Chesapeake Bay Cleanup Funding Approved
Maryland lawmakers have approved $50 million a year to help clean up the Chesapeake Bay. And, after an intense debate in Annapolis that ended last night (Sunday, Nov. 18), legislators decided against robbing a land preservation program to pay for pollution reduction programs, which was what the state senate advocated.
Instead, tourists and drivers will pay to clean the bay. Everytime someone rents a car in Maryland, a portion of their state car rental tax will go to the new Chesapeake Bay 2010 Trust Fund. And a portion of the state's gasoline tax will also go into the fund.
Environmentalists are declaring victory this morning.
"We've been at it for three years, trying to get dedicated funding for bay cleanup," said Kim Coble, Maryland Executive Director of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation. "This is a real step forward...The legislators said 'we are going to make the bay a big priority."
Legislation specifying exactly how the money will be spent did not pass yesterday. The appropriations will be discussed by lawmakers in January. Temporarily, the $50 million a year will go to the Maryland Department of Natural Resouces. The intention is for the money to go to programs to reduce runoff of fertilizer pollution into the bay, such as paying farmers not to use fertilizer while planting wheat and other crops in the fall, and encouring them to plant buffer strips of trees and grass along streams. Part of the money will likely go to local governments, to fix leaky urban and suburban stormwater systems that disgorge sewage and trash every time it rains.
Dru Schmidt Perkins, director of a preservation group called 1000 Friends of Maryland, said this morning she's relieved that the legislature did not move forward with a proposal to pay for the Bay Trust Fund in part by taking $20 million a year from the state's Program Open Space. This would have shortchanged the purchasing of fields and forests to protect them from development, and taken away from local park department recreation programs, she said.
The reductions in runoff achieved through the Bay Trust Fund are designed to help Maryland meet goals of reducing nitrogen and other pollutants by 2010. So far, the state is now where near its goals -- with way too much nitrogen pouring into the nation's largest estuary, fuelling the growth of algae, which can kill fish and create low oxygen "dead zones."
But the Bay Trust Fund will start the state down the road to reducing these pollutants when they mix with rainwater and get flushed into the bay. Many experts say this "non point source" pollution -- runoff pollution -- is the hardest problem to fix, because it pours in from everywhere, including farms, urban streets and suburban parking lots.
Former Gov. Robert Ehrlich three years ago helped address another major source of bay pollution, from the discharge pipes of sewage treatment plants. He worked with state Del. Maggie McIntosh (a Baltimore Democrat and leader in the effort to create this year's Bay Fund) to create a "flush tax" that generates $65 million a year to upgrade filters on muncipal waste treatment systems through a $30 annual fee on the sewage bills of all state residents.
For the last nine months, lawmakers and environmental advocates have been debating who should pay to clean up the bay. A "Green Fund" proposed the Chesapeake Bay Foundation last spring would have stuck the bill on developers of sprawl-like subdivisions in cornfields and forested areas away from towns and cities. But that $85 million a year proposal was fought by rural counties and developers, and was killed in part by Senate President Thomas "Mike" Miller.
Then the Bay Foundation last month proposed imposing a fee on all homeowners statewide, both on existing homes and businesses and new subdivisions. But some business groups and Republican lawmakers opposed loading more taxes onto local people and corporations, which they said could hurt the state's economy. President Miller nixed the "Green Fund" idea.
But, during a press conference in the State House recently, Miller announced that he was proposing a different kind of $50 million annual dedicated fund to clean up the Chesapeake Bay. He renamed it the Chesapeake Bay 2010 Trust Fund. He said setting aside money to clean up the bay is an important priority that he personally supports.
But he said legislators will have to come back in January to work out the details. Stay tuned.
Some advocates say the state funding is all the more important because lobbying efforts to get federal cash to clean up the estuary have stalled.
A updated and revised version of the federal Farm Bill, which subsidzes agricultural programs nationally, would have set aside an additional $500 million a year for conservation and runoff control programs in the Chesapeake Region. But it is going nowhere. Last week, the U.S. Senate failed to move the process forward, "and it is now possible that the bill will not be considered this year," said Chesapeake Bay Foundation federal affairs Director Doug Siglin. That delay would throw the game into the middle of an election year -- and who knows that that would mean.
"Allowing this gridlock to continue, and failing to pass a new Farm Bill jeopardizes up to $500 million in new conservation funding for the region," Siglin said. "Our waterways and the Chesapeake Bay are a national treasure, and Chesapeake Bay Foundation is calling on the region’s Senate delegation to work together to move the Farm Bill forward."
