Chesapeake Bay Foundation
Photography by Michael C. Wootton
The Chesapeake Bay, where my novel Deadrise is set, is an at-risk, and impaired ecosystem. The largest estuary in North America and the third largest in the entire world is home to thousands of amazing (often tasty) species. Seventeen million humans make the Chesapeake watershed their home. Many more make it their recreational destination.
But nitrogen and phosphorus runoff, from fertilizer and large concentrated animal feeding operations are filling the Chesapeake with, well, crap. Runaway housing development has heavily impinged on the natural forest filters of the Bay’s eleven thousand miles of shoreline.
The Chesapeake Bay Foundation (CBF) has been working hard for decades to turn this decline around, and restore this unique area into a state of balance between incoming pollutants and the water’s ability to self-cleanse. CBF undertakes this enormous mission through restoration, advocacy, education, and litigation.
Do you live or vacation in one of the Chesapeake watershed states of West Virginia, Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New York, or Delaware? Do you live in, or ever travel to Washington D.C.? Then you have a powerful opportunity as an advocate, as a voter and as a donor to make a difference in whether the Chesapeake Bay is restored to balance by the ambitious target date of 2025.
I am not suggesting you do anything strenuous. Just click on the link below and surf around on the CBF site. Learn a little bit more about the Chesapeake and the threats she faces. Sign up for the newsletter.
Then perhaps explore how you and your family might wish to participate. You can keep it mellow, with internet point-and-click slacktivism signing e-petitions, or you can don your waders, jump in and help clean up a stream. When you start by investing a few minutes in education and awareness, you help turn the tide of ignorance and apathy about this wondrous American treasure. It’s that simple. It makes a tremendous difference.
Tell them Whitehill sent you.