A jaundiced view of the Bay cleanup
While the press coverage of the annual Chesapeake Bay summit this week focused on President Obama promising a stronger federal role in the cleanup effort, and state officials pledging to accelerate their pollution reductions, Howard Ernst isn't buying any of it.
The associate professor of political science at the Naval Academy has written one critical book on the shortcomings of the restoration effort, Chesapeake Bay Blues. He's got a new, updated account heading to the printer now.
"It certainly doesn't seem like a new direction for the bay restoration effort," Ernst said in a telephone interview Wednesday. "There's nothing new about more deadlines, more promises. What's missing .... is the funding and statutory powers that would make those deadlines accomplishable, make those goals attainable. "
Ernst was similarly dismissive of the new 2025 long-term cleanup "end date." He noted that officials were careful to say that would not be the year when the bay is actually restored but when all the policies and reductions are in place that they believe should restore it.
"It's back to business as usual," he says, "creating a deadline (when) none of these elected officials will hold their positions. So much for accountability."
As for the executive order issued by Obama, Ernst says it does nothing except delay action by another four months. It gives the Environmental Protection Agency 120 days to determine what regulatory powers it has or needs to require the bay cleanup, he contends, even though the Clean Water Act outlining those powers was enacted in 1972. The order also sets up a "federal leadership committee" to coordinate the bay cleanup efforts of the various federal agencies and departments - "another layer of bureaucracy," the critic says.
"There's never been a better opportunity for doing something tangible and big right now," Ernst concluded, "and the EPA and the bay states missed that opportunity."
Anyone share Ernst's criticism, or maybe have a different view? Is this about the best that can be done, perhaps, given our lousy economy and traditional resistance by many to being regulated or taxed to pay for cleanup? Will new deadlines every two years prod the politicians to do more now, instead of putting off the tough decisions to their successors?
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
What is the old song about the wheel is turning and you can't slow down, you can't let go and you can't hold on, you can't go back and you can't stand still, if the thunder don't get you then the lightening will. There is a chorus to that song that says that every time the wheel turns round, it's bound to cover just a little more ground. This is what we are left to hope.
Posted by: Robert Wieland | May 14, 2009 2:46 PM
Lets cut the bull, we all know (or should know) that the real problem with the bay pollution problems is population growth. Stop or reduce population growth and the problem will go away on its own. Now figure a way to do that and see how far you get. Nature on its own contributes a lot of pollution by the shedding of leaves in the fall, the leaves blow into the watershed and ends up in the bay to deteriorate. Stop nature from doing that. Shut up about the pollution - we certainly don't do it on purpose. Take off your blinders and realize that we can try to slow pollution but not stop it.
Posted by: Joe McCorkel | May 14, 2009 4:37 PM
Actually the problems of the Bay are very purposeful in one regard, and a sin of omission in another - our negative impacts are similar in many rgards to our waste stream, we don't source reduce, we don't recycle enough, we don't compost - population is only a problem if you don't do a combination of increasing density, and also redistributing land use over broader areas of the country.
Posted by: Jack Lynch | May 15, 2009 8:37 AM
Can we pin it down who the polluters are? I think I know. Among others, it's factory farms (chickens, cows). But the farmers are strapped...always strapped, so we don't want to sock it to them. My question: Who's benefiting? Consumers enjoying "cheap" chicken and dairy products. Also, the big companies that the farmers "contract" with. Let's let 'em all pay their own way--make the farms pay for proper disposal of their manure--so the Bay can recover. Pass the manure disposal costs on to the consumer...duh. Of just get hip. go vegan.
Posted by: Pamela Rice | June 24, 2009 2:44 AM
I do not think so this can be stopped if we do not rise up togather to fight these polluters.
If we just come here, read this article and comment on it, it is not going to make any difference.
Posted by: Greenfudge | August 29, 2009 3:19 PM