Editors' Summary: The Chesapeake Bay is a precious ecological and economic resource whose productivity is declining, apparently due to water pollution. A dozen years after enactment of the Federal Water Pollution Control Act, a comprehensive response to the industrial and municipal degradation of the nation's surface waters, the decline in Bay productivity continues. The author, head of Maryland's environmental protection programs, reports that a series of events have combined to produce regional action that could be effective in reversing the decline. A recently completed, long-term EPA study of pollution problems contributing to the deterioration of Bay plant and animal species has been the catalyst for unprecedented efforts by the several state and federal jurisdictions with responsibility for environmental protection in the Chesapeake Bay region to tailor special programs to save the Bay. In tracing the impact of the study, the author concludes that critical to this or any other effort to protect a large and complex interstate water body are management-sensitive research and innovative, regional solutions. By involving state and local agencies and the public in the conduct of the study, EPA ensured that the results would not only be scientifically valid, but would also immediately affect public consciousness and lay the foundation for constructive governmental response. The governmental responses, the author concludes, must build on existing federally mandated programs to tackle problems of special regional significance like agricultural runoff. The Bay study, coupled with a major regional conference, produced not only information on the ecological problems of the Chesapeake Bay, but also commitments by EPA and the states bordering the Bay to act quickly to solve those problems.