Chesapeake Bay Action Plan
After decades of effort, the voluntary, collaborative approach to restoring the health and vitality of the Chesapeake Bay— the largest estuary in the United States—has not worked and, in fact, is failing.
A diverse group of 57 senior scientists and policymakers have joined forces to save the Bay. This is our plan.
EPA and bay state governors again do nothing to advance the cause of a clean Chesapeake Bay
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.”
Efforts to restore the Chesapeake Bay are a study in cowardice and political expediency
There is more very bad news for all of us in Chesapeake Country: the bay watershed lost 20,000 acres of forest a year (2013-2018). Maryland led the way. A new study also shows that developed impervious areas in the watershed increased by 50,651 acres from 2013 to 2018. This is mostly from new structures, roads, driveways, parking lots and runways.
Chicken industry wins again, crippling Chesapeake Bay restoration efforts
In 2022, the industrialized Delmarva chicken industry produced 596 million chickens in 4,889 chicken houses—a record 4.4 billion pounds of chicken and $5 billion in wholesale value. This was a 38% broiler increase in a decade. These chickens produced 1.5 billion pounds of chicken excrement — equal to the weight of two Statues of Liberty! Corn and soybeans grown for feed are highly nitrogen intensive, adding more nitrogen to the bay.
Clamping down on farm pollution is a necessity for a better Chesapeake Bay
This is the third time a cleanup deadline has been missed without sanctions as Clean Water Act violations by the states are ignored by the EPA and no new regulatory and financial initiatives are required.
At the root of this failure is agricultural pollution. We have allowed agribusiness to lather 25% of the bay watershed with millions of tons of fertilizers and animal excrement from 83,000 farms. Agriculture has become the largest and least-regulated source of bay pollutants: 50% of nitrogen; 45% of phosphorus; and 60% of bay choking sediment.
Agriculture is destroying the Chesapeake Bay
Between 1950 and 1982, the amount of nitrogen from manure and fertilizer applied to bay crop land nearly doubled, reaching 960 million pounds annually, as farmland decreased by nearly half. Alarmingly, the average annual rate of nutrient reductions from bay region farmland has actually decreased since 2009.
Environmental hypocrisy at work in train wreck wastewater treatment blockage
Commentary by Gerald Winegrad: In politics, as in life, there is nothing more abhorrent to me than hypocrisy. The colossal outrage expressed by Baltimore City and County elected officials, joined by state and federal counterparts, against the proper treatment of wastewater from the Feb. 3 Ohio train wreck by Clean Harbors of Baltimore reeks of…
Chesapeake Bay restoration sacrificed on altar of political expediency
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.
Hogan’s record as governor a classic case of self-dealing
Seeking reelection in 2018, Hogan released tax returns showing he had made $2.4 million from such deals in his first three years in office. No other governor has earned as much outside income while in office. Paralleling Trump, he has set up a very profitable system whereby he can use his powerful government position to increase his private profits. Last year, he purchased a $1.1 million five-bedroom home on six acres in Davidsonville. This is a striking financial turnaround considering Hogan was forced to file for bankruptcy in April 1994, when lenders called his loans and he liquidated his real-estate business and $750,000 home in Upper Marlboro.
We are senior Chesapeake Bay scientists and policymakers from Maryland, Virginia and Pennsylvania who have concluded that after decades of effort, the voluntary, collaborative approach to restoring the health and vitality of the largest estuary in the United States has not worked and, in fact, is failing. Our group unanimously recommends that all states draining into the Chesapeake Bay adopt our 25 action items in their Watershed Implementation Plans (WIP) and implement them to improve the Bay’s water quality and to meet the requirements of the Clean Water Act.
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