Dead zone
GERALD WINEGRAD: IT’S A TRAVESTY FOR CHESAPEAKE THAT A 56% GRADE IS CELEBRATED | COMMENTARY
As a student for 19 years and a graduate school professor for 11 years, a report card grade of 56% would always be an F, an embarrassingly low failure. But in a world turned upside down, a 56% rating for the health of the Chesapeake Bay is celebrated.
Read MoreDECLINE OF UNDERWATER GRASSES IMPEDES BAY RESTORATION | COMMENTARY
Remarkably, Maryland DNR’s Brooke Landry, their SAV program chief and chair of the Bay Program’s SAV Workgroup, touted the SAV data with the greenwashing that pervades bay restoration: “Despite many environmental pressures on the Bay, we continue to see signs of resilience and recovery in our underwater grasses. The increases in SAV acres observed in three of the four salinity zones this year are truly a testament to the effectiveness of long-term nutrient reductions and collaborative restoration efforts.” Really?
Read MoreCOMMENTS AND RECOMMENDATIONS ON THE DRAFT 2025 CHESAPEAKE BAY WATERSHED AGREEMENT
The Draft omits references to the most critical commitment of the Bay states and EPA in the 2014 Watershed Agreement—to meet the TMDL and fully implement each state’s WIP. This omission tarnishes the entire process as this TMDL has guided restoration for 15 years, and supposedly still does. Meeting the reductions in N,P,S is the most important commitment in the 2014 Agreement as well as its predecessor, the 2000 Bay Agreement.
Read MoreFlesh-eating diseases are Chesapeake Bay’s dirty secret
By Gerald Winegrad On Aug. 5, Patty Peacock was checking crab pots on her pier on Harness Creek just as she has every summer day for decades. I have done the same at my pier just north of hers on Oyster Creek. Shaking the pot, she nicked the underside of her right arm. Bleeding, she…
Read MoreGerald Winegrad: Bay cleanup is mired in a Chesapeake deadzone
The EPA Bay Program was prodded by Congress in 2006 to begin issuing detailed annual progress reports and assessments with excellent data and no-holds-bar reporting of both failures and successes. This has ended. The EPA assessment is part of the Green Washing engaged in by governors, legislators, and even some in the conservation community to declare success when there is none.
Read MoreAg Certainty: Making Certain that the Bay Remains Polluted
With Ag Certainty, we’ve just thrown a “critical” part of the TMDL out the window; the only real “certainty” that remains is that we’ll all be sitting down in 2025 again and try to come up with the next, great plan to clean up the Bay.
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