On the 50th anniversary of the Clean Water Act, the Chesapeake Bay deserves more

There was an almost surreal detachment last week between what the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency was announcing about the Chesapeake Bay, and the tone of the presentation. The substance of the annual meeting on Oct. 11 of the Chesapeake Bay Executive Council, an advisory committee of Bay region governors and the EPA, was bleak: After decades of effort and billions of dollars spent, the most recent Bay cleanup plan was going to end far from meeting its goals by the deadline of 2025.