Can you imagine having a harbor you could swim in and fish from? One that provides a great habitat for crabs and herons? Okay, fine, you probably can. But can you imagine our harbor getting to that point in just eight years?
That’s the goal of Healthy Harbor initiative: a fishable, swimmable harbor by 2020. It’s ambitious to say the least. The initiative’s website assigns letter grades to the current condition of the Inner Harbor. Categories include trash, bacteria, nutrients, dissolved oxygen, and water clarity. All told, we’re working on a C, two Ds, and two Fs.
So we’re currently flunking, but Healthy Harbor has a multi-pronged attack that includes education and outreach, trash clean-up, coordination with other organizations, and bugging elected officials to make it a priority.
It certainly would be interesting if the biggest attraction at the Inner Harbor were the Harbor itself.
