Doug Pickford of Trout Headwaters, Inc. (THI), an environmental planner with 20 years of experience in the Chesapeake Bay area, will follow events in the bay watershed as the tide turns from voluntary to mandatory for bay cleanup regulations and protections. Doug’s blog series for THI will document what is likely the largest and most significant watershed clean up effort in the history of the U.S., and offer his insights into some practical ways to assist the health of this magnificent natural resource.
Background
In December 2010, the U.S. EPA issued regulatory language that essentially requires all of the states within the Chesapeake Bay watershed to reduce the amount of pollution entering the Bay. This Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) is a long-awaited step that put an end to more than 25 years of voluntary state efforts to clean up the Bay.
After decades of missed milestones and pushed back implementation targets, the next critical date for the Chesapeake Bay TMDL is Dec. 31, 2011. This is when the jurisdictions will have to prove they have met the goals they had agreed to back in 2009. Environmental groups will be closely watching the EPA to see what consequences will occur should these targets go unmet.
Important Decisions Loom for Bay Restoration Stakeholders
The sheer scale of the Chesapeake Bay Watershed, with a high population and a diverse array of stakeholders, is daunting. As has been the case elsewhere, applying cookie-cutter solutions to stream and wetland restoration is likely to result in expensive failures. True restoration will require careful planning, a local focus, and highly qualified practitioners to implement the kind of sustainable, meaningful stream, river and wetland restoration that can save the Bay.
The overall goal of the Bay TMDL is to remove more than 6.67 billion pounds of sedimentation from the streams and rivers feeding the Bay. More than 90% of this targeted sediment reduction will come from the states of Maryland (1.22 billion lbs.), Pennsylvania (2.09 billion lbs.), and Virginia (2.69 billion lbs.). Under the current Bay TMDL, all states will have to achieve 60% of their respective reductions by 2017, and meet the final targets by 2025.
The Bay TMDL revolves around the development of Watershed Implementation Plans (WIPs), which commit each state to specific goals for reducing nitrogen, phosphorous and sediment. It is by far the largest and most significant watershed clean up effort in the history of the U.S.(and quite possibly the world), and is already being challenged in the courts by the American Farm Bureau Federation and other agricultural interest groups. These groups contend that the Bay initiative will be costly to landowners, and will set the precedent for implementing similar TMDL’s in other large watersheds, such as the Mississippi.
The work that needs to be done under the Bay TMDL is substantial. Baywide, the jurisdictions will have to reduce nitrogen by 25%, phosphorus by 24% and sediment by 18%. Over the next two years the states and the District of Columbia will be required to update their WIPs to determine how all of these goals will be met a the local level. These plans are where the rubber meets the road, so to speak, and will be very specific in their implementation strategies.
