There are a lot of competing interests, each one seeking to 
extract the maximum for its own good, that have caused these 
severe changes in really all aspects of the Bay's ecosystem. 
When we started out intensively looking at the Bay's pro¬ 
blems we thought we would find a goat or maybe one or two 
goats. But it now appears that there are a number of problems. 
The whole system has problems, and it needs to be repaired and 
reinforced. 
At the rate things were going less than a decade ago, if 
that downward trend which was illustrated by the oyster take 
continued, then the largest and richest estuary in North America 
could have become a "Dead Sea." Not at some future time, but in 
our lifetime. 
We had an interesting author in Maryland named Earl Swepson 
a generation ago who wrote a number of very readable books about 
the Chesapeake Bay country. He published one in 1923 in which 
he accurately predicted what has since come to pass. In talking 
about oystering and oystermen and the oyster fishery in general 
he said, "Maryland has established no really constructive policy 
to maintain this great natural wealth. The State of Virginia 
through oyster culture and planting on a large scale has been 
able within the past decade to stem the pollution within its 
waters. The citizens of Maryland, if they propose to maintain 
this great natural resource, must get together on broad and 
constructive planning or it will be only a matter of years 
before the watermen with their picturesgue craft will be forced 
to find other means of livelihood, while the State's loss will 
be many millions of dollars." 
Well, that proved to be all too prophetic. And even the 
fact that there were prophets at that time, 50 years ago, we let 
that prophecy fulfill itself. 
Finally, we were able to undertake the Environmental Pro¬ 
tection Agency's study, and that was a major change. I recall 
with enormous pleasure the real beginning of that study. My 
wife and my two sons, who were at that time just boys, undertook 
to tour the Bay. And we started in Baltimore, went up to Havre 
De Grace and down the Eastern Shore to Crisfield and across the 
Bay to the Patuxent and back to Annapolis. It was a wonderful 
experience as a family. The outgrowth of that experience, 
because we stopped at points along the Bay and talked to the 
experts at each locality, was the concept for this Chesapeake 
Bay study. And we ultimately were able to get the Congress to 
appropriate 27 million dollars for the purpose of the study. It 
cost roughly 5 million a year with some additional money to 
clean it up and complete it at the end. 
8 
