Oxygen Levels In Bay Disputed

Research Contradicts Program's Estimate

Research that is soon to be published shows no significant improvement in the volume of oxygen-depleted water in the Chesapeake Bay since the inception of the bay's cleanup in the mid-1980s, a finding that runs contrary to reports from the government agency leading the estuary's restoration.

The research on oxygen-depleted water, considered a leading indicator of bay health, again highlights what many environmentalists describe as the Chesapeake Bay Program's unjustifiably positive reports about the cleanup's progress.

The Bay Program's Web site on oxygen-depleted water says "there are recent indications of an improving trend since 1985."

But a paper by two University of Maryland scientists reviewing similar data sees no trend at all in the key indicator since 1985.

"The take-home message is, since 1985, it's been pretty bad," said Walter R. Boynton, a scientist with the university's Center for Environmental Science and coauthor of the paper with James D. Hagy. The study will be in the August issue of the journal Estuaries.

Exactly how much the Chesapeake Bay cleanup has progressed since its inception in the mid-1980s is disputed, and this difference over a key statistic -- measuring oxygen-depleted water -- promises to open a new front in the debate.

Environmentalists have long noted that while the Bay Program's computer estimates reported significant improvements in pollution flows to the estuary, the bay suffered precipitous drops in its oyster and crab harvests and, at times, its desolate dead zone -- where there is too little oxygen for most bay life -- expanded.

The Bay Program's computer estimates of pollution have significantly understated pollution flows, program scientists have conceded, leading to revisions of progress reports twice in recent years.

Now the recent university research on oxygen-depleted water, running contrary to the Chesapeake Bay Program's findings of progress, again focuses attention on what some describe as the Bay Program's overly positive reviews.

"Unfortunately, this fits with a pattern we've been seeing," said Theresa Pierno, a vice president of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, an educational and watchdog group. The Bay Program "continues to issue optimistic reports showing improvement when in fact the data we and others have seen is not showing that. People need to know we are not winning this battle," she said.

A spokesman for the Chesapeake Bay Program, Christopher S. Conner, said the findings of improvement are based on sound science and that "the most important message we have is that conditions in the Chesapeake Bay have to improve."

Since the 1980s, Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania and the District have sought to reduce the amounts of phosphorus and nitrogen from farms, treatment plants and other sources that eventually enter the bay.

Nitrogen and phosphorus pollution sets off algae blooms that draw oxygen out of the water, starving sea grass, crabs and other creatures of the essential element. Reducing the flows of nitrogen and phosphorus to the bay, in turn lowering the volume of oxygen-depleted water, has been the central focus of the bay restoration.

According to the Bay Program's computer estimates, which have been published in its State of the Chesapeake Bay reports and touted at news conferences, the flow of phosphorus has dropped 28 percent since 1985 and the flow of nitrogen has declined 18 percent.