U.S. Water News Online
ANNAPOLIS, Md. -- Scientists involved in the Chesapeake Bay cleanup effort said there are encouraging signs that the massive effort to restore the bay is beginning to show some results.
``The overall message is we've seen improving trends in the last few years,'' Steve Preston, Chesapeake Bay Program monitoring coordinator for the U.S. Geological Survey, said.
He said concentrations of nitrogen and phosphorus entering the bay from its tributaries have begun to decline slowly in the Maryland portion of the bay and have leveled off in Virginia despite pressures from a growing population in the bay watershed.
Richard Batiuk, associate director for science for the Environmental Protection Agency's bay program, said reductions in pollution from nitrogen and phosphorus should continue as the bay area states improve sewage treatment plants and reduce runoff from farms and suburban areas.
Bay grass beds have made a significant comeback, and the rockfish population is booming, Batiuk said.
The upbeat assessment given at a briefing for the news media contrasts sharply with gloomy assessments of the state of the bay provided this summer by the Chesapeake Bay Foundation. William Baker, president of the bay area's largest private environmental group, said at a news conference in August that the bay program is ``getting very close to becoming a model of failure, not success.''
Baker said in an interview he has not seen any encouraging signs. The claims made by the government scientists ``seem very odd to me,'' he said.
``The last thing we need is the EPA telling the public that things are getting better and not to worry about it,'' he said.
Batiuk and other scientists at the briefing said partners in the bay cleanup program have a long way to go to achieve a healthy bay, but that improvements are being made.
``We are trying to clean up hundreds of years of pollution. We are actually seeing a system starting to respond,'' Batiuk said.
Asked about Baker's negative assessment of progress in cleaning up the bay, he said the role of environmental groups is to keep the pressure on government to carry out its responsibilities to the bay cleanup effort.
Preston said it takes a while to see results in something as complex as the program undertaken by governments in the Chesapeake Bay watershed to reduce pollution and maintain a healthy bay.
``It's natural that people will get impatient,'' he said.
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