In this brilliant portrait of the oceans’ unlikely hero, H. Bruce Franklin shows how menhaden have shaped America’s national—and natural—history, and why reckless overfishing now threatens their place in both. Since Native Americans began using menhaden as fertilizer, this amazing fish has greased the wheels of U.S. agriculture and industry. By the mid-1870s, menhaden had replaced whales as a principal source of industrial lubricant, with hundreds of ships and dozens of factories along the eastern seaboard working feverishly to produce fish oil. Since the Civil War, menhaden have provided the largest catch of any American fishery. Today, one company—Omega Protein—has a monopoly on the menhaden “reduction industry.” Every year it sweeps billions of fish from the sea, grinds them up, and turns them into animal feed, fertilizer, and oil used in everything from linoleum to health-food supplements. The massive harvest wouldn’t be such a problem if menhaden were only good for making lipstick and soap. But they are crucial to the diet of bigger fish and they filter the waters of the Atlantic and Gulf coasts, playing an essential dual role in marine ecology perhaps unmatched anywhere on the planet. As their numbers have plummeted, fish and birds dependent on them have been decimatedand toxic algae have begun to choke our bays and seas. In Franklin’s vibrant prose, the decline of a once ubiquitous fish becomes an adventure story, an exploration of the U.S. political economy, a groundbreaking history of America’s emerging ecological consciousness, and an inspiring vision of a growing alliance between environmentalists and recreational anglers.

Presents case studies analysing instrument mixes applied in OECD countries to address household waste, non-point sources of water pollution in agriculture, residential energy efficiency, regional air pollution and emissions to air of mercury.

Since 1983, the states of MD, PA, and VA.; D. C.; the Chesapeake Bay Comm.; and the EPA have partnered to protect and restore the deteriorated Chesapeake Bay ecosystem. The partners established the Chesapeake Bay Program to manage and coordinate a variety of restoration activities and in their most recent agreement, ¿Chesapeake 2000,¿ they established 102 commitments for the Chesapeake Bay to be achieved by 2010. In Oct. 2005, a report was issued which reviewed the mgmt., coordination, and reporting mechanisms used by the Bay Program, and recommended that the Bay Program take 6 actions. This report assesses the progress that the Bay Program has made in implementing these recommendations. Illus.