COMMENTARY By Gerald Winegrad 

In 2008, I again began teaching a graduate course on Chesapeake Bay restoration. This was after 16 years in the state legislature and 13 years advocating for bird conservation with American Bird Conservancy.

I consulted with bay insiders who knew the current scientific and policy intricacies of Chesapeake restoration. Gone was the bright, shiny and optimistic glow we all shared at the beginning of the formal bay program in 1983. Hope had been crushed by the political intransigence leading to a failure to achieve clean water goals.

This led to my assembling a coterie of leading bay scientists, conservation leaders and current and former elected officials. In 2009, these experts unanimously agreed the most pressing problem was the failure to adequately address nonpoint pollution sources — the vast majority linked to agriculture and stormwater from developed lands.

Senior Scientists and Policymakers for the Bay was formed. The group meticulously developed and coalesced around a core action plan of 25 bold regulatory conservation measures.

It was miraculous this disparate group of 60 leaders unanimously adopted these far-reaching initiatives. We realized that without them, we would never restore the bay. We pounded the ground in meetings in bay states and in Washington, D.C., with top level state and federal officials, lobbying hard. We also mailed the 25 measures to all relevant bay leaders.Senior Scietntists 2010 Msg to Governors with 25 Measuress to Restore Bay

Now, 14 years later after policy makers refused to adopt most of the changes, we have hit a brick wall in bay recovery as a stasis has set in as detailed in my last two columns.

The Environmental Protection Agency has allowed bay states to flout the federal Clean Water Act, falling well short of meeting mandatory pollution reductions despite being given 15 years to do so and receiving billions in federal grants.

The Chesapeake has become a bay full of broken promises where people contract deadly flesh-eating diseases from water contact, fisheries are collapsing, bay grasses remain depleted and large dead zones persist where critters cannot survive.

In a May report, 50 top bay scientists under the Bay Program’s Scientific and Technical Advisory Committee confirmed our group’s 2009 findings highlighting the failure to properly address nonpoint pollutants from agriculture and developed land. They found limited evidence of reductions in phosphorus in river systems and little or no reductions in nitrogen in rivers dominated by agriculture.

They concluded, as we did, that the existing focus of more and more funding for voluntary Best Management Practice has not — and will not — lead to the water quality improvements necessary to restore the bay. They cited an extensive history of failure in relying on such voluntary actions as BMPs.

While these scientists called for the adoption of new programs and tools to reduce nonpoint pollutants, unlike our 25 measures there were no specifics nor regulatory proposals.

Here is a critically needed aggressive prescription for assuring Clean Water Act requirements are finally met. This legislative medicine is mostly rooted in the 25 measures Chesapeake leaders proposed in 2009:

1. Curb pollutants from agricultural animal production.

• Raw manure application on land must be regulated the same as human biosolids remaining from advanced sewage treatment plants. Most of the manure from 596 million chickens produced annually on the Delmarva Peninsula is placed on land causing massive pollutant flows choking Eastern Shore rivers.
• The 1.5 billion pounds of raw excrement is equivalent to the weight of 125,000 large African bull elephants. Most of this waste disposal is unchecked as the states do not enforce even the weak current regulations. See here.
• Control ammonia emissions from poultry houses as 12 million pounds of nitrogen pollutes the bay and affects human health.
• Require the giant poultry industry to take responsibility for proper manure disposal. In 2022, $5 billion went to the large poultry corporations from wholesale sales of Eastern Shore chickens. Growers are left with the manure.

Incredibly, last week a $1 million federal grant was made to the chicken industry lobbying arm, Delmarva Poultry Industry, Inc., for “accelerating sustainable and resilient chicken farming practices.” Another $1 million was awarded to partner with Perdue “to incentivize the implementation of priority conservation practices.”

Raw chicken excrement, mixed with feathers and wood shavings, part of 1.5 billion pounds produced on the Eastern Shore, most deposited on soils with little oversight.

2. Require all federal and state agricultural subsidies to be conditioned on the implementation of comprehensive advance nutrient management plans that are enforced; inspect BMPs for effectiveness.
3. Adopt state no net loss of forest laws from development.

To save the bay we must save and restore forests. Annapolis adopted such a law in 2018. From 2013 to 2018, 29,000 acres of forest were lost in the bay watershed. A 2022 analysis found 20,000 acres lost a year. Existing stream buffers must be protected. To meet their commitments, the states should reforest 152,383 acres — 12,572 miles — with 100-foot buffers.

Stormwater from developed lands pours nutrients, sediment, and toxic chemicals into our waters. While retrofitting such systems, new stormwater must be managed to achieve zero pollutants. (Diana Muller)

4. Stormwater managed to prevent new pollutants.

All new development stormwater must be managed so there is no increase in rate, volume or pollutant loads from a 25-year storm event. This ensures a “no increase of pollutants” from development. From 2013 to 2018, 50,651 acres of impervious acres were added to the bay region increasing nutrient and sediment flows.

5. 5. End wild oyster harvest, transition to aquaculture.

Oysters cleanse the bay’s waters of nutrients and settle sediment. To help save the bay, we must restore oyster populations. Historic bay oyster populations have been depleted by 98%. Wild oyster harvest should be phased out over a five-year period with compensation to transition watermen to aquaculture.

In a 2011 peer-reviewed article, scientists called for a wild harvest closure, concluding that “Compared to current levels if fishing had ceased in 1986, adult abundance would have been 15.8 times greater in 2009.” Instead, it declined by 92%. More than $500 million has been spent planting shell and baby oysters with poaching rampant.

6. 6. The EPA and states must aggressively enforce discharge permits and farm nutrient management plans (NMP).

Bay states must hire more inspectors and enforcement personnel to conduct regular inspections and vigorous enforcement of discharge permits, farm NMPs and pollution regulations. In Maryland from 2016 to 2021, there were 67% fewer water quality enforcement actions than in the previous five years.

The prescription above must be used to help end the addiction to taxpayer money being thrown at voluntary nonpoint programs that have not and will not succeed in gaining necessary pollution reductions. Those receiving funds include farmers, polluting industries, local governments, conservation groups and even some scientists. Their monetary addiction prevents them from seeking the changes detailed in the prescribed legislative changes above.

This is one of the few times I wish I was back in the Senate to introduce this prescription package, prod the environmental community to rally around it and convince my colleagues to gain passage.

This might be a Hail Mary pass, but it is time for policy makers to end the greenwashing and half-measures and adopt these proposals. Bay Restoration Prescription. The price of not doing so is a degraded Chesapeake with lurking flesh-eating diseases and dying fisheries.

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.