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Greater federal involvement in Chesapeake Bay raises questions | READER COMMENTARY

For The Baltimore Sun
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Federal legislation that would create a Chesapeake National Recreation Area would allow the National Parks Service to perform maintenance, renovations and programming at historic and recreational sites along the Chesapeake Bay possibly including Whitehall, a 135-acre waterfront property in Annapolis dating to 1764.

Federal legislation that would create a Chesapeake National Recreation Area would allow the National Parks Service to perform maintenance, renovations and programming at historic and recreational sites along the Chesapeake Bay possibly including Whitehall, a 135-acre waterfront property in Annapolis dating to 1764. (Jeffrey F. Bill/Capital Gazette)

In response to Baltimore County Executive John Olszewski Jr.’s recent letter to the editor urging support for legislation sponsored by Maryland’s U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen and U.S. Rep. John Sarbanes that would create a Chesapeake National Recreation Area, I wonder if anyone has looked at the broad implications of turning over the Chesapeake Bay to a federal agency (”Olszewski: Chesapeake Bay should be treated as national treasure,” Aug. 18).

What will be the effect on shipping, fishing, crabbing, oyster dredging and boating? I fully support the spirit behind the bill — to preserve and protect the Chesapeake’s recreational and historical sites — but who in the National Park Service would be in charge of managing them and what might that management entail?

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— Jim Dempsey, Edgewood

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