National Academies report comes to STAC
In May, the National Academy of Sciences released a report that said it was nearly impossible to estimate whether Bay cleanup efforts were working because of poor efforts to track their implementation. Bay Journal Editor Karl Blankenship did a story on it for our latest issue. Here it is if you want a refresher.
Today, the report's author, Kenneth Reckhow, came before the Bay Program's Science and Technical Advisory Committee to further address the findings. (Well, actually, he was on speaker phone, but his thoughts were there.) Among his statements: that we (municipalities, farmers, citizens, etc.) are going to have to sacrifice more than we think we will to get a clean Bay. That adaptive management - a buzzword that simply means learning and changing what you do as you go - is a lot harder to do within a regulatory framework like a TMDL. And, finally, that we will eventually need to address the higher-hanging fruit of Bay pollution, which will lead to unpopular choices, like limiting growth in certain places.
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Rona Kobell is a former writer for the Baltimore Sun. .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).
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