Flesh-eating bacteria join the Bay stew

It's bad enough that nutrients and chemicals in the Chesapeake Bay have made it a place occasionally unfit for man or beast. Now a new report from the Chesapeake Bay Foundation argues that warming waters are also turning it into a better breeding ground for bacteria that can do even more damage.

These new worries go beyond the fecal bacteria that have long been a source of trouble for shellfish and swimmers and disgust for everyone else.

The CBF report last week highlighted increasing infections by Vibrio, a flesh-eating bacteria that has killed nine people in Virginia in the past decade. Vibrio cases in the commonwealth have risen from 12 in 1999, according to reporting by The Pilot's Scott Harper, to 30 last year. Maryland has seen an increase, too.

This is not to say the Bay is entirely a mess. But neither is it getting much healthier.

Given the tepid effort by Virginia and other watershed states, the Bay's continuing troubles are no surprise. The summer dead zone - caused by nutrients from sewage treatment plants, farms and suburban development - has been persistent for years now. Combine that with mercury, nitrates, blue green algae and cryptosporidium, and the Bay's woes begin to sound insurmountable.

The CBF cited new evidence that the temperature in the Bay is rising by about a half-degree Fahrenheit each decade, which is making it even more inviting for bacteria and algae, "like a warm pond with a broth of nutrients at the right temperature."

The dismal state of the Chesapeake Bay is no secret. From the disappearance of oysters, to the near disappearance of blue crabs (which conservation appears to be saving), to the decimation of the menhaden population, to the continued dumping of inadequately treated sewage and raw stormwater runoff, man's insult to the watershed has barely abated in recent decades.

And that comes despite a commitment, by all the states upstream, to do what they can to clean up the Chesapeake. If those states failed to meet their deadline, they were supposed to face penalties from the EPA. Of course, the states won't come close to meeting the cleanup goals, and the EPA will likely do nothing about it.

In the meantime, officials in Richmond recommend that Virginians not swim in water that looks stagnant or muddy or smells bad. You surely shouldn't drink it. If your immune system is weak, or if you have an open sore, don't touch it. And stay out of the water for several days if it rains heavily.

Other than that, though, everything is fine.