Chesapeake Waters : Four Centuries of Controversy, Concern, and Legislation

When Chesapeake Waters was first issued in 1983, it told the story of man's efforts to govern the Bay's waters from 1607, with the first English settlement in Jamestown, Virginia, to 1972. This edition retraces those steps, but brings the early history into focus with current research and continues into 1996 the story of official efforts to deal with problems of water quality and resource management. With a chronology of legislation affecting water quality of the Bay, the authors trace historical and regulatory developments from colonial times to the present. They show that public health concerns emerged very early in the colonial period and that almost from the start there was an effort to control such problems by regulatory means. Urbanization, industrialization, the shift from clipper ships to giant vessels powered by fossil fuels, even nature itself brought an ever-expanding array of challenges to the health of the Bay ecosystem and to the legitimate uses of its waters by fishermen, commercial vessel operators, swimmers, recreational sailors, and the citizens of the communities along its shores. The authors show how people have formed, changed, and communicated their conceptions about water quality, how governments organized to study and influence the quality of the Bay, and how the public's perceptions of the Bay have brought about changes in the way we use it.