For all the resources it has expended, Virginia has made marginal progress cleaning up the Bay. The key data point: Three million more people live in the Chesapeake watershed than did 25 years ago.

Virginia, along with Maryland, Pennsylvania and the District of Columbia, joined the federal government in 2000 in a new commitment to cut pollution and remove the Chesapeake Bay from the federal dirty water list. The Chesapeake Bay Foundation assigns that commitment a 40 on its scale of 100. Scientists suggest it is necessary to reduce nitrogen pollution by 110 million pounds yearly in order to meet the goal. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates that restoration efforts are only 18 percent of the way there.

Still, Gov. Timothy M. Kaine reported early in December that Virginia’s largest wastewater treatment facilities and industries expect to meet their nutrient reduction goals by the end of 2010. These so-called point sources of nutrients and sediment are getting about $1.4 billion worth of new pollution-control technologies and are implementing a new nutrient trading scheme.

The Virginia Water Quality Improvement Fund (WQIF) has laid out about $380 million in grants to localities in the last decade. Gov. Kaine and the General Assembly have authorized another $250 million in bonds to be issued after July 1, 2008. The Chesapeake Bay Foundation suggests that these and other investments and initiatives for reducing air pollution and controlling agricultural runoff could mean another 41 million pounds of nitrogen reduction is in the pipeline already.

But Foundation President Will Baker is all too familiar with what he terms “the politics of postponement.” He is particularly disappointed with the deadlock in Congress on the 2007 federal farm bill that contains conservation funding on stream, river and Bay water quality and with Bush Administration approval of new EPA standards that allow coal-fired power plants to discharge mercury. He points out in his most report “State of the Bay” Report that three million more people now live in the Chesapeake Bay watershed than did 25 years ago. The report states flatly that the Bay is “dangerously out of balance” and that “We will not see a healthy Bay unless government increases and accelerates programs and funding.”

Virginia has made a commitment to a healthy Bay, one that could reach the Foundation’s score of 40 (improving), then 50 (stable) and even 70 (saved). Maryland and Pennsylvania have, too. But what is Virginia to do in when improvements are proving more costly and elusive than expected, when current revenue estimates suggest less ambitious times ahead, when competing budget priorities for everything from mental health programs and higher education to transportation (yes, there is much more to do) and K-12 are growing?

Gov. Kaine contends, “We have made a significant investment to protect the Bay, we have spent the money wisely and we are accomplishing what we set out to do.” That seems to position Virginia’s commitment to the Bay as an enduring obligation for future Governors and Assemblies to meet, a charge or trust of the highest priority that will not be deterred or postponed by lesser circumstances.

Honoring a commitment can be simple. An unhealthy Bay means oyster harvests are at rock bottom. A healthy Chesapeake Bay translates into an abundance of Chesapeake oysters in months that end with Rs for 400 years more, a tasty commitment even Captain John Smith could recognize.