Clean Water Act
Attacking the Model Is No Favor to Farmers
(Posted by Hank Zygmunt.)
After attending the recent U.S. Agriculture Congressional Chesapeake Bay House hearing I recalled many conversations I had with a number of farmers throughout my career. At workshops, farm visits and town hall meetings, farmers shared concerns about local water quality and their desire to share in the responsibility to restore their local streams, creeks and rivers.
For farmers, saving the Chesapeake Bay is secondary to their concerns about the health of their local waterbodies. And understandably so, because most of them are not directly impacted by the degraded water quality of the Bay even though they are part of the overall process as it relates to the Chesapeake Bay TMDL. However, whether located in the Shenandoah Valley, the Eastern Shore or Lancaster County, there is a strong recognition, from all sectors, for the need to address local water quality challenges that are dominated by agricultural production.
Read MoreMitigation Madness
(Posted by Fred Tutman.)
The legend of Robin Hood is about a fabled band of brave outlaws in medieval England who took money from the rich under a repressive monarchy and redistributed it to the poor. Sounds like a good thing right? Take something from somebody who has too much and give it instead to somebody who has not enough. What could be wrong with that? Fast forward into reality on the Chesapeake Bay, the 21st century and the lopsided world of “net environmental impacts” where we can take a perfectly good and functioning wetlands site, turn it into a parking lot and then make up for it by restoring a wetlands half way across the state.
Read MoreSmart Growth Vs. Dumb Zoning
(Posted by Bob Gallagher.)
The top two sources of pollution in the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries are runoff from agriculture and urban and suburban development. On the Western Shore of Maryland, where I live, the biggest source is development.
The principles of managed growth or smart growth can reduce the polluting effects of development by concentrating development where infrastructure can eliminate, reduce or mitigate their effects. For example, modern waste water treatment results in far less pollution than septic systems do. Building in areas that have excess capacity of schools and roads also reduces pollution. And, prohibiting development in wetlands, flood plains and other sensitive areas protects bay water quality.
Read MoreIs It Illegal to Restore the Bay?
(Posted by Erik Michelson.)
After centuries of unregulated wetland filling, land clearing, and shoreline modification, over the course of the past several decades, federal, state, and local regulations have been put in place ostensibly to reverse the trend of the declining health of the country’s waterways. As a rule, these have taken the form of a sequence of three options: “avoid, minimize, mitigate.” So, in the context of a development project, impacts to wetlands or trees in the critical area buffer should be avoided if at all possible, and if not avoided, minimized. Any impacts that do occur, should either be mitigated, or offset, preferably on the same site where they originally occurred, but if not there, somewhere else in the same jurisdiction.
Read MorePutting the ‘Action’ in Chesapeake Bay ‘Action’ Plan
Here is some coverage from our June 30, 2011, action in the Anacostia River protesting the 28th year of not meeting the Clean Water Act deadline. We got some terrific media coverage. Thanks to all who came out! Here’s hoping that we won’t see a 29th year.
(Courtesy Lauren Gentile):
July 1, 1983
(Posted by Jeanne McCann.)
That’s the date by which the Clean Water Act promised that America’s waterways would be fishable and swimmable.
It’s 28 years since that deadline came and went. To bring attention to this anniverary, a group of hardy souls plunged into the murky waters of the Anacostia River to protest the continued failure to make good on that promise.
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