After nearly a year, the agreement governing cleanup of the Chesapeake Bay is nearing the home stretch as officials from U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, six surrounding states and the District of Columbia are set to meet next month to finalize its revisions.
The agreement -- the first major update since the 2014 revision to the original 2010 blueprint that includes all participating states -- is viewed as a key step to in reduce pollution in the bay, the nation's largest estuary with a watershed of roughly 64,000 sq miles of land in Delaware, Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia and the District of Columbia.
Following minor revisions in 2022, the agreement underwent more extensive changes earlier this year and was made available for public comment. The resulting revised agreement is expected to be adopted by the executive committee of the Chesapeake Bay Program -- a multi-jurisdictional partnership that includes federal agencies, academic institutions and nonprofit organizations -- at its Dec. 2 annual meeting in Baltimore, according to Keisha Sedlacek, senior policy director for the nonprofit Chesapeake Bay Foundation.
"It's taken a year just to get through the process of going from a draft of how to update the 2014 agreement, to having something that they're about to finalize," Sedlacek told ENR. Once finalized, the process starts to determine how to implement goals and outcomes starts.
The biggest gains from the agreement so far have been made by upgrading wastewater treatment plants, said Sedlacek, who added that there are hundreds of these plants across the watershed. Nitrogen, phosphorus and sediment pollutants can come from a variety of sources including wastewater treatment plants.
However, wastewater utility groups have consistently argued -- sometimes in court -- that they have already done much to reduce pollution and that farms should be required to do more to reduce runoff from animal waste. A 2022 study by the Chesapeake Bay Foundation concluded that agricultural waste and urban stormwater runoff were key challenges to meeting pollution reduction targets by 2025. The new agreement would extend target reduction deadlines to 2030.
A spokesperson for the National Utility Contractors Association (NUCA) told ENR that "we applaud any effort that will increase investments in stormwater management, wastewater treatment plants, and obsolete infrastructure," adding, "Our members will continue to work with our federal, state and local governmental partners to deliver infrastructure projects that will improve the health of the Chesapeake Bay watershed."
Citing EPA's 7th Drinking Water States Needs Assessment, NUCA said it will take $625 billion to improve drinking water infrastructure nationwide for the next 20 years, and a recent analysis by ENR pegged the funding gap for wastewater infrastructure needs at approximately $780 billion.
The agreement sets out several goals for the bay states including a clean water objective that aims to reduce excess nitrogen, phosphorus and sediment from entering the bay and its tributaries. The reductions are necessary, the agreement notes, to achieve the applicable water quality standards as described under the Chesapeake Bay total maximum daily load (Bay TMDL) program, which limits the discharge of these three pollutants into the bay. Nitrogen pollution, in particular, is the bay's biggest problem.
The agreement sets a 2030 deadline for the states to revise planning targets for the three pollutants while incorporating the latest watershed modeling, monitoring data and research finding, and a 2040 deadline for developing new or amended watershed implementation plans to meet the updated targets.
Through 2030 under the plan, states should continue to accelerate completion of all interim water quality planning targets through implementation of Chesapeake Bay Watershed Implementation Plans, make two-year milestone commitments and use other strategies to achieve and maintain reduced levels of nitrogen, phosphorus and sediment.
Some states are doing better than others at reducing pollutants but, as a group, they are not going to meet all of the targets by the end of this year, Sedlacek said.
The revisions take "everything up a level" from the 2014 agreement, focusing on more specific areas and looking at measurable actions that can be taken, she said. However, while it is an improvement over the 2014 agreement and sets the stage for authorities to formally recommit to the bay's restoration goals, it is not as ambitious as what CBF and other advocacy groups wanted, she said. For example, she added, CBF and other groups including the Choose Clean Water Coalition were pushing for the agreement to set up earlier deadlines for meeting goals.
She added that this is a massive partnership and while this latest revision may not be perfect, it is a framework for all members of the partnership to keep working together and moving forward.