EPA Says Pennsylvania's Plan To Clean Up The Chesapeake Still Comes Up Short

Annapolis MD

21 April, 2022

3:10 PM

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By Karl Blankenship, the Chesapeake Bay Journal Apr 19, 2022 Pennsylvania's latest Chesapeake Bay cleanup plan still falls short of its assigned goals, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which announced on Monday that it will begin ramping up inspection and enforcement actions as a result. EPA officials want the state to provide an updated plan within 90 days — including details about how it will pay for needed pollution control activities — or the federal agency may take additional actions. "Enforcement is part of what we do here at EPA," said Adam Ortiz, administrator of the agency's mid-Atlantic region, which includes most of the Bay watershed. "It's not always our first choice. It rarely is our first choice. But we're at a point now where we have to step up and do our part." EPA leaders said their review of Pennsylvania's revised cleanup plan, submitted to the agency at the end of December, achieved only 70% of the state's nitrogen reduction goal. Nitrogen is the major form of pollution in the Chesapeake. Ortiz said the state lacks adequate programs and policies to keep manure from farmlands out of streams and, ultimately, the Bay. And, unlike most other states in the watershed, Pennsylvania is without dedicated funding programs to help farmers with conservation practices such as streamside buffers, cover crops or other actions that can help reduce nutrient-laden runoff. Farms are, by far, the largest source of water-fouling nutrients that reach the Bay from Pennsylvania. Failure to have those programs in place, Ortiz noted, contributed to Pennsylvania having 25,000 miles of waters that fail to meet the state's own water quality standards — nearly enough mileage to wrap around the entire planet. Deborah Klenotic, spokeswoman for the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, said she was "disappointed with EPA's overall findings." She said the state's farmers and others "have made great strides in reducing pollution and, with the proper resources, can do even more." She said that Gov. Tom Wolf has proposed huge budget increases that would benefit environmental programs, including those that help the Bay, and that the General Assembly was considering a measure that would "provide tens of millions of dollars to advance Chesapeake Bay efforts." The state's Republican-controlled legislature has in the past refused to fund programs that would do more to help the Bay. But the influx of federal money from COVID relief and infrastructure legislation has led to a bill that would re-direct some of that revenue toward Bay-related programs. The measure is championed by several Republican legislators who are members of the Chesapeake Bay Commission, an advisory panel that represents legislatures from the Bay region. The EPA for years has been pressing the state to do more to meet its Chesapeake cleanup obligations. Under a 2010 plan, the EPA assigned all six states in the Chesapeake watershed, along with the District of Columbia, specific goals for reducing nitrogen and phosphorus, the two nutrients largely responsible for the Bay's poor water quality and oxygen-starved "dead zones." The states are to have all necessary practices in place by 2025 to meet those goals. Pennsylvania, which doesn't border the Chesapeake, was tasked with reducing the amount of nitrogen it sends downstream each year by 39.7 million pounds a year — the majority of the 71.5-million-pound reduction sought from the estuary's entire watershed. But the state's progress, as measured by computer models, immediately fell behind. Through 2020, its annual nitrogen load was reduced by just 7.2 million pounds. The EPA has expressed concern about the state's lack of progress over the years but until now has done little to address the shortfall beyond temporarily withholding and redirecting some Bay-related grant money. The issue reached a boiling point when the state submitted an updated cleanup plan in 2019 that fell 9.8 million pounds short of meeting its 2025 nitrogen goals and identified an annual $324 million funding shortfall. Maryland, Virginia and Delaware, along with the District of Columbia, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation and others filed suit against the EPA for failing to press the state to make greater progress. That suit is still pending. At the end of December, Pennsylvania officials submitted a revised plan that they said met the goals. But most of the gap was filled by counting agricultural runoff control practices installed years ago that the EPA says have exceeded their expected lifespan and are no longer effective. When those practices are removed from Pennsylvania's plan, the EPA said it still comes up 9.7 million pounds short. Klenotic contended that the EPA's position fails to adequately account for many older pollution control practices on farms that the state insists are still functioning. Water quality monitoring does show that nitrogen trends in the Susquehanna River, which drains most of the Pennsylvania portion of the Bay watershed, are improving. The EPA, though, maintains the state has failed to provide adequate documentation to show the old pollution control measures are still working. Harry Campbell, the Pennsylvania science, policy and advocacy director for the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, called the EPA's action "a step in the right direction. However, until the plan is made sufficient and adequate funding is identified, there will be no reasonable assurance of success. EPA must continue to provide oversight and accountability to ensure the commonwealth acts. Additional federal and state investments are crucial." Because of the plan's shortfall, the EPA's Ortiz said the agency will ramp up inspections and enforcement for water discharges from farms, stormwater systems, industries, municipalities and wastewater plants. In some cases, it may bring small farms that are currently exempt from EPA regulatory oversight under its permit programs if the agency deems they have "a substantial likelihood of discharging into local streams," Ortiz said. If the state does not submit an adequate plan — and demonstrate that it has a funding mechanism to pay for it — Ortiz said the EPA could take further actions. Those could include requiring wastewater treatment plants, which have already achieved their Bay goals in Pennsylvania, to do even more. That could be extremely expensive. The agency could also put forth water quality standards that are stricter than those currently imposed by the state, or it could begin objecting to any new requests for discharge permits within the state's portion of the Bay watershed. "We're not ruling out the tools that are available," Ortiz said. "Some of them take more time." The Chesapeake Bay Journal is a nonprofit news organization covering environmental issues in the Bay region. Sign up for a free subscription at BayJournal.com.