Restoring The Chesapeake Bay

What's New

Moving Beyond 2010

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has lagged in its efforts to restore the Bay for the last thirty years. The latest Chesapeake Bay Agreement shoots to reduce pollution levels by 2010, but everyone knows we will not achieve those standards. Residents of the Bay must hold polluters and politicians accountable if we want to see improvements in the Bay.

Congressman Wittman's bill to clean up the Bay

In February, Congressman Rob Wittman reintroduced the Chesapeake Bay Accountability and Recovery Act, H.R. 1053, to make sure restoration agencies work together and use adaptive management to respond to the changing state of the Bay. Though a step in the right direction on accountability, the bill does not drive home what needs to happen to meet the goals.

Where We Come In

Environment Virignia will work to restore the Bay by solving environmental threats, restoring this iconic ecosystem, and ensuring that it never reverts back to its current, degraded state. Environment Virginia will:

* Educate and activate local citizens, local businesses, elected officials and recreationalists to show broad and deep support—and to serve as a catalyst to convince our elected officials to implement common sense solutions.

* Implement policies that will restore and protect the Bay over time based on our research, public education and activism.

Background

The Chesapeake Bay is one of America’s most iconic natural places. The Bay is America’s largest estuary, and one of the most productive. It is home to thousands of species of plants and animals, and 15 million Americans live along the watershed’s shores. But each year, nearly 300 million pounds of nitrogen pollution end up in the Chesapeake Bay. Over one-third of this nutrient pollution comes from agricultural practices upstream, as well as run-off and from sewage systems.

Moving Beyond Pollution

One of the most effective ways to combat the pollution entering the bay is to enforce agricultural best management practices (BMPs) to control runoff from entering surface or ground waters. The most cost-effective measure, BMPs can effectively stop 60% of agricultural runoff from entering the Bay.

Some BMPs include:

Nutrient management plans to stop excess application of fertilizers with nitrogen and phosphorous
Forest and grass riparian buffers to stabilize stream banks and absorb nutrients in runoff before
Stream bank fencing to block livestock from
No-till farming to reduce the amount of soil erosion from farmers’ fields
Cover crops, instead of having exposed soil, to absorb excess nutrients and prevent erosion
Rotational grazing to improve soil nutrient levels so farmers need less fertilizers

While it's hard to quantify the economic value of the Bay, it's easily in the billions of dollars, from fishing and crabbing to recreation and tourism.