Opinion by: By Gerald Winegrad

Much like “The Godfather” in retirement tending to his precious tomato plants, at age 79 I treasure tending my two crab pots. But unlike Marlon Brando, the joy I once had is tempered by sadness. Not only have commercial overharvest and poor water quality depressed crab numbers, but the threat of flesh-eating disease in handling the wiry pots triggers a tragic melancholy at the sad state of the Chesapeake Bay.

I now wear gloves and a long-sleeve shirt to protect me from potentially deadly bacterial infections caused by the failure of the collapsing Chesapeake Bay Program to sufficiently reduce nutrients fueling the toxic bacteria.

Forty years ago, I joined 900 other hopeful participants who gathered in Virginia for a conference that led to the first Chesapeake Bay Agreement. This one-pager was a solemn pledge to work together to restore the impaired Chesapeake. It was signed by the governors of Maryland, Pennsylvania and Virginia, DC’s mayor, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administrator and the Chesapeake Bay Commission Chair on which I served as a state senator. After major policies and funding initiatives were first enacted under Gov. Harry Hughes in the mid-1980s and with more to come into the early 1990s, there have

Wastewater treatments plants were targeted. With billions of dollars in funding, the nutrients from these point sources have been greatly reduced. The phosphate ban I sponsored helped and saved more than $100 million in treatment costs. But bay restoration has sunk into a quagmire of cowardly political expediency as policymakers refuse to properly restrict agricultural nutrient and sediment flows, especially nutrients from poultry excrement.

Rather than properly regulate the biggest pollution source, the EPA and bay leaders have decided to throw billions of dollars at agribusiness to gain voluntary pollution reductions. Carrots without sticks have not and will not work to gain the necessary reductions.

The other major nonpoint source — new and existing development and its impervious surfaces — has not been properly regulated nor has forest loss been stopped.

The result is that 71.9% of the Chesapeake’s tidal waters are so degraded they do not meet basic Clean Water Act requirements. This was an increase from the previous assessment and threatens the bay’s critical living resources and human health.

In 1985, 73.5% of bay waters were degraded— a minimal improvement over 37 years. And now, flesh-eating diseases are attacking humans from bay water contact, threatening life and limb as major fisheries decline.

In 2009, the EPA ordered states to greatly reduce nitrogen and phosphorus and gave them until 2025. This was to assure 100% of bay tidal waters met Clean Water Act requirements. But by 2022, nitrogen met just 51% of the 2025 reductions ordered and phosphorus met 60% of the 2025 required reductions.

Last October, our “leaders” at the EPA and bay states capitulated in acknowledging that these mandated pollution reductions for the Chesapeake would not be met by 2025 even after the states were given 15 years to do so. This was the third time the EPA and bay states punted on meeting agreed-upon pollution reductions going back to the first numeric commitments made in the 1987 Bay Agreement.

Despicably, instead of the EPA finally imposing sanctions under the Clean Water Act to prod the states to comply, it supported a “recalibration” of the bay program’s pollution reduction goals. The full plan is not due until 2024, continuing the status quo while the states fail to adopt any new meaningful measures to meet the required pollution reductions.

There is gloating over $238 million from the Biden Administration Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act for grants and technical assistance, much of it for the agricultural sector. Such grants have failed in the past to produce substantial pollution reductions.

The EPA inspector general investigated these failing efforts and issued a scathing report on July 18, 2023, detailing how the EPA has not fully embraced its leadership role to steer the partnership toward addressing the most significant sources of remaining pollution — the nonpoint sources mentioned above.

The IG report notes that the EPA had data as early as 2018 documenting how off-track bay restoration was and how mandatory nutrient reductions would not be met by 2025. The EPA failed to prod the states or impose any sanctions to gain compliance, thus leaving the bay’s waters degraded.

The Chesapeake Bay Foundation’s Annual Bay Report Card, released in January, rated the bay a D+. CBF scientists assigned a grade of a dismal 32 on a 1–100 scale with a 70 or more meaning a bay restored to 1950s levels.

These grades also should apply to CBF’s 45 years of work to Save The Bay despite raising close to $1 billion with a current $34 million budget and assets of $121 million mostly in stocks and bonds.

Patty Peacock’s vibrio infection from Harness Creek water contact while tending her crab pot. Her arm and perhaps life were saved by early intravenous antibiotics. (Courtesy of Patty Peacock)

If in 1983 we had dared to conjure up an apocalyptic scenario to frighten policymakers to take the bold steps to stem bay pollutants, it would look something like what we are now experiencing — collapsed fisheries, greatly diminished critical bay grasses, and lurking bacteria threatening life and limb from bay water contact.

After 54 years of advocacy, I have never been more pessimistic about the Chesapeake’s future. How could we allow this to happen?

The flow of billions of dollars in federal and state funding and individuals’ desires to advance politically or professionally have infected the system.

All too many so-called environmentalists and some scientists have turned into environmental mercenaries who have learned to monetize conservation efforts, losing the courage to push for the bold, courageous actions necessary to save the bay.

In 2021, bay program data documented that nitrogen, phosphorus, and sediment from nonpoint sources increased by 16%, 38% and 19%, respectively, as river flows increased. This was from nonpoint sources — mostly agriculture and developed land stormwater.

There is more very bad news for all of us in Chesapeake Country: the bay watershed lost 20,000 acres of forest a year (2013-2018). Maryland led the way. A new study also shows that developed impervious areas in the watershed increased by 50,651 acres from 2013 to 2018. This is mostly from new structures, roads, driveways, parking lots and runways.

It should be clear to policymakers that mandatory measures are desperately needed to curb agricultural pollutants, the largest source of bay pollutants. Failure to do so is the major reason water quality requirements are far from being met.

Most of the planned nutrient reductions must come from agriculture and simply throwing additional millions of dollars at voluntary programs has not and will not work.

We also cannot restore the bay without ending forest loss and restoring forest buffers along streams.

Gerald Winegrad represented the greater Annapolis area as a Democrat in the Maryland House of Delegates and Senate for 16 years. Contact him at gwwabc@comcast.net.