Feds' Bay cleanup plan: step forward or back?
So the Obama administration has finally unveiled its plan for jump-starting the Chesapeake Bay restoration, and even environmentalists who had called for a stronger federal hand in the cleanup couldn't agree on the showing so far. Some smelled waffling in the feds' resolve to crack down on stubborn farm and storm-water pollution.
The Chesapeake Bay Foundation's Doug Siglin called the feds' draft strategy " a step forward," but didn't exactly bubble over with praise. "All in all, we're pleased that the federal government is stepping up and creating a plan that cuts across federal agencies," he said in a brief telephone interview.
Environment Maryland's Tommy Landers, though, called the draft strategy "a step backwards" from the Environmental Protection Agency's suggestion in September that federal regulations should be expanded and stiffened on poultry and other livestock farms (aka "concentrated animal feeding operations") and on municipal storm water. In the announcement Monday, the feds said they'd give the states a chance first to beef up their pollution controls, and if their efforts were enough to meet water-quality goals, then EPA would hold off on new "bay-specific" rules.
"But states (have) proven themselves incapable of that over the past 25 years,” said Landers in a written release.
J. Charles Fox, EPA's senior advisor on the bay, defended the agency's stance, saying the restoration effort relies on a "close partnership" between the states and federal government. "We simply cannot succeed on our own," he said. With the possible exception of New York, he said, officials from the six bay watershed states have indicated a willingness to step up their efforts to reduce nutrient pollution enough to eliminate the bay's "dead zone."
Even so, Fox said, states would only have until June of next year to lay out how they propose to strengthen pollution controls. And the feds would then have until December 2010 to decide if the states are serious. That's the deadline EPA has set for completing a court-ordered "pollution diet" for the bay, imposing caps on nutrient pollution throughout the Chesapeake and its rivers that will then require state and local governments to crank down on sewage discharges, storm water and other runoff.
Still, with even green-leaning state officials like Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley expressing concern recently about his state's poultry farmers facing tougher regulations than elsewhere in the country, it remains to be seen how this plays out.
While some bay advocates seem willing to trust the Obama administration to follow through on its tough talk, others are pinning hopes on Congress approving new Chesapeake Bay legislation that explicitly authorizes federal and state regulation of polluted runoff from farms and urban and suburban lands - and that also requires the federal government to act if states stumble again.
Most of the witnesses at a Senate hearing Monday welcomed such provisions in the bay bill drafted by Maryland's Democratic Sen. Benjamin Cardin. A couple witnesses even suggested it could be a model for federal action in trying to protect and restore other threatened watersheds, such as the Gulf of Mexico or Great Lakes.
That prospect concerns others who distrust the federal government. Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., issued a statement criticizing Cardin's bill as "heavy-handed" and "a raw deal" for rural residents. A bevy of farm groups submitted letters of concern, and a former EPA official, now a lawyer in private practice, contended that the expansion of regulatory authority in Cardin's bill was "unprecedented" and in some instances potentially unconstitutional.
Cardin, chairman of the subcommittee handling his bill, acknowledged the need to "tighten up" some of its provisions. But he insisted that the measure was drawn up in collaboration with state and federal officials, all of whom recognized a need to re-energize the restoration effort, which has repeatedly failed to meet cleanup goals.
"The bottom line is the bay is in trouble, and we've got to do a better job," Cardin said at the conclusion of the hearing. His bill, he said, is intended to "take the bay program to the next level."
The public will have an opportunity to comment on the draft federal strategy until Jan. 8. Federal officials then expect to refine the plan before finalizing. To see the plan, and to comment, go here.
Comments
When a quarter of the people living on the Eastern seaboard are still allowed to use the Chesapeake Bay as a giant urinal, nobody should be surprised that all the programs to control pollution have failed. Most people think (are misinformed) that when you flush your toilet their waste is treated, but what people do not know is, that their sewage is only treated to prevent odors and that most sewage treatment plants do not treat the nitrogenous (urine and protein) waste, since that is not required by EPA. (www.petermaier.net)
This waste with carbon dioxide the real waste products of human bodies, besides exerting an oxygen demand (like fecal waste) is also a fertilizer for algae, mostly responsible for eutrophication and eventually dead zones. Since all this is caused by a faulty test, acknowledged but never corrected by EPA in 1984, it is extremely discouraging that correcting this essential test is impossible and that nobody is willing to hold the EPA or members of Congress accountable. One also has to wonder why the media is not interested? Or is this too difficult to understand?
TW: In the Chesapeake Bay watershed, at least, attention has been paid to nitrogen in wastewater. State funds are being poured into enhanced nutrient removal upgrades at many sewage treatment plants.
Posted by: Peter Maier | November 10, 2009 1:08 PM
The TW note on my comment.
EPA in 1972 was supposed to be implemented the Clean Water Act on a technology based program by demanding best available treatment (BAT) for all dischargers in open waterways. Unfortunately, due to a worldwide incorrect application of an essential test, measuring the oxygen exertion of sewage (both fecal and urine waste), evaluating treatment plant performances, thus establishing BAT, was not possible. When however in the seventies, again due to this incorrect test, several sewage treatment plants were violating their permits, while in fact treating the sewage better than was required by their permits (www.petermaier.net), EPA had to take action. In 1984, in stead of correcting this test, EPA allowed the addition of a chemical to this test, which selectively kills only those bacteria that exert an oxygen demand because they break down nitrogenous waste. This action was inexcusable, as the Federal Register from that period shows how this test, developed in 1920, had to be applied and due to its incorrect application had caused all the problems.
IF EPA had demanded that the test had to be corrected, we not only would have known how sewage treatment plants really treat their sewage, but also what their effluent waste loading is on receiving open waters. We also would have realized that much better sewage treatment (both fecal and urine) was not only possible, but would cost less than the odor control facilities we still built and who now are meeting EPA’s secondary treatment requirements, while ignoring all the nitrogenous waste. By not establishing the criteria for BAT, EPA not only violated the CWA, but as result will never even meet even the interim goal of the Act, which was swimmable and fishable waters by 1983. Forget its ultimate goal of eliminating all water pollution by 1985.
Posted by: Peter Maier | November 10, 2009 3:38 PM
But how can people comment on eth new plan if the hearings are held during the day----especially in this county- Lancaster county PA-and you know what happens here.
Also EPA has not been wathcing small STPs in PA. Instead it has agreed to watch teh larger ones leaving teh small ones to eth PA DEP. Unfortunately they have not been enforcing teh laws and EPA has had to come in and compel townships to comply with PA state regs and federal regs.
But why is the PA DEP not enforcing those regs?
Evidence is in the DEP file room where the violations are logged in but no corrective action taken.
Act 97 plans were put out with the request to intentioanlly overload already overloded STPs. DEP approved
Posted by: tom harrison | November 12, 2009 12:33 PM