"The public officials observed some of the toughest 
challenges now before Chesapeake Bay scientists." 
Let's look in some detail at these four points: 
1. What is the massive restoration effort and how do we 
measure the health of the estuary relative to fishery 
resources? 
2. What are the problems? What's wrong with the Bay? 
3. What progress has been made? 
4. What are the tough challenges? 
First, we consider: 
What is the massive restoration effort ? 
When we talk about restoring the Bay, we are actually 
talking about restoring the living resources of the Bay. It was 
the decline in harvest of commercially and recreationally 
valuable fish that focused the public's attention on the Bay. 
The success of all the restoration efforts will be measured 
largely on the degree to which these resources become once again 
available — particularly in the public's perception. 
What has been referred to as the massive restoration effort 
involves at least $150 million dollars during this and next 
year, of which roughly 5 percent is being spent on fisheries 
management and enhancement per se . A considerable amount is 
being spent on protecting or enhancing water quality. This is 
good and there are valid reasons for wanting to restore water 
quality. But what are we doing about the stewardship of fishes? 
As the draft report of the Chesapeake Bay Commission Fisheries 
Work Group states, referring to water quality expenditures: 
"Unfortunately, we do not know when we can expect a re¬ 
sponse from these efforts in terms of the abundance of 
living resources, but it may be many years, even decades." 
What are the real problems ? 
Often the perceived problems in fisheries are taken to be: 
eutrophication, oxygen depletion, loss of submerged aquatic vege¬ 
tation, pollutants, acid rain, and so forth. In sum, fisheries 
problems are stated in terms of poor water quality and loss of 
habitat, and indeed these may be factors in determining fish 
abundance. From a fisheries management perspective, while not 
decrying what others are working on, these are not the really 
relevant issues. 
140 
