Opinion, by Gerald Winegrad

In my old age, scarred from environmental battles won and lost, the singular, most important thing I look for in leaders is courage. Sadly, while there are flashes of this precious commodity, courage has been subdued by selfish motives of self-advancement and financial rewards.

You need to look no further than the 39 years of formal Chesapeake Bay restoration under the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency-led bay program. After courageous policies were first enacted under Gov. Harry Hughes in the mid-1980s and with more to come into the early 1990s, there have been just a few politically brave subsequent actions. Bay restoration has sunk into a quagmire of cowardly political expediency.

The flow of billions of dollars in federal and state funding and the desire to advance politically or professionally have infected the system. All too many so-called environmentalists and some scientists have turned into environmental mercenaries who have learned to monetize conservation efforts as they lose the courage to push for the bold, courageous actions necessary to save the bay.

No body of water has been studied more than the Chesapeake. It has been crystal clear for decades of what needs to be done to restore it. Instead of making the tough decisions, half-measures are adopted and green washing prevails touting success when there is little or none.

This has led to the crashing of the Chesapeake Bay Program. Despite repeated solemn pledges since 1983 by the EPA and bay states to restore the Chesapeake, 70% of the bay’s waters are polluted meaning the states are in violation of basic Clean Water Act requirements. For three consecutive years water quality declined in the bay. Just 29.6% of bay waters fully met Clean Water Act requirements in 2020. In 1985, 26.5% of waters met legal requirements. This miniscule progress is after 35 years and billions of dollars.

The results of this abysmal failure to restore bay waters include: flesh-eating diseases threatening human life as bacteria proliferate, a result of unchecked nutrient pollution and warming waters; collapsed or collapsing fisheries — oysters, soft clams, shad, rockfish, sturgeon and crabs; and critical underwater grasses reduced to 67,470 acres, just 36% of the 185,000 acres committed to be achieved by 2010.

For decades, formal bay agreements were signed by bay state governors and the EPA with solemn commitments to take the necessary steps to restore water quality. The states repeatedly failed to meet these pledges to substantially reduce nutrients (nitrogen and phosphorus) and sediment with no EPA sanctions. Finally, in 2010 after the states failed again to meet commitments, a lawsuit forced the EPA to set mandatory reductions for these pollutants. The states were well aware these mandatory requirements were coming.

The EPA generously gave the states until 2017 to take action to meet 60% of their pollution reductions and until 2025 to meet 100%. Each bay state had to submit detailed plans as to how they would achieve these reductions termed Watershed Implementation Plans over which EPA had approval authority.

These WIPs had to demonstrate what actions each state would take to reduce each of the major pollution sources — agriculture being the largest source, followed by wastewater plants, developed lands stormwater runoff and septic tanks. Funding sources had to be delineated.

The states inquired about sanctions if they failed to comply. The EPA replied in a formal response that it could:

• Block new permits for a sewage treatment plant or expansion of an existing plant;
• Block new air emission and water discharge permits for new commercial facilities;
• Block new permits for large scale developments because of stormwater flows; and
• Block or condition millions of dollars in EPA grants.

When a few states failed to submit adequate cleanup plans, especially Pennsylvania which is responsible for close to 40% of all nitrogen flows, what sanctions did EPA impose? None. In November, after repeated warning from the EPA, Pennsylvania’s third cleanup plan in four years was found grossly deficient and this after Maryland and other bay states sued the EPA and Pennsylvania in 2019 to compel compliance. Again, the EPA imposed no sanctions.

It gets worse: when most states, including Maryland, failed to take the necessary steps to meet 60% of their required nutrient and sediment reductions     by 2017, what sanctions did EPA impose? None.

Then, on Oct. 11, 2022, a carefully orchestrated and self-congratulatory annual meeting of the Chesapeake Executive Council (the EPA and bay state     governors) was held at EPA headquarters chaired by the EPA administrator. Attendees were well aware that the 2025 critical reductions in bay-           choking  nutrients would be missed by wide margins — just 42% of nitrogen and 64% of phosphorus reductions would be achieved unless increased       actions were taken, especially to reduce agricultural nutrients.

In an act of cowardly environmental treachery, the EPA and bay state governors agreed to move the goal posts by “recalibrating” goals over the next year. This capitulation was done instead of requiring ramped-up efforts to meet these reductions set in 2010. Once again, the EPA refused to impose any sanctions. Instead, EPA made matters worse by agreeing to change the pollution reduction plans set in 2010. This decision to release states from their mandatory pollution reductions, pacified the states and agribusiness, but sounded the death knell for any realistic restoration of bay waters.

Longtime bay warrior and Patuxent Riverkeeper Fred Tutman said, “The abandonment of enforcement of the Bay cleanup plan is a betrayal of the aspirations of millions of residents and taxpayers. Oct. 11 is a date which will live in infamy. How could we be betrayed in our quest to simply have our government assure us that it complies with Clean Water Act mandates?”

A longtime EPA Chesapeake Bay insider told me “I fully share your frustration with the complete lack of leadership within the Agency. Thanks for speaking up and speaking out! I am truly embarrassed about this.”

Only Govs. Larry Hogan (Maryland) and Glenn Youngkin (Virginia) bothered to attend and both are interested in running for president. They were unabashed in their self-praise and joined others in touting the great successes of the bay program and state initiatives.

The response to this environmental catastrophe by the Chesapeake Bay Foundation and many other conservation groups has been underwhelming or non-existent. Their legislative agenda for 2023 falls well short of fixing the problems facing the bay. Scientists seem to be looking the other way.

As someone who has spent much of my adult life fighting for the bay, I am experiencing anger and sadness. If in 1983 when I witnessed the signing of the first Chesapeake Bay Agreement environmentalists had drummed up a doomsday scenario for bay restoration, we now have arrived at that nightmare scenario.

What are we leaving to future generations other than a polluted bay full of broken promises? Where is the courage?

Gerald Winegrad represented the greater Annapolis area as a Democrat in the Maryland House of Delegates and Senate for 16 years. Contact him at gwwabc@comcast.net.