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Bay Pollution Akin to Gulf Oil Spill, Advocate Says
Chesapeake Bay Foundation President Will Baker, center. Photo by News21's Jason Lenhart
ANNAPOLIS – A top environmental official on Wednesday compared the pollution flowing daily into the Chesapeake Bay to the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico that threatens to destroy the livelihood of thousands of Gulf residents.
“We have a Gulf oil spill right here on Chesapeake Bay that’s a constant, insidious poisoning of another national treasure,” said William C. Baker, president of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation.
“Every single day nearly a million pounds of polluting nitrogen flow into the Chesapeake – every day, 24/7, 365 days a year,” he said at a small gathering of Bay scientists, activists and former politicians at the Annapolis City Dock.
The group had gathered to call for stronger work to clean up the Bay, one day before a major meeting of the Chesapeake Executive Council in Baltimore.
The environmental disaster in the Gulf, Baker said, was not only a crime against nature, but a “crime against humanity that is unfolding even as we speak.”
The Chesapeake Bay Foundation is a nonprofit advocacy group focused on restoring the Bay and its tributaries.
–by Sharon Behn
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