A January 2 Delmarvanow.com editorial stressed the need for more collaboration and less confrontation among stakeholders charged with cleaning up the Chesapeake Bay and urged that all stakeholder viewpoints be considered when adopting and enforcing Bay pollution laws and regulations.

Because of all this complexity, the human and the natural, it is not surprising that potential remedies for helping the bay are often contentious. An environmentalist looks at the phosphorus contained in poultry farmers’ fertilizer and wants to ensure that fertilizer doesn’t run off into tributaries and ultimately Chesapeake Bay. But a farmer looks at all the potential sources of pollution and expresses skepticism about the environmentalists’ conclusions. Again, we all have our own base of knowledge and our own self-interest.

What’s needed increasingly both on Delmarva and in Annapolis is a greater sense of collaboration among bay stakeholders.  …

Chesapeake Bay belongs to all of us. It is a pearl that makes our entire region shine brightly. Protecting it is in all of our interests, as long as that “all” is taken into consideration when laws are made and regulations enforced.

The editorial pointed to the successful compromises reached between preservationists and residents of the Adirondack Park in upstate New York over development in that area as a precedent that could be applied to the Bay region.