As a fledgling journalist early in the new millennium on the environmental beat Pelton soon sussed out a troubling pattern: subdivisions and chain stores were gobbling up forests, fields, and unique and beautiful towns. The 200-mile long Chesapeake is the nation’s largest estuary—and stretches from the mouth of the Susquehanna River in northern Maryland to its opening on the Atlantic Ocean in Virginia. The bay’s watershed is much larger—a 64,000-square-mile basic stretches across six states from New York to Virginia and the District of Columbia. On average, 100,000 streams, creeks, and rivers pour 50 billion gallons of water daily. Known as a haven for hunters and bird-watchers, the Chesapeake shelters about 3,600 species of plants and animals as well as about a million migratory waterfowls, which episodically visit every fall and spring. The Chesapeake used to be the epicenter of the oyster and crabbing industries, not to mention the birthplace of American history. Whenever it rains water flushes over 1.3 million acres of roofs, driveways, parking lots, roads, as well as over 87,000 farms with 6.5 million acres of crops, picking up soil, fertilizer, oil, copper dust from brake pads, among other pollutants. Pelton’s book looks at challenges, restoration, and anti-regulatory politics. While many factors brought the bay’s inherent fragility to the breaking point, he brings hope with 10 steps that would propel bay restoration forward. He emphasizes the need for all people, as well as businesses, to act together for the benefit of our shared world—water, land, and health. He recommends rebuilding a basic confidence in the ability of people to work together through democratic government in the interests of creating a better world. Annotation ©2018 Ringgold, Inc., Portland, OR (protoview.com) Read Less