Just as waterfowl migrate and fish swim upstream to spawn, the Chesapeake Bay regularly witnesses another predictable rite of passage - governors and mayors making bold promises to reverse decades of water pollution and restore the nation's largest estuary at some future date.
One can only contemplate what native instinct drives these intrepid visitors. But they always perform with great vigor and seemingly little awareness of the generations of forebears who have done exactly the same thing.
Not to mock Gov. Martin O'Malley, Virginia Gov. Timothy Kaine, Washington Mayor Adrian Fenty or the other officials who traipsed to Mount Vernon Tuesday to announce plans to "accelerate bay restoration efforts," but watching the event without healthy skepticism is to ignore too many years of experience.
While there are some signs of progress in efforts to clean up the Chesapeake Bay (a patch of bay grass or a revival of an aquatic species), too many recent scientific report cards portray it as failing overall, and in many cases badly so, for the palest spirit of optimism to prevail.
The spin this time is that while acknowledging deadlines have been blown again - 2010 targets will not be reached, just as they weren't in 2000 - the participants set short-term, two-year milestones. This is supposed to increase government accountability.
Perhaps it will. Or perhaps it will mean deadlines will just be blown with greater frequency - or that these short-term goals are relatively easily achieved and therefore don't represent much progress at all.
What the Virginia and Maryland politicians have demonstrated time and time again is that they are unwilling to tackle the serious polluters. That's not just chicken farmers or big developers, but anyone who contributes to the tons of excess nitrogen and phosphorus that pour into our tidal streams and rivers.
Who are these perpetrators? You, us and the millions of others in the watershed whose every action - from the fertilizers applied to our yards to runoff from the roads we travel - inflicts damage on the Chesapeake Bay. Until we get serious about changing our lifestyle beyond a flush tax to upgrade wastewater treatment plants here or critical areas laws to curb waterfront development there, the failing grades will keep coming.
What would this require? To start, a much more ambitious (or at least enforceable) smart growth policy that curbs sprawl in favor of growth in established urban areas. It would mean an end to state budgets that shortchange regulators and conservation efforts. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency would need to take a far more aggressive approach to regional enforcement to ensure all jurisdictions complied.
Finally, it would require heightened public outrage so that feet are truly held to the fire and a greater sense of urgency prevails. It's one thing to put a bumper sticker on your car; it's another to demand action, especially at the ballot box. Voters must be willing to eradicate any species of politician who talks big but acts small in defense of our state's most treasured natural resource.
