Countdown to 2017: risks to the Chesapeake Bay

Check out this Center for Progressive Reform report Countdown to 2017 Five Years In, Chesapeake Bay TMDL at Risk Without EPA Enforcement

Executive Summary

When the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) created the Chesapeake Bay Total Maximum Daily Load (Bay TMDL) out of local TMDLs for 92 individual Bay segments in 2010, reactions were polarized. Supporters of Bay restoration hoped this unprecedented, legally enforceable, multi-state approach would break the gridlock and compel compliance with a “pollution diet” that would restore the world-famous estuary from its continued state of degradation and ever-present dead zones. After all, billions of dollars in state and federal funding and decades of previous “cooperative” efforts had repeatedly failed to reach their stated goals, rendering an enforceable TMDL framework the only remaining option. Even opponents of the significant expenditures required to meet the Bay TMDL pollution reduction goals seemed to share the view that this time would be different. As EPA, the seven Bay jurisdictions – Delaware, the District of Columbia, Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia – and the Chesapeake Bay Program began work on implementing the Bay TMDL in 2010, affected industries hurried to the courts, legislatures, and media, seeking to overturn the TMDL and obstruct EPA and state regulators from pursuing their commitments under the new framework. To its credit, EPA vigorously defended the TMDL in federal court, twice triumphing. The agency also deflected the most destructive legislative efforts to undermine implementation of the TMDL. However, EPA has no time to rest on its laurels. Instead, EPA must recognize another, equally potent threat to Bay restoration. The seven Bay watershed jurisdictions are lagging far behind in implementing the Bay TMDL….

 

Read the report, and the recommendations.  In summary, they are:

1. Pennsylvania’s failure to uphold its commitments jeopardizes the entire Bay TMDL.

2. Agriculture is the largest pollution source and the most promising and cost-effective sector for future reductions. Accelerating progress means solving the manure crisis.

3. The Bay TMDL is vital to water quality for communities located far from the Chesapeake Bay.

4. The model is not perfect, but is good enough to show where more progress is needed.

5. Too much Bay pollution is unregulated or under-regulated. States must close this gap.