Chesapeake Bay: The Zombie

The tide of algae plaguing the Midwest -- toxic enough to kill dogs and other small animals -- provides something of an omen for state and federal officials pondering their next steps regarding the Chesapeake Bay.

As Sunday's news story by Rex Springston reported, current efforts to clean up the Bay have failed miserably. Although some forms of pollution have been cut, not enough has been done to make a material dent in the Bay's condition, which a Naval Academy political scientist likens to "an ecological zombie . . . not quite dead, certainly not alive."

During the next several months the Obama administration and state regulators will be working on a new lattice of rules to try to bring the Bay back to life. The new rules likely will, unfortunately, be more stringent and punitive. Previous regulations have failed in part because they lacked sufficient teeth.

But -- and this point bears consideration by officials pondering what to do next -- some policies have made the problem worse. Zoning rules that encourage sprawl by setting apart work, home, school, and stores by unwalkable distances have helped create conditions that controversial stormwater runoff rules under consideration were written to address. So have requirements that subdivisions build wide roads for emergency vehicles.

The Chesapeake Bay watershed covers a vast expanse of land that millions of people and farmers call home. Addressing the non-point sources of pollution -- that is, sources other than obvious ones such as sewage-treatment plants and factory discharge pipes -- is a massive and complex undertaking. But it is also a necessary one. Otherwise, the undead zombie that is the Bay will continue to make the dog-killing algae out west look like a spritz of eau de parfume.