Bid to Extend Bay Protection Zone Fails in Virginia.

Byline: Greg Edwards

Feb. 3--A Senate committee killed a proposal yesterday to extend the boundaries of the Chesapeake Bay Preservation Act to the bay watershed west of Interstate 95.

As evidence the bill was needed, Sen. Frank W. Wagner, R-Virginia Beach, sponsor of the measure, pointed to nutrient-fed algae blooms that created dead zones in the bay last summer at the mouth of Virginia rivers.

The algae blooms that brought oxygen-starved crabs gasping to the surface were not an aberration of the summer's extra-wet weather, as one senator opposing the bill suggested, but were "a wake-up call," Wagner said.

The preservation act applies only …