The council approved a letter supporting the
Rivers of the Chesapeake initiative which
would protect land along major Bay tributaries.
(Dave Harp)
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Meeting at the National Arboretum in Washington, DC, the Chesapeake Executive Council also urged Congress to approve an Obama Administration initiative to protect lands along many Bay tributaries.
The meeting came a year after the council approved a sweeping new Chesapeake Bay Watershed Agreement that set goals to restore habitats, protect land, rebuild fisheries, expand environmental education and take other actions throughout the 64,000-square-mile watershed.
The council Thursday officially accepted 25 management strategies aimed at implementing objectives set in that agreement.
But the meeting came only weeks after new data released by the Bay Program showed that progress toward reaching some of the region's cornerstone objectives — reducing nitrogen and sediment pollution — was significantly off track.
"We recognize the significant challenges we face and look forward to meeting them head on to ensure the restoration of our ecologic and economic treasure, the Chesapeake Bay," said Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, chair of the council, which includes the governors from the six states in the watershed, the mayor of the District of Columbia, the EPA administrator, and the chair of the Chesapeake Bay Commission which represents state legislatures.
The majority of the nitrogen shortfall is in Pennsylvania, which is likely to fall far short of a cleanup goal to implement 60 percent of needed pollution reduction efforts by 2017.
Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection Secretary John Quigley, taking the place of Gov. Tom Wolf — who was engaged in a budget fight with the state General Assembly — acknowledged that although the state had spent $4 billion on Bay efforts since 1985, it was "clearly not enough."
"Pennsylvania recognizes the volume of work that still needs to be done and the size of the problem that Governor Wolf inherited a little more than 6 months ago," Quigley said.
Quigley said the state was working to re-engage stakeholders and develop more effective locally based programs to meet water quality goals.
It also plans to ramp up recordkeeping efforts to ensure the state gets credit for nutrient reduction practices in place and to create a "culture of compliance" within its agricultural regulatory programs. While the state prefers to use a voluntary approach with farmers, Quigley said, "we will take enforcement actions and compliance assurance measures when needed."
An EPA review earlier this year was critical of the implementation and enforcement of the state's animal agriculture programs.
"We are committed, and Governor Wolf is committed, to meeting our responsibilities to the Bay," Quigley said. "We appreciate the partners that are in this room and the opportunity to work with all of you."
EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy acknowledged that some areas of the cleanup effort were falling behind, but said "we will work through the challenges and are going to make a really strong effort to address those areas where we are falling behind."
She recently spoke to Wolf about Pennsylvania's issues, and said the governor was committed to the Bay effort.
"I have rarely heard a governor speak so eloquently about what a river means to him and his family," she said. "He lives close to the Susquehanna and he values it as much as I value my Boston Harbor and many people here value their treasured waters."
Meanwhile, the council approved a resolution endorsing recommendations from task forces established in each state last year to identify ways to accelerate planting of streamside forest buffers throughout the region. The Chesapeake Bay Watershed Agreement calls for planting 900 miles of pollution-reducing buffers annually, but totals in recent years have been closer to 200 miles.
The resolution pledges to help implement actions recommended by each state task force, as well as to seek additional funding for buffer planting and increased technical assistance for farmers to help them plant and maintain buffers.
"Riparian forest buffers are one of the most effective, and most cost-effective, methods of improving water quality in the Bay," Quigley said.
On another stream issue, the council approved a letter to U.S. Department Agriculture Secretary Thomas Vilsack urging the agency to put greater emphasis on programs that keep livestock out of streams.
The letter encourages the department to increase its education and outreach efforts to promote "streambank exclusion" for livestock and to provide greater flexibility within those programs to attract greater farmer participation. Above all, the letter urges the USDA to clearly make streambank exclusion a priority.
"The message has got to come from the top, and if it comes from the top, that would be very, very helpful," said Virginia Del. Scott Lingamfelter, chair of the Chesapeake Bay Commission, which recently produced a report touting the benefits of keeping livestock out of streams.
Faced with the daunting task of meeting Bay restoration goals, the council also committed to a summit within the next year aimed at identifying cost-effective ways to meet Bay goals and to leverage support from the private sector through mechanisms such as trading programs.
"We have a major challenge in meeting the Chesapeake Bay [cleanup] requirements, and public financing may not be able to address all of that," said Maryland Lt. Gov. Boyd Rutherford, taking the place of Gov. Larry Hogan who was undergoing cancer treatments.
The council also approved a letter to members of Congress urging support for the Rivers of the Chesapeake initiative included in President Obama's proposed 2016 budget.
The $33 million initiative would support about 7,500 acres of land acquisition along the Shenandoah, Potomac, Rappahannock, James and Nanticoke rivers using funds from the federal Land and Water Conservation Fund. Congress has yet to approve the request.
McAuliffe, who as governor has been a vocal proponent of the initiative, said states, federal agencies and nonprofit organizations were working on a follow-up request they hope will be included in the 2017 budget that would expand the effort to the Susquehanna River.
"These lands celebrate our region's history, they provide recreational opportunities, they provide wildlife habitat for Chesapeake Bay species, they protect scenic views and protection our irreplaceable landscapes," McAuliffe said.
He noted that the federal money would leverage additional funding by states and nonprofit organizations working along those rivers which, in turn, would help achieve a Bay agreement goal of protecting 2 million additional acres of the Bay watershed by 2025.
The new agreement, signed by the council in June 2014, included 10 broad goals — essentially vision statements to do such things as sustain the Bay's fisheries, protect important habitats, conserve large landscapes, eliminate risks from toxics impacts and improve environmental literacy among watershed students.
It also contained 31 specific outcomes intended to help achieve those goals, most of which have measurable objectives and due dates. For instance, it calls for expanding brook trout habitat 8 percent by 2025; restoring oyster populations in 10 tributaries by 2025; and planting 900 miles of stream forest buffers each year.
The council officially accepted the 25 management strategies developed by state and federal agencies during the past year to show how those outcomes will be achieved. Several sets of the strategies, totaling hundreds of pages in all, were available in thick, loose-leaf binders at the meeting.
After a presentation about how the strategies will affect the Bay and its watershed — presented from the perspective of a migratory shad — Bay Program Director Nick DiPasquale gave copies of the management strategies to Executive Council members on computer thumb drives. "We are a conservation effort," he noted.
About Karl Blankenship
Karl Blankenship is editor of the Bay Journal and Executive Director of Chesapeake Media Service. He has served as editor of the Bay Journal since its inception in 1991. Send Karl an e-mail.
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