The Environmental Protection Agency said Tuesday that the states surrounding the ailing Chesapeake Bay will face stiff penalties and increased federal oversight for failing to comply with new pollution standards.
The agency plans to use its power in choosing which local agencies may receive permits for waste disposal and which development projects — as possible sources of added pollutants — can move forward. The EPA outlined its plans in a letter to the District, Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania, New York, Delaware and West Virginia as part of President Obama’s Chesapeake restoration plan.
The agency also plans to redirect federal grant money according to the relative success of states in reducing pollution and to impose limits on yet unregulated sources of pollution, such as cattle feeding grounds.
“The letter has been coined the points-and-consequences letter,” said EPA Mid-Atlantic Regional Administrator Shawn Garvin, who signed the letter Tuesday. “But really it’s an action-and backstopping-letter for the agency. … We’re confident that we will successfully meet expectations.”
Possible consequences for the states:
» Prohibiting certain permits
» Increasing pollution reduction requirements
» Requiring offsets for any increases in pollution
» Requiring more farms and sewage plants to obtain permits
» Requiring federal water quality standards for local, freshwater streams
» Steering federal grant money to successful states
The increase in federal oversight comes as a needed incentive for many watershed states following decades of failed efforts to improve the Bay’s health, according to spokesmen for the D.C., Maryland and Virginia environmental departments.
“The EPA and the states are really partners in this,” said Dawn Stoltzfus, spokeswoman for Maryland’s Department of the Environment.
The EPA has said it won’t be slapping any penalties on watershed states anytime soon. The EPA will let the 2011 deadline for improved pollution levels come and go, and wait until 2013 to consider imposing consequences.
This lackadaisical attitude will doom the Bay restoration for failure, according to Beth McGee, senior water quality scientist for the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, an organization that lobbies for legislation protecting the Bay.
“While we commend them for issuing the letter, we still remain unconvinced that they are willing to take action,” she said, noting that by 2013, the United States could have a different president, which would delayenforcement even further.
The relationship between state governments and the EPA should be “a give and take between effort and pressure,” said Ann Swanson, executive director of the Chesapeake Bay Commission, a body of lawmakers charged with developing policies for Bay restoration across state lines.
“We are starting to lose patience,” McGee said. “These are things they could have done 10, 15, 20 years ago to compel action from the states.”
