Chesapeake Bay Action Plan

(Posted by Gerald Winegrad)

Maryland’s 2012 General Assembly Session is now more than halfway over, and while elected officials are currently focused on the state’s budget, several pieces of important Chesapeake Bay legislation that would help clean up our waters await committee votes.

Today the Executive Council of the Senior Scientists and Policymakers for the Bay delivered this letter to key legislators in support of the following legislation that is in line with our 25-step “action plan,”  specifically with respect to science-based recommendations to control agricultural pollution, foster clean development, upgrade septic systems, and improve wastewater treatment plants:

• Reduce pollution from the spreading of animal waste on farm fields (Senate Bill 594)–See my recent Baltimore Sun op-ed and Will Morrow’s letter to the editor on the need for this legislation.
• Finish upgrading the wastewater treatment plants that Maryland has already committed to upgrade with enhanced revenues from the Bay Restoration Fund (Senate Bill 240 / House Bill 446)
• Ensure that local governments have resources to reduce polluted stormwater runoff and that they implement their local clean water plans (Senate Bill 614 / House Bill 987)
• Reduce pollution from poorly planned development by limiting new septic systems (Senate Bill 236 / House Bill 445)
• Require that all wastewater discharges, including septic systems, are treated at the level of best available technology to protect public health and ensure clean water (Through Amendments to Senate Bill 236 / House Bill 445 or by Regulation)

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(Posted by Gerald Winegrad)

In his continuing efforts to undermine Chesapeake Bay restoration, Congressman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) has introduced HR 4153 along with Rep. Tim Holden (D-Penn.). The legislation is another attempt to prevent the EPA from implementing the long-awaited, court-ordered Chesapeake Bay restoration plan known as the Chesapeake TMDL (total maximum daily load). The pollution diet under the TMDL was necessitated by the Bay states’ repeated failures over decades to meet agreed upon reductions for nutrient and sediment pollutants so as to clean-up the 90% of the Bay that is so polluted that the Clean Water Act is violated.

As Doug Siglin, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation’s Congressional affairs guru said in a statement,

“Congressman Goodlatte’s bill would undermine the pollution limits currently in place, derail clean-up efforts, and undercut the federal government’s role in making sure that all Americans have access to clean, swimmable, fishable waters. The federal government has a key role to play in the restoration of local rivers, streams, and the Chesapeake Bay, and we urge all members of Congress to steer well clear of this damaging legislation.”

Reps. Goodlatte and Holden appear to be handmaidens of the farm lobby as the legislation raises some of the very issues the American Farm Bureau and national lobbying arms of the grain and poultry industries have used to try and block Bay restoration plans in their federal law suit.

In February 2011, Rep. Goodlatte succeeded in attaching an amendment to the must-pass FY2011 continuing resolution to fund the federal agencies that would have prevented the EPA from implementing the Bay pollution diet under the TMDL. Our Senior Scientists and Policymakers for the Bay interceded and prepared and sent a letter to Congress on behalf of 60 Bay leader signatories opposing this outrageous effort. (See previous post: Goodlatte Amendment Is a Travesty for the Bay.)

These leaders include two former Governors, a former U.S. Senator, a former Congressman, current and former State Senators, a current County Council member, two former secretaries of Natural Resources from Virginia and Maryland, a former Secretary of the Maryland Department of Environment, top senior Bay scientists and conservation leaders. These signatories include Democrats and Republicans.

The amendment was rejected in the Senate and did not become law. (See previous post: Congressman Goodlatte and You.)

Now, we must fight yet another attempt to destroy ongoing efforts to once and for all clean-up the Bay and meet federal Clean Water Act requirements. We need to let Congress know that it is well past the time to face up to the reality of the need for ramped-up efforts to restore this great estuary.

If you disagree with this harmful legislation, tell Rep. Goodlatte how you feel by leaving him a message on his Facebook page, or
sending him a Tweet, to @repgoodlatte.

Let him know how you feel.

Gerald Winegrad is a former Maryland state senator and chairman of Senior Scientists and Policymakers for the Bay.

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(This ninth installment in our series, What’s It Going to Take?, looks at how the environmental community can regain the initiative and build the political will necessary to clean up the Chesapeake Bay.)

In this exclusive interview with the Bay Action Plan, Chesapeake Bay Program Director Nick DiPasquale says that the costs of cleaning the Chesapeake Bay are significant, but manageable.

“No time is a good time when you’re talking about trying to implement very costly pollution control measures,” DiPasquale said. “But when you spread that cost over the life of a project…you find that the cost to individual households is a few dollars a month. Compare it to cellphone or cable costs, it puts things into perspective.”

Watch the video:

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(Posted by Dawn Stoltzfus.)

A quick note on some recent great Chesapeake Bay science news:

1) The Virginia Institute of Marine Sciences’ data show that underwater grasses (or submerged aquatic vegetation) in the Susquehanna Flats survived Hurricanes Irene and Tropical Storm Lee much better than was originally feared. Underwater grasses are essential for aquatic life and are often a sign of healthy waters

2) The Waterfront Partnership of Baltimore released its plan to make Baltimore Harbor fishable and swimmable by 2020 – look for more details  later this month in a blog by the Senior Bay Scientists and Policymakers’ Dr. Bill Dennison from the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science

3) Noted Bay scientist and passionate advocate Dr. Donald Boesch has received the 2011 Energy & Environmental Leadership Award

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(Posted by Tom Horton.)

Governor Martin O’Malley presumably thinks he’s helping Maryland poultry growers and processors by pressuring the University of Maryland’s environmental law clinic to drop out of a lawsuit aimed at stopping chicken farms from polluting.

But the pollution is real, it’s substantial and it’s not going to get better until the governor and agricultural interests acknowledge we have a problem with too much poultry manure.

But there is no excess manure, agriculture’s defenders argue; and they are correct in that farmers on Delmarva readily use all the manure they can get because it is a good, cheap fertilizer.

The only reason that works, however, is that the state still doesn’t require honest accounting for the water pollution this causes. The only real accounting is the condition of Eastern Shore rivers, none of which meet environmental standards needed to restore Chesapeake Bay, into which they drain.

When farmers spread manure they must put down enough to satisfy their crops’ need for both nitrogen and phosphorus. Soils in many places don’t need any phosphorus at all, a legacy of decades of overapplying manure, which is richer in phosphorus than nitrogen.

So to give crops enough nitrogen they continue building phosphorus to levels where it runs into rivers and the Chesapeake.

The only way to remedy this, to begin restoring Delmarva waterways, is to stop spreading so much manure on soils that can’t handle more phosphorus. Ironically, Maryland already acknowledges this problem in another venue: state regulations on the spreading of municipal sewage sludges on farm fields have a suite of requirements that prevent the polluting buildup of phosphorus in soils.

These ought to apply to agricultural manure as well. If we decreed that overnight, the tougher regulations would stick farmers with a huge disposal problem, since the poultry companies that supply them with chickens—also with the feed and medicines that go in one end of the birds—deny responsibility for what comes out the other end.

So what to do? First and foremost, acknowledge forthrightly that we have a problem, an excess of manure, a significant pollution problem. Stop the denial. Second, search for every alternative use of manure, for generating power, for making fuels for on farm use, for recycling into soil conditioners. There’s been significant progress here, but a good deal more is needed.

Another way to go is just what has happened. Years of denial and delay have begun to bring forth lawsuits, such as the one filed by the Waterkeepers Alliance against an Eastern Shore poultry farm, with legal support from the University’s environmental law clinic.

The governor’s heavy handed attempt last week to short circuit the university’s involvement in the lawsuit is nothing more than shooting the messenger. It ignores the science and does nothing at all for water quality and the public interest.

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