Like a street corner prophet who’s tired of toting his own soap box, Howard Ernst walks hesitantly to the front of Mark Haddon’s Environmental Science class at Anne Arundel Community College. He’s been invited to share his views about the condition of the Chesapeake Bay - by his tally a talk he’s already made sixty-five times along the East Coast in the last eighteen months - and he wants the students to know up front that he’d rather be someplace else.

Ernst, an assistant professor of political science at the United States Naval Academy, doesn’t get paid for these appearances, and he has a family who likes him at home now and then. Besides, he says defensively, why should he be the one telling people the Bay is sick? The evidence is clear enough, and there are plenty of politicians, bureaucrats, and salaried environmentalists whose job it is to sound the alarms. “Why should I be standing here?” he pleads.

But he knows why. His book, Chesapeake Bay Blues: Science, Politics, and the Struggle to Save the Bay, published in June 2003, presents a disturbing view of how the country’s largest estuary continues to suffer because the very people who are supposed to be protecting it are not doing their jobs very well. Ernst, an outsider to the tight-knit Chesapeake environmental community, seemed to pop up out of nowhere last year with the book’s publication. Now he’s one of the most sought-after speakers on the subject of the Bay, and, with his take-no-prisoners attitude, he’s the enfant terrible of the green movement.

Ernst says that if he were a talented writer like Tom Horton or a gifted photographer like David Harp, whose nature books on the Chesapeake are among the region’s favorites, audiences would reward his talks with smiles. But that’s not the reception Ernst gets when he broaches his controversial views.

“When people leave my talks, they usually leave pissed,” he warns the students. If they’re not angry with Ernst for challenging the status quo thinking about the environment, they’re fired up about policymakers who, he charges, shy away from making the serious decisions necessary to actually bring back the Bay.

A central point of Ernst’s polemic is that we’re only fooling ourselves if we believe we’re on course. “We’re not going to save the Bay,” he says bluntly. “We have to stop killing it.”

After nearly two decades’ worth of efforts to help restore the Bay, beginning in the early 1980s after the Environmental Protection Agency released its dramatic report on the deteriorating Chesapeake, here’s where we are today:

The once heralded oyster industry is on the verge of a collapse.

Crab harvests are so poor that sea-food restaurants catering to tourists are forced to import crabmeat from hundreds, even thousands, of miles away.

“Dead zones” of oxygen-depleted Bay water are the largest in years.

Bay grasses, so vital as habitat for young crabs and fish, are declining steeply.

And ubiquitous nitrogen, considered to be the Bay’s biggest problem, still finds its way too easily into the Chesapeake through air, water, and land.

“‘Save the Bay’ bumper stickers get old,” Ernst tells the Environmental Science class. “What the Bay needs is a bulldog willing to fight the political fight and go beyond education.”

Who he’s targeting is no mystery. But just in case someone didn’t catch on, Ernst reloads and fires again.

“The Chesapeake Bay Foundation is a giant political eunuch.”

Ernst is right about one thing. The Chesapeake Bay Foundation (CBF) is a giant. With a membership roll of 116,600, a paid staff of 165, and an annual budget of about $17.5 million, CBF has bragging rights as the giant among regional enviro-educational organizations throughout the country. Not only does it dwarf all other local green groups (the feisty but overburdened 1000 Friends of Maryland has three staffers, about a thousand members, and a yearly operating budget of $250,000), it overshadows local membership rolls in such national organizations as the Sierra Club and the Audubon Society.

While most greens work out of cramped quarters in rented or donated space, CBF is housed in its $9 million waterfront Philip Merrill Environmental Center outside of Annapolis. It also has offices in Salisbury, Harrisburg, Richmond, Norfolk, and Washington, D.C. It owns an entire island - Port Isobel - in the Virginia portion of the Chesapeake Bay, and, of course, a fleet of boats.

In some respects, it seems as though CBF has always been around. Founded in the patchouli-scented sixties, it predates the first Earth Day, construction of the second Bay bridge, and is twice as old as most of the students who participate in its popular educational programs.

As the environmental movement grew nationwide, the ranks of CBF swelled. And there’s no question that green consciousness about the Chesapeake grew because of CBF. On the policymaking scene, CBF was there, either in the foreground or behind closed doors, for nearly every significant piece of Maryland legislation, from the Critical Area Protection Act of 1984 to this past session’s Chesapeake Bay Restoration Fund, better known as the “flush tax.”

CBF is a model of how smart public relations, combined with a righteous cause and an awesome fundraising capability, can grow from a pup to the big dog on the block. CBF so dominates the green movement here that no news report about the environment is complete without a CBF spokesperson weighing in. From the signing of the flush tax bill into law aboard a replica Baltimore clipper to former State Sen. Bernie Fowler’s annual “wade-in” to gauge river water quality in Southern Maryland, no photo-op is successful without a CBF representative inside the frame.

But in the Ernstian view, the colossus that is CBF falls short on achieving what really matters to Bay health - helping elect individuals willing to push the environmental agenda past the point of easy compromise. Under its status as a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization, CBF does not and cannot endorse political candidates. It does not and cannot give money to a candidate’s campaign or, for that matter, to organizations that support political candidates, such as the League of Conservation Voters, which are set up differently and do muck about in the political trenches during election years.

While CBF is keenly aware of Ernst’s criticisms, it is not about to issue any mea culpas and, in fact, does its best to appear to ignore the gadfly from the Naval Academy. Nevertheless, CBF announced this summer that it would use the courts more aggressively to clean up the Bay. With a hefty $1.25 million grant from the Philadelphia-based Lenfest Foundation, CBF launched its Chesapeake Watershed Bay Litigation Project to compel state and federal agencies to enforce existing environmental laws and regulations. CBF had already announced its intentions to sue the Commonwealth of Virginia for issuing pollution permits to Philip Morris USA and the town of Onancock for discharging excessive amounts of nitrogen. That action demonstrated that CBF isn’t afraid of making enemies in an effort to improve the Bay.

If it wanted to, CBF could form a political action committee to help candidates. It’s not likely to happen, says Will Baker, the organization’s longtime president. “It’s not our expertise. Our board believes, and I think our staff believes, that you do what you do well. Forming and being a political action committee is probably not what we do well.”

Besides, Baker continues, if CBF were legally permitted to endorse candidates, it might have chosen Stephen Sachs over William Donald Schaefer in Maryland’s 1986 gubernatorial primary election. “We got a lot done under Don Schaefer,” Baker says of the former two-term governor and current state comptroller. “When you go against a governor, it’s awfully hard for them to work with you later.”

Not wishing to antagonize the state’s highest elected leader is one thing. (Always careful with his choice of words, Baker praises Maryland Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich, Jr. - viewed by many environmentalists as their foe - for sponsoring legislation to improve failing sewage plants.)

Not scaring away your dues-paying base is another. Ninety percent of CBF’s annual budget comes from private contributors, who apparently agree with most of the group’s moderate, incremental stances on green issues. CBF didn’t grow to be a giant by appealing to the fringes. Moving to a more radical position could alienate many members who might take their tax-deductible contributions elsewhere. In many ways, Baker is like a corporate CEO whose commitment to revenues means limiting political risks.

Baker says he’s content leaving the political fights to the Maryland League of Conservation Voters (LCV). It’s a big task for a small group. Through the leadership of Executive Director Sue Brown, LCV has earned a reputation as a feisty advocate for the Bay. But like all the other small green groups, LCV is hampered by a lack of funds. The organization subsists on about $250,000 a year and, during election cycles, is able to raise another $150,000, which it spends on a half- dozen favored candidates. Because it is set up differently than CBF, LCV backs candidates for office. It also runs a special voters’ education program, trains volunteers to be better lobbyists, and publishes an impressive scorecard evaluating legislators’ record on key environmental bills.

All these efforts cost money, and the three-member LCV staff has to pay close attention to staying within its budget.

“People ask for more scorecards,” Brown says. “I can barely afford to print the 2,500 that I do. I need to have the resources so that we can get this message far and wide, because we do the accountability side of things - and elections are the ultimate accountability.”

If there is a founder of the Chesapeake Bay environmental movement, it’s probably Dr. Reginald V. Truitt, an Eastern Shoreman born in 1890 into a family of watermen, who created the Chesapeake Biological Laboratory in Solomons in 1925.

Truitt was among the first and the few scientists to worry whether the Chesapeake’s once abundant oysters could withstand the incredible harvest pressures permitted under law. Early on, he cautioned that more restrictive measures were needed to manage the bivalve. Lore has it that he so incensed a meeting of watermen and legislators in Annapolis with his calls for tighter regulations that he had to duck out a back door of the State House to escape their wrath.

Decades later, in 1995, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation warned that the crabbing industry was about to collapse, due in large part to overfishing. The group urged lawmakers to impose tighter restrictions on crabbing, including a ban on harvesting crabs in deep water. Predictably, crabbers weren’t happy and on devout Smith Island, where the Foundation maintains an educational outpost, someone torched one of the group’s buildings.

Both instances reveal that little has changed over the years in how the green movement is perceived around the Bay. Reduced to its starkest contrast, it’s environmentalism versus capitalism. That’s wholly unfair to both sides, and most mainstream policy-makers believe you can have one foot in each camp. But in politics, perception is reality. It matters not what the truth is, what matters is what people think the truth is. What a lot of people think is that environmentalists are bad for business.

That’s a notion that Brian Frosh, a state senator from Montgomery County, tries his best to quash. “You can justify [cleaning] the Bay on an economic basis,” he argues. “I think that the investment we put into it is one that we would likely get back in the form of a healthy fishing industry and healthy recreation and tourist industries. I think the Bay still generates well over a billion dollars a year in Maryland.”

But it’s a hard argument to make among farmers, watermen, and industry leaders whose livelihoods could suffer in the short run with increased environmental restrictions. And in today’s realpolitik, that means rough weather ahead for Chesapeake greens.

The timing couldn’t be worse.

After nearly two decades of gaining clout and respectability in Annapolis, Maryland’s environmental community faces a crisis in leadership.

While environmental champions are emerging in the legislature, no single lawmaker has achieved the status of previous advocates like Gerald Winegrad, a former state senator who represented Anne Arundel County from 1983 to 1994. Sharp as a razor and capable of haranguing his fellow lawmakers, Winegrad worked on nearly every bill remotely linked to the environment, until he finally bowed out of public office to avoid legislative burnout.

Sen. Frosh is probably the greenest lawmaker in Annapolis these days. But as chairman of the Judicial Proceedings Committee, most of his session time is spent on issues that have little to do with the environment.

The governor’s office is less than friendly toward green advocates. Access to Gov. Ehrlich is limited, to say the least, in part because he was the first gubernatorial candidate openly opposed by greens since the days before Harry Hughes. Like most partisans, Ehrlich knows how to keep a grudge scorecard and, in fact, the label “environmentalist” is so distasteful to some of his aides that, while insisting he’s an advocate of a clean Bay, they prefer to define their boss as a “conservationist,” according to a top Ehrlich lieutenant.

The first Republican to win the governor’s seat in thirty-six years, Ehrlich took office promising to give an ear to farmers, developers, commercial watermen, and others who felt they had been ignored by his Democratic predecessors, particularly Parris N. Glendening. Only so many “special interests” can gather around a governor at a time. Who got shoved to the back? The environmentalists.

Politically, the decision to shuffle the influence deck was not that big a risk for Ehrlich. “The flaw of the environmental movement,” says J. Charles “Chuck” Fox, one of the most highly regarded political analysts among the greens and the board chairman of the Maryland LCV, “is that support for the environment is a mile wide and an inch deep.”

Frosh elaborates on the pitfalls facing hard-line environmentalists. “There are people out there doing the right thing, being very aggressive. The problem is that as one of these organizations gain in force and becomes part of the mainstream, it tends to move toward the middle because it is part of the mainstream. The solutions are very hard politically and they’re very expensive. If someone’s out there advocating really tough stuff, they’re obviously going to lose support from a large segment of the population. It’s true of politicians, and it’s true of the environmental community.”

“Everybody’s an environmentalist,” Fox says a little facetiously, “but few actually vote on it as an issue.”

He says most greens - about 75 percent of them - are Democrats, with a smaller percentage made up of Republicans or conservatives in the so-called “hook and bullet crowd,” sportsmen who may vote on fishing and hunting matters. Because they care about the environment, they often are specifically courted by green candidates in tight elections.

Fox says that, while voters tend to trust Democrats over Republicans on the environment by a wide margin, “In general, traditional environmentalists are not considered swing voters.”

That much is not lost on Paul E. Schurick, Ehrlich’s communications director and one of his political advisors. Why should the governor go out of his way to accommodate the demands of environmental leaders? There’s no reason, Schurick suggests. “In 2006, the League of Conservation Voters, the 1000 Friends, and the others will endorse the governor’s opponent,” he says. “We know that. They’re going to work against us.”

The gap between greens and the governor’s office widened during the 2003 session, when environmental leaders helped deny legislative approval of Lynn Buhl, Ehrlich’s nominee to head the Department of the Environment. It marked the first time in state history that a gubernatorial nominee for a cabinet post failed to win Senate confirmation. It will surely go down as an embarrassing footnote in Ehrlich’s tenure.

“There were a lot of bridges burned on that issue,” says Michael Powell, attorney general with the department of the environment, who now works as a so-called “black hat” lobbyist for chemical and building interests. “Was it worth it?”

Dru Schmidt-Perkins, executive director of 1000 Friends of Maryland, thinks it was. The cause was right, she argues, and the greens helped teach Ehrlich a lesson. “He had to learn, ‘Don’t mess with these people.’”

During the following legislative session, environmentalists may have jeopardized their already shaky political footing by insisting on adding a provision to the governor’s Chesapeake Bay Restoration Fund (dubbed the “flush tax” by Democrats to tweak the anti-tax governor). That provision added rural septic systems to the list of homeowners who will eventually pay nearly a billion dollars for sewage plant upgrades and other methods of stopping nitrogen from entering the Bay. Ehrlich did not want the private septic tanks tacked onto his bill, and he has threatened to strip it out next year.

In the supersaturated atmosphere of Annapolis politics, some people seriously believed - and still do - that the greens had insisted on the septic tank provision in hopes of forcing the governor to kill it. It was, after all, the most significant piece of environmental legislation of the year. It wouldn’t look good, the theory went, for Bay advocates to be out-greened by the man they criticize as anti-environment.

Was this scenario true? Remember: In politics, perception is reality. And in politics, too, revenge is sweet.

As Kermit the Frog laments, “It’s not easy being green.”

Bill Thompson is a freelance writer living in Easton, Md.

Charting the alphabet soup of groups that set out to protect the Bay

Written by Bill Thompson and Jessica Porter

Chesapeake Bay Foundation
The Skinny: The Daddy Warbucks of the not-for-profit greens, CBF reigns as the top educator, awareness builder, and fundraiser, but chooses to stay out of the political fray - where the real action is - to keep its middle ground and its 501(c)(3) status secure.
Mission: The largest conservation organization solely dedicated to saving the Chesapeake Bay watershed by reducing pollution, improving fisheries, and protecting and restoring natural resources. The CBF staff serves as watchdogs and speaks out on behalf of the Bay with government, businesses, and the public. Its environmental education program strives to increase knowledge and empower citizens to protect and restore the Bay both in the classroom and in the field.
Founded: 1967
Members/Staff: 116,600 members; 165 full-time employees
Budget: $17.5 million
Funding: Primary support from individual members; secondary funds from foundations, corporations, partner organizations, and bequests.
Locations: Headquartered in Annapolis; offices also in Virginia and Pennsylvania. Operates fifteen environmental education programs.
Contact information: Philip Merrill Environmental Center, 6 Herndon Ave., Annapolis, Md. 21403, 410-268-8816 or http://www.cbf.org

Chesapeake Bay Commission
The Skinny: Mostly advisory and mostly toothless, this panel includes both legislators with impeccable environmental records and a few who may not hold the health of the Bay as a top priority. They’re the ones who got those “Entering the Chesapeake Bay Watershed” signs erected on local highways.
Mission: A tri-state legislative commission that advises the members of the General Assemblies of Maryland, Virginia, and Pennsylvania on matters of Bay-wide concern, including fisheries management, toxics reduction, land use, agricultural nutrient management, and natural resource protection. Serves as the legislative arm of the Chesapeake Bay Program.
Founded: 1980
Members/Staff: Twenty-one members, equally divided between the three states: legislators (five each), cabinet secretaries (with direct responsibility for managing their state’s natural resources); citizen reps. Five staff members.
Budget: $480,000
Funding: $160,000 from each state
Locations: Main office in Annapolis; others in Richmond and Harrisburg
Contact Information: 60 West St., Ste. 406, Annapolis, Md. 21401, 410-263-3420 or http://www.chesbay.state.va.us

Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay
The Skinny: A feel-good group that promotes rain barrels, kayaking, and clean streams. But its Bay Journal is one of the best publications for getting the latest on what’s happening to and around the Chesapeake.
Mission: A regional nonprofit organization that builds and fosters partnerships between government, business, academic communities, nonprofits, and the general public to protect and restore the Bay and its rivers. The Alliance does not lobby or litigate; it develops tools for restoration and trains citizens; mobilizes decision-makers and policymakers to learn about issues and participate in resolving them; and provides analysis, information, and evaluation of Bay policies, proposals, and institutions.
Founded: 1971
Members/Staff: 1,300 members, 24 full-time employees, 2,000 volunteers
Budget: $2 million
Funding: Majority comes from federal and state grants
Location: Offices in Baltimore, Harrisburg, Richmond, and Washington, D.C.
Contact Information: 6600 York Rd., Ste. 100, Baltimore, Md. 21212, 410-377-6270 or http://www.alliancechesbay.org

Chesapeake Bay Program
The Skinny: Launched in the wake of the eye-opening early eighties’ EPA report on the Chesapeake’s sorry state, this research advisory group is often hobbled by politics and bureaucratic ennui. What else can you expect from a group pressured from all sides?
Mission: Considered a national and international model for estuarine research and restoration programs, the Chesapeake Bay Program is a regional partnership between Maryland, Virginia, and Pennsylvania; Washington, D.C.; the Chesapeake Bay Commission; the EPA; and various advisory groups and organizations. This federal/state partnership sets policies and goals for Bay restoration activities that cross state lines, primarily focusing on the Bay’s living resources (aquatic life and wildlife).
Founded: 1983
Members: The governors of Maryland, Virginia, and Pennsylvania; the mayor of Washington, D.C.; the EPA administrator; and the chair of the Chesapeake Bay Commission, which make up the Chesapeake Executive Council, as well as numerous academic and governmental organizations.
Budget: $20 million
Funding: Federally funded by the EPA
Location: Annapolis, Md.
Contact Information: 410 Severn Ave., Ste. 109, Annapolis, Md. 21403, 410-267-5700 or http://www.chesapeakebay.net

Chesapeake Bay Trust
The Skinny: Nice license plates and an impressive roster of community leaders and former lawmakers, but only has so much money it can distribute.
Mission: The Trust is a private, nonprofit grantmaking organization created by the Maryland General Assembly to further public awareness and participation in the protection and restoration of the Bay and its Maryland tributaries. Recipients include thousands of organizations, agencies, and schools throughout Maryland, which use the grants for stream clean-ups, tree and marsh grass plantings, erosion control projects, water quality monitoring, habitat restoration, aquaculture projects, recycling activities, and the development of awareness programs and educational materials.
Founded: 1985
Members/Staff: A Board of Trustees of nineteen, including representatives from business, education, and conservation interests; local government; and the general public. Six staff members.
Budget/Grants: $3 million.
To date: awarded 6,000 grants to 3,000 community groups, schools, and organizations totaling in excess of $14.5 million.
Funding: Majority from sale of “Treasure the Chesapeake” license plates and the Maryland income-tax-return check-off; additional funding from private and corporate contributions.
Location: 60 West St., Ste. 405, Annapolis, Md. 21401, 410-974-2941 or http://www.chesapeakebaytrust.org

1000 Friends of Maryland
The Skinny: With so many causes - from restoring the Chesapeake to providing affordable housing and safe highways - these lean but not-so-mean folks ought to have a million friends.
Mission: A nonprofit coalition of business and development companies, architectural and historical preservation organizations, community and environmental groups whose goals are to “preserve what is best about Maryland and to encourage sensible growth.”
Founded: 1996
Members/Staff: 21 board members plus an executive director and two subordinates oversee a wide array of educational and legislative activities. Membership rolls stay steady at about 1,000.
Budget: $250,000
Funding: Foundation support, a few major donors, and members’ donations.
Location: 1209 N. Calvert St., Baltimore, Md. 21202, 410-385-2910 or http://www.friendsofmd.org

Maryland League of Conservation Voters
The Skinny: Keeper of political scorecards on environmental votes, this small but feisty group actually endorses candidates who might be good for green causes. Its small staff proves that you don’t need a huge budget to make a difference. Still, more money couldn’t hurt.
Mission: Maryland LCV advocates for sound conservation policies, promotes environmentally responsible candidates for public office, and holds elected officials accountable for the decisions they make affecting air, water, open space, and quality of life. The group produces the Legislative Scorecard every two years, grading state legislators on their votes on key environmental issues. LCV also grades the environmental record of the governor.
Founded: 1979 (volunteer-only until 2000)
Members/Staff: Fifteen board directors, three full-time staff, volunteers
Budget: $250,000 a year, with an additional $150,000 raised and spent in election years
Funding: Major donors and many small gifts (donations are not tax deductible)
Location: 1 State Circle, Annapolis, Md. 21401, 410-280-9855 or http://www.mdlcv.org