WASHINGTON, June 22, 2016 - States in the Chesapeake Bay watershed are
on their way to meeting 2017 targets for phosphorus and sediment reduction, but
not nitrogen, EPA said in a series of scorecards released June 17.
“The jurisdictions will need to substantially increase nitrogen
reductions in order to get back on target,” the agency said, projecting that 46 percent less
nitrogen will enter the bay in 2017 than in 2009, when goals were established.
The goal, however, is a 60 percent reduction.
Pennsylvania, in particular, “will need to place considerably greater
emphasis on increasing implementation in the agriculture sector to address
nitrogen and phosphorus, and in the urban sector for all three pollutants to
meet its Watershed Implementation Plan and Chesapeake Bay Total Maximum Daily
Load (TMDL) commitments by 2025,” EPA said.
The Chesapeake Bay TMDL was established by EPA in 2010 to reduce
pollutants flowing (or being deposited by air) into the bay, the largest
estuary in the U.S. At 64,000 square miles, the watershed is the largest with a
TMDL. Six states and the District of Columbia collaborated on the TMDL, which
survived a court challenge from agricultural and other groups.
The evaluations released by EPA list strengths and weaknesses of the
states’ approaches. Pennsylvania is not the only state facing challenges, but
it is the only state where EPA has “substantial
concerns” about its strategy to implement the TMDL goals for agriculture and
the urban/suburban category.
“While Pennsylvania is
on track to meet its 2017 target for reducing the amount of sediment damaging
our waterways, it has a long way to go if it is to reduce nitrogen and
phosphorus pollution, mainly from agriculture,” Harry Campbell, executive
director of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation in Pennsylvania, said in a news release.
The Pennsylvania Farm Bureau, however,
said EPA is not considering all available data. “EPA continues to base all of
its assumptions on a computer model that we have felt has been flawed from the
very start,” said Mark O’Neill, Pennsylvania Farm Bureau spokesman.
In addition, since the model is based
on data from farm operations that have received cost-share assistance from the
federal government, it does not capture improvements made by farmers
voluntarily, he said.
O’Neill also said everyone involved with
the TMDL agrees that there are not enough resources available. “This mandated
effort has been completely underfunded,” he said. Pennsylvania was able to get
EPA to release about $3 million earlier this year when the state issued what it
called its “reboot” strategy.
That strategy noted, however, that
Pennsylvania agencies “do
not have the staffing or the cost-share assistance resources needed to meet bay
goals.”
O’Neill said the picture is not as
bleak as it is being portrayed. A U.S. Geological Survey report using data from river monitoring
stations in the watershed found the long-term trends for nitrogen “indicate
improving conditions at the majority of the stations, including the five
largest rivers.”
O’Neill said blue crabs and underwater
grasses are also doing better, citing a Chesapeake Bay Program
report. The CPB is a regional partnership involving EPA, the Chesapeake Bay Commission, the District
of Columbia and all six watershed states.
“There is a lot of information
showing improvement in the Bay Watershed that a lot of people are not hearing
about,” O’Neill said.
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