MOUNT VERNON, Va. - -Buoyed by a pledge of federal help from President Barack Obama, state and local leaders across the Chesapeake Bay region vowed Tuesday to accelerate their cleanup of the beleaguered estuary. But some environmentalists said the promised pollution reductions fall far short of what is needed and called for more aggressive federal action.
Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley and other leaders called their commitments announced here on the banks of the Potomac River a "turning point" and "a new day" in the long-running struggle to bring back the Chesapeake, which has missed two previous cleanup deadlines in the past 26 years.
The bay region's governments unveiled a series of short-term pollution reduction "milestones" they vowed to reach over the next 2 1/2 years. Baywide, they collectively committed to increase by nearly 80 percent the rate at which they are reducing the pollutants fouling the bay's waters, with Maryland promising to more than double its pace. They also agreed to complete the cleanup effort "no later than 2025," with O'Malley suggesting Maryland would try to finish its share sooner.
"It is a better day for the bay, but we have a long way to go," O'Malley said. He and others said the executive order from Obama directing the federal government to play a greater role in the cleanup is a major boost for the restoration effort, especially with the recession pinching state budgets.
But the cleanup plans unveiled by the six states, D.C. and federal government skimped on key details about how the pollution reduction efforts would be ratcheted up, and what they would try next if the measures did not work. And much of the states' promised gains are from steps already taken.
William C. Baker, president of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, called the cleanup goals set by the states "way too cautious" and said the only way the bay restoration would ever be realized is if the Environmental Protection Agency takes a stronger regulatory role. To date, the cleanup effort has been a "partnership," with nonbinding pollution reduction goals. Baker's Annapolis-based environmental group has sued the federal government, demanding it enforce federal clean-water laws more strictly in the bay region.
Baker welcomed Obama's executive order, which officials noted was the first presidential involvement in the bay cleanup effort since it began in 1983. But he called it "words on paper" unless the EPA takes tougher action against polluters and the states.
"The milestones are not a stretch," Baker said. "EPA should object to them. I'm surprised they haven't already."
Maryland officials defended their cleanup plan as more detailed than those of other states. The state has pledged a 138 percent increase in the reductions already being made in nitrogen and a five-fold increase in the cutback in phosphorus. Nitrogen and phosphorus, from farm and lawn fertilizer, sewage and air pollution, are the pollutants that turn much of the bay's deep waters into an oxygen-starved dead zone where crabs, fish and shellfish cannot live.
Virginia Gov. Timothy M. Kaine, head of the "executive council" that oversees the regional bay cleanup, said all states have "gaps" to close in figuring out how to reduce pollution as much as they have pledged. Virginia vowed to nearly double its pollution reductions but said it would need several months to map out how it planned to go beyond current cleanup efforts.
