Richard Batiuk, associate director of EPA's Chesapeake Bay office, says there was no attempt to skirt inconvenient truths or to hide lack of progress. The drafts were based on incomplete and potentially misleading data, he says. 

Delaware, New York and West Virginia had not been tracking their pollution reductions as long as other bay states, and the few years' information available showed very sharp drops in nitrogen and phosphorus.  The past reductions might not have been as steep had they been averaged over as many years as other states' efforts were.  So Batiuk said in the interests of consistency, EPA elected to leave out information that was not strictly comparable - not because it showed negative progress. All have pledged to step up their efforts, he says.

The District milestone is another story.  DC already has met its goal for reducing phosphorus, as the final public document points out.  But the amount of nitrogen the nation's capital dumps into the Potomac River will actually increase for a few years while the huge Blue Plains sewage treatment plant is being upgraded.  The District will curtail its flow of nitrogen dramatically once the sewage plant overhaul is finished, but that's not expected to happen until the next milestone period kicks in, around 2011 to 2013.  (And that, of course, assumes that the federal, state and local governments will come up with the hefty $1 billion pricetag needed to fix up Blue Plains).

"They're recognizing they've got a milestone they're not going to meet in this time period," says Batiuk. 

Sort of.  It's explained in a footnote on the handout (except the bit about the funding needed).  But there's no graph line showing the expected increase in nitrogen loads.   In the interest of transparency, why not show clearly in the graph and the text that there'll be a bit of backsliding and delay in reaching the first milestone for the District?

All this might be considered quibbling, except this cleanup effort has been criticized before for painting too rosy a picture of the progress being made.  In the past 26 years, the states and federal government have blown one deadline for cleaning up the bay, and they acknowledge there's no way they'll meet their second one next year.  That's why EPA and the states set up the two-year milestones and promised to be more upfront and accountable from here on out.

"We've got to be more transparent about .. what's being done and what's to be done,'' says Batiuk.

Meanwhile, it's worth pointing out that while Maryland officials like to tout the Old Line State as a leader of the bay cleanup effort, the unsung hero in the battle is - or will be - Pennsyvlania. Of the 16.6 million additional pounds of nitrogen that all the "partners" in the bay cleanup have collectively pledged to remove from rivers and streams in the next few years, Pennsylvania is promising to take care of 7.3 million pounds, or nearly half. 

Of course, Pennsylvania is also the heavy, responsible for nearly 40 percent of all the nitrogen getting into the bay, more than any other state.  Still, it's worth acknowledging its leaders have agreed to shoulder the biggest task - no small thing, considering Pennsylvanians aren't as connected physically or culturally to the bay as we are here in Maryland.