Chesapeake Bay Action Plan

Posted by Fred Tutman

Being something of a science fiction fan, and admittedly a recovering “Trekkie” I am always intrigued by depictions in film and in literature of Utopian societies where humans have turned their attention away from sparring with one another and plundering the planet for cash and instead devote their lives to efforts to spreading peace, goodwill and humanitarian aid throughout the galaxy.

Of course in literature and in media there seem to be far more fictional visions of post-apocalyptic societies where some form of human folly or another such as nuclear war, over-population or environmental collapse has left the planet in ruins and the environment has been reduced to a scarce commodity. Which ecological future seems more likely? I am almost afraid to say, but it often occurs to me that the future of the Chesapeake Bay is a sort of cliffhanger where it is uncertain whether good sense or human foibles will prevail. It is no consolation to me that in all likelihood the ultimate outcome will probably be decided beyond my own lifetime. I think I can say with a certainty that unless real change in aims and methods occurs—things look rather bleak. And the mere fact that I share responsibility for stewardship of these resources with a few millions of my nearest friends, neighbors and residents does not blunt my personal sense of obligation. The reality that I share this lifeboat with lots of others makes me no less concerned and with no less of a sense of responsibility for the outcome. At some point the collective “we” will have to grasp that the very structure of our society and economy is unviable. How we live, how we play, how we work and how we interact with nature leaves the sort of footprint that can only lead us collectively toward ecological ruin.

Recently while driving through wild and wonderful West Virginia and while inspired by the mountains and the vistas there, it occurred me to there are some among us who just will be unwilling to start thinking about conserving anything until we have first run out of it (basically when it is too late). Anything with a finite supply inevitably becomes depleted unless we start planning proactively to save these things while there is still time to do so. While there is still something left worth saving.

So the real choices we have to confront is that the choices are not really between choosing paper or plastic shopping bags, or between a “ride” that uses regular unleaded gas and electric hybrid cars, but fundamentally between a world that in decline or one that flourishes. Between a society heading for sustainability or oblivion. Implicit in an economy that thrives on waste and consumption (instead of on renewal and sustainability) is that we confront and solve these problems or else we will impose deeper suffering on ourselves and those we share our world with usually in the name of some self-centric value like profit or property values or some such.

Notwithstanding, even a repentant sci-fi nerd like me can see that eventually we will run out of mountains to blow up to get coal, or places to clear-cut the trees, or clean waterways to dump our waste in and even fresh air to absorb the fumes of our “economic development.” Surely we do not have to be a utopian society to have one where people and communities prosper while the environment thrives. I refuse to believe that we have to wreck the planet in order to have jobs or bankrupt the economy in order to restore resources of incalculable value and worth. Nor is there any requirement that we solve these problems overnight, only that we make steady and progressive steps toward the only outcomes that spell survival for the world and ourselves instead of doom and gloom to those who will inherit this world from us.

Not everybody has the spine, the courage, the foresight or even the pragmatism to see this. There are entire interest groups of people who think the sole reason there are too many cars on the road is not because of sprawl but because there are not nearly enough shopping centers or parking lots for those people to drive to. Some of us see a problem that desperately needs solving even while others see a business opportunity. All of us do not place the same values of sense of importance on a clean and healthy environment. The tension in society is often between those of us who think and know these problems should never have been allowed to get to this stage, and those on the opposite end of the spectrum who think tomorrow is soon enough or that it is someone else’s job to sort these things out.

So in the world of “Trekkies” and science fiction buffs we could fire up the double talk engines and reverse the ill effects of the “plague” that threatened our heroes at the outset of the teleplay. But we cannot warp drive ourselves into a better Chesapeake Bay or spin the dial in order find a happy ending in another fantasy. This clean water stuff is as real as it gets. In real life the solutions are much more difficult albeit incredibly simple. We just have to stop doing the stuff that is destroying us piecemeal and inexorably. The solution to dying ecosystems is to stop killing them. The antidote to growing mass of trash in our rivers is to stop putting it there in the first place. The solution to sediment in our Bay is to change how we affect the land and so on. Change starts with a vision and a plan. Read on…..

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Posted by Fred Tutman.

In our Bay preservation movement there some among us are deeply committed to compatible ideals and to the environment but lack the momentum or body politic to communicate their views clearly or beyond the narrow subset of environmentalism they represent. We are often divided within—as much by interest group as by our vision of what winning actually looks like. Such of our subsets are just not mainstream enough by orientation to communicate comfortably with those outside their own choir, but we include them by reference in order to swell our ranks. Truthfully, these are folks who have a smaller (but important) vision not always shared by all.

These include the folks working on trees, or stormwater, population control, or invasive species, climate change, or some particular area or subject matter that comprises a smaller subset of the overall community but it’s cadre of proponents are looking for ways to capture the momentum of the rest of the movement so that at least some attention will be paid to the thing they care most about. Often these people gravitate to broader “coalitions” not because they share the same specific aims but because they fear their own issue will be excluded and they want opportunities to educate the rest of us. It makes for dysfunctional coalitions that we fail to recognize these distinctions.

Meanwhile, notwithstanding, in our zeal to gain “power” for the environmental cause, some of our best and most potent strategic initiatives tend to be wasted on those who do not need to be or cannot ever be convinced. This includes squandering our time trying to lobby at least some players who are being either paid to hold a point of view or whose political or other self interest cannot possibly ever (ever) align with our goals. This holds true even while we waste our time arguing with people who either are not opinion leaders or decision makers (such as trying to convince the lawyers representing our opponents), or others who lack the good faith to even listen to us with an open mind (they don’t want to be convinced). Sadly, in such cases we find ourselves not only failing to impress upon our potential allies the relevance of our arguments, but we steadily erode any respect they might have for us by heaping fresh misunderstandings upon old. Worse, many of our ranks refuse to confront that we have opponents at all, as they persistently (and in futility) seek to “educate” our adversaries or make new “friends” for our cause hoping such targets will voluntarily change their behavior. Sometimes this as unlikely as a leopard changing its spots. Some support a clean Bay as long as they personally don’t have to change their behavior or how they make money.

So when it comes to our cause movement we suffer collectively from egregious confusions about who is as plausible ally, who is a fox and who is a hen, who shares or goals versus who just wants to extend the debate…for as long as possible. This presents a genuine conflict between our tactics and our achievable aims. It reflects genuine confusion amongst us about what we hope to accomplish as an end game and which course to take. In the end we generally fail to broker sufficient power in order to really win the sort of battles we must in order to create the world and the environment we want.

The coalition of interests that banded together in order to forge the 25 planks is just such a coalition seeking to change the culture of our tactics. It includes people with diversified knowledge and training and represents the spectrum of stakeholder from the private and public vantage points who have deliberated to envision a common set of goals and tactics. The composition of the group decidedly inclusive of many walks in order to present the widest possible reach. The group in all respects reflecting people who are plausible in their particular walks and while it includes many people formerly in public service the group is non-governmental and apolitical.

It is a forum where “farmers” and “Waterkeepers” sit at the same table and try to solve problems that have enormous gravity as far as the future of the bay and of the regional economy. It is a forum where no holds are barred in debate, but where all are bound by the good faith understanding that we sink or swim together. That while any of us can be right, we cannot do so by making others among us wrong. The group represents the very soul of consensus organized around reasoned self interest. The senior bay scientists and policymakers group is by no means a perfect forum, but it is the only one I am familiar with working on clean water where the problems of the bay are discussed not from the standpoint of dogma but from a sense of reality that the waterways are in trouble and if we continue on the same course, we are likely to produce future failures.

As the economy suffers and resource allocation problems intensify, perhaps if we cannot find new sources of money to solve these problems that have vexed us for decades then perhaps it is time to look to a fresh supply of new ideas and new (better) tactics.

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(Posted by Fred Tutman.)

As environmentalists who care about our planet and our society we operate in an increasingly slippery environment in terms of gaining traction for our vision for clean water and strong communities. In tough economic times we are often seen not as champions of the public interest, but as adversaries of the economic system. I think we need a makeover of our tactics if we hope to make a real difference. It is in the area of strategies and tactics we fail most often because frankly, I have yet to meet a single person in my entire life who did not want to see clean waterways. If everybody wants this outcome then how come we are failing at it? I think it is because we can’t seem to get together on how to pull it off. The Bay Scientists and Policymakers are trying to change that.

In my view, environmentalists generally have very mixed results in terms of our past strategies and tactics. There is a common bromide that the problems of the Bay are a crisis of “political will.” So while generally unable to advance our aims through passionate arguments and pleas to our elected officials, we try to build “me too” coalitions through sign-on letters among our friends and supporters. We hope that if we build a loud-enough and big-enough gathering of live bodies in a democratic society, our politicians will renounce others vying for their attention and suddenly realize that regardless of their own personal views or the other pressures brought to bear on them, the will of our environmental “majority” should carry the day.

Doesn’t sound very likely does it?

We want clean water doggone it, we just don’t have enough people demanding it! But the results of these tactical expressions rarely turnout the way we would like, even assuming that politicians are for the most inclined to do what is best for the planet. Aren’t we kidding ourselves? Sign-on letters don’t change policy at all. In fact (I think) such forays only tend to ratify that we don’t really have a groundswell behinds us at all—instead we are grasping for one. Too often, when our loosely knit coalitions fail to have the desired effect, then we retire to grumble among ourselves that at least we fought the good fight even if we failed to make a real difference. Pretty sad really.

But the substance of a coalition that does not waste its time is not agreement on outcomes but agreements on the game plan to get there. I don’t think we need to have consensus on all issues—only on the tactics and the end game. There is a veritable Crayola box of colors out there on any given issue; the plan is the point. For example, a coalition whose only goal is to make things “better” will generally fail where there is little agreement among the partners on what “better” actually means. On the other hand a coalition committed to winning at least “something” at all costs will nearly always fail where at least some of the ranks are prepared to compromise the ideals of the rest for very incremental concessions that fall way short of a really viable end game. Unmistakably there is a huge bloc of the environmental community willing to take whatever we can get from the power establishment for fear of achieving nothing at all.

So the typical array among environmental power coalitions includes those among us who: (a) share our aims but disagree with our tactics; (b) disagree with our anticipated aims but seek to keep us close for their own purposes; (c) disagree with our priorities but who stay in involved with our efforts hoping that we will adopt their issue(s) eventually and finally (d) those who share our general aims but are afraid that we win too much it will ruin their own existing relationships with power.

If we are serious about cleaning up the Bay we have to be more discerning about the disparity between our tactics a likely outcome of such tactics.

(Stay tuned for part two.)

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Posted by Fred Tutman

There is a lot of talk nowadays as the Watershed Implementation Plans are being finalized about the sheer cost of restoring the Bay and our waterways. Plainly lots of folks want money to restore our waterways but almost nobody knows where the dough will come from. Strangely there is far less talk about how to prevent this awful gap in resources from becoming perpetual. How did we get in this mess and how will we stop the endless and expensive chain of pollution and restoration? You can call it “sustainability” but I think it really all boils down to advocacy.

Restoration and advocacy are two different approaches to dealing with the persistent problems of dirty water. But these two polarities actually have very different implications as far as funding potential, tactics and effectiveness. Actually, there is a whole generation of Bay advocates who think education and advocacy are the same thing. Nothing could be further from reality.

The sorry truth is that if we want to determine who is doing what to protect our waterways, you need only look at where their money comes from and where it goes. Big money is almost never on the side of “busting” polluters, suing over bad permits and challenging poor environmental policy. Instead, the ordinary funding base for nonprofit watershed protection follows things like positive messaging, restoration and “collaboration” and research. There are far more people working in the environmental realm to find ways to collaborate with polluters than those working to get them to cease and desist or obey the laws. And yet people typically and wrongly assume that we are all collectively engaged in the same quest.

Like nearly all Waterkeepers , I personally do not see any percentage at all in collaborating with those who run manure farms on the Bay, discharge their toxic waste water into our tributaries, or flood sediment into receiving waters near their profitable construction sites. I am not so interested in a “balancing” act where the environment gets the liabilities and some vested interest gets nearly all of the assets. Nor do I think we should waste time educating people who are willful polluters. Bitter experience has shown that these folks can make far more money wrecking the environment than they can protecting it.

And guess what? Those same folks plundering the planet are planning to use your money to clean it up. They stand in line for subsidies, tax abatement, cost shares, trading programs and other stuff almost every time at bat. It’s always about money for the ranks who love restoration, it is rarely about resource conservation. Yet their money isn’t even a question. It’s your money that is always being proposed to clean up this mess. Our own Maryland Department of the Environment hasn’t updated its fines for violations in decades even while the gap between what’s in the treasury and what’s needed to fix the problems just widens.

Pollution is not natural at all—it is usually the debris left behind after unsustainable (but profitable) commercial activity. If anybody thinks watershed advocacy ought to be primarily about restoration or picking up “trash” then frankly, that is darned insulting. I am in the “business” of advocating for the protection of resources before they are ruined and even then, only after the pollution profiteering has been abated. It would be pointless to do things any other way. I am a firm believer that we should not waste any time or money cleaning up something unless we are reasonably certain that it is for the last time. If we expand our valuable and scarce resources restoring the Bay (basically using public money to remediate private profit) the most we can expect is whopping bill for restoration at the end.

And so here we are. The estimates for cleaning up our Bay and our rivers total in the billions of dollars and yet we cannot even afford the lesser millions needed to adequately fund our enforcement agency, let alone pay the price tag to “restore” the waterways. So where do you think we should put our energy? Clearing up something that will always need to more cleaning, or closing the gap between making new messes and cleaning up old ones?

The truth that few have noticed is that polluted waters have become an industry that contributes to the economy. This status quo is tacitly supported by many environmentalists and polluters alike. Two sides of the same cockamamie equation. Both love money and both sets of parties just as eager to give a line item to pollution instead of ending the constant replay of policies that have institutionalized pollution for this and future generations.

You cannot make this stuff up.

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Posted by Fred Tutman.

I have a confession to make. For years I labored to keep my public writing and oratory dispassionate and objective when speaking about the environment. At first I think this approach managed to put a few people to sleep. But my subconscious fear was that my audience would miss the substance of what I was saying and pick up solely on my anger and I would lose credibility. People might think I was unprofessional or lacked objectivity. Besides, my disdain of becoming the stereotyped “angry black man” restrained me from saying precisely what was on my mind. Much later I learned that my passion about this subject matter is exactly why people kept inviting me to give talks, because my passionate rage sometimes leaked out. And what was on my mind? A genuine sense of outrage over the endless antics of elected officials, the public, and the environmental community in a society that consistently and repeatedly puts the environment last behind the prevailing self interest of wealth, convenience and influence.

You bet I’m furious that we blow the tops off mountains and hold working poor people hostage to brutal coal jobs in the name of massive coal company profits and huge ecological crimes. That we permit environmental practices that unemploy downstream watermen and instead offer them stipends to learn how to hang sheetrock and do home improvements to earn their bread. Sure, I’m mad as can be—that water quality continues to decline from known sources and that fish have tumors, that the food supply is compromised and that far more people go to the malls on a sunny Saturday afternoon than to the parks.

I am madder still that too many among us just take these many cuts with detachment and in stride. I am appalled that there are quite a few “environmentalists” who would just as soon study our ecological ruin instead of actually trying to do something specific to stop it. And yet, the level of detachment and tolerance that our society has cultivated over these problems is generally about as explosive…. as watching fresh bread rise. Oh gee, the fish are dying… oh poo. Goodness gracious (the crabs are in trouble); the watermen should just stop over harvesting. Maybe the water will get better if we have a drought. Bunk! Moral outrage channeled properly is an essential tool for protecting our environment. So I am learning and practicing to contain my anger and funnel it into constructive acts hoping to make a difference.

The atrocities inherent in very real environmental problems risk getting lost in the river report cards, the blogs, nature talks and all the rest. And the sheer mendacity of the senior culprits is simply amazing. It is a fraud similar to millions of people who have died from tobacco related health problems even while industry leaders testified in Congress under oath that there was no connection between smoking and respiratory ailments. The hypocrisy within and the monetary self-interest of the deniers shouting about their “property rights” while seeking more subsidies for their thriving businesses. The hypocrisy knows no bounds while we are caught in the grips of a struggle to save clean land, air, water plus entire species (including our own) from slow extinction. How much more staid patter, how many more white papers, which Blue Ribbon Panels and what PowerPoint presentation do we have to sit through before we collectively just say enough! Stop the nonsense. Just fix the problems.

The comic George Carlin used to carry on about how environmentalist were elitists who just wanted to make sure the environment did not inconvenience them. He laughingly observed that the planet is not in trouble at all, the people are. Eventually the people will be gone and the planet will get better. Sometimes I think there may have been some truth in his perception of environmentalist self-interest but I also think a greater problem is the shortage of people prepared to stick their own necks out to protect their own habitat, fight for what is theirs, stand up to injustice and to fight back for environmental decency.

Once upon a time a smallish in stature Indian lawyer got put off a train because he was dark skinned and that single indignity was the catalyst that finally got Mohandas Gandhi just mad enough to actually use his substantial mental and spiritual gifts to fight not just for a seat on future trains, but to free an entire nation of colonialism. So yes, anger can be honed into a keen blade of ingenuity, stamina and devotion that can move mountains. Inconvenience is sometimes where that anger starts. I confess now that part of my reason for contributing to this blog is to try and get you, the reader, as mad as I am about the plight of the environment. But a blog is a dialogue and not a monologue. So what is your tipping point? How much do you personally have to be inconvenienced before you put your foot down and get mad as heck until you won’t take it anymore?

If the public fails to grasp that these problems are non-elective, serious, egregious and urgent then we the professional environmentalists will have failed in our mission. Raising awareness of the problems simply is not sufficient. Our true job is to incite people to action by raising their sense of moral outrage to white hot proportions. That will be the day we see improvements on the Bay. Without the component or constructive anger we risk becoming a society of bright ideas instead of righteous deeds. So, are you mad enough to do what must be done? Are you ready for more talk or do you want change?

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