Bay restoration efforts show few positive results after 25 years

By PAMELA WOOD, Staff Writer

Published 12/07/08

In December 1983, more than 700 people gathered in Northern Virginia to talk about how to clean up the Chesapeake Bay.

TOP: From left, Virginia Gov. Charles Robb, Maryland Gov. Harry R. Hughes and Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. William Scranton III attend a three-day bay conference in Fairfax in 1983. The conference included the signing of the first-ever Chesapeake Bay Agreement on Dec. 9, 1983. TOP-MIDDLE: A series of officials gather at the Baltimore Convention Center in 1987 to sign a second Chesapeake Bay Agreement. The group includes, from left, D.C. Mayor Marion Barry; Pennsylvania Gov. Robert P. Casey; Maryland Gov. William Donald Schaefer and Virginia Gov. Gerald Baliles. BOTTOM-MIDDLE: The setting for the next bay agreement in 2000 — called Chesapeake 2000 — was Herrington Harbour South in Anne Arundel County. Here, Maryland Gov. Parris N. Glendening talks about the agreement with Carol Browner, head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. BOTTOM: Though no new bay agreements have been forged since 2000, government leaders continue to meet annually to make promises on the bay cleanup. Last month, Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, center, was joined at a meeting at Union Station in Washington by D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty, left, and Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine, right.

The conference was a big deal and highly anticipated. It drew top officials and interested activists, and even famed oceanographer Jacques Cousteau showed up.

At the end of the three-day conference, top officials from Maryland, Virginia and Pennsylvania put pen to paper and created a bay cleanup effort that continues today.

That very first Chesapeake Bay Agreement said very little. Basically, the governors agreed to meet regularly and establish a bay office in Annapolis.

But people were...

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