Kim Patten, Pennsylvania Deputy Director of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, provided comments to the Senate Republican Policy Committee this week on the funding needs for cleaning up Pennsylvania’s waterways leading to the Chesapeake Bay. Here are her comments--

The Chesapeake Bay Foundation is pleased to submit this statement in advance of the Senate Majority Policy Committee’s public hearing on the Chesapeake Bay Tributary Strategy on February 21, 2008.

CBF is the largest non-profit organization dedicated to the protection and restoration of the Chesapeake Bay, its tributaries, and its resources. With the support of over 190,000 members, our staff of scientists, attorneys, educators, and policy experts work to ensure that policy, regulation, and legislation are protective of the quality of the Chesapeake Bay and its watershed.

Various media reports in recent weeks have focused on the high costs to municipal wastewater treatment plants of complying with the Chesapeake Bay Tributary Strategy. Threats of litigation challenging the Tributary Strategy have been discussed. What has not often been clearly reported, however, is that compliance with the Tributary Strategy is required by the federal Clean Water Act.

The Clean Water Act requires states to establish water quality standards necessary to protect their waters, and update these standards every three years. In 2005, the state of Maryland established new water quality standards for the Chesapeake Bay. The Clean Water Act requires all point source discharge permits to meet downstream water quality standards, even the standards of another state.

Because Pennsylvania’s wastewater treatment plants contribute to the water quality problems of the Bay in Maryland, these plants are now legally required to limit their output of nitrogen and phosphorus - the main polluting agents contributing to the violation of Maryland’s water quality standards. Any permit issued to a wastewater treatment plant in the Bay watershed that does not contain these limits would be in violation of the Clean Water Act.

In order to meet Pennsylvania’s legal obligation to clean up the Bay, the Pennsylvania Tributary Strategy allocates overall nutrient load reductions to the various sources based on their scientifically determined fair share. For example, wastewater treatment plants contribute approximately 18 percent of the total phosphorus and 11 percent of the total nitrogen load. Accordingly, plants are expected to make proportional nutrient pollution reductions necessary to meet Pennsylvania’s Bay clean up requirements.

The same holds true for agriculture which represents about 50 percent of the total phosphorus and 63 percent of the total nitrogen load and also must make comparative reductions.

The cost of achieving compliance with these nutrient load reductions is high for all sectors. The most recent cost estimates for point source compliance ranges from $620 million (PA DEP estimate) to $1 billion (PMAA estimate). The cost for farmers to comply with the required reductions from agriculture is $593 million (PA DEP). Given these high burdens on municipalities and farmers—both sectors with limited financial resources and significant regulatory obligations —CBF believes that the Commonwealth must provide funding to help them achieve Clean Water Act compliance.

Municipalities in Pennsylvania are currently facing the full financial brunt of constructing upgrades necessary to meet new nutrient limits in their NPDES permits. To the best of our knowledge, Maryland has provided roughly $133 million in funding, and plans to spend at least an additional $617 million, toward the total compliance cost estimated at $1 billion. In Virginia, where the total cost of Chesapeake Bay compliance is about $1.09 billion, the state has provided or committed over $980 million to assist plants in making the necessary upgrades. We urge Pennsylvania to follow the lead of its sister Bay states by closing the existing funding gap that municipalities currently face as they seek to move forward on plant upgrades.

Pennsylvania also needs to provide additional funding to farmers to help them install conservation practices on their farms. In 2005, DEP identified a gap of $174.2 million annually between existing funding levels and the funding necessary to meet Tributary Strategy requirements for agriculture.

At the state level, we can build on recent and important successes. Last year, thanks to widespread bipartisan support and leadership, Pennsylvania enacted the Resource Enhancement and Protection Act (REAP) program, a new tax credit program and the first of its kind in the country, to help farmers implement practices to improve water quality. The $10 million in tax credits available in 2008 was gone within the first 10 days of the enrollment period. And that $10 million in state tax credits leveraged nearly another $10 million in private investment by farmers. With demand exceeding supply for this successful program, and a daunting funding gap still remaining to achieve Chesapeake Bay clean up goals for agriculture, we look forward to working with state leaders to expand REAP to $50 million in this year’s state budget to meet the demand of the agriculture community to help protect Pennsylvania’s clean water.

Cuts to Conservation District funding as proposed in the Governor’s budget request for this year will set back Pennsylvania’s ability to meet its Tributary Strategy requirements for agriculture. Conservation Districts should be funded at levels required to ensure they are fully staffed and operational and capable of delivering the assistance needed to help farmers put conservation practices on the ground.

There are also significant federal level opportunities that should not be ignored for increasing conservation funding for farmers. Environmental and agricultural partners alike have been working hard to secure additional conservation dollars for our region’s farmers through the federal Farm Bill, which to date has not yet been reauthorized.

Delay in implementing the Tributary Strategy is something Pennsylvania can no longer afford. Simply put, timely implementation is required by federal law. DEP has issued the NPDES permits to the major wastewater treatment plants in the Bay watershed which include the nutrient limits necessary to meet Maryland water quality standards for the Bay. These permits have 5-year terms, and require compliance with nutrient limits by 2010. Where additional time beyond 2010 is needed to accommodate construction needs, the permits have provided it in the form of 1 to 3 year compliance schedules as permitted by law.

We are concerned that any litigation challenging the Tributary Strategy would only delay compliance with mandatory Clean Water Act provisions, and may place municipalities in an even more difficult position financially to ultimately meet these requirements. Quick action to provide a substantial funding source to assist Pennsylvania’s municipalities and similar financial assistance to increase implementation of agricultural conservation practices may go a long way toward preventing this waste of time and resources and ensuring that the Commonwealth continues on the path toward meeting its Chesapeake Bay clean up obligations.

Thank you for the opportunity to submit comments on this issue. Our staff is happy to answer any questions that you may have regarding these issues. Please feel free to contact us.

For more information, visit the Chesapeake Bay Foundation/Pennsylvania webpage.

2/22/2008