IT HAS BEEN a summer of scummy, dead water for the bay, a bitter anniversary of the federal-state restoration effort that began 20 years ago with no illusions that a turnaround would be easy or quick. But no one dreamed that two decades later we would see record volumes of water without oxygen, and warnings for swimmers and pets to avoid toxic algae blooms.
Reasons why we haven't done better abound, but an important one has been the lack of federal leadership on the environment.
It didn't start with President Bush, but under his administration the federal bailout is getting worse, at a time when we desperately need forward momentum.
It was galling to hear the president recently, out West on a tour designed to spin a green gloss on his environmental record.
After the ritual belittling of the environmental "experts" back east in Washington, he said, "Those who think they know what they're doing ought to come out and visit with the folks that are actually protecting the environment."
Mr. President, why don't you take your own advice and come to the bay in an open forum, where you could hear from some local experts?
There are thousands of people within minutes to an hour's drive from your home by the Potomac, the Chesapeake's second-biggest river, who have busted butt for decades to protect their environment -- yours, too, for four to eight years.
Thanks to state- and federally funded science, they know better than most places in the world what all the major pollutants are, where they are coming from, how much they need to be reduced, how best to reduce them and what it will cost.
They also know they are getting way too little help in that from you and your party's leaders in Congress.
We know your preference for helping the environment through market-based techniques and voluntary, private-public partnerships.
And you are right, to a point. I don't know any environmental groups that think regulations alone will fully restore big ecosystems like the Chesapeake.
But that does not mean you can simultaneously dismantle and shift onto states the federal regulatory responsibility.
You often say regulation stifles innovation and investment in new cleanup technologies. But you can no more run a truly successful economy without forceful regulation than you can campaign a winning race car without good brakes.
So what are we who care for the Chesapeake to think of this week's news that your administration's push to weaken wetlands protections in the Clean Water Act could jeopardize from hundreds of thousands to more than a million acres of wetlands in the bay's watershed?
Those numbers come from your own Environmental Protection Agency Region III office, whose jurisdiction includes Maryland, Virginia and Pennsylvania. All three states have their own wetlands laws, but how long can they hold strong without national standards for backup?
Protecting wetlands is critical to the bay. They filter runoff from the land that is the single largest cause of pollution here.
What are we to think of your Department of Interior, whose support for reducing federal wetlands protections fails to mention that they quashed strong opposing comments from Interior's own wetlands experts?
And what are we to think about your recent rollbacks on air pollution, whose fallout is one-third of the Chesapeake's water pollution problems?
Your administration, to accommodate the energy industry, is drastically expanding a 1970s loophole that lets the oldest, most polluting power plants -- many upwind of the bay -- indefinitely evade using cleaner technology.
Add to that your refusal, and that of Congress, to require automakers to attain better mileage, cutting air pollution. Vehicles and power plants together cause most of the air pollution impact on the bay.
Your administration's recent refusal to regulate carbon dioxide, or even recognize it as a pollutant, jeopardizes the bay another way. Global warming, caused by excess CO2, causes sea levels to rise, and this threatens tens of thousands of acres of bay wetlands with submersion.
It's been the same story with how you recently handled new rules controlling the runoff of animal manure -- another important source of bay pollution.
Too little, too weak -- your own EPA acknowledges the manure regs won't address the Chesapeake's needs. Maryland and Virginia have their own manure rules, but Pennsylvania's are weak, and that state's polluted runoff has the largest impact on the bay.
What are we to think of Utah Gov. Michael O. Leavitt, your recent nominee to head the EPA -- EPA being the lead federal agency in our bay's restoration?
After saying he recognizes "an inherent human responsibility to care for the Earth," he promptly adds: "There's also an economic imperative ... to do it less expensively."
You come to the bay, too, Governor Leavitt, and look at the well-documented need for $13 billion in new state and federal money to restore this estuary -- and show us how you would do it for less.
Leavitt is lauded by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce -- a "consensus builder," its top lobbyist calls him. But isn't the agency's middle name Protection, not conciliation; and isn't its first name Environmental, not industrial protection?
Presidents and columnists can mince words, but the bay doesn't lie. Its water's not much better after 20 years.
And it's hard to see much different coming from this administration and this Congress.
