The Ehrlich administration is proposing new water-quality standards that would allow the state to classify some Maryland waterways as too polluted to justify the expense of cleaning them up.
Officials at the Maryland Department of the Environment say their proposed revision of regulations required by the Clean Water Act is an attempt to strike a balance between environmental goals and the needs of business.
"We're not giving up on our waters; we are just trying to be practical," said Richard Eskin, who is the head of regulatory services for the department.
He said it would be foolish for the state to shut down industries and other sources of pollution in an attempt to make urban streams, commercial navigation channels and other waterways clean enough for fishing or swimming.
"We need to properly classify our waters on the basis of science and good management, instead of emotion and ideology," Eskin said.
But the proposal - which is similar to rules used by Ohio, Alabama and other states - is drawing protests from environmentalists, who say it would weaken vital protections for the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries.
"We're going to be like Ohio? Great. Isn't that where the Cuyahoga River caught on fire a few years back?" said Rena Steinzor, director of the University of Maryland's environmental law clinic. "We shouldn't care what Ohio or other states do because we've got the Chesapeake Bay, which is a multibillion-dollar asset and a jewel that must be protected."
The debate is over the state's rules for classifying waterways, a system Maryland has used for more than three decades to determine how strictly to set pollution limits for factories, sewage treatment plants and other sources. There are currently four categories based on how a waterway is intended to be used - swimming, for instance, or commercial fishing.
The administration proposes a fifth category - called "limited use" where pollution problems are so bad that officials feel they can't be fixed, or where making the water clean enough for fishing or swimming would cause "substantial or widespread social and economic impacts."
State officials say they would use the new designation sparingly. No waterways have been named for the designation, although the deeply dredged shipping channels of Baltimore Harbor and the Patapsco River have been discussed as candidates.
`Already sewers'
