Baltimore residents tend to care more than others about the Chesapeake Bay, but recycle household trash less than any other community in the bay's six-state watershed, according to an environmental survey released yesterday.

The survey, prepared for the Environmental Protection Agency's Chesapeake Bay Program office, shows that nearly half of the watershed's 16 million residents do not understand that their daily actions have a direct impact on water quality locally and in the bay.

The 64,000-square-mile watershed area includes Maryland, Virginia, Washington, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, New York and Delaware.

According to the survey, about 68 percent of Baltimore residents are concerned with the quality of local waterways, compared with 52 percent overall for the entire watershed area.

Yet just 55 percent of Baltimore residents said they recycled household trash, compared with an average of 69 percent for the watershed.

"A lot of Marylanders have a unique linkage to the bay," said Christopher Conner, spokesman for EPA Bay Program. "We've got a big challenge ahead of us to reach out to those folks who don't."

The New York region recycled the most, with more than 91 percent of those polled saying they recycled household trash.

Recycling habits are likely affected by absence of local mandatory recycling regulations, according to the report's executive summary.

The survey was conducted by the Conservation Management Institute and the College of Natural Resources at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.

Most of the residents in the watershed area believe that business and industry are the leading sources of pollution in local waters, according to the survey.

In actuality, most of the pollution comes from soil erosion and runoff from farmlands, construction sites, streets, parking lots and residential lawns, Conner said.

The bay program is developing easy-to-understand materials that will encourage citizens to get involved in more "bay-friendly" activities, such as conserving water, driving fewer miles and avoiding overfertilizing lawns.

Scientists agree that reducing the amount of nutrients flowing into the bay is critical to restoring the waterway. High nutrient levels - from inadequately treated sewage, from runoff of farm and lawn fertilizers, and from fallout of air pollution - threaten the delicate balance of the bay ecosystem and can harm its plants and animals.

Other findings from the survey include: 94 percent of those asked across the watershed believe restoring waterways in the Chesapeake is important, while 85 percent are concerned with pollution in local waterways. Fifty-one percent said they knew how to become involved in water quality improvement.

The survey was a random telephone poll conducted in March and April, in which 1,988 bay watershed residents were queried.