The Deadlines That Failed

But the bottom line is still bad. The area still violates the EPA's current smog standards. The District gets an "F" for air quality from the American Lung Association, which says smog irritates lungs and can pose dangers for the very young and old.

And despite the improvements, the EPA has still come in for blame for not pushing local officials hard enough. In 2005, a federal judge wrote that the agency had "an unblemished record of nonperformance" on the issue.

Now it's possible that the area's deadline-busting tradition is about to change. Maryland's new attorney general has promised to prosecute polluters, and new Gov. Martin O'Malley (D) has proposed holding regular "BayStat" meetings to keep track of environmental progress. The EPA says the two local projects, cleaning up water and smog, which have been delayed for decades, are now mainly on schedule.

But the three coming projects will test the resolve to do better.

One involves the massive Blue Plains sewage plant in the District, the largest single source of some types of pollution in the Chesapeake watershed. The EPA wants its output of the pollutant nitrogen drastically cut -- but hasn't said what the due date will be.

Another project in the spotlight is the effort to reduce raw sewage flowing from the District's sewer system into the Anacostia. Last month, environmentalists won a lawsuit forcing the EPA to impose stricter, daily caps on river pollution. But the EPA says it may need a year to work out the details.

In both cases, environmentalists say they worry about the EPA's history, concerned that it will delay taking action for as long as possible or -- when it does move to curb pollution -- move too weakly.

"At some point, you get tired of it, and something's got to change," said Chris Weiss, a member of Friends of the Earth, which sued for the stricter pollution caps on the Anacostia. "Show the environmental community that you're serious."

The other coming deadline is the pledge by local and federal governments to clean the Chesapeake by 2010. Officials have already acknowledged that this goal -- like a previous pledge to fix the bay by 2000 -- will likely be missed.

And what if it is?

Officials say the closest thing to a hammer falling would be a requirement that the EPA or some other agency draw up a "pollution budget" to guide future bay cleanup efforts.

Given past experience, environmentalists say they don't expect that to change things very much. So now, even before that deadline is officially missed, the region's old cycle appears ready to repeat. The Chesapeake Bay Foundation says it is considering a lawsuit to force the EPA to act more aggressively.

"Often, there's no recourse but to . . . use litigation," foundation President William C. Baker said, "if the political will is not there."

Staff researcher Meg Smith contributed to this report.