On October 5, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation released its 2022 State of the Blueprint report to assess whether Bay restoration efforts are on track to meet the 2025 deadline.

The report finds that the answer collectively is ‘no.’

CBF looked at progress in Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, which together account for roughly 90 percent of the Bay's pollution.  

Since the Chesapeake Clean Water Blueprint was established in 2010, states have put practices in place to achieve an estimated 42 percent of the nitrogen-pollution reductions and 64 percent of the phosphorus reductions that the Blueprint requires.

Much of this progress is due to reducing pollution from wastewater treatment plants. In fact, wastewater treatment upgrades are the key reason Maryland and Virginia, individually, may still meet their 2025 pollution-reduction commitments.

The Chesapeake Bay Executive Council (EC), which leads Bay restoration efforts, will be meeting next week and they should take action to continue Chesapeake Bay restoration progress.

Critical leadership is needed and requires the EC to acknowledge that the states are not on track to meet the 2025 commitments, recommit to the partnership and the Bay restoration goals, and commit to developing a new plan with a specific timeline and accountability to permanently protect the Bay.

“While the Bay states collectively are not on track to meet the Blueprint’s 2025 implementation deadline, the partnership must build on lessons learned, achieve the Blueprint commitments as quickly as possible, and maintain the limits long-term,” said CBF President Hilary Harp Falk, “The watershed cannot afford delay given the urgent challenges of climate change and a growing population. The states must demonstrate the leadership necessary to complete the job and EPA must hold all accountable for any failures. By recommitting to the Blueprint principles of partnership, science, and accountability, we can still leave a healthy, resilient watershed for the next generation.”

2025 is a deadline, not a finish line, and was envisioned in the 2014 Chesapeake Watershed Agreement. Reaching the goal and addressing these new sources is the defining challenge the partnership now faces.

Click Here to review the entire report.

Getting Restoration Back on Track

Reducing pollution remains the single most urgent priority to restore the Chesapeake Bay, and the Blueprint has proven to be the best way yet to do so.

Since 2009, the partnership has put practices in place to reduce the nitrogen pollution flowing into the Bay each year by 30 million pounds—roughly 42 percent of the required reduction.

But reducing pollution from agriculture and stormwater runoff is significantly behind.

Addressing these sources is the defining challenge the partnership now faces, and key policy changes are necessary to fix issues that have long hampered success.

These include:

-- Targeting the most effective practices in the most effective places to optimize investments.

-- Paying for performance. The partnership should invest in programs where incentives are based on a set of measurable, documented outcomes such as water quality monitoring data, model estimates of pollution reductions, and other objective metrics that capture multiple benefits to the environment and communities, not just individual practices. 

-- Improving its understanding and engagement of key stakeholders, including farmers, homeowners, and community groups. Identifying the factors that influence individual decision-making and the barriers to conservation action can help develop communication, outreach, and education strategies that truly engage these groups and overcome obstacles to adopting conservation practices in both agricultural and urban areas. 

-- Improving accountability measures. The use of technology like satellite imagery can help credit where conservation practices are being implemented across the watershed. And the partnership needs to ensure existing state and federal laws and regulations protecting water quality are being implemented and enforced.

-- Restoring the Bay in the face of changing climate. The effects of climate change are being felt across the Chesapeake Bay watershed. Extreme storms, heat, and rising sea levels make restoration harder and put both communities and the watershed’s natural resources at risk. 

Pennsylvania's Milestone Commitments

CBF used the Chesapeake Bay Program’s scientific model to estimate pollution reductions made between 2009 and 2021 and whether those reductions are on a trajectory to meet the 2025 commitments.

Pennsylvania is not on track to meet its 2025 pollution-reduction commitments including the creation of an adequate plan that achieves those commitments.

However, the Commonwealth has momentum.

The $220 million Clean Streams Fund (CSF) in this year’s budget, which includes the new Agricultural Conservation Assistance Program, is an unprecedented and critical down payment on clean water efforts.  Read more here.

Moreover, counties across the Bay watershed have developed action plans to reduce pollution, creating a strong sense of optimism and commitment from local officials, landowners, and others.

Nonetheless, there is an enormous amount of work to do. These programs and plans need significant, sustained funding to succeed and vastly accelerate pollution reductions.

Wastewater

Pennsylvania is meeting its 2025 Blueprint wastewater commitments ahead of schedule through more efficient treatment plant technologies and purchasing credits to reduce nitrogen and phosphorus pollution.

Combined-sewer overflows challenge many older communities, but they represent less than 2 percent of Pennsylvania’s nitrogen pollution from the wastewater sector.

Urban/Suburban Polluted Runoff

The conversion of fields and forests to development—coupled with the greater frequency and severity of storms due to climate change—is increasing polluted runoff from new and existing urban and suburban areas.

Municipalities must increase efforts to reduce polluted runoff from streets, buildings, and other hard surfaces. They should also consider forming partnerships, such as a regional stormwater joint venture, to reduce costs and maximize benefits through collaborative projects.

Additionally, the state must update the guidance manual for designing and implementing practices that reduce polluted runoff, which was last substantially updated 16 years ago.

Agriculture

Pennsylvania is counting on agriculture to achieve more than 90 percent of its remaining nitrogen-pollution reductions.

In 2021, model estimates indicated conservation practices by Pennsylvania farmers reduced nitrogen pollution by over two million pounds.

Despite that progress, Pennsylvania remains significantly behind, and a major acceleration of conservation practices is needed to achieve its commitments.

To date, Pennsylvania has achieved approximately 13 percent of its 2025 commitment for forest buffers.

Increased funding and technical assistance are required to accelerate the creation of the remaining 82,000 acres of new forest buffers, maintain existing buffers, and verify their location and condition.

The recently created Agricultural Conservation Assistance Program will provide $154 million in technical and financial assistance to help farms across Pennsylvania adopt conservation practices that will improve soil health.

This reduces erosion, nutrient and pesticide loss, and polluted runoff. However, this funding is finite and falls short of what is needed.

Pennsylvania is also off-track meeting commitments for practices such as managed grazing.

CBF’s Pennsylvania Acting Executive Director Bill Chain added: “Creation of the Clean Streams Fund and Agricultural Conservation Assistance Program are historic down payments for the great amount of work that remains for getting Pennsylvania back on track toward its goals of reducing pollution to local rivers and streams, and the Bay.

“If agriculture is to achieve 90 percent of the remaining nitrogen-pollution reductions it will take sustained investments of financial and technical resources at historic levels.

“Meeting Pennsylvania’s Blueprint is a big lift for agriculture, and farmers have demonstrated that they appreciate the value of healthy soils and clean water. But they cannot do it by themselves.

“Supporting conservation implementation is critical to the health, economic wellbeing, and quality of life of all Pennsylvanians.

“Also, CBF is especially proud of progress made by the Keystone 10 Million Trees Partnership, which will plant its 5 millionth tree this month, a milestone toward the Commonwealth’s mammoth goal for forest buffers.

“The national, regional, state, and local agencies, conservation organizations, watershed groups, businesses, and individuals that make up the partnership are determined to finish the job.”

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.

CBF has over 275,000 members in Bay Watershed.

Visit DEP’s Chesapeake Bay Watershed webpage to learn more about cleaning up rivers and streams in Pennsylvania's portion of the Chesapeake Bay Watershed.  Click Here to sign up for regular updates on Pennsylvania’s progress.

How Clean Is Your Stream?

Check DEP’s 2022 Water Quality Report to find out how clean streams are near you.

Related Articles:

-- Final State Budget Includes Nearly $700 Million In Funding To Support Local And State Environmental, Recreation Infrastructure Projects!

Related Articles This Week:

-- Bay Journal: With 2025 Chesapeake Bay Cleanup Goal Out Of Reach, Region Plans For What's Next At Oct. 11 Executive Council Meeting - By Karl Blankenship, Chesapeake Bay Journal  [PaEN]

-- EPA: Most States, Including Pennsylvania, Did Not Meet 2-Year Chesapeake Bay Cleanup Milestones [PaEN]

-- DEP Provides PA Chesapeake Bay Watershed Healthy Waters Partnership Update  [PaEN]

-- DEP Now Accepting Applications For Small Business Advantage Grants For Natural Resource Conservation, Energy Efficiency, Pollution Prevention Projects  [PaEN]

-- Lancaster County Community Foundation Announce More Than $100,000 In Lancaster Clean Water Fund Grants  [PaEN]

-- Register Now For NFWF Virtual Chesapeake Bay Agricultural Networking Forum & Listening Sessions Starting Nov. 8  [PaEN]

-- Bay Journal: Chesapeake Bay States To Get Millions For Climate-Smart Farm Practices -- By Ad Crable, Chesapeake Bay Journal  [PaEN]

-- Forests For The Chesapeake Bay: Monster Trunk Talley Photo Contest; Oct. 28-29 TreeLay; Riparian Forest Buffer Summit

-- Land Trust Alliance Magazine Highlights Efforts Along PA's Kittatinny Ridge To Document The Economic Benefits Of Land Conservation - By Marina Shauffler [PaEN]

[Posted: October 5, 2022]

10/10/2022