Harry Campbell

Pennsylvania has 15,000 miles of water quality impaired streams and rivers, but the focus of recent months has been on requirements to cleanup Pennsylvania waters draining into the Chesapeake Bay.

In December 2004 the Department of Environmental Protection began to develop the Chesapeake Bay Tributary Strategy, a plan to reduce nutrient discharges from wastewater treatment plants, agricultural lands, streets, parking lots and other sources to meet federal Clean Water Act requirements.

The cost of this cleanup then was estimated to be $8.2 billion from both point and non-point sources, but more recently the cost for just the first 183 wastewater plants may exceed $1 billion. DEP has estimated that funding to help farmers reduce nutrient loadings is annually $174 million below what is needed.

Harry Campbell, a Science Advocate from the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, helps explain the challenges of cleaning up Pennsylvania’s watersheds in this Video Blog Feature.

Video Blog Feature: Cleaning Up Pennsylvania’s Watersheds

Link: Sticker Shock for Upgrades at PA Water Plants, Chesapeake Bay Journal

3/7/2008