Nutrient Pollution

A National Academy of Sciences report identifies nitrogen pollution, the environmental problem that Chesapeake Bay managers have been trying to control for more than a decade, as the most serious threat to coastal waters nationwide. The report by a dozen top marine scientists, made public yesterday, calls for a national strategy to reduce the flow of nitrogen and phosphorus into rivers, streams and bays. The overabundance of these two key nutrients is causing serious environmental damage all along the nation's coast, the report said.

For decades in Maryland many things have been done in the name of saving the Chesapeake Bay, but the degree to which tangible progress has been made is something of a disappointment. To be sure, there have been some successes. The mid-1980s ban on catching rockfish in an effort to allow the Chesapeake stock of the state fish to make a recovery has resulted in reasonably healthy stocks of the fish being available for watermen and sport anglers alike these days. Substantially stricter regulation of blue crab harvests seem to have helped avert a rockfish-like population collapse in Maryland's signature table fare.

The Patuxent River, the largest Chesapeake Bay tributary entirely within Maryland, is showing its first signs of new life after more than a decade of costly efforts to reverse its decline, state officials say.Nutrient pollution fouling the river has been curtailed significantly in the past two years, thanks largely to more than $190 million spent upgrading eight major wastewater-treatment plants in Anne Arundel, Howard, Prince George's and Montgomery counties.And...

Two Washington-based environmental groups filed suit Wednesday to block pollution trading in the Chesapeake Bay, contending the market-based cleanup program violates the federal Clean Water Act and will undermine rather than help efforts to restore the ailing estuary. Food & Water Watch and Friends of the Earth contend in the joint filing that the Environmental Protection Agency acted unlawfully in authorizing Maryland and other bay watershed states to set up programs for buying and selling nutrient "credits" as part of the "pollution diet" that the federal agency has imposed for restoring the Chesapeake's water quality.

"THIS WILL FORCE us to rethink how we grow or expand to question growth as a measure of prosperity. It raises the long term issue of limits to growth in all sectors. "Yet, if we do not accept this challenge, all of the gains that have been made in restoring the Bay will disappear " You seldom find such refreshing and challenging vision in government documents. But the above-referenced "Holding the Line on Nutrient Pollution," a report to the federal-state Chesapeake Bay Program, is a milestone.

After 13 years of trying, the multistate effort to clean up the Chesapeake Bay will not meet its goal of reducing harmful nutrient runoff by 40 percent this year, and there are no signs that water quality has improved. But cleanup experts say the goals will be met by 2003, and the bay's health should get noticeably better soon after. Bay scientists are setting even more daunting goals for 2010. The new goals, to be set by the end of this year, can be met only if all the bay states reduce polluted runoff from every source - including farm fields and suburban back yards, sewage plants and automobile tailpipes.

The Clinton administration's top environmental official said yesterday that toxic outbreaks of a fish-killing microorganism in five Chesapeake Bay tributaries were "a clarion call" for stronger curbs on nutrient pollution.Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Carol M. Browner said the sooner progress is made toward nutrient reduction, the better the chances that Pfiesteria outbreaks will be reduced or prevented."We have known for a very long time when you increase nutrient levels in lakes and streams, that can bring a host of problems," said Browner, who joined four governors and other officials at a six-state regional summit in Annapolis.

WE HAVE BROKEN the 15 million population barrier in the Chesapeake Bay basin on our way to 18 million by 2020.Simultaneously, we are making great claims about -- and real progress toward -- cleaning up the bay. Our strongest commitment is to reduce the impact of nutrient pollution on the bay's living resources -- the crabs, fish and oysters, and the underwater grasses that provide critical habitat.We are committed to maintaining our progress in restoring the bay. However, will population growth and development, along with our consumptive lifestyles, halt and reverse our progress?

Sen. Paul. S. Sarbanes proposed yesterday creation of a federal panel to find new sources of money to reduce nutrient pollution into the Chesapeake Bay. Sarbanes' legislation would create a 21-member Blue Ribbon Commission on Chesapeake Bay Nutrient Pollution Control Financing to focus on curbing nitrogen and phosphorus runoff from sewage treatment plants, fertilized farmland and storm water in urban and suburban areas. "Our scientific and technical understanding of what needs to be done to reduce excess nutrients going into the bay serves as a model for the nation," he said in a statement introducing the measure to the Senate.

The campaign to clean up Chesapeake Bay will fall short of its goal unless more aggressive efforts are made to curb pollution from farm fields and from city and suburban streets and lawns, says a federal advisory panel.In a report prepared for bay cleanup officials, a 15-member panel formed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says current efforts to reduce farm and urban runoff are not enough to reduce nutrient pollution by 40 percent by the end of the decade.That was the central goal of the 1987 bay agreement signed by officials from Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania, the federal government and the District of Columbia.

Trading pollution "credits" to reduce the cost of cleaning up the Chesapeake Bay risks endangering the health of the region's poor and minority communities, a new report warns. The report by the Washingon-based Center for Progressive Reform contends that without explicit safeguards, water-quality trading programs being launched in Maryland, Pennsylvania and Virginia could result in localized concentrations of nutrient pollution, most likely in urban areas with already degraded waters.

Could pollution "trading" really shave billions of dollars from the costs of restoring the Chesapeake Bay?  Or would the long-running cleanup effort suffer at the hands of those looking to make a buck on it? A study presented Thursday to the Chesapeake Bay Commission suggests there could indeed be significant cost savings from letting polluters pay others to make less expensive reductions in bay-fouling nutrient pollution elsewhere.  RTI International, an economic consulting firm from Research Triangle Park NC, found that savings could range from 20 to 80 percent, depending on how trading is structured.

Steep projected costs for cleaning up the Chesapeake Bay could be trimmed by billions of dollars, a new study suggests, by allowing polluters to buy "credits" for less-expensive reductions made by others. The study, presented Thursday to the Chesapeake Bay Commission, an advisory panel of legislators from Maryland, Pennsylvania and Virginia, estimates that nutrient pollution trading could trim projected costs for upgrading sewage treatment plants and controlling urban and suburban storm water pollution by $1 billion or more a year baywide.

Save the Bay. Now there's a slogan everyone can get behind. That's a good thing, too, because the Chesapeake Bay, Maryland's defining geological feature, has been in need of saving at least since the 1950s and probably well before that. Now comes the federal government, which is making grants of up to $750,000 available to places like Havre de Grace designed to help local governments like the one in the city pay for reducing pollution entering the bay. It's a nice idea, but this is one instance where the government isn't spending enough.

The state has made a rare binding pledge to offset whatever pollution it may cause by depositing the muck it dredges from Baltimore harbor in a cove south of downtown. Bowing to concerns raised by environmentalists, the state Department of the Environment is requiring the Maryland Port Administration to limit or make up for the nitrogen and phosphorus expected to drain back into the Patapsco River from the dredged material to be placed in Masonville Cove. The port administration has spent $153 million to clean up trash and debris in the cove area and build an environmental education center there.

A new study shows some Chesapeake Bay rivers have gotten cleaner over the past three decades, while others are getting worse. The analysis, released Wednesday by the U.S. Geological Survey, suggests costly upgrades of sewage plants have helped, scientists say, but it raises questions about the effectiveness of efforts to date to curb polluted runoff, particularly from farms on Maryland's Eastern Shore. "We're going in the wrong direction in some places, and the right direction in others," said William Dennison, vice president for science applications of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science.

The campaign to clean up Chesapeake Bay will fall short of its goal unless more aggressive efforts are made to curb pollution from farm fields and from city and suburban streets and lawns, says a federal advisory panel.In a report to be presented today at a meeting in Annapolis of bay cleanup officials, a 15-member panel formed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says current efforts to reduce farm and urban runoff are not enough to reduce nutrient pollution by 40 percent by the end of the decade.

WHATEVER HAPPENED to the principle of the polluter pays? This bedrock belief of environmentalism appears to have been abandoned by the Chesapeake Bay Foundation and other environmental groups pushing for expensive, mandatory sewage treatment plant upgrades to improve water quality in the bay. Agricultural sources generate more than double the nutrient pollution than sewage treatment plants, but the bay foundation only advocates voluntary reductions from...

The Obama administration unveiled a new strategy Monday for restoring the Chesapeake Bay that calls for stiffer controls on farm and urban runoff, but Republicans in Washington criticized legislation that would give the federal government more regulatory authority to clamp down on pollution in the nation's largest estuary. Acting in response to a presidential executive order declaring the bay "a national treasure," federal environmental agencies proposed a sweeping plan to re-energize the lagging restoration effort with more water quality regulations, financial and technical aid for farmers and plans to promote more voluntary cleanup efforts with creation of a "conservation corps."

WASHINGTON - State and federal officials pledged yesterday to redouble their efforts to clean up the Chesapeake Bay but declined to set a new target date for when they plan to do it. Instead, the officials - including the governors of Maryland and Virginia - agreed to meet again in the spring to adopt an ultimate deadline. And they promised to lay out detailed, two-year cleanup plans intended to put more pressure on elected leaders such as themselves to make progress in the 25-year restoration effort that has left the bay's water quality as poor now as it was when the campaign began.