Citizen attitudes toward management of the Chesapeake Bay. VWRRC Bulletin 96

A survey of Chesapeake Bay Residents was conducted to determine how a selected group of citizens felt about certain current issued facing the Bay. Compared with the general population, the survey respondents earned higher incomes, were more highly educated, were professionally employed, and seemed heavily involved in public service activities. In both states, waste disposal, bilge dumping, wetlands preservation, offshore oil development, dredge-material disposal, and power-plant siting were identified as issues of major importance. Several problems received substantially less emphasis. These included runoff of pesticides and fertilizers, shoreline erosion, population growth, and improvement of public access to the Bay. General implications drawn from these results include: (1) any organization of citizens probably will tend to represent only limited aspects of public concern, and (2) agencies should expect to deal with a less than representative socio-economic cross section of socibut the response of each plant varied with environmental factors, genotype, variety of the same species, growth stage, and nutritional status. Data of the degree of sensitivity (or tolerance) of economically important plants allows selection of species for culture which are adapted to the Illinois environmental and economic conditions. The symptomology of the various trace metals and oxides isen as potentially moremore » efficient for both employer and employee than is the use of regulatory standards.« less