By Darryl Fears – The Washington Post – July 15, 2012

The weirdly mild winter, the dry and toasty spring, and the hottest summer heat wave on record apparently had at least one upside: a cleaner Chesapeake Bay. Last year around this time, the bay was smothered by one of its largest dead zones — low-oxygen water caused by pollution where fish and plants cannot survive. This year, with so little rain to move pollution from farms and city streets into waterways, the zone “absolutely is much smaller,” said Bruce Michael, director of the resource assessment service for the Maryland Department of Natural Resources. For full story, click here.