Environmental Integrity Project Report: The Clean Water Act and the Chesapeake Enforcement’s Critical Role in Restoring the Bay

Yesterday, the Environmental Integrity Project (EIP), a "nonpartisan, nonprofit organization established in March of 2002 by former EPA enforcement attorneys to advocate for more effective enforcement of environmental laws" just issued a report titled, The Clean Water Act and the Chesapeake Enforcement’s Critical Role in Restoring the Bay (2012). According to the press release for the 50-page report available here,

[t]here have been some impressive gains in reducing nitrogen pollution of the Chesapeake Bay by municipal and industrial sources, but achieving further reductions will require tougher state permitting and improved oversight of the results, according to a new report from the Environmental Integrity Project (EIP).

EIP found that nitrogen discharges from industrial and municipal sewage treatment plants to the Chesapeake Bay watershed declined significantly in Maryland and Virginia in 2011, thanks to a big public investment in sewage treatment upgrades in both states. Pennsylvania nitrogen loadings from these point sources actually increased 4 percent in 2011, moving that state further from achieving Bay water quality goals that begin to take effect in 2017.

. . .  

The EIP report focuses on industrial and municipal point sources – the public sewage systems and industrial plants that account for about 20 percent of the nitrogen and nearly a quarter of the phosphorus that ends up in the Bay. These pollutants promote algae growth and rob the Bay of the oxygen needed to sustain fish and other aquatic life. The Bay clean-up plan adopted by EPA sets targets for reducing nitrogen and phosphorus from these point sources based on "wasteload allocations" that limit annual discharges from the biggest plants.

Third Annual Choose Clean Water Conference

Join local watershed organizations, clean water advocates, policy experts, and government officials from across the Chesapeake region for the third annual Choose Clean Water Conference. The event will feature panel discussions, workshops, and networking opportunities to learn about the latest clean water solutions at the local, state, and federal levels.

Our host city, Lancaster, Pennsylvania, offers powerful examples of how restoration programs produce results—and the ongoing work that needs to be done. 

The health of our national parks in the Chesapeake region depends on the health of the waters that flow through and around them. Please join other national park lovers in the region in Lancaster next month!

Conference Details

WHAT: The Choose Clean Water Coalition’s 3rd Annual Conference

WHEN: Monday - Wednesday, June 4 - 6, 2012

WHERE: Lancaster, PA at the Marriott Lancaster at Penn Square

CONTACT: Deb Kleiner at kleinerd@nwf.org

OTHER INFO: To register, please visit http://www.regonline.com/choosecleanwaterconf. The conference registration is $175 (enter the code "DISC" into the registration form to ensure this price). This fee includes all workshops, plenary sessions, field trips, and all meals except Monday's dinner. Scholarships are also available. For an application, please email Deb Kleiner at kleinerd@nwf.org.

Protecting Our Chesapeake, Protecting Our National Parks -- NPCA

Protecting Our Chesapeake, Protecting Our National Parks is a report, dated November 17, 2011 by the Natinal Parks Conservation Association.

Abstract
"The health of our national parks depends on the health of the landscapes that surround them; therefore, the parks around the Chesapeake face many of the same threats that the Chesapeake and its rivers face.
“Protecting Our Chesapeake, Protecting Our National Parks” explores two historical parks in the Chesapeake watershed, Colonial National Historical Park on the James and York rivers and Fort McHenry National Monument and Historic Shrine on the Patapsco River. It recounts what the rivers looked like before significant agricultural practices, oyster harvesting, and extensive human development. It recommends options to restore the Chesapeake Bay and their national parks to a highly productive ecosystem with cleaner water, fewer toxic contaminants, and more abundant aquatic and terrestrial life. Our national parks help us recognize what has been lost and so help us see what we have the opportunity to regain."

2nd Annual Choose Clean Water Conference

This event will bring together leaders from across the region with non-governmental organizations, the philanthropic community, and green businesses to discuss the policy strategies necessary to restore the hundreds of streams and rivers that flow into the Chesapeake Bay.

Conference workshops, plenary sessions and speakers will focus at a Federal and watershed level on the most pressing issues, including:

•Untapped Economic Development Opportunities
•Final Baywide Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL)
•Phase II Watershed Implementation Plans
•Marcellus Shale: Case Studies from the Region
•Diversity in the Environmental Community
•Innovation's Role in Cleaning Our Waters
•Smart Growth and Watershed Implementation Plans: Strategies for Clean Water in Our Communities
•PLUS field trips that highlight DC's green infrastructure.

January 10-12, 2011 at the Park Hyatt Washington Hotel.

EPA Establishes Landmark Chesapeake Bay ‘Pollution Diet’

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency today established a landmark “pollution diet” to restore clean water in Chesapeake Bay and the region’s streams, creeks and rivers. This pollution diet is driven primarily by jurisdictions’ plans to put all needed pollution controls in place by 2025 and EPA will hold jurisdictions accountable for results along the way.

The pollution diet, formally known as the Chesapeake Bay Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL), identifies the necessary reductions of nitrogen, phosphorus and sediment from Delaware, Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia and the District of Columbia. The TMDL is shaped by an extensive public and stakeholder involvement effort during the past two years, coupled with detailed plans by jurisdictions for how they will achieve pollution reductions.

Law and Policy of the Chesapeake Bay: 2010 and Beyond

In this BNA webinar this 90-minute webinar, Beth McGee (Senior Water Quality Scientist, Chesapeake Bay Foundation), Jon Mueller (Vice President, Litigation, Chesapeake Bay Foundation) and Richard Davis (private Clean Water Act practitioner at Beveridge & Diamond, P.C.) will discuss key elements of the new program and its implementation. Issues discussed during the webinar will include:

The current backdrop, settlement agreement, Executive Order strategy, and Bay total maximum daily load – how they fit together.

The plan, process, science, and schedule for a Bay-wide federal TMDL
States’ obligations to develop pollutant reduction programs (Watershed Implementation Plans)

EPA’s creative use of its NPDES permitting authority to reach discharges currently beyond the control of permits, particularly CAFOs and urban runoff

The role of water quality credits trading and agricultural grant programs
State accountability: What are the screws that EPA can turn? Will they work?
Potentially game-changing legislation‑-What does it say? What is the status?
As EPA and the NGOs come together, what will be the reactions of the regulated communities?