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CBF: EPA Statement On Enforceability Of Chesapeake Bay Pollution Reduction Targets Should Put Fear In The Hearts Of All Who Care About Clean Water

On January 3, at the interstate Chesapeake Bay Commission meeting, EPA’s Chesapeake Bay Program Director Dana Aunkst addressed the 2025 deadline states have to meet water pollution reduction goals.

He said the goals of restoring the Bay by implementing the Chesapeake Bay Total Maximum Daily Load, otherwise known as the Chesapeake Bay Clean Water Blueprint, were merely aspirational and not legally enforceable.

In response, Chesapeake Bay Foundation President William C. Baker issued this statement.

"For the head of EPA’s Bay Program to say pollution limits designed to save the Bay are merely aspirational and not legally enforceable should put fear in the hearts of all who care about clean water.

“The Clean Water Act requires that EPA set limits on pollution entering local rivers, streams, and the Chesapeake Bay. In addition, a federal court has held that state plans developed to implement the Chesapeake Clean Water Blueprint must have reasonable assurance that they will succeed.

"In the past, EPA has said it will ensure that the state plans in place will do the job, and if not, it will impose consequences. This federal oversight has helped push the states to effect policy changes and invest substantial resources to try to restore local water quality as well as the Chesapeake Bay.

"EPA’s retreat is yet another signal that the Administration does not value clean water and clean air. This position minimizes the significant financial and personal efforts some states, local governments, businesses, and individuals have taken to ensure that the Blueprint goals are met.

“If EPA does not fulfill its responsibilities to the region’s residents and the American public, the Bay will never be saved."

For more on Chesapeake Bay-related issues in Pennsylvania, visit the Chesapeake Bay Foundation-PA webpage. Click Here to sign up for Pennsylvania updates (bottom of left column). Click Here to support their work.

Also visit the Keystone 10 Million Trees Partnership to learn how you can help clean water grow on trees.

PA’s Bay Plan Comes Up Short

On December 19, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency notified DEP Pennsylvania’s Chesapeake Bay Watershed Implementation Plan falls 25 percent short of meeting its nitrogen reduction goal.

Pennsylvania’s failure to meet its obligations means the entire Chesapeake Bay Partnership will fail to meet its 2025 nutrient pollution reduction targets.

For more information on how Pennsylvania plans to meet its Chesapeake Bay cleanup obligations, visit DEP’s PA’s Phase 3 Watershed Implementation Plan webpage.

Click Here for a summary of the steps the Plan recommends.

EPA Expectations & Consequences

In June of 2018, EPA notified Pennsylvania and the other jurisdictions in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed of what its expectations were for the Phase III Watershed Implementation Plans and the consequences if those expectations were not met.

Four pages of the 18 page expectations document outlines specifically what is expected of Pennsylvania and a series of steps EPA could take if Pennsylvania does not live up to these expectations. (A page and a half was devoted to each of the other jurisdictions.)

Quoting from the document--

In EPA’s role to provide accountability, EPA will assess all potential and appropriate federal actions under its discretionary authority under the Clean Water Act (CWA) as described in the EPA letter to the partnership Principals’ Staff Committee in December 2009 and in the 2010 Chesapeake Bay TMDL Section 7.2.4 to take any or all of the following potential actions. Several examples of potential actions EPA could take specific to Pennsylvania include:

1. EPA may continue to target federal enforcement and compliance assurance in the watershed, which could include both air and water sources of nitrogen, phosphorus, and sediment pollutant loads;

2. EPA may expand NPDES permit coverage through designation, as provided by the Clean Water Act and its regulations, for the following sources of pollutants not currently regulated under any NPDES permits: animal feeding operations, [industrial and municipal] stormwater sources, and/or urbanized areas. Such designations would require those sources to apply for NPDES permit coverage and would assist Pennsylvania in achieving the pollutant load reductions proposed in its Phase III WIP;

3. EPA may redirect Chesapeake Bay or other EPA grant funding to a third party (through a grant, cooperative agreement, or contract) to implement practices in priority areas in Pennsylvania when the Commonwealth has been unwilling or unable to implement necessary pollutant load reduction practices or spend down EPA grant funds in an efficient and timely manner;

4. EPA may direct Chesapeake Bay funding to identified priorities in the EPA evaluations if the Commonwealth does not adequately target workplans and funding toward priority actions and watersheds within the Susquehanna and Potomac River watersheds and other expectations of EPA’s evaluations;

5. EPA may establish finer scale wasteload and load allocations through a Pennsylvania state-specific proposed amendment to the 2010 Chesapeake Bay TMDL to include more specific wasteload allocations for additional municipal and industrial wastewater discharging facilities, concentrated animal feeding operations, and regulated stormwater municipalities, as well as more finely, geographically scaled load allocations for the non-federally regulated agricultural, stormwater, and other pollutant source sectors than are contained in Pennsylvania’s Phase III WIP;

6. EPA may require additional reductions of loadings from point sources through a Pennsylvania state specific proposed amendment to the 2010 Chesapeake Bay TMDL to include reductions in current facility specific wasteload allocations for the significant municipal and industrial wastewater discharging facilities in order to increase the share of the allocations to stormwater and/or agriculture; and

7. EPA may initiate a process to propose promulgating nitrogen and phosphorus numeric water quality standards for Pennsylvania applicable to streams and rivers in Chesapeake Bay watershed.

Click Here for a copy of the EPA expectations statement.

According to EPA on December 19, Pennsylvania has not met those expectations.

NewsClips:

EPA Chesapeake Bay Program Director Says 2025 Pollution Reduction Targets Not Enforceable, They Are Aspiration

AP: EPA Official: Chesapeake Bay Pollution Reduction Goals An Aspiration

States Say Pennsylvania Isn’t Doing Its Share To Clean Up Chesapeake Bay

Capital Gazette: Editorial: Gov. Hogan, It’s Time To Sue PA Over Its Failed Chesapeake Bay Cleanup

Environmental Advocates Unhappy With EPA Official Calling Pollution Reduction Goals An Aspiration

Lower Swatara Twp Plans Green Project At Greenfield Park With Mariner East Pipeline Fine Funding

Maryland Puts Millions Into Ailing Streams, Research Shows Some Project Don’t Help Clean The Chesapeake Bay

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