Note from Storm: This 2009 article describes an innovative effort to clean-up Rappahannock River & restore Chesapeake Bay.
I invite REVITALIZATION readers who are familiar with the situation today to bring us all up to date. Did this effort bear fruit, or die on the vine? Please use the Comments section at the bottom of the page.
From the article: Restoring the Chesapeake Bay and its tidal rivers has become an urgent priority of environmentalists and government policy-makers.
The Rappahannock River Basin Commission and a coalition of community and business partners want to help move that process along with a novel program to be explored in a symposium next week.
The aim is to create the Rappahannock Exchange, a regional marketplace for bay-friendly products and services.
Eldon James, coordinator of the basin commission, said the agency has been looking for new ways to address the pollution crises threatening the bay, the nation’s largest estuary. “After 25 years and $6 billion of public money, we’ve done nothing but hold our own,” James said. “If feel like if we don’t find different ways to go about improving water quality and putting us back on track, we’re never going to get there.”
[Photo of nesting osprey on Chesapeake Bay: Storm Cunningham]