Posted under Environment
If you want to know why we need to reduce the influence of lobbyists in Annapolis, read Bruce Bereano’s letter to the Capital over the weekend:
The political cartoon (Sunday Capital, April 26) about the Chesapeake Bay Foundation’s D report card on the Chesapeake Bay is so deceiving.
Does anyone with any sense of reality believe the Chesapeake Bay Foundation will ever come out publicly with a report card or report saying that the Chesapeake Bay is doing well or fine or really improving – of course not. If the organization ever did so, financial contributions to the foundation and membership would be affected and reduced. The organization, like other organizations, has an agenda and, despite the facts, has to keep it going.
…I am just tired of all the hypocrisy and spin jobs going on in the public area hoping the general public will buy it. I don’t.
There is no spin involved and no support for the suggestion that the Bay is “doing well or fine or really improving.” The Chesapeake Bay Foundation’s report card is grounded in the scientific, verifiable facts about the health of the Bay: severe nutrient pollution, an expanding “dead zone,” and extremely low populations of many species of fish and shellfish.
Mr. Bereano cites “reports” that “the bay is abundant with crabs” this season, so “something must be going right.” But this year’s crab population is less than half of what it was in the early 90s and the increase is attributable to restrictions on the harvesting of female crabs in Maryland and Virginia, not an improvement in water quality.
There is no genuine dispute: The 25 year effort to restore the Bay has failed. If we want to do better over the next 25 years, we have to make sure the terms of the debate is defined by science and interests of the people of the Chesapeake Bay watershed, not special interest lobbyists.
That’s why, as I prepare to run for Delegate in Maryland, I’m not accepting any contributions from Maryland lobbyists. If we clean up our government, we can clean up our Bay.
[H/T: Paul Foer]
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