he Chesapeake Bay's productivity, which is understood to mean its ability to produce quantities of biological life, from algae on up to oysters and rockfish, is ten to one hundred times the average productivity of the open oceans. New England's Georges Bank, considered one of the greatest fishing spots on earth for commercial fleets of every nation, yields about three tons of seafood per square mile. The Chesapeake Bay yields about twelve tons. At its peak historic harvest in the 1880s, it was estimated that the edible meat of shellfish produced from Maryland's bay alone was equal to the flesh of 160,000 prime head of beef. Production, however, has dramatically decreased: "According to the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, in 1962, 21 million pounds of all species combined were landed; in 1972, 13 million; and in 1982, a shattering two million."4
There is a fundamental irony of public environmental policy toward the Chesapeake Bay: its waters and its denizens are held in public trust, while the surrounding land, most of the massive, 64,000 squa
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