ANNAPOLIS, Md.- A new Chesapeake Bay Foundation (report examining the state of the Chesapeake Clean Water Blueprint found promising signs of progress, but found that serious red flags remain that threaten to derail the restoration effort.
The report shows that while Maryland and Virginia are on track today, achieving the 2025 pollution reduction goals will require both states to accelerate pollution reductions from agriculture and urban and suburban runoff. The report noted that Pennsylvania, however, is far off track. It accounts for the largest share of pollution in the watershed, has never met its nitrogen reduction targets, and has identified actions that achieve just three-quarters of the reductions necessary to meet its 2025 goal.
Together, the three major bay states are responsible for roughly 90 percent of the pollution damaging the Chesapeake Bay, the report said.
“After 30 years of unfulfilled promises to restore this national treasure, the Chesapeake Clean Water Blueprint is our last, best chance to demonstrate that science can guide actions to save the Bay. We have seen some progress, but success is now in jeopardy,” said CBF President William C. Baker. “Maryland and Virginia have plans in place that will achieve their commitments, if implemented. Pennsylvania’s elected officials, however, have failed. The commitments they have made will not get the job done, putting their neighbors downstream in jeopardy, and failing to clean up their own waters.
The most recent assessment of Pennsylvania’s rivers and streams shows more than 25,800 miles of impaired waterways, a distance comparable to the circumference of the Earth. That’s an increase of 5,500 miles since 2016.
To assess the state of the Blueprint, CBF used EPA’s scientific model to estimate pollution reductions made between 2009 and 2019. For each state, we assessed both the total pollution reductions made statewide, as well as the reductions made by each sector (i.e., agriculture, wastewater, etc.) to determine if current trends put them on track to meet the 2025 Blueprint goals.
This is an important distinction, according to CBF. The organization said that while significant progress in one sector may put a state on track to meet its total 2025 goals today, without progress in all sectors, states risk becoming off track in the future.
CBF said it also looked at how well the states implemented the practices and programs outlined in their two-year milestone goals for the 2018-2019 period—in other words, the specific actions they committed to take to get the job done.
“Overall, the Chesapeake Clean Water Blueprint is showing water quality improvement. Polluted runoff in many areas is decreasing along with summer dead zones in the bay," Baker said. "But the road to finishing the job is steep. Climate change and federal regulatory rollbacks impede progress. Critically, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has failed to hold states accountable to their Blueprint commitments. This is the final and most important phase of the clean-up effort. The Bay jurisdictions and EPA must take action now if we are going to leave a legacy of clean water to future generations."
