The Virginia Department of Health is closing Chesapeake Bay tributaries, including all of them in Hampton Roads, to shellfish harvesting because of last week’s nor’easter. The emergency closure is effective from today through Dec. 2, according to a news release. Last week’s heavy rainfall caused wastewater to overflow into the Chesapeake Bay tributaries. Because of the potential microbiological and chemical pollution hazards, shellfish taken from areas affected by the emergency closure are unacceptable for consumption.

For many years, the federal government has been insisting that states in the Chesapeake Bay watershed, including Virginia, clean up their act. For many years, states have failed to do so. Deadlines have come and gone without consequence. Each time the federal government has behaved like the timid schoolyard bully who can’t quite muster the courage to back up his threat: “OK, I dare you to cross this line!“

States that contribute pollution to the Chesapeake Bay must have controls in place by 2017 to reduce that pollution 60 percent, federal officials say. That is one of a list of cleanup requirements the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency sent the six bay states, including Virginia, in a letter yesterday. The letter “is about establishing a new era of federal leadership for the Chesapeake Bay, one that is marked by new accountability,“ said J. Charles Fox, President Barack Obama’s senior adviser to the EPA for bay issues.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency released details today about how it expects states to restore the Chesapeake Bay.

Virginia took a big step yesterday to reduce the amount of pollution that washes off subdivisions, office parks and other new developments. The Virginia Soil and Water Conservation Board adopted, by a 7-1 vote, the first major revision of state stormwater rules in two decades. The rules would require developers to do more things, such as building ponds or low-lying gardens, to decrease runoff pollution.

Federal officials said yesterday that they could impose severe punishments if Virginia and other states don’t do enough to restore the Chesapeake Bay. Those punishments could include withholding federal grants from bay-region states and placing new limits on sewage-treatment plant discharges—a potential hindrance to growth. “We think the accountability system we have here has teeth in it,“ said Robert A. Koroncai, a manager with the Environmental Protection Agency.

A bill by Rep. Robert J. Wittman, R-1st, to monitor cleanup efforts in the Chesapeake Bay passed the House of Representatives yesterday by a vote of 418-1. Rep. Ron Paul of Texas was the sole dissenting vote. Wittman, a Republican from Montross, said the bill would provide for the monitoring and coordination of bay-restoration efforts among 10 federal agencies, six states, the District of Columbia and more than 1,000 localities.

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.“

The Chesapeake Bay is too beautiful for its own good. If its waters caught fire, as the oil-slick Cuyahoga River famously did in Cleveland in 1969, or if stinky waste coated its surface, an outraged public would demand fast action. But the pollutants strangling the bay—nitrogen, phosphorus and old-fashioned dirt—are not sexy. They do their damage slowly, out of sight, below the surface.

You couldn’t see water from Robbie Newcomb’s cornfield in Caroline County, just lots of corn and Robbie’s 14-year-old son, J.R., harvesting it behind the wheel of a red combine. But what happens on farms like Newcomb’s and thousands of others in the Chesapeake Bay watershed will play a huge role in determining the bay’s fate. A lot of farm activities are not regulated. For example, there is no requirement to keep cattle out of streams, where they erode banks and drop pollution pies. In many areas, farmers aren’t required to leave grassy strips along streams to catch polluted runoff.

The Chesapeake Bay is too beautiful for its own good. If its waters caught fire, as the oil-slick Cuyahoga River famously did in Cleveland in 1969, or if stinky waste coated its surface, an outraged public would demand fast action. But the pollutants strangling the bay—nitrogen, phosphorus and old-fashioned dirt—are not sexy. They do their damage slowly, out of sight, below the surface.

If you walk onto the Mayo Bridge by Shockoe Slip and drop a line on the downstream side, you essentially are fishing in the Chesapeake Bay. If you dump pollution in the Shenandoah River, beyond the Blue Ridge Mountains, you can hurt the bay. As we try to restore the Chesapeake, it helps to ask: Where is the bay, and what are we trying to restore?

Lawrence Latané III, a former staff writer for the Richmond Times-Dispatch, is the Chesapeake Bay Foundation’s conservationist of the year. The environmental group made the announcement yesterday. Latané covered the bay from 1986 to 2008 from the Times-Dispatch’s Northern Neck bureau in Warsaw. He retired from journalism last year and operates Blenheim Organic Gardens, an organic farm, with his wife, Becky.

Lawrence Latané III, former staff writer for the Richmond Times-Dispatch, has been named conservationist of the year by the Chesapeake Bay Foundation. Latané covered the bay from 1986 to 2008 from the Times-Dispatch Northern Neck bureau in Warsaw. He retired from journalism last year and operates Blenheim Organic Gardens, a USDA-certified organic farm, with his wife, Becky.

Virginia is revising—some say weakening—its proposed update of storm-water regulations in an effort to address critics. But the critics keep on criticizing. Nearly 40 people spoke during a Richmond meeting on the proposed rules yesterday. People in the building industry said the rules would drive up the cost of homes and other projects.