As she related the results, Muller made a stern and emotional appeal to the 60 people gathered at Chesapeake Bay Foundation headquarters in Bay Ridge.

"The science shows that the health of the South River is in grave condition," she said. "As citizens of the South River watershed, we must stand up and say enough is enough."

Her voice shaking with emotion, Muller said she is witness to a "generation of children that believe fish kills and cancerous fish are a normal occurrence and that during certain times of the year we just do not go swimming."

"This should not be the new normal," she said in her commentsfollowing the Scorecard presentation.

"We as Americans have the right to swimmable, fishable and drinkable water under the Clean Water Act, yet we still do not have clean water," she said.

The numbers themselves were not encouraging.

Dissolved oxygen levels dropped from already-dismal levels, but nitrogen and bacteria levels improved on the 10-point scale used to express compiled data for each category.

But bad scores that stayed the same from last year - 1 out of 10 for water clarity, 2 out of 10 for total phosphorus, and zeroes for algae and underwater grasses - painted a sad picture of the river's health.

New scoring regimens, changed this year to standardize data gathered by other conservation groups around the bay, will take a couple of years to balance out.

Despite that blip, the data underscores that "this is not a happy river," Muller said.

That's especially true when it comes to dissolved oxygen, the air aquatic life needs to survive. "This year's … score is the worst in four years," Muller said.

Only 20 percent of 335 data readings met the minimum oxygen level of 5 milligrams per liter. That means large areas of the river don't have enough oxygen to sustain fish and other critters, leading to dead zones.

Nutrient levels were split into separate nitrogen and phosphorus categories this year, as the federation had access to new testing equipment.

Surprisingly, nitrogen levels improved. But the theory is that high phosphorus levels helped create more algae, which consumed the nitrogen in the river.

Phosphorus levels remained very high. Much of this can be traced to stormwater carrying sediment, which phosphorus is keen to attach to. The element is also re-released into the water column from river-bottom sediment when oxygen levels dip below a certain level.

That and more spurred Muller's appeal.

She said she has received calls from doctors concerned about the health of the river because they see the effects of contact with the water on pets, children and adults - rashes, infections and gastrointestinal diseases.

"What does the state have to say about that?" she asked, stating that the answer from officials is that people should not swim in the water - or that there is no proof that people have become ill and that we should not be scared of the water.

"Well, we should be scared straight. We have a highly polluted river, fish with skin cancer, and very low populations of oysters and crabs," she said.

There is enough blame to go around, but the core problem is a failure of cooperation and enforcement, she said.

"We are all pointing fingers at each other, stating, 'It's not my fault' for this horrible water quality …" she said. "When, in fact, each and every one of us in responsible for our actions - every company, citizen and government agency. … We must have cooperation from every sector."

She said the argument that the changes required to save the river and the Chesapeake Bay will hurt our economy are flatly wrong.

"Saving the bay and South River will help our economy rebound," she said. "Citizens and businesses can adapt to changes in policy, but the South River can no longer adapt to our refusal to stop polluting it."

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