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Danielle, good job, but we need to work on your corroboration sections.

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Chesapeake Bay Grass Resurgence is First Big Conservative Success Tied to Humans, Scientists Say

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Chesapeake Bay Grass Resurgence is First Big Conservative Success Tied to Humans, Scientists Say

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Chesapeake Bay Grass Resurgence is First Big Conservation Success Tied to Humans, Scientist Says.docx

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Chesapeake Bay Grass Resurgence is First Big Conservation Success Tied to Humans, Scientists Say

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Chesapeake Bay Grass Resurgence is First Big Conservation Success Tied to Humans, Scientists Say

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Grass is back and thriving in the Chesapeake Bay, and that bodes well for not only your dinner plate but the future of human-led efforts to restore polluted ecosystems.

The bay is seeing its greatest growth of underwater grasses in almost half a century, according to a study released recently in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Scientists and conservationists have long devoted efforts to cleaning up the bay and restoring the vegetation that serves as a "sentinel" for its overall health. Recently they took a step back, evaluating how those efforts played out over the past three decades.

The conclusion?

The grass comeback has made the Chesapeake "one of the few places on Earth" where long-term improvements can be linked to human efforts on a large scale. It's "one of the pre-eminent ecological restorations reported to date," researchers wrote.

"The biggest resurgence of grass ever recorded - that's impressive," said Chris Moore, senior scientist with the Chesapeake Bay Foundation. "It's a great indication that the changes we're making on land are having real, quantifiable impacts."

In the 1970s, the bay was experiencing an "unprecedented decline" in the grasses, which scientists call submerged aquatic vegetation.

Robert Orth with the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, who's been studying the issue since 1969, said a tropical storm ripped through the area in 1972, damaging underwater grasses that didn't seem to recover. They were also declining for other reasons, including waste from an increasing population living by the bay.

"What we had noted and recorded after (the storm) was something we hadn't seen baywise in the recorded history," said Orth, who co-wrote a 1983 paper for the journal Science that caught people's attention. He also helped author the recent report.

That helped lead to the development of the Chesapeake Bay Program, the regional partnership that allies local, state and federal agencies to help with bay restoration.

But why care about grass at the bottom of the bay?

"They're actually really important to the coastal ecosystem," said Jonathan Lefcheck, lead author of the recent study who now works at the Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences in Maine. "They're a nursery system to invertebrates that come into the bay. All the juvenile species in the bay will utilize the grasses at some point."

Think of blue crabs, which rely on the grass as a habitat in their youth.

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The grasses also buffer against storms, "store more carbon than forests," and trap sediment to make the water clearer, Lefcheck said.

"Few underwater species actually make their environment better," he said. These simple plants do.

When officials started studying the bay grasses, they quickly realized a main culprit of their demise: nutrient pollution.

"It's what you put on the land that eventually gets in the water," Orth said.

Runoff from agriculture is a big factor. And more people keep moving to the area, turning the land into flat surfaces like concrete that don't absorb stormwater.

Increasing concentrations of nutrients like nitrogen produce algae blooms that make the water cloudier - "kind of green and soupy," Lefcheck said - blocking the plants from getting enough light. The grass, adapted to live underwater, has the highest light requirements of any on Earth, Lefcheck said.

"It's like throwing a blanket over your houseplants," he said.

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Seagrasses worldwide have declined by nearly a third over the last century, according to the study.

But local efforts to combat the problem, including a "pollution diet" restricting what goes in the Chesapeake, paid off.

Since the 1980s, grasses recovered by threefold to cover about 60,000 acres by 2015, according to the study. Orth said the trend's continued since then.

Scientists monitor the plants' presence annually, taking aerial pictures to see where the grass is and determine its density.

"One of the biggest implications is you have to pay attention, have to be monitoring," Lefcheck said. "The Chesapeake is unique in that it has had these monitoring efforts. There has been persistence."

And the same efforts can be applied elsewhere.

"If you can do it here, you can do it anywhere," he said.

The researchers also encountered an unexpected find: the more species are present, the better the grasses fare. Biodiversity matters.

But, Orth said, "it's not mission accomplished yet.

"It's an effort we just can't stop. ... I think more and more people realize that the activities they're involved with, no matter how small, make a difference in the health of the bay."

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proceedings of the national academy of sciences

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Chesapeake Bay grass resurgence is first big conservation success tied to humans, scientists say

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Grass is back and thriving in the Chesapeake Bay, and that bodes well for not only your dinner plate but the future of human-led efforts to restore polluted ecosystems. The bay is seeing its greatest growth of underwater grasses in almost half a century, according to a study released recently in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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Humans Can take Credit for Chesapeake Bay's Thriving Grasses Write Up

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Humans Can take Credit for Chesapeake Bay's Thriving Grasses Write Up

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Humans Can Take Credit for Chesapeake Bay’s Thriving Grasses.docx

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Humans Can Take Credit for Chesapeake Bay's Thriving Grasses

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Humans Can Take Credit for Chesapeake Bay's Thriving Grasses

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NORFOLK, Va. (AP) - Humans can take credit for the comeback of grasses growing at the bottom of the Chesapeake Bay.

That's the conclusion of a study released recently in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The Virginian-Pilot reported Friday that the study found the bay to be "one of the few places on Earth" where long-term improvements can be linked to humans.

The bay experienced an "unprecedented decline" in grasses in the 1970s. That was partly due to a fierce tropical storm but also waste from the area's increasing population. Runoff from agriculture was another factor.

Efforts to restore the bay have included a "pollution diet" that restricts what goes in to the Chesapeake. Since the 1980s, grasses have recovered by threefold. They covered about 60,000 acres in 2015.

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Humans can take credit for Chesapeake Bay's thriving grasses

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NORFOLK, Va. (AP) - Humans can take credit for the comeback of grasses growing at the bottom of the Chesapeake Bay. That's the conclusion of a study released recently in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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Pollution Regulations Help Chesapeake Bay Seagrass Rebound Write Up

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Pollution Regulations Help Chesapeake Bay Seagrass Rebound Write Up

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Pollution Regulations Help Chesapeake Bay Seagrass Rebound

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Pollution Regulations Help Chesapeake Bay Seagrass Rebound

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Underwater grasses are growing back in the Chesapeake Bay. The plants now carpet three times as much real estate as in 1984, thanks to more than 30 years of efforts to reduce nitrogen pollution. This environmental success story shows that regulations put in place to protect the bay's health have made a difference, researchers report the week of March 5 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Rules limiting nutrient runoff from farms and wastewater treatment plants helped to decrease nitrogen concentrations in the bay by 23 percent since 1984. That decline in nitrogen has allowed the recovery of 17,000 hectares of grasses, the new study shows - enough to cover roughly 32,000 football fields.

"This is one of the best examples we have of linking long-term research data with management to show how important that is in restoring this critical habitat," says Karen McGlathery, an environmental scientist at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville who wasn't involved in the research. "I don't know of any other system that's so large and so complicated where these connections have been made."

The bay's aquatic vegetation, including seagrasses and freshwater grasses, is an important part of coastal ecosystems, says study coauthor Jonathan Lefcheck, a marine ecologist at the Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences in East Boothbay, Maine. Beds of underwater grasses act as nurseries that shelter young fish and aquatic invertebrates. The plants clean the water by trapping particulates, and stabilize shorelines by preventing erosion. But the once-lush grasses began dying off in the 1950s when the region's human population boomed, and cities and farms dumped increasing amounts of nitrogen and other nutrients into the bay.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, state and federal agencies took action, limiting the amount of nutrients that could enter the bay from farms, water treatment facilities and other sources. Those groups also instituted programs to monitor the bay's health, building up the stockpile of information that Lefcheck and his colleagues have now analyzed.

The researchers looked at aerial surveys of the bay, data on water temperature and nutrient levels, as well as land and fertilizer use. Using mathematical equations to test which variables had the biggest impact on seagrass regrowth, the team pinned down nitrogen reduction as the driving force. That makes sense: Too much nitrogen in water promotes the growth of plankton, which can block sunlight, and algae, which can settle on the grass blades and smother them.

Now, though, researchers are seeing just the opposite. Grasses need clean water to get a foothold, but once they settle in, they "modify their own environment and make it better," Lefcheck says. "Once you get a little bit established, it can take off."

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Pollution regulations help Chesapeake Bay seagrass rebound

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Underwater grasses are growing back in the Chesapeake Bay. The plants now carpet three times as much real estate as in 1984, thanks to more than 30 years of efforts to reduce nitrogen pollution.

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Underwater Comeback: Aquatic Grass Reappears in Chesapeake Bay Write Up

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Underwater Comeback: Aquatic Grass Reappears in Chesapeake Bay Write Up

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Underwater Comeback: Aquatic Grass Reappears in Chesapeake Bay

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Underwater Comeback: Aquatic Grass Reappears in Chesapeake Bay

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WASHINGTON - Underwater grasses along the bottom of the Chesapeake Bay that had been virtually wiped out by pollution decades ago have made a remarkable comeback, according to new research from the University of Maryland.

The resurgence of aquatic grasses signals a positive shift in the ecological health of the bay and provides fresh evidence that long-term cleanup efforts in North America's largest estuary are paying off, the university's Center for Environmental Science said.

"The Chesapeake Bay has turned the corner. In fact, it's one of the large ecosystems in the world that has probably made the most progress," said Peter Goodwin, president of the center, in a statement.

The center attributes the resurgence to specific efforts to reduce what's known as nutrient pollution - essentially an overdose of nitrogen and phosphorus from wastewater and runoff that enters coastal waters. The nutrients fuel the growth of algae on the water's surface, which blocks sunlight from reaching the bay grasses below.

Researchers analyzed 30 years of data on land use, fertilizer application and land runoff in the Chesapeake Bay area. Since 1984, nitrogen concentrations in the water have fallen by 23 percent and phosphorus concentrations by 8 percent, thanks to long-term efforts by federal, state and local agencies to reduce nutrient pollution in the bay.

The study was published March 5 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Aquatic grass is considered ecologically important because it provides a habitat for baby crabs and other creatures, protects shorelines and reduces erosion.

The underwater vegetation is also what's known as a sentinel species - a natural early warning system of ecological damage.

"We're been calling these grasses our coastal canaries, the things that are most sensitive to water quality degradation, and the things we have to watch as long-term indicators of these water quality situations," said Bill Dennison, vice president of the environmental science center.

Still, the Chesapeake Bay still has room to improve. Last spring, the center released its annual report card on the bay's overall ecological health, which assessed a C grade. That's up from failing grades for several years.
Like WTOP on Facebook and follow @WTOP on Twitter to engage in conversation about this article and others.
© 2018 WTOP. All Rights Reserved.

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Underwater comeback: Aquatic grass reappears in Chesapeake Bay

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WASHINGTON - Underwater grasses along the bottom of the Chesapeake Bay that had been virtually wiped out by pollution decades ago have made a remarkable comeback, according to new research from the University of Maryland.

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EPA Restores Funding to News Outlet Covering Chesapeake Bay Write Up

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EPA Restores Funding to News Outlet Covering Chesapeake Bay Write Up

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EPA Restores Funding to News Outlet Covering Chesapeake Bay

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EPA Restores Funding to News Outlet Covering Chesapeake Bay

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The Environmental Protection Agency agreed Thursday to restore $325,000 in funding to the Bay Journal, a print and online news outlet covering environmental issues related to the Chesapeake Bay.

The EPA funded the York County-based newspaper for 27 years through Republican and Democratic administrations. In August 2017, the agency unexpectedly cut off the money. The decision was made two years into a six-year grant, after the EPA cited an unexplained "shift in priorities."

The Bay Journal appealed the decision to the EPA, and got vocal support from Maryland's two U.S. senators, Benjamin L. Cardin and Chris Van Hollen, both Democrats.

After the appeal was filed, emails surfaced in the press suggesting the decision to end the grant was politically motivated.

"It looks like they didn't like some of the stories we had written about planned cutbacks by the Trump administration for Chesapeake Bay funding," said Bay Journal editor Karl Blankenship.

Blankenship says two reporters from his eight-person staff left amid the uncertainty over the grant funding, which makes up about a third of the journal's budget.

An EPA spokeswoman did not respond to a request for comment Friday. In January, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt said the decision to end the grant "should not have been made the way it was."

In 2010, the Environmental Protection Agency imposed strict new pollution limits on state and local governments in the Chesapeake Bay watershed to sharply curb nitrogen, phosphorous and sediment by 2025.

The cleanup has been been a bipartisan priority for decades. Shortly after taking office, President Donald Trump proposed sharply cutting the EPA's budget, including its Bay Cleanup Program. However, the cuts have not been implemented by Congress.

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EPA restores funding to news outlet covering Chesapeake Bay

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The Environmental Protection Agency agreed Thursday to restore $325,000 in funding to the Bay Journal, a print and online news outlet covering environmental issues related to the Chesapeake Bay. The EPA funded the York County-based newspaper for 27 years through Republican and Democratic administrations. In August 2017, the agency unexpectedly cut off the money.

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Conowingo, Growth, Climate May Threaten Chesapeake Bay Cleanup Deadline Write Up

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Conowingo, Growth, Climate May Threaten Chesapeake Bay Cleanup Deadline Write Up

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Conowingo, Growth, Climate May Threaten Chesapeake Bay Cleanup Deadline

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Conowingo, Growth, Climate May Threaten Chesapeake Bay Cleanup Deadline

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The Chesapeake cleanup effort is facing major headwinds that threaten the region's longstanding goal to implement by 2025 all of the actions needed to restore the Bay's health.

Draft figures presented to state and federal officials in December show that the combined impact of growth, climate change and the filling of the Conowingo Dam reservoir offset much of the nitrogen reduction efforts undertaken since 2010, when the most recent Bay pollution control plan was put into place.

As a result, officials left the December meeting agreeing that they would write plans to offset the increased nutrient loads, but did not clearly commit to fully implementing those actions, at least for Conowingo and climate change, by the original 2025 cleanup deadline.

"We're going to continue to talk about that in February," said Ben Grumbles, secretary of the Maryland Department of the Environment. "That is a big number, there is no doubt about that."

Grumbles, who chaired the meeting of the Bay Program Principals Staff Committee, which includes state agency heads and senior federal officials, said it was important to get agreement among the states on the path forward, but added he was "not supportive of kicking the can down the road."

The numbers emerged from the state-federal Bay Program's " midpoint assessment " of cleanup efforts - 2018 is the midway point between 2010, when the latest Bay cleanup goals were set, and the 2025 deadline for implementing plans to reach those goals.

Through the multi-year midpoint assessment process, state and federal officials reviewed new science, adopted new computer models for assessing the movement of nutrients through the watershed and their impact on the Bay, and are revising nutrient reduction goals needed to restore clean water throughout the Chesapeake.

Based on that new information, each state is to update its watershed implementation plan later this year, detailing the actions that will be needed to achieve their share of the cleanup. Those actions include such things as upgrading wastewater treatment plants, installing new controls to capture stormwater from developed areas or planting streamside forest buffers or cover crops to soak up excess nutrients from farmland.

The region faces a daunting task. Through 2016 - the most recent figures available - the region was less than a third of the way to meeting its 2025 goal for reducing nitrogen. The vast majority of the shortfall, though, is in Pennsylvania.

While states remain committed to meeting their original 2025 cleanup obligations and to offsetting the impacts of new growth between now and then, they balked at firmly committing to offset the impacts of Conowingo and climate change which, factored together, offset much of the nitrogen reduction efforts taken since 2010.

Conowingo Dam once captured a significant portion of the nutrients that came down the Susquehanna River, the Bay's largest tributary - and largest source of nutrients. Nutrients, trapped in sediment that accumulated behind the dam, were effectively cut off from their path toward the Bay. Recent studies, though, have shown the reservoir behind the dam is now filled with sediment, and most nutrients simply flow past it.

State officials at the December meeting agreed to develop a plan for additional nutrient reductions to offset the impact of Conowingo, but they did not commit to fully implementing it by 2025.

Climate change increases nutrients in the Bay because more rainfall and greater storm intensity drive a larger amount of nutrients off the land and into streams. The original Bay cleanup goals were based on modeling that assumed steady climate conditions from the early 1990s through 2025. Instead, average precipitation during that period is expected to increase by slightly more than 3 percent, increasing the expected size of the climate-related nutrient load.

State officials were caught off guard by the magnitude of the climate change numbers, which boosted the estimates of nitrogen reaching the Bay by nearly 4 percent. In addition, they expressed concern that changing climate patterns, such as increased rainfall, would likely change the effectiveness of some nutrient control practices. Stormwater ponds may not be able to handle more intense storms, for instance, while increased flooding could affect others.

After extensive debate, officials agreed that their watershed implementation plans would generally describe how the states will address nutrient loads from climate change, but delayed quantifying the needed amount of reductions until 2021.

Delaying the inclusion of numeric goals was intended to give scientists more time to refine their estimates and to identify which nutrient control practices are most likely to withstand changing climate conditions.

"We need to get a better understanding of what those practices are and where they need to go," said Nicki Kasi, who is overseeing development of Pennsylvania's nutrient reduction strategies for the state's Department of Environmental Protection. "Once we understand where they need to go to be effective, then we can take another look at that. This is all early draft."

Grumbles said the states are "all agreeing that we do need to factor it in, and we need to have a strong approach to it. But it is going to take some time to get the numbers right." He pledged to keep the issue "on the front burner."

Beth McGee, director of science and agricultural programs with the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, said she was "really disappointed" that the states would not commit to including climate-related nutrient reduction goals in new cleanup plans, even if it meant those nutrient reductions could not be achieved until after 2025.

"You can't pick and choose what science you like just because climate change turned out to be a bigger number than we anticipated," she said.

David Flores, climate adoption policy analyst at the nonprofit Center for Progressive Reform, said the decision to leave numbers out of the planning process was "outrageous" and that it would reduce the urgency to address the problem. "They are not even advancing a reasonable rationale for why they shouldn't just acknowledge the numbers," he said. "No one is arguing there is not some load of pollution that is attributable to climate change."

On the issue of Conowingo, though, McGee praised the framework being developed to address the impacts from the dam. Under the emerging plan, all of the states in the watershed will steer a portion of their federal Chesapeake Bay restoration grants to fund implementation of the Conowingo plan, and Maryland will seek contributions from Exelon Corp., the dam's owner, as part of its relicensing agreement.

It's unlikely, though, that actions to offset Conowingo's impact will be fully implemented by the original cleanup deadline. "I think we are kidding ourselves if we think we are going to do that by 2025," McGee said. At the same time, she added, "we certainly don't want to see it kicked too far down the road."

The joint funding would also help Pennsylvania, the state faced with implementing the majority of the nutrient reduction practices needed to offset increased nutrients from Conowingo.

"The devil is going to be in the details to see how that plays out, but I've been optimistic as far as to the direction it is going," said Kasi of Pennsylvania's DEP. "It is a realistic way of moving forward together."

Excess nutrients foul the Bay by spurring algae blooms that cloud the water, blocking sunlight to underwater grasses, which provide shelter and food for fish, shellfish and waterfowl. When the algae die, they sink to the bottom and decompose in a process that draws oxygen from the water, creating oxygen-starved dead zones.

The Bay cleanup plan -- formally known as the Chesapeake Bay Total Maximum Daily Load, and often referred as the Bay's "pollution diet"-- sets nutrient levels intended to clear the Chesapeake's water and ensure that enough oxygen is available to support everything from bottom-dwelling worms to the striped bass that swim along the surface.

But several places, all of which are in Maryland, would fail to meet clean water goals even when all the nutrient reductions required under the TMDL were achieved, computer models showed. In those places, Maryland and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency approved temporary variances, which allow the state's water quality standards to be exceeded.

McGee said she was open to extending the time frame for fully implementing actions to offset Conowingo and climate change impacts beyond 2025 because, if the needed actions seem unachievable, states may instead push to expand variances or make other decisions that would weaken the clean water goals.

"We don't want to lower the bar," she said. "We want to keep the bar the same but maybe take a little bit longer to get over it."
About the Midpoint Assessment and its Update
Current pollution reduction goals were established for the Chesapeake Bay in 2010 when the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issued the Bay's Total Maximum Daily Load, often referred to as a "pollution diet," which sets nutrient and sediment caps for each state and river. The pollution reduction goals are intended to reduce algal blooms, improve water clarity and enhance oxygen levels to sustain fish, crabs, oysters and other aquatic life.

The TMDL calls for reducing the amount of nitrogen entering the Bay from about 260 million pounds in 2010 to about 192 million pounds in 2025, and reducing the amount of phosphorus from 19.2 million pounds to 14.5 million pounds annually. Responsibility for the reductions was divided among the states that drain into the Bay - Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Delaware and New York - and the District of Columbia.

Actions to achieve those caps were to be fully implemented by 2025, although it would take several years for those practices to become fully effective. It takes times for trees planted in a streamside buffer to grow, for instance, so the full impact would not be seen in the Chesapeake until later.

This year, the state-federal Bay Program is completing a "midpoint assessment" of the TMDL goals to determine what course corrections, if any, are needed to meet that deadline.

The assessment, which is coming to a close, examined the impact of issues not fully understood when the TMDL was written, including climate change and the filling of the reservoir behind Conowingo Dam. It also included the development of updated computer models to better understand where nutrients are coming from, their impact on water quality and the effectiveness of various nutrient control practices.
What's next?
The new computer models were approved for management use. The models produced revised nutrient reduction goals for each state, which were released as drafts and now fall under a four-month review.

Under those revisions, the amount of nutrient reductions needed to reach Bay goals - not accounting for the impact of climate change and Conowingo - remains similar to before. But the draft numbers show some changes at the state level. Pennsylvania's job, for instance, gets slightly easier, while Maryland's task gets harder. But the impacts of climate change, Conowingo and growth are challenges for everyone, with the greatest increased burden falling on Pennsylvania.

After the numbers are finalized, states are responsible for updating their watershed implementation plans by Feb. 8, 2019, with input from local governments and others, to show how they will achieve those nutrient goals. After public review, the plans should be finalized in June 2019.
Key Issues Conowingo Dam
≈ The Problem: The reservoir behind the 94-foot-high dam near the mouth of the Susquehanna River is essentially filled with sediment, and therefore no longer trapping a portion of the sediment, phosphorus and nitrogen flowing downstream.
≈ The Impact: About 6 million additional pounds of nitrogen and about 260,000 additional pounds of phosphorus are reaching the Chesapeake in an average year than previously thought.
≈ The Policy: Bay states will create a plan to fund and conduct nutrient reduction activities needed to reduce or offset the additional nutrient load from behind the dam.
Because all of the Bay states benefited when the dam was trapping nutrients, they have all agreed to contribute a portion of their federal Bay cleanup funding to help fund pollution control solutions. Contributions will also be sought from Exelon, the dam's owner.
Climate Change
≈ The Problem: Climate change has increased precipitation and the intensity of storms in the Chesapeake region. Both are driving more water-fouling nutrients into the Bay. Warming water temperatures can reduce dissolved oxygen for aquatic animals.
≈ The Impact: The original computer model used to calculate the 2025 cleanup goals did not anticipate such impacts as a 3 percent increase in precipitation since the early 1990s, or changes in storm intensity. Updated calculations show that, by 2025, an additional 9 million additional pounds of nitrogen and 385,000 pounds of phosphorus will be reaching the Bay each year.
≈ The Policy: Bay states will update their watershed implementation plans to broadly describe how they will address the additional nutrient and sediment loads resulting from climate change. But states will not be required to incorporate numeric targets in their plans until after 2021, when the Bay Program will complete additional climate-related estimates and analyses of runoff control practices. States would then use this information to revise their watershed plans with strategies for addressing those specific loads. The draft policy does not specifically require that actions needed to offset additional climate related loads be implemented by 2025.
Future Growth
≈ The Problem: Increasing amounts of people, farm animals and developed land, along with the loss of nutrient-absorbing forests, will increase the amount of nutrients running off the land and reaching the Bay.
≈ The Impact: By 2025, the Bay Program's computer models estimate that increased growth and related land use changes will result in an additional 4 million pounds of nitrogen and 154,000 pounds of phosphorus entering the Bay.
≈ The Policy: Previously, states have tried to offset pollution from growth after-the-fact through a variety of tactics such as sewage treatment updates, tree planting and stormwater management. But tracking among jurisdictions has been uneven and has resulted in some surprises as new data have become available. Instead, forecasts of growth will be incorporated into the nutrient reduction goals given to each state, which will now account for growth upfront when they write new watershed implementation plans.

The forecasts will be revisited every two years, with nutrient reductions goals being adjusted up or down based on the latest information. Some land conservation advocates see this as a positive move because, for the first time, it will allow states to get nutrient reduction credit for protecting environmentally sensitive land such as forests. If fewer forests are developed than predicted, their nutrient reduction burden would decrease as well.

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Conowingo, growth, climate may threaten Bay cleanup deadline

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The Chesapeake cleanup effort is facing major headwinds that threaten the region's longstanding goal to implement by 2025 all of the actions needed to restore the Bay's health.

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Chesapeake Bay Water Quality at Near-record High Write Up

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Chesapeake Bay Water Quality at Near-record High Write Up

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Chesapeake Bay Water Quality at Near Record High Write Up

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Chesapeake 'Bay Barometer' Reports Improving Health Write Up

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Chesapeake 'Bay Barometer' Reports Improving Health Write Up

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Chesapeake 'Bay Barometer' Reports Improving Health Write-up

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Chesapeake Bay Water Quality at Near-record High

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Chesapeake Bay Water Quality at Near-record High

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Water quality in the Chesapeake Bay continues to improve, hitting a near-record high for the bay and its tidal tributaries.

The Chesapeake Bay Program announced Friday that preliminary data show nearly 40 percent of the bay met standards for water clarity, oxygen and algae growth between 2014 and 2016. This is a 2 percent increase over the last assessment, credited to a rise in dissolved oxygen in the deep channel of the bay. It's close to the highest since the program began.

But the group cautioned it's an uphill battle to get the steeper reductions in agricultural and urban runoff needed for the remaining 60 percent of the bay to achieve healthy water quality.

"The improving trends in water quality standards attainment follow similar trends in other indicators that we track," said CBP Director Nick DiPasquale in a statement.

The acreage of underwater grassbeds has grown by more than 50 percent of the goal, he said, with other improvements in blue crab, oyster and striped bass fisheries.

"While these improving trends are encouraging," DiPasquale said, "we must ramp up our efforts to implement pollution control measures to ensure progress toward 100 percent of the water quality standards is achieved."

The bay has been polluted for decades by overloads of sediment and nutrients - nitrogen and phosphorus - that get dumped into rivers and streams throughout the 64,000-square-mile watershed.

Those nutrients fuel massive algal blooms in the bay and its tributaries that decay and cause oxygen-starved dead zones that are lethal to marine life.

Sediment silts over oyster reefs and suffocates shellfish; it also clouds the water, depriving underwater grasses of sunlight.

The CBP tracks water quality in several ways: by using a suite of computer simulations, called the Watershed Model, to estimate the impact of local efforts to reduce nutrient and sediment loads, and by gathering data from hundreds of monitoring stations on tidal and nontidal waterways throughout the watershed.

The latest results indicate that, in Virginia, the James and Rappahannock river stations show improving 10-year trends for nitrogen.

But other Virginia stations show worsening 10-year trends: the Mattaponi station for nitrogen and phosphorus, the Pamunkey station for nitrogen and sediment and the Appomattox station for nitrogen, phosphorus and sediment.

In the watershed overall, computer simulations show that agricultural BMPs, or best management practices, are in place to achieve 33 percent of the nitrogen, 81 percent of the phosphorus and 57 percent of the sediment reduction goals for the bay.

All but nitrogen show an improvement in reduction. The nitrogen shortfall has occurred for four years straight and is blamed largely on a failure of Pennsylvania to report and implement BMPs.

Data also show that, while pollution loads in 2016 were below-average, they did increase between 2015 and 2016: Nitrogen loads rose by 12 percent to 241 million pounds, phosphorus by 35 percent to 13.6 million pounds and sediment by 56 percent to 2.5 million tons. Experts blame the uptick on increased rainfall.

Virginia and other bay states have been under a mandate by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency since 2010 to reduce pollutants to the Chesapeake in an effort known as the clean water blueprint. By this year, they must have 60 percent of the measures in place that will lead to a restored bay. They must have all measures in place by 2025.

The CBP will release its 2016-17 Bay Barometer next month.

"The upcoming midpoint assessment will give us the opportunity to assess what we've been doing and make any necessary adjustments," said Ben H. Grumbles, chairman of the CBP's principals' staff committee and secretary of the Maryland Department of the Environment.

At the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, an Annapolis-based advocacy group, Beth McGee, the director of science and agricultural policy, said in a statement that the report offers both good and bad news.

"It's clear the clean water blueprint is working," McGee said. "But water quality still has to improve in 60 percent of the bay, meaning we can't take our foot off the gas pedal."

The CBP is a regional partnership of federal, state and local agencies, along with conservation, academic and citizens groups, committed to restoring the polluted estuary since 1983. It's led by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Nearly two-thirds of its $73 million annual budget is given to state and local communities for anti-pollution measures.

But the program is facing a budget crisis under the Trump administration, which wants to zero out all federal funding, while the House would slash it to $60 million. The Senate would keep funding at the current level.
Contact Dietrich at 757-247-7892 or tdietrich@dailypress.com. Follow on Twitter at DP_Dietrich

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Chesapeake Bay water quality at near-record high

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Water quality in the Chesapeake Bay continues to improve, hitting a near-record high for the bay and its tidal tributaries. The Chesapeake Bay Program announced Friday that preliminary data show nearly 40 percent of the bay met standards for water clarity, oxygen and algae growth between 2014 and 2016.

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Chesapeake 'Bay Barometer' Reports Improving Health

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Chesapeake 'Bay Barometer' Reports Improving Health

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EASTON - The Chesapeake Bay's health has been steadily improving, according to a report card released by the Chesapeake Bay Program earlier this month.

More Bay grasses and blue crabs, greater achievement of water quality standards and a reduction of estimated pollution contributed to the program's optimistic report.

The Chesapeake Bay Program's Bay Barometer: Health and Restoration in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed 2016-2017 was published by the Chesapeake Bay Program (CBP), "a regional partnership that works across state lines to protect and restore" the nation's largest estuary. The report grouped the outcomes under five categories: abundant life, clean water, conserved lands, engaged communities and climate change.

Within those categories were 10 interrelated goals and 31 outcomes and accompanying deadlines set by the program partners to advance the protection and restoration of the Chesapeake Bay ecosystem and its watershed.

"The Chesapeake Bay Program is guided by the goals and outcomes of the Chesapeake Bay Watershed Agreement. Signed on June 16, 2014, this agreement commits our partners to protecting and restoring the Bay, its tributaries and the lands that surround them," the report's introduction stated.

One of the outcomes for improved water quality credited wastewater treatment plant upgrades and agricultural best management practices (BMPs).

"It's a big step forward to get some credit for doing something," Talbot County farmer Bobby Hutchison said. "I see that as a positive."

Hutchison was named a 2017 Master Farmer in part because he helped shape "Maryland agriculture into a national environmental model," according to the Mid Atlantic Master Farmers Association.

"Agricultural BMPs have also contributed to the drop in estimated phosphorus and sediment loads," the report stated. However, "increased phosphorus and sediment pollution from urban development has offset or reduced the overall benefits these practices have engendered."

"Agriculture is most cost-effective way to reduce runoff into the Chesapeake Bay, so the farmers have really spent a lot for doing so, but it's a lot more expensive for the urban side, so they haven't made nearly as much progress," said Danielle Bauer, public relations and program director for the Maryland Grain Producers Association.

By 2017, practices and controls were to have been put "in place to achieve 60 percent of the nutrient and and sediment load reductions necessary to achieve applicable water quality standards compared to 2009 levels ... as articulated in the Chesapeake Bay Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL)," the Bay Barometer stated.

"Computer simulations show that pollution controls put into place in the Chesapeake Bay watershed between 2009 and 2016 lowered nitrogen loads by nine percent, phosphorus loads by 20 percent and sediment loads by nine percent," the report stated.

By 2025, the goal is to have all practices and controls in place to achieve applicable TMDL water quality standards.

"Pollution-reducing practices are in place to achieve 33 percent of the nitrogen reductions, 81 percent of the phosphorus reductions and 57 percent of the sediment reductions necessary to attain clean water standards," the Bay Barometer stated.

While one form of pollution decreased, the Bay's health was also improved by "a strong increase in the tidal freshwater and moderately salty regions," according to the Barometer.

"In 2016, an estimated 97,433 acres of underwater grasses were mapped in the Chesapeake Bay: 7,433 acres greater than the Chesapeake Bay Program's 2017 restoration target and 53 percent of the partnership's 185,000-acre goal," the report stated. "For the second year in a row, the 2016 total is the highest amount ever recorded by the Virginia Institute of Marine Science."

"In 2011, following Hurricane Irene and Tropical storm Lee, we anticipated that underwater grass beds would be significantly damaged from high velocity storm flows and sediment, especially the Susquehanna Flats grass beds at the head of the Bay," Nick DiPasquale said. After six years as director of the Chesapeake Bay Program, he retired on Dec. 31, 2017.

"While those beds were damaged, it was not nearly as significant as we feared. In the following years, the Susquehanna Flats and other grass beds throughout the watershed repaired themselves and expanded, showing us that our restoration efforts are rebuilding resilience back into this ecosystem," DiPasquale said.

Hiding in submerged aquatic vegetation (SAV) are more blue crabs, according to the report card.

"Between 2016 and 2017, the abundance of adult female blue crabs in the Chesapeake Bay rose 31 percent from 194 million to 254 million," the report card stated. "This number is above the 70 million threshold and the 215 million target, and marks the highest amount ever recorded by the Bay-wide Blue Crab Winter Dredge Survey."

The report also stated that "experts have determined the blue crab stock is not depleted and overfishing is not occurring."

"In 2017, the three jurisdictions that manage the Chesapeake Bay's blue crab fishery decided not to establish an allocation-based management framework, which would have assigned Maryland, Virginia and the Potomac River Fisheries Commission a portion of an annual 'total allowable catch' of male and female crabs," the Bay Barometer stated.

Instead, jurisdictions and stakeholders decided "to continue to operate under a science-based management framework," the report stated.

The six tributaries - three each in Maryland and Virginia - selected for oyster restoration are at varying levels of progress.

Harris Creek has been monitored and evaluated since 2015, and is, according to the report, "where many of the reefs seeded in 2012 and 2013 are meeting the criteria for success in oyster weight and density and serving as home to oysters of different ages, which indicates a healthy oyster population."

On December 15, 2017, the Maryland Department of Natural Resources (DNR) announced that two more Maryland tributaries, both off of the Potomac River, had been selected for oyster restoration.

"The department's selection complements ongoing large-scale oyster restoration activities in Harris Creek, the Little Choptank River and the Tred Avon River," according to DNR.

The Bay Barometer also reported on progress in outcomes related to fish habitat, forage fish, brook trout, fish passage and black duck.

"Rockfish populations are considered to be recovered throughout the Bay, with this year's index in Maryland rising above the 64-year average," DiPasquale said.

Less progress has been made on increasing forest buffers and urban tree canopy (a new outcome) and the creation or reestablishment of tidal and non-tidal wetlands.

The Bay has become more hospitable since aquatic conditions have improved after two major tropical storms. In fact, the Bay has attained "the second-highest level of water quality standards since 1985," the report stated.

"Water clarity continues to improve in certain areas of the Bay," Di Pasquale said. "Dissolved oxygen levels are increasing and dead zones are shrinking in size, duration, frequency and severity."

"While the long-term trend in estimated water quality standards attainment is positive, water quality remains far below the 100 percent attainment needed for clean water and a stable aquatic habitat, and an estimated 60 percent of tidal waters are considered impaired," according to the Bay Barometer.

Toxic contaminants and their longterm effects are of increasing concern to scientists. Data collected in 2014 shows that "eighty percent of the Chesapeake Bay and its tidal tributaries was partially or fully impaired by toxic contaminants in 2014," the report stated.

"Metals, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and priority organics exceed water quality criteria in at least part of all of the tidal tributaries that deliver water to the main stem of the Bay," the report stated. "Even if inputs of toxic contaminants decline, there may be little short-term change in this indicator of environmental health, as toxics will persist in bottom sediment and fish tissue."

Land conservation is another priority of the program's Bay restoration efforts. Fifty percent of the goal to protect an additional two million acres of land throughout the watershed has been achieved.

"Since 2010, approximately 1,004,500 acres of land in the Chesapeake Bay watershed have been permanently protected from development," according to CBP.

Outcomes are in place to increase public access to the watershed, with 44 percent achieved by providing boat ramps, beaches and hiking trails, for example.

Environmental literacy planning, Meaningful Watershed Educational Experiences (MWEEs), sustainable schools, citizen stewardship, increasing diversity in leadership and training local officials on issues related to water resources are also outcomes.

Finally, CBP also has established two outcomes under the category "climate change."

The program aims to "pursue, design and construct restoration and protection projects to enhance the resiliency of the Chesapeake Bay and its aquatic ecosystems against the impacts of coastal erosion, coastal flooding, more intense and more frequent storms, and sea level rise," and "to monitor and assess trends and likely impacts."

"The continued improvement in these indicators is clear evidence that the efforts of local, state and federal governments, the agricultural community, environmental advocacy groups and individual citizens are working," DiPasquale said.

"I am proud to have helped play a role in rebuilding and restoring this complex and important ecosystem," DiPasquale said. "Our task now is to stay on track and finish the job."

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CONNIE CONNOLLY Special from the Star Democrat

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Chesapeake 'Bay Barometer' reports improving health

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EASTON - The Chesapeake Bay's health has been steadily improving, according to a report card released by the Chesapeake Bay Program earlier this month. More Bay grasses and blue crabs, greater achievement of water quality standards and a reduction of estimated pollution contributed to the program's optimistic report.

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Industrial Runoff Fouls Chesapeake Bay Write Up

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Industrial Runoff Fouls Chesapeake Bay Write Up

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Industrial Runoff Fouls Chesapeake Bay, Threatens Health, Report Says

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A Poison Pill for the Chesapeake Bay Write Up

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A Poison Pill for the Chesapeake Bay Write Up

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Brian E. Frosh, a Democrat, is the Maryland attorney general. Mark R. Herring, a Democrat, is the Virginia attorney general. Karl A. Racine, a Democrat, is the D.C. attorney general.

For all who cherish the Chesapeake Bay and champion efforts to save this national treasure, reports of improved oxygen levels and rebounding crab and oyster populations should be reason to take heart. Collective efforts of Chesapeake watershed states are bearing fruit, with water quality improving - but more progress is needed before the United States' largest estuary is truly out of the woods. Now, these hard-earned gains are threatened.

In September, Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) introduced an amendment to the 2018 House appropriations bill that would prohibit the Environmental Protection Agency from spending funds to enforce the restoration plan known as the Chesapeake Total Maximum Daily Load. This deliberate sabotage was not Goodlatte's first attempt to thwart the collaborative federal-state efforts in the Chesapeake Bay.

According to Goodlatte, the EPA should be stripped of its clear authority under the Clean Water Act to enforce pollution limits to which all Chesapeake Bay jurisdictions have agreed and dedicated years of investment. Notwithstanding strong bipartisan opposition, including 20 members from the bay watershed, the amendment survived. The appropriations bill is now with the Senate.

Goodlatte's poison-pill amendment is just the latest in a string of attacks by the Trump administration and some members of Congress to weaken or destroy bedrock environmental laws. The Chesapeake Bay Total Maximum Daily Load is a quintessential example of how the federal government should use the Clean Water Act's authority and framework to join state partners in restoring and maintaining our country's waterways.

After 25 years of extensive but ultimately unsuccessful restoration efforts, virtually everyone agreed that a new strategy was required for the Chesapeake Bay to be saved. The prospect of losing the bay, with a "natural capital value" of $107.2 billion annually and enormous recreational and environmental benefit to millions of Americans, prompted widespread public outcry and galvanized regional leaders. All seven watershed jurisdictions - Delaware, Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia and the District - worked with the EPA to develop a new Chesapeake Clean Water Blueprint. Designed to ramp up restoration and pollution-control efforts, the blueprint identified steps to reduce nitrogen, phosphorus and sediment loads to improve water quality in the bay and its tributaries.

Unlike prior efforts, however, this blueprint included a crucial accountability framework and federal backstop authority to ensure that each jurisdiction actually does what it promised and investments made by all states are not wasted. Far from the dictatorial overreach Goodlatte alleged, the accountability framework simply contemplates that the EPA will take certain actions if a jurisdiction fails to meet its commitments. Moreover, the Total Maximum Daily Load - or pollution diets - were not punishment or randomly assigned, as Goodlatte asserted, but rather were developed after an extensive public process, using state-of-the-art modeling tools and monitoring data, peer-reviewed science and close interaction with each jurisdiction. When special interests outside the bay watershed then attacked the blueprint, we and other bay states successfully defended the plan, which the court determined to be a lawful example of cooperative federalism.

The Senate is putting together its version of the EPA's budget, and positive indications suggest it will reject the Trump administration's efforts to financially gut the bay restoration program. While the administration's budget would eliminate all $73 million in funding, the House bill provides for $60 million, and Senate appropriators have signaled they are likely at least to match this allocation.

Whether the Goodlatte amendment will survive, however, remains uncertain and, thus, provides Chesapeake Bay champions a critical opportunity to make their voices heard. We must make clear the importance of our region-wide, collaborative approach and the crucial role the federal government must continue to play to ensure that all actors are working together toward the common goal of restoring this vital watershed.

As the first president to sign in to law protections for clean air and water 50 years ago, President Lyndon Johnson counseled (on signing the Wilderness Act): "If future generations are to remember us with gratitude rather than contempt . . . we must leave them a glimpse of the world as it was in the beginning, not just after we got through with it."

For our children and future generations, let us continue the collaboration and vigilance necessary to return the Chesapeake Bay to what it once was, in all of its beauty and bounty.

Read more about this issue:

The Post's View: The Trump administration's attack on the Chesapeake Bay

Daniel Sze: The whole region wins when we improve the Chesapeake Bay

The Post's View: Don't ignore a major threat to the Chesapeake Bay

Chip Bowling: Farmers can help clean up the Chesapeake

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Opinion | A poison pill for the Chesapeake Bay

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Brian E. Frosh, a Democrat, is the Maryland attorney general. Mark R. Herring, a Democrat, is the Virginia attorney general. Karl A. Racine, a Democrat, is the D.C. attorney general. For all who cherish the Chesapeake Bay and champion efforts to save this national treasure, reports of improved oxygen levels and rebounding crab and oyster populations should be reason to take heart.

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Unbeknownst to most Marylanders, many industrial facilities are polluting state waters and the Chesapeake Bay with their stormwater runoff, while also threatening the health of neighboring communities, says a new report by a pair of environmental groups.

The groups blame weak state controls and lax enforcement.

More than one-third of the Maryland facilities that reported their stormwater discharges from 2014 to March of this year exceeded pollution limits for potentially harmful chemicals, according to records reviewed by the Center for Progressive Reform and the Environmental Integrity Project, both Washington-based nonprofits.

Most public attention in the Bay region is focused on municipal stormwater from streets, roofs and parking lots, which is the fastest growing source of nutrient pollution to the Chesapeake. But industrial operations - those making all manner of products, from asphalt and chemicals to paper and even food, plus power plants, transportation terminals, sewage treatment plants and waste handling and recycling facilities - are required to have their own stormwater permits that regulate the harmful, and often toxic, runoff from their operations.

"Industrial stormwater in some ways has been ignored," said David Flores, a policy analyst with the Center for Progressive Reform and co-author of the report. "It's deserving of more attention."

Until last year, Flores was the Baltimore Harbor Waterkeeper. While he lived there, in his individual capacity, he said he unofficially visited a number of supposedly regulated facilities in the city, and saw "piles of waste running off the site or piles of hazardous materials sitting uncovered, exposed to the elements."

Exceeding Allowable Limits

Among the toxic contaminants reported in stormwater discharges were excessive levels of copper, aluminum, zinc and lead, along with other pollutants that can be harmful if exposed to fish, or people.

A scrap recycling business in Salisbury reported copper in its runoff that was more than 15 times the permitted level, the report notes, while a similar business in East Baltimore had levels more than seven times the maximum.

"It's really bad stuff," said Rena Steinzor, a University of Maryland law professor and member scholar at the center. But because the state doesn't require more tracking of discharges, she said, "Who knows what the exposure is?"

One in seven of the facilities required by the state to report their discharges failed to do so, the groups' analysis found, and 40 percent of those that did submitted incomplete or partial data. What's more, the vast majority of facilities weren't even required to report about their stormwater discharges into local waters.

"You can't tell how much of an impact it's having because you're not requiring measurement of the flow," said Sylvia Lam, an attorney with the Environmental Integrity Project and another co-author.

MDE Criticized as Weak

The groups blame the "general permit" that the Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE) issues to more than 900 industrial facilities statewide.

As the name suggests, its requirements are less specific and often less stringent than what facilities would have to do if they were covered by an individual pollution discharge permit. In fact, only 228 of those facilities were required to conduct and report on quarterly monitoring of their discharges.

The Environmental Integrity Project and other groups had filed a legal challenge several years ago, alleging that Maryland's general permit did not require enough action by the facilities. They lost in court. Now, Flores and Lam say, a review of information freely available on government databases and gleaned from state public-records requests bears out their concerns.

Some of the worst sites are auto salvage yards, scrap metal recycling facilities, and landfills, according to the report.

"By their nature, these operations have many toxic materials on-site," it says, such as leaking car batteries, deteriorating metal parts, and eroding trash incineration ash waste, a condition that state inspectors discovered at Baltimore's Quarantine Road Landfill.

Impact on Low-Income Communities

The situation raises concerns for the health of residents in nearby communities. By mapping the regulated facilities, the groups found that low-income neighborhoods in eastern and south Baltimore, northern Anne Arundel County, Prince George's County along the border with the District of Columbia, and Salisbury on the Eastern Shore, among others, are surrounded by the densest concentration of industrial stormwater sites.

Records indicate the state failed to take prompt action when violations occurred, the report says. From 2014 until this year, MDE inspectors visited only 54 percent of the 65 facilities that reported discharges exceeding permitted pollution levels. They inspected just 13 of the 31 facilities that had violated the state's requirements by not filing reports.

In the 12 months ending in June, records show the MDE did inspect 292 of the more than 900 industrial sites with general stormwater permits, and found violations or noncompliance in 70 percent of the visits, the report says.

Yet it's unclear what if anything was done about many of those violations. According to federal and state records, MDE and the state attorney general's office have taken enforcement action against a total of 13 facilities covered by the industrial stormwater permit since 2014, the report said.

A Baltimore Junkyard

Among the facilities listed in the report for having excessive stormwater pollution levels is Baltimore Scrap Corp., a metal recycling business in the Curtis Bay area of the city that has been the subject of a 19-month enforcement action by the MDE since environmental groups tipped regulators to problems there in March 2016.

The Bay Journal reported on the case in October, as it raised questions about the state's oversight of such facilities. State officials have been negotiating with the company for months, as have representatives of Blue Water Baltimore and the Environmental Integrity Project. Lam, the project's lawyer, declined to comment on the case.

The same company owns three other metal recycling facilities in Maryland.

Two of them, the former Cambridge Iron & Metal Co. (renamed Canton Metal Recycling) in East Baltimore and North Point Recycling in Dundalk, also reported excessive discharges of metals and other pollutants, according to the report.

"There are a lot of big questions marks out there about compliance and levels of pollution discharging from these sites," Flores said. Complete data aren't readily available to the public, he said, but based on what the groups could dig up, "it's not looking very good . . . unacceptable numbers of facilities are discharging excess levels of pollutants."

Recommended Remedies

The groups call for the Hogan administration and the General Assembly to increase funding for the MDE so it can hire and train more inspectors.

Over the years, the MDE's water and science administration had lost 30 percent of its field staff, the report said. Lawmakers did provide $200,000 this year for the hiring of more inspectors, though it's unclear if the recent staffing cuts have been fully restored.

The report urges the MDE to pursue "deterrence-based enforcement," targeting its resources in neighborhoods with a concentration of such facilities. Enforcement has been a chronic problem with the MDE for years, contends Steinzor, through both Democratic and Republican administrations.

Part of it stems from staff and funding shortages, but she suggested if regulators took prompt public action against a few bad actors, others would take notice and get into compliance more quickly.

To improve compliance and enforcement, the report calls for regulators to strengthen the permit requirements. It recommends establishing fixed deadlines by which polluting facilities must take corrective actions when existing control measures aren't working. Washington state and California, it notes, spell out an escalating series of steps facilities must take within a short time frame if excessive pollutant discharges continue.

The groups also propose requiring more facilities to monitor their stormwater discharges.

Only six of 29 categories of industries covered by the general permit must do so now. In California and Washington, for example, the report says that all facilities must test their discharged stormwater for a baseline of pollutants and conditions, such as sediment, oil and grease, while specific sectors have to monitor for other pollutants.

Facilities in Washington must do additional testing for certain pollutants if they discharge into waters already impaired by those pollutants.

"Lead is a huge issue at landfills," said Lam, "yet the [Maryland] general permit doesn't require the landfill sector to even conduct benchmark monitoring for lead."

Finally, the report calls for Maryland regulators to establish a publicly available reporting database for industrial facilities and require them to electronically submit updated pollution prevention plans and compliance reports on a quarterly basis. It also requests the MDE to join other states in posting inspection, enforcement and settlement data on an open website.

"People would care if they understood what it was doing to them," Steinzor said.
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UDPATE: MDE Responds

MDE Secretary Ben Grumbles issued a statement in response to the report, saying that his department is "committed to enforcing regulations that protect the environment and public health, including the management of stormwater runoff from industrial sites."

Grumbles explained that the general permit sets numeric "benchmarks" to determine pollutant concentrations in runoff at the edge of a site, but that exceeding those benchmarks is not in itself a violation of the permit or necessarily show how much pollution will reach the Bay.

Rather, he said, the benchmarks are indicators of how well stormwater control measures are working, and they let the MDE staff focus on those sites where pollutant levels exceed the benchmarks, to ensure that they are taking steps to control runoff. He did not address why many sites reporting exceedances had not been inspected.

Regarding sites that have not conducted monitoring, Grumbles said the permit, which took effect in 2014, gave facilities up to three years to apply for coverage and to do benchmark sampling.

And he said that activities cited in the report "could still be subject to enforcement action."
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This article is published with permission from The Bay Journal.

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Industrial runoff fouls Chesapeake Bay, threatens health, report says | Baltimore Brew

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Unbeknownst to most Marylanders, many industrial facilities are polluting state waters and the Chesapeake Bay with their stormwater runoff, while also threatening the health of neighboring communities, says a new report by a pair of environmental groups. The groups blame weak state controls and lax enforcement.

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Government has cut fundings to clean up the Chesapeake Bay.

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WASHINGTON (AP) - After years of steady progress for Chesapeake Bay clean-up efforts, the conservation outlook is increasingly bleak for the country's largest estuary and the state that depends on it most - Maryland, bay advocates say.

From the Trump White House to the Republican-controlled Congress, programs aimed at improving the bay's health are facing cuts and policy shifts that environmental groups warn would reverse hard-won battles to curb pollution.

The first ominous sign came in May, when the Trump administration's proposed budget cut the Environmental Protection Agency 's entire Chesapeake Bay Watershed Initiative, the federal-state program that drives - and enforces - bay cleanup programs across six states, 180,000 miles of streams and rivers and 18 million people.

"We were told that that EPA supported full funding for the Chesapeake Bay Program," said Ann Swanson, executive director of the Chesapeake Bay Commission, a bipartisan legislative body created by Maryland, Virginia and Pennsylvania in 1980 to advise their respective state legislatures on bay-related concerns.

The commission met with EPA administrator Scott Pruitt before the Trump budget proposal was released. "We were told that (full funding) was a presidential recommendation and a recommendation of the OMB (Office of Management and Budget)," Swanson added.

House Republicans did not agree to the Trump cut, but did slash the EPA's bay program by $13 million, to $60 million, in the final appropriations bill that passed two weeks ago. The Senate has not yet considered the measure.

The spending bill contains another threat: Virginia Rep. Bob Goodlatte, a Republican, won approval of an amendment to prohibit enforcement of bay pollution limits by the EPA.

"At the heart of the issue is the EPA 's desire to control conservation and water quality improvements efforts and punish all those who dare to oppose them," said Goodlatte, in support of his own measure on the House floor before it cleared on a 231-197 vote.

None of the members of the Maryland House delegation voted for the amendment, including Rep. Andy Harris, R-Cockeysville, a member of the House Freedom Caucus, but he did ultimately support the final appropriations bill that included the EPA provision.

Yet another area of worry for bay advocates was the EPA and Trump administration's June announcement that it planned to rescind a contentious executive order by President Barack Obama expanding federal jurisdiction over bodies of water like streams and ponds that could be protected by the Clean Water Act.

The sum of these efforts has some bay conservationists and, surprisingly, Maryland farmers, wringing their hands.

"If the rest of the states loosen their (pollution) requirements due to lack of federal enforcement, most likely Maryland won't do that," said Colby Ferguson, government relations director for the Maryland Farm Bureau.

What that means, explained Ferguson, is that Maryland farmers would have to spend more to adhere to conservation rules than their regional counterparts. They also would have to contend with agricultural run-off into the bay from states not enforcing the so-called "pollution diet" agreed to when they signed onto the EPA 's Chesapeake Bay Initiative in 2014.

The pollution diet is also known as the Total Maximum Daily Load, or TMDL, an EPA-established limit set in 2010 on the annual amounts of nitrogen, phosphorous and sediment that finds its way into the bay from states in the Chesapeake watershed.

If those states - Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Delaware, New York and West Virginia - do not make sufficient progress toward their annual TMDL requirements, the EPA can apply "backstops," or enforcement actions to compel them to do more. The levying of backstops is what the Goodlatte amendment would prevent.

In April, Pennsylvania received what amounted to a warning letter from the EPA regarding its efforts to meet the TMDL.

"Pennsylvania remains far off track for nitrogen and phosphorous reductions," the letter stated, warning that the agency might direct conservation funding to other priorities and make additional cuts in support for the state's wastewater facilities.

In the same letter, the EPA noted that the Susquehanna River, the majority of which runs through Pennsylvania, was responsible for about 50 percent of the fresh water flowing into the bay.

In response to the Goodlatte amendment, Maryland Sen. Ben Cardin, a Democrat and senior member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, said: "A healthy bay means a healthy economy for the entire Chesapeake Bay Watershed region, which cannot be accomplished without vibrant state, federal and local collaboration...I will continue to work with my colleagues to ensure the federal government continues as a robust partner in this regional effort."

If the Goodlatte measure survives in the Senate, bay conservationists predict a return to the days when it was every state for itself when it came to policing water pollution restrictions.

"If we were to remove the EPA 's ability to have the accountability for the states," said Kim Coble, vice president of environmental protection and restoration for the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, "we're basically back to the program that didn't work for decades, which was the states can try really hard (to achieve pollution-reduction goals) and if they make it, they make it. If they don't, they don't."

At stake is the progress already made toward improving water quality in the bay. According to a report by the Chesapeake Bay Commission, bay waters experienced a 30-year low in dead zones, or areas with no dissolved oxygen, in 2016.

The commission also estimated the "natural capital value" of the Chesapeake Bay watershed to be $107.2 billion annually, and that would increase by $22.5 billion annually if the bay was completely clean. Maryland's share of the latter would be $6.2 billion annually.

Seasoned bay advocates like Swanson recommended the long view.

"Leaders have come and gone and we've had liberals and we've had conservatives," she said. "And the restoration of the Chesapeake Bay has always remained on course."

But Swanson was not as sanguine about potential federal budget cuts.

"Every economic analysis of our restoration effort says we need more money not less," she said, noting that state and private money for bay conservation tended to be about four times more than federal funds. However, she characterized the federal contribution as a "magnet" for all the other funding.

Also at risk in the Chesapeake conservation discussion is the so-called "Water of the United States," or WOTUS rule, established by an Obama executive order in 2015. The rule, which sought to expand what bodies of water could be protected under the Clean Water Act, was quickly challenged in court by manufacturing, agribusiness and anti-regulatory interests after it was signed and was never truly put in practice.

In announcing his executive order to put the WOTUS rule under review, President Donald Trump said: "...a few years ago, the EPA decided that 'navigable waters' can mean nearly every puddle or every ditch on a farmer's land, or anyplace else that they decide - right? It was a massive power grab. The EPA 's regulators were putting people out of jobs by the hundreds of thousands."

Maryland's senior senator recently offered a contrasting view.

"The Clean Water Rule expanded important protections to small streams and wetlands which, in turn, would have protected our drinking water, better safeguarded our communities from floods, and protected habitat for wildlife in Maryland and throughout the nation," Cardin said. "We need more protection for our water, not less."

The level of that protection might come down to what happens in the Senate as it works on the appropriations bills in the coming weeks.

"We've been through this before," said Coble, "and the senators are really critical and have been helpful in years past."

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Threats mount against Chesapeake Bay conservation efforts

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WASHINGTON (AP) - After years of steady progress for Chesapeake Bay clean-up efforts, the conservation outlook is increasingly bleak for the country's largest estuary and the state that depends on it most - Maryland, bay advocates say.