But contrary to what a lot of people may think, the harbor's degraded condition isn't solely the result of littering and poor housekeeping by the city's residents and businesses."No sir, we didn' put dis here garbage in da water; it musta been dat udda guy."
In fact, according to data presented last weekend at the Waterfront Partnership's conference on the state of the harbor, a lot of the trash in the water comes from far upstream -- in the suburbs.
More than 400 pounds of detritus has been collected in a single day at various points in the Jones Falls and Gwynns Falls in Baltimore County, according to the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, which is preparing a report card assessing the harbor's condition.
Of course, it is true to some extent, but I see this as an attempt at deflection. 400 lbs a day sounds like a lot of garbage, but it's not a very big pile, and there's a lot of garbage floating around out there. I wonder how much fallen wood they're counting to get that number.
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