The federal government released a plan Monday to expand its authority over cleanup of the long-suffering Chesapeake Bay, but emphasized a need for state involvement.
Farmers and developers in the Chesapeake watershed, including Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia, will be subject to greater federal regulation of pollutants flowing off their land during rainstorms, unless individual states strengthen their own pollution control programs, according to the plan.
Agricultural runoff contributes to the bulk of the Bay’s pollution, but urban and suburban runoff is polluting the water at a faster rate, said J. Charles Fox, the Environmental Protection Agency’s senior adviser on Bay restoration.
The federal effort comes about six months after President Obama issued the first executive order to clean the Bay since the Reagan administration in the 1980s. It includes about $15 million for states to push their own efforts and about $90 million annually from the Department of Agriculture to encourage farmers to better conserve and manage their land.
Further funds could be directed toward the cleanup in fiscal 2011, Fox said.
“This is a new era of federal leadership,” Fox said in a telephone conference call with reporters. “But we have to do this in close partnership with state governments and those in the private sector.”
To that end, states will draft two-year goals for Bay cleanup by June. Federal authorities will determine their adequacy by December.
Governors Martin O’Malley of Maryland and Tim Kaine of Virginia, with D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty, supported the federal foray into Bay cleanup in the spring, but since then some lawmakers have started to grumble.
“We want to avoid a repeat of the No Child Left Behind” law, said a September letter to federal officials signed by Maryland Natural Resources Secretary John R. Griffin. He was referring to federally crafted rules without federal money to pay for them.
At the same time, some environmental groups say the federal authorities didn’t go far enough.
Tommy Landers, a spokesman for Environment Maryland, said the Obama administration backpeddled from suggestions in September that they would strengthen rules regarding permits for farmers and developers. Instead, he said, they gave more room to the states to fix things first.
“But states have proven themselves incapable of that over the past 25 years,” he said.
