EPA Threatens States for Failing to Clean Up Chesapeake Bay
Washington Post
30 December 2009
By David A. Fahrenthold, Staff Writer
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, hoping that a get-tough
approach can turn around the failing effort to save the Chesapeake Bay,
outlined Tuesday ideas for punishing states that don't do their part.
Those punishments, the agency said, will fall on states that either
don't meet their goals for cutting pollution draining into Chesapeake
tributaries or don't set those goals high enough. The consequences
might include changes in federal funding, rejections of permits for new
factories or tighter rules on some farms.
The mere threat of punishments is a new thing around the bay. Both
federal and state governments have routinely missed deadlines and never
faced consequences for it.
The question is: Can the EPA convince anyone that this time it's
serious? Agency officials were vague Tuesday about when they would use
specific punishments -- and said that none would be used until at least
2011.
"The idea of this is ensuring accountability, not looking to rattle the
saber to rattle the saber," said Shawn M. Garvin, head of the EPA's
mid-Atlantic region.
"Our hope is that the states . . . will be able to meet the
commitments," Garvin said, so that no punishments would actually be
required.
Under President Obama, the federal government is attempting a historic
overhaul of the 26-year-old effort to restore the Chesapeake's health.
That effort has spent billions yet has failed to solve the bay's main
problem: pollution-driven "dead zones," places devoid of the dissolved
oxygen that fish, crabs and oysters breathe.
In the fall, the federal government outlined what it expects of the
jurisdictions in the Chesapeake watershed, which are Maryland,
Virginia, the District, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Delaware and New
York. A computer model of the bay will be used to calculate a pollution
"diet" for the Chesapeake -- and each state will have to reduce its
pollution accordingly.
Tuesday's letter explained what might happen if they don't. EPA
officials said they might:
-- Object to state-issued permits for new sources of pollution, such as
factories, sewage-treatment plants or suburban storm sewers.
-- Require states to offset pollution in one area by cutting it in
another. If a state can't find ways to curb pollution from farms, for
instance, the EPA could require stricter cuts from sewage-treatment
plants.
-- Take tighter control of federal money that goes to states for
antipollution programs, to make sure it is used to solve outstanding
problems.
In Virginia, Natural Resources Secretary L. Preston Bryant Jr. said he
thought that the EPA's threats might actually change the trajectory of
the Chesapeake cleanup, by forcing states to take their obligations
more seriously.
"This letter, and whatever follows up from this, is going to get
people's attention," said Bryant, part of the outgoing administration
of Gov. Timothy M. Kaine (D).
But the Chesapeake Bay Foundation said the EPA's threats were not tough
enough. William C. Baker, the foundation's president, said the EPA
wants to wait for states to set new goals for cleaning up pollution
late next year -- when it should instead hold the states to goals
they've already set.
Oliver A. Houck, a Tulane University professor who studies water laws,
said the EPA's threats don't solve a legal loophole that has bedeviled
the Chesapeake cleanup since its beginning.
Clean-water laws make it easy to crack down on pollution that comes out
of a pipe, such as treated sewage and factory discharges. But they give
states less power to crack down on pollution that doesn't come from
pipes, such as the fertilizer and animal manure that wash off suburban
lawns and farm fields.
Houck said that the EPA's threats wouldn't give states a new way to
tackle these diffuse sources -- and that they might only shift even
more pressure onto polluters with pipes who have already made
improvements.
"This is a little like, 'If you don't shape up, I'll kick your dog,' "
Houck said. "Your dog isn't the problem."