A central tragedy of the Chesapeake Bay is that everyone loves it, but everyone also refuses to see how they’re killing it. It’s a shared resource. But it’s always someone else’s responsibility to give something up to make sure it’s not exploited.
The Bay is like a beautiful neighborhood park that’s being overrun with traffic, litter and pet waste. The dog walkers get so overheated yelling at the litter bugs and Sunday drivers that they pay no attention to their own pollution.
I urge you to listen to Joel McCord’s excellent series of public radio programs on WYPR to get a sense for the round-robin of responsibility avoidance that’s happening right now as federal government considers increasing action to clean up the Cheapeake Bay.