"DSK" wrote in message
. ..
Doug Kanter wrote:
You're both right and wrong sorta kinda. I'm not familiar with the local
situation around the bay, but I do know that what's causing a lot of the
problem is the same thing that's causing problems in a couple of the
Finger Lakes of upstate NY: Runoff from farms, mostly normal fertilizers,
and it doesn't matter THAT much whether they're synthetic fertilizers or
organic ones, like composted manure which the Amish farmers use.

In most watersheds, definitely including the Chesapeake, runoff from lawns
is also a very big problem.

That's impossible. A couple of meatheads in one of the gardening newsgroups
have been telling me that lawn chemicals are good for you, and that 40 years
of toxicity research is null and void. :-)



NC addressed the issue of runoff from upland farms by q very effective
method: money. Farmers are given incentives (big enough to affect
profitability) to have a buffer system of ditches and dikes around their
fields, with natural cover, which captures much of the fertilizer run-off.

Who cares how it gets fixed? If bribes are what it takes, so what?



... Here, I don't see much arguing between the parties when it comes to
working out these problems. Local pols have to literally look their
constituents in the eye, and maybe watch restaurants, motels and marinas
go out of business if they allow a recreational resource like a lake turn
to crap.

Hmmph. I suspect that you don't see the arguing because the side with the
most money always wins. I also suspect that the environmental picture up
there isn't as rosy as you paint it... especially considering the low
population density.

Well, I share your cynicism IN GENERAL, but because I fish some of these
lakes (when I can hack through the weeds), I follow the situation pretty
closely. For the most part, the farmers have been pretty cooperative. Even
the DEC, in a public meeting, said that farmers were waiting for THEM to
offer suggestions. Not necessarily cheap suggestions - just ideas of any
kind. The solution varies from place to place because of terrain, soil type,
blah blah blah.

Using Conesus Lake as an example, farm runoff is a small part of the
problem. The rest comes from vacation cottages which are very tightly packed
together along both shores. Lawn poisons are negligible, but many of the
homes are very old, and their septic systems are outdated. New construction
requires the cesspool be quite a ways back from the water, and that waste be
pumped uphill. It's tough to upgrade many of the older homes because, again,
they're so tightly packed in with other older homes. If a homeowner is
lucky, the house behind his falls down from old age, and it's easy to
install the new system.

There's very little contentious behavior surrounding the situation. It's
just...they can't come up with a consistent procedure because every piece of
property is different, and each one's postage-stamp size. If it involved new
construction on an empty shoreline.....easy, right?



The biggest problem for the US east coast ecosystems is very simple...
lots & lots & lots of people. For example, Boston Harbor, that fabled
avatar of aquapurity, has about 10X more 'stuff' flushed & drained into it
than the total volume, much less the tidal exchange volume. This threshold
was crossed back in the 1800s... and there are effectively zero wetlands.
Is this the model for the future?

Try selling the overpopulation reason to anyone these days. Does Zero
Population Growth still exist?



... I suspect that when problems surrounding the Bay are fixed, it will
also be local powers that deal with it.


I suspect that they'll continue to fail to deal with it. Making
well-publicized but ineffective & inexpensive gestures is a lot more
politically expedient.


However, on a national level, where laws are made regarding more
dangerous pollutants, the Republican party is almost exclusively
responsible for the WEAKENING of the rules. If you don't agree with that,
you're not reading much.

Heh, under Reagan the EPA took a big hit. Under Bush Jr the EPA has all
but shut down. There is no effective environmental law enforcement on the
Federal level.

DSK