June 8, 2012 – The six states and the District of Columbia within the Chesapeake Bay watershed are on pace to restore the nation's largest estuary, state and federal officials and environmentalists agreed Monday.
The consensus emerged from a meeting of representatives from the states. D.C. and the Environmental Protection Agency, and from an independent assessment by environmental groups that have been tracking one of the largest water pollution control projects in U.S. history.
The assessment is based on a two-year review of goals outlined in a "pollution diet" aimed at reducing the flow of farm and urban runoff and water fouled by sewage and storm overflows from entering the bay. The actions of 17 million people who live within the watershed have devastated marine life and created vast "dead zones" within the 200-mile-long bay.
William C. Baker, president of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, said the reports signal that the states and the district "have begun the journey" to restoring the bay by 2025, the goal of the cleanup.
"The state blueprints and two-year milestones lay out a clear roadmap to restoring the bay, and the rivers and streams that feed it," Baker said. The foundation, the leading advocate of the bay's cleanup, analyzed the reports with the Choose Clean Water Coalition.
The reports were released at the annual meeting of the executive council of the Chesapeake Bay Program. The policy-setting body released detailed individual state assessments on progress in meeting pollution-control goals.
Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Wall Street Journal.