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.