
But there's still a connection that can resonate. I've never been to Alaska's National Wildlife Refuge, for example, but I can easily support its protection. It isn't "abstract" but just remote.
Posted by: tjh | April 17, 2009 4:46 PM
You pose some interesting questions,
Can you love something in the abstract?
Of course we can and we do it all the time. Probably one of those few characteristics that define us as human.
Why do we love the Bay even if mostly in the abstract? For Marylanders it is the centerpiece of our state. We are defined by its presence and its once, more plentiful bounty. Almost every one of us has interacted with the Bay in some manner at some time. And apparently that is enough to form a real attachment. Enough of an attachment to value it's (our) health even above that of a tax burden, supposedly.
Although, if you asked the people who will have to upgrade their septic systems due to a bill passed by the legislature recently, you might get a different answer. And if I recall correctly, then Mayor O'Malley fought Federal efforts to force Baltimore to spend hundreds of millions to upgrade it's sewer lines. My point is that people are often for "saving the bay" in the abstract. But when those dollars affect certain groups directly you might get a different response.
Final note - My feeling is that the ecosystem as a whole is going to get a lot worse before it gets better. And that is mostly due to one overriding condition. There are too many people on the planet. Managing us is the real problem.
Posted by: Biff | April 17, 2009 5:50 PM
Is this indicative of the human/nature disconnect? If you can still buy flowers and apples at the supermarket, isn't nature really okay?
At the same time, should we really worry since O'Malley and Obama will take care of things for us.
Posted by: Ecogordo | April 20, 2009 8:02 PM
There is a lot of concern that bacteria in the Chesapeake Bay is caused by runoff from chicken manure that was/is stacked on property alongside chicken houses. I have read were Mr. Perdue (and there may be other chicken processors) is processing chicken manure, produced on Perdue chicken farms, into fertilizer.
There is a lot of concern that some of the causes of the growth of algae and the effects to other aquatic life that are feed by fertilizer, insecticides, and ammonia runoff from farmland that is artificially fertilized. Today, much of Maryland's farmland is lying idle or is sold to developers.
Industrial and manmade pollution are being brought under control and are being minimized by EPA and other clean water practices and enforcement policies.
However, what the Chesapeake Bay and surrounding tributaries are really noted for, other than "The Land of Pleasant Living", is its (once) abundant seafood. Did any of you know that at one time the Chesapeake Bay was cleansed partially by the action of oysters?
Scientists and biologists wrote that, a few decades or so ago, oysters pumped the entire Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries – waters - through their bodies once every few hours. I read a year ago that scientists and biologists estimate that the pumping action is now every 3 - 5 days. In effect, this action does help to cleanse the waters of the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries. Please note though that this oyster pumping action helped/helps it is the not the entire answer to clean water.
A few decades ago one could pole push a skiff over 1 to 2 feet of water on the Chesapeake Bay and/or its tributaries and, in a reasonable number of hours/time, net dozens of crabs of all sizes and gender. Today if you were to pole push a skiff along the shallow waters and were to happen upon any crab you would probably point and say something like "Oh look, there is a crab". And then just push on.
Want to see something unbelievable? Travel to any of the crab processing plants in Dorchester County when the plant managers arrange for “sponge crab” to be brought in from Virginia or North Carolina waters - by the tractor and trailer load(s). And see for yourself the tons/thousands of female egg bearing "sook" or "sponge crab" that is steamed and later the crab meat extracted or processed. The estimated two-million crab eggs per "sponge crab" are killed in the steaming process - that is if the eggs survive the trip to crab processing plants in Maryland. And you might want to know how long has this practice been happening? Well my answer is...I do not really know exactly how long, but I have witnessed this 50 of my 59 years!
Stop and think – is there anything that you need/want to do to help “Safe the Bay?”
Posted by: GlenP | August 8, 2009 4:02 AM