Senate Introduces New Proposal that Could Open the Door to Renewed Chesapeake Bay Restoration
Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD) announced he will introduce a bill to
reauthorize the Environmental Protection Agency’s Chesapeake Bay Program. Along
with renewed and increased funding, the bill establishes an accountability
system whereby states must enforce limits on all sources of pollution entering
the Chesapeake Bay.
“With this bill, Congress has a chance to once and for all
restore the Chesapeake Bay, one of our most
beloved and most fragile national treasures,” said Environment Virginia
Advocate J.R. Tolbert. “The bill offers hope for real restoration because at
its core is an unprecedented system of federal accountability for bay polluters.
This bill could lead to effective action to reduce the largest Chesapeake Bay pollution sources: urban development and
agriculture.”
For decades the bay has suffered a deluge of pollution from
sewage treatment plants, industrial sources, poorly planned development,
agricultural fertilizer, and animal manure, leading to pervasive dead zones
every summer in which almost nothing can survive. State programs have failed to
significantly reduce this pollution due to an over-reliance on voluntary measures
and a lack of enforcement of pollution limits.
Sen. Cardin’s bill, the Chesapeake
Clean Water and Ecosystem Restoration Act of 2009, would codify President
Barack Obama’s Executive Order from May 2009, calling on EPA Administrator Lisa
Jackson to issue annual progress reports on the bay’s recovery. The bill sets a
deadline of December 2010 for the EPA to finalize a bay-wide pollution budget
known as a Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL), and directs states to create “Watershed
Implementation Plans” designed to achieve the pollution reductions defined by
the TMDL.
“This bill could be game-changing in two ways. First, states
would have to enforce limits on all polluters, including the developers and
agribusinesses that account for the majority of the bay’s pollution. Second,
the EPA would have to withhold federal funding and finish the job themselves
whenever polluters miss their marks,” concluded Tolbert.
