"I'm not worried about the pace of the cleanup. I'm worried that we're not even moving in the right direction," said William Dennison, a vice president at the Center for Environmental Science.
In 1985, the Patuxent was taking on about 14,000 pounds of sediment. By 2006, that figure had shot up to nearly 40,000 pounds, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. The nitrogen flowing into the Choptank totaled about 200,000 pounds in 1985. In 2006, the river had more than twice that amount.
The Severn and its sister rivers in Anne Arundel have fared no better. University of Maryland researchers estimate their water clarity would have scored 38 out of 100 in 1986. Twenty years later, that grade dropped to a 23.
The impact of this pollution is not simply a matter of environmental righteousness, a sense that residents of the watershed must save the bay because it's the right thing to do. A bay on the brink is a bay where people cannot swim, where boaters won't sail, where no one wants to catch the few fish still alive.
Already in the Chesapeake, watermen are pulling up pots of dead crabs from fouled water. Many kinds of fish, such as yellow perch, are largely gone from the rivers where they once spawned. Nearly every major species that once made the bay a great protein factory has dwindled - costing the region at least $135 million in lost catch alone, according to University of Maryland economist Doug Lipton.
It is clear, scientists say, what steps should be taken to improve the bay's health. But the proposals rarely get serious consideration in Annapolis.
Environmentalists have pushed for limits on how and where new houses can be built, but home-builder groups and local governments are loath to give up control. Some lawmakers pushed for mandatory limits on farm pollution, but lobbyists and rural legislators gutted the bill. And a measure to require nitrogen-removal technology for new septic systems was dead on arrival in the Capitol.
Some in Annapolis say government is doing what it can to protect the Chesapeake. "We all treasure the bay. We all want to do the best we can to stop its deterioration. But it's difficult because all of these things cost money," said Jim Peck, director of research at the Maryland Municipal League.
Gov. Martin O'Malley argues that realistically, measures to stem pollution require consensus-building and compromise, that change takes time and is accomplished in stages that span administrations.
