Erie Times-News
Editor s note: Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf and other mid-Atlantic governors and leaders recently submitted this letter to Congress seeking funding for Chesapeake Bay restoration.
We write today to request your support for a bold plan to stimulate state and local economies in the Mid-Atlantic region and restore America’s largest estuary the Chesapeake Bay. Our proposal is the Billion for the Bay Initiative: a significant and much needed infusion of new funds that will jumpstart the final phase of Bay restoration and put people to work building clean water infrastructure, including green infrastructure that will reduce stormwater and agricultural water pollution, the restoration of natural landscapes, and helping us adapt to the impacts of climate change.
EPA Evaluates Plan To Reduce Bay Pollutants No Longer Contained By Conowingo Reservoir
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has completed its evaluation of a draft plan to compensate for more than 6 million pounds of Chesapeake Bay pollutants no longer being trapped in a reservoir behind the Conowingo Dam.
EPA’s evaluation of the draft Conowingo Watershed Implementation Plan (CWIP) is available on the Bay TMDL website, www.epa.gov/chesapeake-bay-tmdl.
The evaluation commends the drafters of the CWIP, while raising concerns over distinguishing CWIP restoration actions from others already pledged, as well as the need for dedicated funding mechanisms and public sector financial commitments for the additional work. The evaluation also recognizes that the Chesapeake Bay Program partnership has not yet decided on the target end date for implementation of the CWIP.
Monday, May 10, 2021
The Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE) has been trying for some time to require counties that operate municipal separate storm sewers (MS4s) to require “restoration” of impervious surfaces in order to obtain a National Pollution Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit for the discharge of stormwater from those MS4s. MDE has adopted this approach to satisfy, in part, the State’s obligations to comply with the Chesapeake Bay Total Maximum Daily Load for nutrients and solids under the federal Clean Water Act. MDE administers NPDES permitting in the State. In 2019, we noted on this blog the Maryland Court of Appeals’ decision in
What policymakers in the Keystone State do or more importantly, what they do not do over the next five years will determine not only the fate of many of the commonwealth’s rivers and streams in the Susquehanna and Potomac River Basins, but also the fate of America’s largest estuary.