Government administrators in charge of an almost $6 billion cleanup of the Chesapeake Bay tried to conceal for years that their effort was failing -- even issuing reports overstating their progress
Who'd a thunk it?
William Matuszeski, who headed the program from 1991 to 2001, described how the program repeatedly released data that exaggerated its success, hoping to influence Congress..."To protect appropriations you were getting, you had to show progress," Matuszeski said.
Oh.
For the bay, the consequences are clear: The vast marsh-rimmed estuary has just as many pollution-driven "dead zones" as it did in the 1980s and less of the life -- crabs, oysters, watermen -- that made it famous.
"It'll always be beautiful," said Bernie Fowler, 84, a former waterman, county commissioner and state senator from Calvert County, who has argued for cleaning the bay since 1970. "But there's nothing out there living."
A lengthy writeup in the Washington Post has the usual story with the ending that symbolizes what more than crahs and oysters and fish can look forward to if we don't change.
A dead planet can be beautiful but some think life is beautiful too.
We can replace coal and other fossil fuels with biomass now but we would rather not. We prefer to pollute and dream of endless days of sun and wind some day and ignore the hurt they promise. We can retrieve and recycle the pollution that fouls the water and kills the fish but it's just too much of a bother.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
Best, Terry