Opinion by: Gerald Winegrad

The governing body of the formal Chesapeake Bay Program — the Chesapeake Executive Council (CEC) — held its annual meeting in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 19.

This event occurred as the 40th anniversary of the first Bay Agreement approaches, but just two of the council members bothered to attend. Absent were the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency administrator; governors of Virginia, Pennsylvania, Delaware, West Virginia and New York; the mayor of D.C.

Maryland Gov. Wes Moore did attend and became chairman of the group. The Chesapeake Bay Commission chairman also attended. These once-important meetings presented opportunities for the EPA and bay states to announce new initiatives to further progress in reducing pollutants choking the bay and otherwise fostering Chesapeake improvements. Not one such new measure was introduced.

Instead, the CEC meeting had the feel of a birthday celebration for the assembled speakers. There was praise for what they had done for the bay with boatloads of platitudes on the importance of partnership and a pipeline of federal money to disperse.

This included $238 million from the federal Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act for grants and technical assistance for failing voluntary efforts, much of it for the agricultural sector. The lugubrious bay honchos ignored key elements in a May report from 50 scientists.

The Bay Program’s Scientific and Technical Advisory Committee advised that “Additional funding of existing implementation efforts is unlikely to produce the intended nutrient reduction outcomes … the extensive history of nonpoint policy illustrates the limits of relying on voluntary actions … Current research suggests that the estimated effects of Best Management Practices have not been linked to water quality improvements in most streams.”

These top scientists found that reductions in key bay pollutants of nitrogen, phosphorus and sediment were likely overestimated from BMPs for agriculture and developed lands. The BMPs were not as effective as thought. “While Chesapeake Bay Program modeling suggests that phosphorus reductions targeted by the TMDL are nearly achieved, analysis of water quality at riverine monitoring stations finds limited evidence of observable reductions in P concentrations.”

They called for the development and adoption of new programs and tools to reduce agricultural and developed land pollutants — another ignored recommendation.

The CEC group also failed to mention the urgent nature of curbing these nonpoint nutrients linked to collapsing fisheries and flesh-eating diseases in humans. There was no discussion of why the bay’s waters are so degraded that just 28.1% met basic Clean Water Act requirements in 2021. In 1985, it was 26.5% — a minimal improvement over nearly four decades and billions of dollars spent.

The meeting at the National Arboretum was on the shores of the Anacostia River. Speakers touted its restoration. But embarrassingly, several attempts this year to have a celebratory Anacostia wade-in were canceled because of excessive pollutants making the waters unsafe for human contact after it rained. Plans are afoot for another try in 2024.

In 2011, Gerald Winegrad led a group of Chesapeake Bay leaders into the polluted Anacostia River which was closed for human contact. This was to call attention to the need to ramp-up Bay restoration. (Courtesy Photo)

The October 2022 Chesapeake Executive Council meeting also was another environmental fiasco, where for the third time, it was acknowledged that bay states would miss another cleanup deadline set for 2025.

Again, instead of imposing sanctions on recalcitrant states, EPA punted and, joined by the states, ordered a “recalibration” of bay cleanup plans. The Principals’ Staff Committee was given a year to develop a plan for a path forward for bay restoration leading up to and beyond 2025.

Instead, the CEC adopted the committee’s plan to prepare a plan for 2024 that acknowledged “new efforts to increase progress will not be introduced before 2025.” Instead, the plan proposed: “Expand the existing conversation around how to address pollution from nonpoint sources.”

This was despite acknowledging the urgency to focus on non-point source pollution and the abject failure to meet crucial goals for forested riparian buffers and wetland establishment.

The plan also cited toxic contaminants impairing a record high 84% of tidal segments in 2018, down slightly in 2020. The CEC was silent on this issue. The results of the meeting were another capitulation and delay of necessary regulatory and other actions to restore the Chesapeake.

As noted by Fred Tutman, the Patuxent riverkeeper for19 years, a fierce clean water advocate:

“The EPA and bay state governors have renewed the well-honed practice of kicking the can down the road for the restoration of the Chesapeake Bay. Last year they postponed meeting the pollution limits set 15 years ago for a recalibration. This was a nothingburger leading to another one-year delay for a fresh plan.

So, instead of announcing any critically needed regulatory or new initiatives this October to curb agricultural and developed land stormwater, there was much self-congratulatory bonhomie over what a great job they were doing and how well the partnership was working, conclusions that are not supported by the science.

This meeting on Oct.19, just like the last meeting on Oct. 11, are dates that will fade into obscurity because nothing was done to advance the cause of a clean Chesapeake Bay.”

Compounding this abdication of ensuring a healthy Chesapeake Bay for future generations was the acquiescence by conservation groups who seem to follow the money and allow this travesty to occur. Most notably is the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, which this year graded the bay a D+, a dismal 32 on a 1–100 scale.

The CEC leaders and the reports they received failed to mention an EPA inspector general investigative report on these failing efforts. The July 18, 2023, report detailed how the EPA failed in its leadership role to steer the partnership toward addressing the most significant sources of remaining pollution — the nonpoint sources mentioned above.

The IG report noted that EPA had data in 2018 documenting how off-track bay restoration was but failed to prod the states or impose any sanctions to gain compliance, thus leaving the bay’s waters degraded.

The CEC also received sobering details from scientists making bay restoration much more difficult: warming bay waters increasing nutrient and sediments flows; the Conowingo Dam reservoir filling and adding six million pounds of nitrogen; inflated nutrient reductions from agricultural BMPs; and growth in farm livestock and human populations.

Is this depressing? Yes, but note this cheery message from the report of 50 scientists cited above: “The fact that water quality conditions have not deteriorated given significant economic and population growth, land-use change, and a changing climate in the past three decades is a notable accomplishment.”

So, be glad that after 40 years, billions of dollars spent, and repeated broken pledges to restore the bay it has not deteriorated more than in 1985. The reality is that the lack of leadership could doom the Chesapeake and its critters to never be any better than today.

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.