Bob Koroncai and Rich Batiuk are diet gurus of sorts. It’s not love handles these veteran EPA officials are after. Their target is the excess pounds of nutrients and sediment that are clogging the arteries of the Chesapeake Bay and creating unhealthy conditions for the nation’s largest estuary.
Like food, nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus are good things at the right levels. But the bay and its rivers, streams and creeks are getting far too much of the stuff, choking off oxygen for fish and crabs, and blocking light needed by underwater grasses.
Koroncai and Batiuk are taking their sweatsuits and whistles throughout the massive Chesapeake Bay watershed to help the states and the District of Columbia do what it takes to shrink their pollution waistlines. But the effort needs your help. There are many ways to lighten up on the nutrients you deliver to your local waters — from driving less to skipping the spring fertilizer. Check out this list of actions you can take to help protect your favorite river or stream.
Have you taken any of these steps or others? Our EPA dieticians want to know.
And for the latest information on the effort to reduce pollution in the Chesapeake Bay watershed, sign up for our June 7 webinar and visit our website at www.epa.gov/chesapeakebaytmdl.