Bay Cleanup

Despite making progress in restoring Chesapeake Bay, the multistate cleanup effort is falling short of its major goal of reducing the bay's nutrient pollution 40 percent by 2000.Preliminary projections presented yesterday at a bay cleanup meeting show that Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia and the District of Columbia appear likely to meet their goal of reducing phosphorus, one of two key nutrients fouling the Chesapeake.But unless the cleanup pace quickens dramatically, the projections show that current efforts to reduce the other nutrient, nitrogen, will fall 28 percent short of the goal set a decade ago.Officials have warned for some time that the cleanup campaign may not achieve the 40 percent reduction in nutrient pollution by the deadline, which is just 3 1/2 years away.

SOMEBODY'S GOT some explaining to do around here. It might as well be the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, because we've been on the front lines of this issue for years, and because we have not recently seen a very good presentation, in any media, of the facts. It's time to explain why managing growth is important for the restoration of the Chesapeake Bay, and why it is essential to the economic health and future of Maryland.We begin with a tip of the hat to Gov. Parris N. Glendening. Growth and land use issues, with all their sensitivity and complexity, are politically difficult problems with which to wrestle.

Also in yesterday's Maryland section, a figure in an article about the amount of nitrogen projected to be washed into Chesapeake Bay in the next 3 1/2 years was incorrect. The correct estimate is 300 million pounds.The Sun regrets the error.Despite making progress in restoring Chesapeake Bay, the multistate cleanup effort is falling short of its major goal of reducing the bay's nutrient pollution 40 percent by 2000.Preliminary projections presented yesterday at a bay cleanup meeting show that Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia and the District of Columbia appear likely to meet their goal of reducing phosphorus, one of two key nutrients fouling the Chesapeake.

Want to adopt a blue crab?How about buying "Chesapeake Bay bonds" for restoring polluted streams?Or, consider this hot new investment tip: municipal sewage treatment plants in need of an overhaul.Those are among three dozen ideas for financing the bay cleanup contained in a report released yesterday by a "blue ribbon panel" appointed by Gov. William Donald Schaefer.With the political tide running against government regulation and taxes, the panel has come up with "a menu, not a mandate" for keeping the bay restoration effort going, according to its chairwoman, Harford County Executive Eileen M. Rehrmann.

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Carol M. Browner is poised to take on a symbolic job today: leadership of the Chesapeake Bay restoration effort.The EPA chief is expected to be elected to a one-year term as chairwoman of the bay program's executive council when it meets today in Reston, Va., to review progress in the 12-year-old cleanup campaign.Ms. Browner would succeed Virginia Gov. George F. Allen, whose year at the helm of the multistate effort has been marked by clashes with the EPA over auto emission controls and pollution enforcement and complaints from opponents that the state has relaxed environmental protections to benefit industry.

Industries and municipalities in the Chesapeake Bay region would be asked to reduce releases of toxic chemicals by up to 75 percent over the next six years under a multistate plan to be adopted Friday.But the Chesapeake Bay Foundation warned yesterday that state and federal governments would be "backpedaling" on their commitment to restore the bay if the plan is adopted, waiting "until fish start dying and people become sick" before acting.The Annapolis-based environmental group called on the political leaders of the bay region, including Gov. William Donald Schaefer, to "stand firm against the recommendations of state and federal bureaucrats . . . to weaken efforts to reduce toxic pollution of the bay."

Needing a transfusion of money to continue the Chesapeake Bay cleanup, the state has created a panel to help find additional funding, possibly from the private sector.Gov. William Donald Schaefer was to announce formation of the 22-member group headed by Harford County Executive Eileen M. Rehrmann today. It includes local and state officials, bankers, business people, academics and a farmer.Coming amid unofficial projections that Maryland's bay effort will need an extra $60 million to $100 million a year, the panel's appointment appears aimed at overcoming -- or bypassing -- political resistance to requests for increased government spending.

ST. LEONARD -- Virginia Gov. George Allen, assuming leadership of the Chesapeake Bay restoration effort, sought yesterday to dispel fears that his state was backsliding in the cleanup.After a luncheon meeting here with Gov. William Donald Schaefer and other leaders of the restoration, Mr. Allen declared his enthusiasm for the 11-year-old effort."We share that common goal and that common commitment, regardless of minor differences over methods," said Mr. Allen, aRepublican who has worried environmentalists with his conservative views.

Chiding Virginia for lagging in the Chesapeake Bay cleanup, the federal government has threatened to withhold nearly $1.2 million in grants unless the state picks up the pace.The threat came in a letter from William Matuszeski, the Environmental Protection Agency's coordinator for the restoration effort. The Sun obtained a copy yesterday.Mr. Matuszeski, director of the EPA's Bay Program office in Annapolis, said Virginia trails Maryland, Pennsylvania and the District of Columbia in preparing plans for reducing nutrient pollution in major tributaries.

As a major holder of Chesapeake shoreline, the Pentagon renewed its support for the bay cleanup yesterday, and other federal agencies pledged to help in the restoration.The "ecosystem management" agreement signed in Washington points up the fact that the federal government not only helps regulate the bay environment but also is a significant user and potential polluter of the Chesapeake.The accord seeks to reduce emissions of toxic chemicals and nutrients from federal lands -- as the government has pressed industry and others to do on private lands.

$50 million in federal funds may go to bay cleanup Congress is poised to approve a record $50 million in federal funding for the Chesapeake Bay cleanup effort, with a portion earmarked to tighten controls on polluted runoff from urban and suburban lands and from farms. House and Senate appropriations conferees agreed Wednesday to increase bay restoration funding next year by $19 million over last year's amount - and $15 million more than President Barack Obama requested. The conferees, including Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski, D-Md.

State and federal governments would receive new enforcement powers and funds to clean up the Chesapeake Bay - but would also have to meet firm deadlines to act - under proposed legislation released Tuesday by Sen. Benjamin L. Cardin. Cardin, chairman of a subcommittee that oversees the Environmental Protection Agency's bay program, said the bill would give states more authority to regulate runoff and provide more than $1.5 billion in new funds to clean up urban and suburban storm water, a growing and costly source of pollution fouling the Chesapeake.

A former Maryland natural resources secretary has been tapped to oversee the Environmental Protection Agency's Chesapeake Bay restoration effort, an appointment activists say they hope signifies an increased commitment by the Obama administration to cleaning up the troubled estuary. J. Charles Fox, who has held a variety of posts in state and federal government and with environmental groups, will be a special assistant to the EPA administrator for the bay and for the Anacostia River in Washington, according to sources familiar with the matter, who requested anonymity to avoid upstaging the official announcement.

Chesapeake Bay cleanup efforts would be bolstered under legislation that received preliminary approval from the Maryland House of Delegates yesterday. Legislators decided to move the bill that creates the Chesapeake Bay 2010 Trust Fund to a final vote, which is expected today. The House and Senate approved legislation in recent days, setting aside about $50 million for the fund, and the House bill being considered would govern how that money is used. The General Assembly is meeting in a special session called by Gov. Martin O'Malley to close a projected $1.7 billion budget deficit.

Much like the House before it, the Senate has included a generous infusion of new money to help restore the Chesapeake Bay; it's a sweetener to attract support for an otherwise objectionable farm bill. But lawmakers from Maryland and the rest of the bay watershed are not confronted with a take-it-or-leave-it decision. They should join with colleagues determined to pare back outdated and unnecessary crop subsidies when the measure comes to the Senate floor next week. Scaling back a program that gives all its benefits to one-third of farmers, leaving the rest with nothing, might also yield a bit more for conservation programs to benefit the bay - a win-win for Maryland.

Here's Joe Ecofriendly, thinking about how to save the bay: Identify pollution problems, using good science. Educate polluters, politicians and the public about solutions. Provide technical support and funding. We're all in this together. Together we can save the bay. Truth be told, Joe Eco's a tad frustrated that after two decades of this, the bay's not much better. But hey, the polls show a large majority of people care about the environment, so we must be on the right track. This all draws a cynical laugh from Dennis King, a University of Maryland economist who has this to say about the array of bay-saving government agencies, nonprofits and public-private partnerships: "A lot of nice people, but who's going to kick ass?"

PEOPLE WHO spend a lot of time in and around the Chesapeake Bay gauge the success of restoration efforts by the white bathing suit test: Does the suit stay white after it's been in the water? That may not be a scientific measure of the level of pollutants, such as phosphorus and nitrogen, but it clearly indicates whether conditions are getting better or worse. Which may be more than the complicated computer modeling of the federal-state partnership, charged with managing the bay cleanup, is able to do. Using calculations and projections, the Chesapeake Bay Program boasts that phosphorus pollution has dropped by 28 percent since 1985, while nitrogen pollution declined by 18 percent.

LIKE ANY beauty, the Chesapeake Bay is good at hiding her flaws. From a waterfront villa, a bayside bluff or the top deck of cabin cruiser, the water looks soothing, serene. At this time of year, especially, there's little hint of what lies below. Once the algae blooms and begins stealing oxygen, the bay's degradation is increasingly hard to hide. Last year, the evidence was striking: crabs crawling out of the water gasping for air, dead fish floating on the surface, a slimy green film covering anything that touched the water.

PERHAPS THE greatest frustration of Chesapeake Bay cleanup advocates is that they can't get government leaders to commit to moving quickly on the easiest part of the task. Upgrading sewage treatment plants in the bay watershed to the highest level of technology available would remove enough polluting nutrients to get one-third of the cleanup job done. But upgrades cost money, perhaps as much as $4 billion, and so far repeated pleas to the federal government to pony up the cash have been ignored.

WASHINGTON - Armed with a study that pegs the price of Chesapeake Bay cleanup at $18.7 billion by the end of the decade, members of a tri-state commission came to Capitol Hill yesterday to seek added federal funds. They took a request for $2.5 billion in new federal money - on top of $1 billion in U.S. funds they say is already earmarked for the bay by 2010 - to lawmakers from Maryland, Virginia and Pennsylvania. "We have basically come to Congress to say we probably need to triple that involvement, along with tripling the states' involvement" in bay restoration, Ann P. Swanson, executive director of the Chesapeake Bay Commission, told Rep. Wayne T. Gilchrest, an Eastern Shore Republican.