The future health of the Chesapeake Bay may well depend in part upon how much respect we pay to history. Granted, it may be a small part. But as we struggle to piece together workable plans to improve bay water quality, the little pieces are what make up the big picture. For proof, we need only to recognize the link between muskets and mollusks.
More than a century and a half ago in the Mid-Atlantic, from the rolling countryside of lower Pennsylvania to tidewater Virginia, Union and Confederate soldiers fought at scores of locations during the bloodiest and most tumultuous period of our nation's story.
The settings of the most famous killing fields - Antietam, Gettysburg, Spotsylvania - are recognized as hallowed ground and attract tourists from around the world. Less remembered are clashes that occurred at such places as Glendale in Virginia and on farmland along Maryland's Monocacy River, although this once nearly forgotten episode in the state's Civil War annals has gained deserved prominence as "the battle that saved Washington."
Aside from the obvious historical context, these and the region's many other Civil War sites share an important geographical kinship: They lie within the bay's 64,000-square-mile watershed, where pollutant runoff into the narrowest tributary often ends up in the Chesapeake and contributes to the continuing degradation of the country's largest estuary.
In some cases, the practice of commemorating Civil War battles by setting aside portions of land to honor the fallen began shortly after the fights themselves. Battlefield preservation, particularly where it is practiced around creeks and rivers, has the added green benefit of reducing the amounts of upstream nitrogen and phosphorus that can flow downstream toward the bay. And by ensuring that undeveloped open space remains free from future commercial and residential development, storm water runoff is minimized.
As part of the Chesapeake 2000 Agreement, Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania officials set a goal of preserving 20 percent of the watershed by 2010. Noting that the watershed loses about 100 acres a day to development and timbering, Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine in 2006 pledged to protect 400,000 acres, an ambitious goal that the current economy may make impossible to meet. But earlier this year, Mr. Kaine and others formally announced that Slaughter Pen Farm, a privately owned, 208-acre tract adjacent to the historic Fredericksburg Battlefield, had been secured for preservation. The amount of land may be a drop in the proverbial bucket, but its location near the heavily developed Rappahannock River shoreline means more open space will be spared from the bulldozer. Every bit helps.
