Trust but Verify

No doubt Bay Daily readers have heard or read about EPA’s announcement this week of a Chesapeake  Bay pollution budget – the long-awaited total maximum daily load (TMDL) plan that finally puts the Bay on a strict pollution diet so it can recover its health. News about it has been in newspapers across the Bay watershed.

There have been other TMDL plans for other waterways, and certainly there have been previous Chesapeake Bay cleanup plans over the years. What makes this one different, even historic, is its scope and commitment to success.

EPA officials are calling the Bay cleanup plan the largest pollution control project ever undertaken in this country and perhaps the world. That’s because it seeks to restore the nation’s largest estuary, a complex, ever-changing 64,000-square mile watershed with hundreds of rivers, thousands of streams, a tidal ocean, and more than 17 million people in parts of six states. Pollution harming the Bay comes from many different sources, enters the Bay system via land, air, and water, and in amounts that vary with the weather and other uncontrollable factors.

"It's basically every drop of water that's coming from all the reaches of the watershed that gets to the bay, and making sure that the water quality is being protected and addressed," EPA's Shawn M. Garvin told reporters this week.

The goal of the diet is to put into place by 2025 the laws, regulations, funding, and enforcement that will cut the Bay’s annual intake of nitrogen, phosphorus, and sediment by 25 percent, 24 percent, and 20 percent, respectively. That means trimming the estuary down to a svelte 185.9 million pounds of nitrogen, 12.5 million pounds of phosphorus, and 6.45 billion pounds of sediment a year.

To ensure that happens, EPA has asked each of the Bay states to reduce their fair share of the problematic pollution, and for the most part, the six Bay states have each pledged to do so using watershed implementation plans (WIPs) prepared over the past six months. 

In announcing the Bay diet this week, EPA acknowledged it has doubts some of those state plans, or parts of them, will succeed. For that reason, the federal agency says it is requiring additional actions targeted at specific plan weaknesses, and will exercise increased oversight as cleanup progresses in two-year steps, or milestones.  If the states are not making sufficient progress in reducing pollution to meet their two-year milestones, EPA says it will take “appropriate contingency actions,” including enforcement activities, more stringent pollution requirements, denial of new permits, withholding of federal funding, or requiring more pollution reductions from other sources.  

The agency says these accountability measures – state implementation plans, two-year milestones, tracking and assessment of progress, and federal sanctions as necessary – make the Bay diet plan unique and will lead to its success.

The Chesapeake Bay Foundation (CBF) recognizes the magnitude of the moment. However, as the nation’s oldest and largest Chesapeake Bay advocacy organization and one that has seen many government restoration plans come and go over the past three decades, our mantra remains “trust but verify.“

Here’s what CBF President Will Baker said:

“EPA’s actions today reflect a historic change in how government will restore water quality in local rivers, streams, and the Chesapeake Bay and protect the hundreds of thousands of jobs that rely on clean water. This plan includes science-based limits, clear expectations, and accountability, and is the result of years of public involvement and close cooperation between EPA and the Bay jurisdictions.

“It is clear, however, that the hardest work is still to come. The states and the District of Columbia must implement the plans through new laws, regulations, funding, and enforcement, and EPA must hold all jurisdictions accountable.

“As we saw in the development of the Watershed Implementation Plans (WIPs), EPA’s threat of serious  consequences resulted in significant improvements to the state plans. It is essential that EPA stand firm and impose consequences if the states and the District of Columbia do not achieve the 2009 milestones due to be met by 2011, as EPA stated they would in a briefing today.

“If EPA and the jurisdictions implement the WIPs and the TMDL, history will record December 29, 2010, as the turning point in the restoration of this national treasure.”

What do you think about the new Bay diet? Is it truly (pardon the pun/cliché) a watershed moment in the Bay’s history, or will it be just another failed restoration plan? Let us hear from you. And wherever you live in the Bay watershed, stay informed, engaged -- and watchful -- as your state begins implementing its part of the cleanup plan.

Chuck Epes
Chesapeake Bay Foundation 

Photos (top to bottom): ©2010 Morgan Heim/iLCP, Krista Schlyer/iLCP, Justin Black/iLCP, Garth Lenz/iLCP, Justin Black/iLCP  

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