Chesapeake Bay Action Plan

(Posted by Erik Michelsen)

In preparing for the 2012 Maryland Legislative session, the memories of largely unproductive sessions for the environment in 2010 and 2011 were very fresh. The combined environmental community – the Clean Water, Healthy Families coalition – resolved to be more focused, to pursue a direct request of legislators, and to focus on goals that would have a measurable impact on improving water quality. Those goals were:

• Finish upgrading the wastewater treatment plants that Maryland has already committed to upgrade.
• Ensure that local governments have resources to reduce polluted stormwater runoff and implement their local clean water plans.
• Reduce pollution from poorly planned development – including limiting new septic systems.
• Require that all wastewater discharges, including septic systems, are treated at the highest levels to protect public health and ensure clean water.

The first two goals were explicitly stated in Maryland’s Watershed Implementation Plan (WIP) and comprised the core funding strategies for the state’s efforts to address pollution from its central urban and suburban corridor. The last two were focused on ensuring that we don’t erase any gains we make via the first two by developing in a way that creates a staggering amount of new pollution.

As the clock ran down on the legislative session yesterday, the future of the Chesapeake and Maryland’s rivers hung in the balance. Early in the day, legislation to double the Bay Restoration Fund (or “flush fee”) passed, followed by a bill aimed at limiting sprawling growth by restricting where septic-served subdivisions can be located. The debate on a bill to require the 10 largest jurisdictions in the state to create dedicated stormwater restoration fees carried on late into the evening, with opponents, largely from the eastern shore and western Maryland, attempting to filibuster until the end of session, at midnight.

At one point, the floor leader for the bill, Senator Paul Pinsky, asked the opponents – many of whom had invented, and then promulgated, the notion of a “war on rural Maryland”  – why, when they opposed additional water quality regulations on farms on the grounds that agriculture wasn’t the only source of pollution to the bay,  they opposed a bill whose impacts fell most heavily on the densest areas of the state. The opponents fell back to a line of defense that can only be characterized as diversionary. They argued that Maryland’s overall pollution contribution was insignificant compared to the contribution of other states, that the cost of compliance was too expensive, and that the Chesapeake Bay TMDL “pollution diet” was in litigation, so there was no need to rush to address it.

Never mind the fact that the bill was aimed at jurisdictions with an MS4 stormwater permit, which has conditions and requirements that exist independent of the TMDL. Eventually though, the filibuster was shut down, those in favor of the bill in the Senate prevailed, and the bill was sent back to House and passed with 10 minutes to spare in the session.

The community still intends to pursue, through regulations, a requirement that all new septic systems be built using the best available technology, but we ended the evening with three of our four goals in hand and a strong commitment to address the fourth. There can be little doubt that the 2012 session will go down in Maryland lore as the “Session of the Bay,” despite the fact that it was tumultuous in many other respects.

And, with the close of the 2012, Maryland’s cities, town, and suburban enclaves are well positioned to meet their pollution reduction goals going forward. They have developed their plans and now have been given the tools to implement them in a timely fashion. There still remains important work to be done in other sectors, though, with Maryland’s nutrient management regulations still under consideration and an agricultural community divided over its willingness to be a full player in the recovery of Maryland’s most valuable natural resource. The session has ended, but the journey to restoration has just begun.

Share on Facebook

(Posted by Erik Michelsen.)

According to the Chesapeake Bay Program’s estimates, pollution from urban and suburban stormwater runoff is the only sector where nutrient loads are currently growing in the bay watershed. On much of the western shore of the Chesapeake, including the Baltimore-Washington metro counties, agriculture is an increasingly rare land use, shifting daily to the eastern shore or Midwest. And in Maryland, the Bay Restoration Fund (aka “Flush Tax”) is being used to upgrade wastewater treatment plants to the best available technology. Yet, these areas consistently suffer from some of the worst water quality in the Chesapeake region (see EcoCheck Chesapeake Bay Report Cards).

In the face of Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) limits, a sputtering economy, and cash-strapped governments, if we are going to improve water quality in our local rivers and the bay, we’re going to have to get creative. The development of Phase II Watershed Implementation Plans (WIPs) by local governments throughout the bay watershed has made it more apparent than ever that in order to have any chance of reversing the damage caused by urban and suburban runoff in our lifetime, each local government needs to create a dedicated source of funds for the maintenance and retrofit of stormwater practices. Funding these efforts from the general fund or through inadequate fees on new development has been an abject failure, and without a serious approach, modeled upon the way that municipal drinking water and wastewater infrastructure is maintained and expanded, we shouldn’t expect any improvement in this arena. During the upcoming legislative session, a number of organizations will continue to push for Maryland to adopt a state requirement that local governments put these dedicated funds in place as well as create revenue streams to fill them.

Dedicated funding to tackle the existing backlog of stormwater work is a huge piece of the clean-up puzzle, but what about the fact that as new development comes into the watershed, or existing sources of pollution (e.g., wastewater treatment plants) grow, additional pollution will be added to already heavily impaired waterways? With the promulgation of the bay TMDL by EPA in late 2010, pollution reduction targets are in place, and new pollutant loads, whether they be from stormwater, wastewater, or another source, must be “offset” so as not to worsen the condition of either the bay or the local tributary into which the site discharges. The exact form that this offset or “trading” program will take is still under development, but a well-devised plan can not only foster truly “smart” growth in the bay watershed, but also enlist it as a powerful tool in the improvement of water quality.

I recognize that this will be difficult for many to believe or accept—after all, we’ve been bombarded with the mantra that “development is killing the bay” for decades – but what if, as a condition of new development, local governments required developers to upgrade existing septic systems, restore broken streams and wetlands, and convert farm fields into forests? In certain respects, the change is no different than current “adequacy of public facilities” laws that are on the books, and that pertain to school or sewer capacity. Our waterways are the ultimate “public facilities”, and their current condition is, with very few exceptions, completely inadequate.

The notion of “trading pollution” is distasteful to some and has surely been manipulated by others, but it’s important to recognize that even in the absence of any new growth, our rivers and the bay will remain badly broken, but that by harnessing the inevitable growth that will come to the bay watershed as a partner in improving water quality, we add another important tool to the toolbox of bay recovery.

Share on Facebook

(Posted by Erik Michelson.)

After centuries of unregulated wetland filling, land clearing, and shoreline modification, over the course of the past several decades, federal, state, and local regulations have been put in place ostensibly to reverse the trend of the declining health of the country’s waterways. As a rule, these have taken the form of a sequence of three options: “avoid, minimize, mitigate.” So, in the context of a development project, impacts to wetlands or trees in the critical area buffer should be avoided if at all possible, and if not avoided, minimized. Any impacts that do occur, should either be mitigated, or offset, preferably on the same site where they originally occurred, but if not there, somewhere else in the same jurisdiction.

The merits of this system can be debated, particularly the stringency with which the avoidance and minimization lines are upheld (or not), but at least in terms of metrics (e.g., acres of non-tidal wetlands) this method has a rigidity that allows politicians and bureaucrats to proudly declare “no net loss” of resources.

But what if, in the context of restoration, one’s intention is to increase the ecosystem benefits of a project without doing it in precisely the 1 to 1, in-kind ratio demanded by a strict metrics-based accounting? What if, on the way towards restoration, it becomes necessary to actually violate the letter of the law?

Turns out these aren’t just hypothetical questions. Certain stream and wetland restoration methods that have been studied by the University of Maryland have been shown to have the capacity to trap and treat sediment and nutrients, and create high quality habitat for wildlife. These projects involve permanently connecting eroded or incised streams to their surrounding floodplains. In virtually all cases, this involves temporary impacts to streams or adjacent wetlands with the goal of enhancing and improving the quality of the overall resource, both in terms of the metrics of record, but also in terms of less tangible factors, such as increasing fish spawning habitat. Nevertheless, the regulatory comments on these projects come back as though they were development projects, impacting natural resources so that a Wal-Mart parking lot could be built upon them, rather than capping old agricultural sediments trapped in a stream valley with a rich, biodiverse wetland so that they can no longer wash down to tidewater with each rain event.

Additional evidence that our current regulatory framework is more properly aimed at slowing the decline of the resource, rather than facilitating its recovery, could not be clearer than in the case of rare, threatened, and endangered plants. Any entry level gardener can go to Home Depot or the nursery down the street and buy a suite of noxious, invasive plants, such as English ivy or purple loosefstrife to drop into their flower beds and colonize the surrounding woods and wetlands. But, heaven forbid you want to try to bring back a rare, threatened, or endangered native plant species. Should you be so enterprising as to try, you will need a permit from the Maryland Department of Natural Resources (DNR) just to possess or transport them. Best not to bother even trying to “re-introduce” them. DNR currently has no guidelines or standards in place to review such permits. The system is turned on its head.

At its worst, a purely metrics-based regulatory approach can actually harm the resource that it is intended to protect. Take the case of the South River. As mitigation for damage done to tidal wetlands as part of a bridge construction project, the Maryland State Highway Administration (SHA) was required by the Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE) to create tidal wetlands elsewhere in the watershed. On its face, it seems reasonable enough. The trouble is, the tidal wetlands that were disturbed as a result of the bridge crossing were only there because over the past century or so, agricultural sediments, rich in nutrients, washed into the open water of the river, filled it in, and became colonized with invasive phragmites reed. So, in order to compensate for disturbing an acre of farm mud in the river, the chief regulatory agency, despite the objection of a number of other regulatory partners and the South River Federation, required SHA to dump more fill and stone along the shoreline at South River Farm Park so that they could declare “no net loss” of wetlands. Meanwhile, we’ve lost an acre of shallow water fish habitat and several thousand feet of intertidal beach habitat, where horseshoe crabs and terrapins could nest. A better solution was on the table, but the regulators forced SHA back to the drawing board to spend more taxpayer money on an inferior design that was worse for the South River.

Current, federal efforts, led by the Environmental Protection Agency, requiring that the pieces for Chesapeake Bay recovery be put in place by 2025 make these issues all the more salient. Even with unlimited funding and complete local support, neither of which exists, reaching Bay clean-up goals is a stretch in that timeframe. Without a regulatory apparatus that can move smoothly between development and restoration review, and expedite and evolve its understanding of the latter, it will be impossible.

Share on Facebook

Posted by Eric Michelsen.

Perhaps you’ve heard it said that in Chinese the character for “crisis” is the same as the one for “opportunity”. I know I have. A quick search of the internet, that great dasher of self-delusion, suggests that this assertion was probably wishful thinking guided by a poor translation. Nonetheless, I think there’s a great deal of merit to the idea of embracing turbulent times as a vehicle for positive change. And, there’s little question we’re living in turbulent times.

In the midst of a recession, with high unemployment rates and low consumer confidence, I think it’s easy for legislators to put their environmental concerns on the back burner, to focus on ways to create jobs, or to try to find ways to ease people’s economic burden. This old way of thinking – that economic prosperity can be exclusive of environmental sustainability – is actually what has gotten us into our current position: a Bay on life support, a climate out of control, and an economy where the best jobs we create are far from our shores.

The truth is that the economy and our environment are intertwined – especially in Maryland, where the Chesapeake Bay is an enormous economic engine. We are putting the pieces in place NOW, to make Maryland a leading innovator in the emerging green economy as well as a leader in improving environmental health.

For several years, Maryland has been a member of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), and has collected revenues, a share of which are targeted at energy efficiency and conservation programs. These are dollars aimed at reducing our reliance on coal and natural gas, and other polluting sources of energy by employing contractors to go into the homes of low and middle income individuals, install insulation, new windows and doors, and energy efficient appliances. This is the kind of program that creates installation jobs that can’t be shipped offshore, manufacturing jobs across multiple sectors, and helps drive down electricity rates for everyone in the state. This is but one instance where our economic goals are perfectly aligned with our environmental ones. Another is the case of promoting renewable energy, like offshore wind. By beginning to harness the natural wind resource off the coast of the Atlantic, we can decrease our reliance on fossil fuels, create jobs in the manufacturing and installation of turbines, and set the example for states throughout the region.

But what about the cost? Much is made in the popular media of the “subsidies” that renewable energies receive, and it’s popular in some circles to ridicule government support of solar or wind energy, but I ask you: what is the “subsidy” that each of us grants the coal industry every time that the top is blown off another mountain in West Virginia, or a stream is filled with toxic sludge in Kentucky, or a landfill is plugged with heavy metal-laden fly ash in Crofton? What is the subsidy that the taxpayers of Pennsylvania provide to the natural gas companies each time the poisonous wastewater from hydraulic fracturing operations is discharged into their rivers and streams? We’ve all been paying those subsidies since time immemorial. If we’re going to talk about costs, let’s talk about the TRUE costs of these methods, including their environmental impacts. It’s time we finally start subsidizing activities that benefit us, and that improve our quality of life without at the same time deteriorating the quality of those living at the site of extraction.

To my mind, there is no bigger crisis, or opportunity, than the current condition of the Chesapeake Bay. Popular accounts might lead you to believe that the Bay’s health is the product of 40 or 50 years of rough use and a few nasty hurricanes. The truth is, we find ourselves with our current opportunity because of over 350 years of intensive use and abuse. The feds have given us 15 years to get things back on track, the Governor has shortened that timeframe to 10. I would hate for him to think that I don’t appreciate his optimism, but with that ambitious goal comes a vastly shortened timeline. By the State’s own estimates, we need to invest something on the order of $1 billion per year, for the next decade, into on-the-ground practices that are going to improve the water quality of our streams, creeks, and rivers. From what I can tell, the current statewide expenditures for this effort are a small fraction of that amount, and constantly under threat. We need to ensure, starting this year, that we have the revenue streams in place to guarantee that our wastewater treatment plant upgrades across the state can occur without delay, and that each county in the state has a dedicated funding source in place to repair the damage that uncontrolled stormwater runoff has wreaked from western Maryland to the eastern shore and everywhere in between. Think about it, a billion dollars a year for the Bay. How many engineering, design, and construction jobs, as well as jobs in the resource conservation, aquaculture, and tourism industry do you think that translates into?

We’re in the midst of a crisis, of that there’s no doubt, and we have the opportunity to choose one of two paths: doing things the way we’ve always done them and praying for a different result, or embracing clean energy, a clean Bay, and a healthy environment as the roadmap to a healthy economy. I think you know which path you’ll find me on. I hope you’ll join me.

Share on Facebook

Posted by Erik Michelsen.

Late last year, when Maryland turned in its roadmap for cleaning up the Chesapeake to the federal government, many of us held out considerable hope that it would not only detail strategies for how we, collectively, are going to clean up our portion of the Bay’s pollutants, but also clearly articulate the ways that the state would finance this multi-billion dollar initiative.    Unfortunately, the strategy that Maryland presented to the EPA represents more deferral and delay, rather that the leadership we had hoped for, pushing off difficult decisions into the future rather than taking action now.

Maryland has set an ambitious deadline of 2020 – five years before it is required to do so – for having all of the practices in place in order to achieve Bay clean-up.   The Watershed Implementation Plan (WIP) submitted on December 3^rd, estimates that meeting the implementation of 70% of these practices by 2017 could cost as much as $10 billion statewide.    The bulk of these costs fall into three primary areas: First, the continued upgrade of wastewater treatment plants, conversion of conventional septics, and enhancement of wastewater infrastructure (approximately $ 5 billion); second, the repair or restoration of stormwater related damage throughout the state (approximately $ 4 billion); and third, the upgrade of coal-fired power plants to reduce airborne nutrient pollution (between $1.8 and 3 billion).   These numbers add up quickly and can become staggering when taken as a whole, particularly when these estimates appear pretty rosy in comparison to some locally-derived figures.

However, that’s no reason for delay, quite the contrary.  For, if legislators in Maryland had gotten serious about this effort almost 40 years ago, when the Clean Water Act went into effect,  we could have spent around $25 million/year and now be looking at a clean Chesapeake Bay.  Instead, in addition to the $1.2 billion structural deficit the State faces, it now also faces a $1.4 billion environmental deficit each year through 2017, and according to the WIP, appears to have chosen to punt on doing anything substantial in 2011.

The environmental community and a number of other stakeholders stand united in asking both the administration and the legislature to step up to marshal the necessary resources to get this Bay clean-up effort underway now.  That will involve increasing the Bay Restoration Fee – the so-called “Flush Tax” – so that wastewater treatment plants statewide can continue being upgraded in a timely and efficient fashion.   It will also involve requiring local governments to put in place “stormwater utilities”, dedicated funding sources, based on impervious surface fees, that each jurisdiction can use to repair and restore the damage that has occurred to the streams, creeks, and rivers feeding the Bay.   Each of these revenue sources will help create new, “green” jobs throughout the state, and will clean up local waterways in addition to the Chesapeake.

If the State and local governments fail to start taking the necessary steps to clean up the Bay, as they have done for decades, they risk fines and penalties, and EPA could potentially require “backstop” measures that could have serious impacts on growth and development for years to come.    In a year of many difficult decisions, starting to get serious about the clean-up of the Chesapeake Bay should be an easy one.  Let’s see some leadership.  Let’s stop talking about clean water and start fighting for it.

Share on Facebook