A Spot of Good News

The Potomac River, once so polluted it was labeled a "national disgrace," is now the cleanest it has been in decades - its comeback signaled by the re-growth of large areas of underwater grasses, according to a new scientific study.

The study, announced Tuesday, details the Potomac's slow transformation into an environmental success story. The authors found that improvements at Washington's Blue Plains sewage plant had cut down on choking, unnatural algae blooms, and that - once the water became cleaner and clearer - native plants rebounded, helping to clean the river further...

...[Since 1990] the amount of grasses doubled, transforming the river bottom from a mud flat into a kind of underwater forest, more suitable for fish and blue crabs. [WP]