It's Not My Fault!

Long story in the Washington Post on the latest skirmishes in the 40-year-long and counting battle to clean up the Chesapeake Bay. With most heavy industry gone from the watershed and sewage treatment plants built for all the cities and most towns, the biggest remaining sources of pollution are very dispersed and hard to control: farms, septic tanks, storm sewer runoff. And nobody wants to pay money to clean up problems that just don't look very severe:

This month in Loudoun County, there was an early skirmish whose results did not bode well for the Chesapeake. The county board of supervisors proposed a new Chesapeake Bay Ordinance that would have set new limits on construction near waterways.

A standing-room only crowd opposed it as too costly and intrusive, and the council voted to delay consideration of the ordinance. County Supervisor Kelly Burk said the reaction from many people was, "We don't have an impact on the bay."