Chesapeake Bay
Restoring the Health of a Globally Important Resource
SELC Stands with EPA to Protect the Chesapeake Bay
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has completed the most sophisticated water quality restoration plan ever assembled for the Chesapeake Bay. Known as a TMDL (for total maximum daily load), the plan calculates how much pollution the bay can withstand and how much pollution must be reduced from sources such as sewage treatment plants, urban and suburban runoff, air emissions, and farms and livestock operations.
SELC is part of a legal team defending the plan from a lawsuit brought by the Farm Bureau in federal district court in Pennsylvania. Although farming is largely exempt from Clean Water Act regulation, agricultural runoff is a major contributor to nutrient and sediment pollution in the bay. The momentum behind the bay clean-up effort has never been greater, and SELC and other groups committed to restoring this ecosystem are standing with EPA to maintain its progress.
Case Summary
The Chesapeake Bay, one of the world’s largest estuaries, is taking hits from all sides—air, land, and sea. SELC is working on multiple fronts to defend this struggling ecosystem.
TMDLs: Putting the Bay on a ‘Pollution Diet’
When it became clear that multistate efforts would fail to meet deadlines for cleaning up the bay, the U.S. EPA took charge of this process and developed a new water restoration plan for the Bay. Released in December 2010, the TMDL —or “Total Maximum Daily Load”— is a complex calculation of how much pollution the bay can withstand and how much pollution must be reduced from various sources.
With more than 20 years of experience in TMDL law and policy, SELC helped EPA shape this “pollution diet,” encouraging the agency to set limits that will succeed in bringing the bay back to health. SELC is now helping to defend the recovery plan from lawsuits brought by the Farm Bureau and National Association of Homebuilders. We are also committed to ensuring that Virginia lives up to its agreement with EPA to reach pollution-reduction targets.
Other Ways SELC Helps to Protect the Bay
Battling the Hampton Roads Coal Plant. The Bay receives much of its nitrogen pollution from the air. SELC’s Clean Energy and Air team is battling a massive, 1,500-megawatt proposed coal plant just 30 miles from the bay.
Stopping a Major Polluter. In 2009, we alerted EPA to a major source of pollution that had gone completely under the radar for decades. The Omega Protein Corporation, which harvests menhaden from the bay and the Atlantic, was routinely dumping large quantities of untreated fish waste hundreds of times more potent than raw sewage into the middle of the bay. The company has since discontinued the practice, resulting in one of the single largest reductions of nutrient pollution in the bay ever.
Stemming Polluted Runoff. SELC is working at the state and local levels to strengthen controls on polluted stormwater runoff, a significant source of nutrient pollution in the bay. In fact, stormwater runoff from municipalities and construction sites is the only contribution to Bay pollution problem that has actually been increasing in recent years.
Educating Stakeholders. In Virginia, SELC is helping to inform localities and stakeholders, such as local governments, farmers and homebuilders, what they must do to meet local pollution reduction goals.
Putting the Brakes on Sprawl. SELC is shaping land use and transportation policies to rein in sprawling development in Virginia and the air and water pollution it generates.