For more than a decade, government officials at the Environmental Protection Agency exxagerated the results of cleanup efforts in the Chesapeake Bay, a formerly bountiful waterway that provided the mid-Atlantic region with plentiful crabs, oysters, and fish, according to a special report by David A. Fahrenthold in the Washington Post.  Fahrenthold learned from former EPA officials in charge of the bay cleanup effort that they were encouraged to hide the truth in order to maintain budget revenues.  Program manager William Matuszeski "repeatedly released data that exaggerated its success, hoping to influence Congress" and Rebecca W. Hanmer, who ran the Chesapeake Bay effort after Matuszeski, "was instructed by regional leaders in 2002 not to acknowledge that the effort would fall short of its 2010 goals."  Fahrenthold quotes Matuszeski:  "To protect appropriations you were getting, you had to show progress," Matuszeski said. "So I think we had to overstate our progress."  Telling the truth about this coverup is progress of a kind, but it’s more than a shame that Matuszeski and Hanmer waited until now to speak out.  And as for the "regional leaders" who helped the money flow when the work was not succeeding, let’s hope that Fahrenthold and others will keep digging and identify them.

Ned Hodgman

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