By Norris McDonald
The Washington Post published a provocative article on Monday (5/4/09) entitled: "Evaluation of Chesapeake Goals Killed: EPA Adviser, Others Squashed Review of How Realistic Cleanup Expectations Are." Man I know Chuck didn't need to wake up to that headline. It makes it sound like he 'plotted' to keep something that is obvious to everyone in the know from the public. Nothing could be farther from the truth and The Washington Post should be ashamed of trying to slime this dedicated public servant. I've known Chuck for over 25 years and he has committed his life to environmental protection, particularly water quality. He should have seen this coming though after the paper of record for our nation's capital did that puff piece on him when he was first appointed as adviser [WP, "He's in Deeper Waters Now New EPA Adviser on Bay's Health Skilled in the Art of Politics," 3/31/09]. You know...build you up to tear you down syndrome. We would hope that the Post would stay away from this sort of paparazzi-grocery-store-check-out-rack journalism. Hang in there Chuck. We know who you are and if you need any reference or recommendation about who you are, feel free to call on us.
Of course it is more than a challenge to mitigate the Chesapeake Bay. We're talking 64,000 square miles of watershed here. So put clean up of the bay right up there with mitigation of global warming. But don't try to implicate Chuck in some sort of 'surrender' mentality. Everybody who knows him knows that he will not give up on trying to figure out the conundrum that is bay clean up. The Chesapeake Bay Program is one of the most important estuary protection programs in the world. And Chuck Fox is a world class environmentalist that President Barack Obama and EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson should be proud to have in government service.
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