http://www.bayjournal.com/article/nitrogen_pollution_reductions_lagging_epa_warns

Nitrogen pollution reductions lagging, EPA warns

Pennsylvania, New York leave Baywide cleanup effort short of interim goals

• By Karl Blankenship on June 17, 2016

• Leave a comment 

The Susquehanna River, the Bay's largest tributary, carries nutrient and sediment pollution from Pennsylvania and New York. Efforts to curtail a key nutrient, nitrogen, have fallen behind because of lagging cleanup progress in those two states, EPA says. (Karl Blankenship)

The Chesapeake Bay cleanup effort has fallen behind by almost 25 percent in reducing a key pollutant because of lagging progress in Pennsylvania and New York, federal regulators warned Friday.

The Bay cleanup plan imposed by the Environmental Protection Agency at the end of 2010 had called for 60 percent of the actions needed to restore Bay water quality to be in place by the end of next year — roughly halfway to the 2025 deadline the states had agreed upon.

Now, it appears the majority of the action to control nitrogen — the prime nutrient affecting algae growth in the Bay’s saltier water —may be left until late in the cleanup process, something officials had hoped to avoid.

“Overall, we continue to make progress, however, there are some sectors in some states where we are falling behind,” said Shawn Garvin, EPA’s Mid-Atlantic regional administrator, in releasing the agency’s latest evaluation of state efforts. “We recognize that based on actions taken to date, and the current projections, that it is unlikely that we will meet” the 2017 goals.

After analyzing progress made by each of the seven jurisdictions in the Bay watershed in 2014-15, and their expected efforts through 2017, the EPA expects Delaware, the District of Columbia, Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia will meet their interim goals for nitrogen phosphorus and sediment reductions, although not all were on pace to do that at the end of last year.

New York is expected to miss goals for all three pollutants, though, and Pennsylvania will miss the nitrogen and phosphorus goal.

EPA officials said they believed New York had adequate programs set up to ultimately get its cleanup back on track. Much more problematic is Pennsylvania, which Garvin said faces a “significant lift” to reach its goals. The state accounts for 89 percent of the 10 million-pound Baywide nitrogen shortfall projected for the end of next year.

The Bay cleanup plan, or pollution diet, called for reducing the amount of nitrogen entering the Bay annually from 260.2 million pounds in 2010 to 219.5 million pounds by 2017.

Pennsylvania officials in January announced plans to “reboot” the state’s cleanup efforts, but the EPA said what it’s seen so far is not enough to get the commonwealth back on track to meet its 2025 goals.

EPA’s review said Pennsylvania would need to place “considerably greater emphasis” on controlling runoff from agriculture, an effort that has suffered from years of underfunding and understaffing.

The agency also expressed doubt that the state could meet its stormwater goals, and suggested that some of that shortfall be shifted to other sectors, such as wastewater treatment plants, where nutrient reductions are ahead of schedule.

Federal regulators warned that when Pennsylvania develops a new strategy to guide cleanup efforts from 2018 through 2025, the agency may require state officials to provide more documentation than other states about the adequacy of their plans.

EPA officials also warned they could take a variety of other actions if greater progress is not made, such as increasing oversight of how federal grant money is spent, and expanding regulatory programs to cover smaller farm animal feeding operations.

Neil Shader, press secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, acknowledged cleanup efforts lagged from “years of inaction” that preceded the administration of Gov. Tom Wolf, but said state agencies are working with conservation districts and stakeholders to accelerate nutrient control efforts.

“Through the administration’s “reboot” strategy, we will build on these early successes and continue to identify additional pollution reduction opportunities and engage with the public to bring every possible resource to the effort,” Shader said.

But Harry Campbell, Pennsylvania executive director of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, said the state lacked adequate funding to enact its programs. It’s “unclear,” he added, “when or if those vital resources will be made available.”

While other states were making better progress, the review offered hints of future concerns.

Much of the reductions so far have come from wastewater treatment plants, which account for about three-quarters of all nitrogen reductions since 2010. The wastewater facilities already have achieved their share of the overall nitrogen reduction goal for 2025.

But that means about 71 percent of future nitrogen reductions will need to come from agriculture, where progress has been more difficult to achieve. EPA’s review showed that through 2015, farming operations in Pennsylvania, New York, Delaware and Maryland all lagged in meeting their nitrogen reduction goals.

Nitrogen reductions from the heavily agricultural watersheds of the Susquehanna River and the Eastern Shore are essential to reducing the oxygen-starved dead zone in the upper Bay.

“We recognized from the outset that our agricultural sector is an area that we continue to need to work with,” Garvin said. He said the agency is working with the states to get programs in place to help meet the goals, find additional resources and target programs to areas that would be most effective.

Besides citing problems in Pennsylvania, the agency also downgraded its rating of Delaware’s agricultural program to “enhanced oversight” because of concerns over implementation of its permitting program for livestock operations and its nutrient management program.

In a statement, Delaware officials said they considered EPA’s evaluation “fair and objective” but expressed a “continued commitment” to reduce nitrogen from agriculture, stormwater, wastewater and septic systems.

Pennsylvania, New York and Maryland face an extra challenge as they may need to find ways to offset additional nutrients which are no longer being trapped behind Conowingo Dam, and are flowing into the Bay from the Susquehanna. As part of its review, the EPA told all three states that they need to work together to develop a strategy to achieve pollution reductions beyond those originally planned.

The state-federal Bay Program is in the midst of a multi-year review of cleanup progress. That midpoint assessment, when complete next year, is likely to show even greater pollution reduction shortfalls for all jurisdictions as it takes into account phosphorus-saturated soils, climate change, land-use changes and other issues.

While the EPA review found the region was on track overall to meet phosphorus and sediment goals, the agency warned that could change once the midpoint assessment is complete., The EPA said that “changes in levels of effort may be necessary in order to achieve the 2025 targets for all three pollutants.”

“We recognize that coming out of the midpoint assessment … things are just going to get more and more difficult, and we are committed to working together to accomplish those goals.” Garvin added.

The EPA in 2010 established a Baywide cleanup plan, known as a Total Maximum Daily Load, that established annual limits on the amount of nitrogen, phosphorus and sediment — the pollutants primarily responsible for fouling the Chesapeake ’s water quality.

Because of the failure of previous cleanup plans to meet deadlines, the EPA and states set a series of two-year goals, known as milestones, to help keep efforts on track toward the interim 2017, and ultimate 2025, goals.

Nonetheless, William Baker, the bay foundation’s president, noted that the previous two years was the third straight milestone period in which Pennsylvania missed its goals.

“It is well past time for Pennsylvania to accelerate its pollution reduction efforts, and EPA must do more to ensure that Pennsylvania obeys the law, he said.

The full reviews can be found here. 

Agriculture is responsible for one third of Antropogenic GHG emissions

http://blogs.forbes.com/csr/2010/12/22/impact-investing-in-sustainable-agriculture-for-a-new-economy/?boxes=Homepagechannels

Impact Investing in Sustainable Agriculture for a New Economy

Dec. 22 2010 - 1:52 pm | 1,051 views | 1 recommendation | 6 comments

posted by NICOLE SKIBOLA

According to a recent article from Scientific American, agriculture is responsible for one third of global greenhouse gas emissions from human activity. Agribusiness farming operations are notorious for nitrogen and phosphorus runoff (particularly from poultry and hog farms). In the Chesapeake Bay region, for example, one study estimated the price tag for restoring the bay at $19 billion, of which $11 billion would go toward “nutrient reduction.”

There are more than 400 such dead zones throughout the world. Additionally, heavily subsidized corn and soy feed to livestock contribute to massive deforestation in the developing world. Tufts University researchers estimate that in the United States alone, between 1997 and 2005 the industrial animal sector saved more than $35 billion as a result of federal farm subsidies that lowered the price of the feed they purchased. These statistics demonstrate both the complexity of the supply chain from feed farm to table, and illustrate the importance of sustainability in the American food production industry.

A sustainable alternative to the beef factory-farming model follows in the footsteps of conservationist pioneer Allan Savory. The recent winner of the prestigious Buckminster Fuller Prize, Savory developed the Holistic Management grazing technique during his time as a researcher and farmer in Southern Africa in the 1980s. By getting grazing cattle to stay in larger, tight herds, Savory was able to restore grassland vitality and increase grass biodiversity. Deep chewing of plant roots, paired with the repeated soil chipping of hooves, caused dormant seeds to germinate and water to penetrate below the surface. According to Shannon Horst, CEO and co-founder of the Savory Institute, ranchers can consistently double, and even quadruple livestock capacity over time. (See an article in TIMEfor more on the Savory grazing technique).

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of Savory’s work has been its appeal to both profit-driven investors and international development agencies like USAID as a tool to combat desertification in rural farming communities. Since 2005, USAID’s Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance has provided more than $1.1 million to support Savory’s African Centre for Holistic Management’s program to restore degraded land, revive water sources, mitigate the effects of global climate change, and increase crop yields. Savory and Horst have worked with range managers on ranches and community group ranches, demonstrating how to manage holistically in communal and private range lands, in partnership with USAID.

Within the past couple of years, for-profit enterprises like Grasslands, LLC are successfully implementing the Savory Holistic Management methodology. Grasslands owns and manages 14,000 acres in South Dakota, and is funded by a network of private impact investors likeArmonia, LLC and Capital Institute founder John Fullerton. The profitability of the Grasslands structure comes from ranching fees per head of cattle, and is based directly on the Savory Institute business model. By investing in companies like Grasslands, Fullterton and other impact investors are laying the foundation for new finance-based theories, tools, and metrics to serve the needs of a sustainable economic system.

In addition to increased yields of beef per acre, the Grasslands model also creates an opportunity to commoditize sequestered carbon for carbon credit trading. Steven Apfelbaum, Founder/Chairman of Applied Ecological Services, Inc., explained to TIME, ”healthy grasslands represents the ecosystem with the highest potential for carbon sequestration of any on the planet.” Ranches like those owned by Grasslands cover an estimated 30 million acres in North and South America, Australia, New Zealand, and Africa—and nearly half of the earth’s land mass. Given the shear vastness of the earth’s grasslands, holistic management and reclamation projects hold huge implications for changing the planet.

While Grasslands only just completed its first year in operation, rancher Jim Howell reports that the two South Dakota ranches are expected to double in value and in productivity over a ten-year period and to yield annual dividends on the order of 4% to 5% in the early years, increasing to 10% to 11%. In a recent Capital Institute article, Fullerton expressed his confidence that the Grasslands model can provide a profitable, scalable model for biodiversity recovery: “We have a case study here of true wealth creation in Grasslands,” he says. “We are building biodiversity, soil fertility, sequestering carbon, and generating financial returns. And if my belief of what will happen to ecosystem services plays out, we will make a lot more money with these assets than with most financial assets.”

For more on Grasslands and the Capital Institute’s sustainable investment agenda

Chesapeake Bay regs would cost cattlemen $30,000 to $40,000 each

http://southeastfarmpress.com/government/bay-regs-would-cost-cattlemen-30000-40000-each

Bay regs would cost cattlemen $30,000 to $40,000 each

From the Virginia Farm Bureau

Dec. 22, 2010 7:18am

If Congress pushes through proposed Chesapeake Bay legislation during its lame duck session, Virginia farmers could face billions of dollars in additional expenses.

"On the farmer side of the equation, we’re talking about somewhere in the neighborhood between $1.5 billion and $3 billion," said Wilmer Stoneman, Virginia Farm Bureau Federation associate director of governmental relations. "Fencing cattle out of streams, the icon of the Chesapeake Bay Program, is going to cost $800 million. It will probably cost around $30,000 to $40,000 apiece for every cattle farmer in the watershed. And that’s a cost that they can’t absorb on their own."

Stoneman is featured on The Real Dirt explaining why Farm Bureau members are opposed to the bill and how voluntary water quality protection efforts of thousands of farmers have been ignored.

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUS267497637520101220?pageNumber=1

Federal Cap on Water Pollution Is Chesapeake Bay's Road to Remedy

By Lisa Song at SolveClimate

Mon Dec 20, 2010 11:24am EST

Nutrient trading in some states is similar to the carbon cap and trade Congress failed to pass to address global warming pollution

By Lisa Song

When Dawn Stoltzfus looks at the Chesapeake Bay, she sees a body of water on life support. "It's barely hanging on," Stoltzfus, a spokeswoman from the Maryland Department of the Environment, told SolveClimate News.

The Chesapeake Bay is the country's largest estuary, with a watershed that's home to 17 million people. Despite decades of cleanup efforts, the estuary remains plagued by invasive species, harmful algal blooms and loss of wetland habitat.

Excessive nutrients pose the biggest challenge to water quality, and for the first time, the Environmental Protection Agency is setting mandatory limits on Bay-wide nutrient loads.

The final numbers—called Total Maximum Daily Loads—will be released later in December and are supported by executive orders from May and September 2010, when President Obama called for better restoration of the Bay's ecosystem health.

In draft targets released in September, the EPA aimed to reduce the Bay's nitrogen and phosphorous by 25% from current levels, with all reduction measures in place by 2025.

If that sounds like the federal government is putting a cap on the water pollution flowing into the Chesapeake, that’s because that’s exactly what it is. Further, in order to meet and possibly go beyond those pollution limits, several states in the watershed have initiated nutrient trading programs.

The basic concept is the same as the carbon trading Congress has failed to pass to address global warming pollution. Businesses that would produce too much nutrient pollution can buy nutrient credits from other businesses that operate under the allocated limits.

Chuck Fox, senior advisor to the EPA Administrator, said this work on daily load limits in the Chesapeake is the most aggressive and most complicated done in EPA history.

"We want to bring a new level of leadership and write a new course of history for the Chesapeake Bay," he said.

Failure to Comply Will Have Consequences

Each year, millions of pounds of nitrogen and phosphorous are washed into the bay. These nutrients, which originate from wastewater treatment plants, fertilizer runoff and air pollution, can induce algal blooms that remove oxygen from the water and block sunlight from reaching underwater plants.

All marine habitats need nutrients to survive, said Richard Batiuk, Associate Director for Science at EPA's Chesapeake Bay Program Office. But the nutrient load has gotten so excessive it's like “we've poured on cheeseburgers and fries." The Bay needs to be put on a diet, he said.

Past clean-up efforts relied on voluntary nutrient reduction goals. If a state didn't meet its goal, there was no price to pay except for some bad press, Batiuk said.

The upcoming Daily Loads will apply to six watershed states – New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia – and hold them responsible for their nutrient output. States that don't comply will face consequences, such as stricter Daily Loads in the future and decreased EPA funding for state programs. In addition, states must commit to two-year milestones that clearly demonstrate progress.

Each state is free to come up with its own method of nutrient reduction. The process began this summer, when the EPA calculated preliminary figures for Total Maximum Daily Loads. Each state then wrote strategy reports on how they would meet those limits: examples include upgrading wastewater treatment plants or planting cover crops to reduce soil erosion. The strategies will be updated once the EPA publishes final Daily Load figures later this month.

This flexibility allows each state to use the strategies that are best for them, said Batiuk. For example, New York, which has a very strong local-based government system, is working to clean up local streams and rivers that feed into the Chesapeake. Delaware, with its poultry farming industry, is turning manure into landscape fertilizer to be sold across the eastern seaboard.

Nutrient Credit Trading in Three States

Maryland, Pennsylvania and Virginia operate nutrient trading programs. Maryland's began in 2008, and it was aimed at point-sources of pollution such as wastewater treatment plants. After two years, the program yielded only a single credit trade. That’s because the point-sources were reluctant to sell off their right to pollute.

Any wastewater plant that sells nutrient credits is effectively driving development to its competitors, said John Rhoderick, Administrator of Resource Conservation Operations in Maryland's Department of Agriculture. Once a treatment plant reaches the maximum Daily Load, there's no way to expand service to new customers.

To encourage trading, earlier this month Maryland expanded the trading program to include non-point sources of pollution -- such as agricultural runoff. State experts have begun to assess individual farms to estimate the nutrient output. If the farm has nutrient credits to spare, farmers can sell them and generate revenue.

"Right now we have a lot of interest from people we've run these assessments on," Rhoderick said, but no one has jumped into trading yet. Market signals aren’t clear enough. The credits haven’t been priced, because the prices will depend on how many farmers opt into the program. The expectation is that farmers who find ways to reduce nutrient output will be able to sell their credits to wastewater treatment plants seeking to expand, and generate added income.

Rhoderick points out that the nutrient credit trading program is different from carbon cap and trade programs that people are familiar with in one important respect. Under Maryland's current program, polluters can’t begin trading until they have met their nutrient limits. They can’t keep polluting and buy their way into compliance. They must first comply, before trading their way into possible expansion.

Still Rhoderick expects there will be plenty of buyers. The trick will be to get sellers into the market, and that's what the expanded trading program aims to do. By 2015, Rhoderick is hoping to see 10% of Maryland's farmers trading nutrient credits.

Pennsylvania’s nutrient credit system also had a slow start. Now six years old, it didn’t see its first trade until 2007. Since then, there have been nine completed trades with another six pending. In total, the state has traded 92,000 nitrogen credits and 200 phosphorous credits (each credit is equal to a pound of nutrient).

Looking into the future, experts are looking at ways to combine nutrient trading with carbon cap and trade. Some conservation practices such as planting trees sequester carbon in addition to absorbing nutrients; a recent University of Maryland study modeled how both practices might be combined yielding dual benefits to landowners.

Batiuk hopes that Chesapeake Bay will set an example for the nation. If the collaborative efforts work here, he said, then this gives hope for bigger projects like restoring the Gulf of Mexico, whose watershed drains a much larger area but which shares many of the same problems as the Chesapeake.

Chesapeake Bay health in 2009 met 45% of goals

http://www.baltimoresun.com/features/green/bal-md.gr.bay08apr08,0,1256808.story

Bay health in 2009 met 45% of goals
Some express disappointment over annual report card
By Meredith Cohn | meredith.cohn@baltsun.com
April 8, 2010


The Chesapeake Bay and its 64,000-square-mile watershed made modest improvements during the past year, according to a report card on the bay's health released Wednesday. But those who contributed to the assessment and other observers say that after 25 years of efforts, they were disappointed by the pace of gains.

About 45 percent of goals were met in 2009, an increase over the year before, according to the Bay Barometer. The annual report is produced by the Chesapeake Bay Program, a coalition of federal, state and nonprofit groups leading restoration of the nation's largest estuary.

"There were some improvements, but the bay was still at 45 out of 100," said Jeffrey Lape, director of the Chesapeake Bay Program, during a news conference in Annapolis to unveil the results. "That tells us the bay remains in degraded condition."

The report said some gains were made in water clarity, underwater bay grasses, bottom-dwelling species and blue crabs. Dissolved oxygen was down.

On the restoration front, the report said the bay program reached 64 percent of its goals on pollution reduction, oyster reefs, forest buffers and environmental education in schools. But while improvements were made to wastewater treatment plants, reducing the harmful nutrients, there hasn't been much progress on reducing runoff from farms or air pollution from cars and power plants.

Further, the report said, more people moved into the area and their activities offset many of the gains. Since 1950, the number of people in the watershed has doubled, the report says. Agricultural runoff is the bay's biggest source of pollution, but polluted storm water runoff from urban and suburban areas is increasing the fastest.

Rich Batiuk, the bay program's associate director for science, said the mixed and somewhat disappointing results are common. Some years are a little better than others, largely depending on the weather: More rain means more polluted runoff. All of the recent rain could mean that this year will be a little worse.

But in the report and during the news conference, Batiuk, Lape and others pointed to areas of potential progress. The six watershed states and Washington have set new, short-term goals on nitrogen and phosphorus to speed cleanup and increase accountability. And an executive order from President Barack Obama puts new emphasis on pollution reduction.

Lape called the report a mix of "hope and reality."
Others in the environmental community said residents must cut down on fertilizer and driving and demand more from lawmakers. As an example, they asked for support for a bill sponsored by Sen. Benjamin L. Cardin, a Maryland Democrat, to expand federal authority to regulate all sources of bay pollution.

On Wednesday, however, no one said that change would come quickly. Cardin's bill, for example, has met opposition from lawmakers in neighboring states. New federal regulations enacted since the executive order on pollution will take years to take effect. And a state law to curb runoff from development was modified recently to grandfather many projects.

"People of this region who are disappointed year in and year out with the results of this report card need to contact our elected officials and hold them accountable for the repeated failures to restore clean water," said Hilary Harp Falk of the Choose Clean Water Coalition, which represents nonprofit groups in the bay area.

Beth McGee, senior water-quality scientist for the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, said that pressure won't come until bay supporters do a better job of communicating the link between people's actions and the cleanliness of local drinking water and recreational and economic opportunities. "Clean water has everyone's support; they just have to see the connection," she said.

Some environmental activists said the outcome for the bay is not certain.

"This annual report has become a broken record, and it's time to fix it," said Tommy Landers, a policy advocate for Environment Maryland. "Fortunately, we have the best chance yet to make significant progress on bay restoration. Some of our leaders are stepping up to the plate. The question is whether they'll swing hard or bunt."

What you can do
The report offers some steps that the 17 million people in the bay watershed can take to help improve the estuary's health:

•Don't fertilize your lawn because that adds to nutrient pollution

•Pick up dog waste to keep bacteria out of the bay

•Use a phosphate-free dishwasher detergent to reduce phosphorus in wastewater

•Drive less to reduce emissions

•Plant native trees, shrubs and wildflowers to filter pollution and attract wildlife

•Install a rain barrel or rain garden to collect and absorb runoff

•Volunteer to clean up a stream, creek or river in your community
An earlier version misattributed some statements concerning a bill sponsored by Sen. Benjamin L. Cardin. The Sun regrets the error.

Copyright © 2010, The Baltimore Sun

Charles 'Mac' Mathias, founder of Chesapeake Bay cleanup effort, dies

http://wjz.com/local/algae.bill.chesapeake.2.1557656.html

Charles 'Mac' Mathias, founder of Bay cleanup effort, dies

By Karl Blankenship

Charles McC. Mathias Jr., a three-term United States senator from Maryland who was instrumental in launching the Chesapeake Bay restoration effort, died Jan. 25 at his home in Chevy Chase, MD, of complications from Parkinson's Disease. He was 87.

Mathias, who served in the U.S. House from 1961 through 1969, then in the Senate until 1987, was a liberal Republican who sponsored civil rights legislation, advocated for equal rights for women and was critical of the Vietnam War. He was called "the conscience of the Senate" by its Democratic leader, Mike Mansfield.

Mathias also played a pivotal role in Chesapeake restoration, even though he grew up far from the Bay in western Maryland. Sen. Barbara Mikulski, who was elected to Mathias' seat after his retirement, hailed him as "the founding father of a great and ongoing effort to save the Chesapeake."

As a first-term senator, Mathias heard a growing number of complaints from Marylanders about the Bay's condition and its poor water quality. "I remember when I was a small child, the Chesapeake Bay was pretty clear," he recalled in 2003 interview with the Bay Journal. "Now it looked just muddy."

In 1973, "Mac" as he was commonly known, took a a five-day, 450-mile tour of the Chesapeake Bay for a firsthand look at problems facing the Bay.

Then-EPA Administrator Russell Train was along for part of the trip, as was Interior Secretary Rogers Morton. Along the way, Mathias talked to more than 150 people, from businessmen to government officials to watermen to farmers to scientists. "Everyone we met was interested and wanted to be a part of it," he said. "The spirit of the time was tremendous."

The boat trip, Mathias said, gave him a sense of the diverse problems facing the Bay, from discharge pipes leading out of cities, to runoff from rural areas, to the loss of underwater grass beds almost everywhere. "By pulling all of these things together, you got a comprehensive picture of what all the problems of the Bay were," he said. "They were not just one thing."

After the trip, Mathias pushed for increased attention on the Bay, which ultimately resulted in a five-year, $25 million study by the EPA. The state-federal Chesapeake Bay Program was created in 1983 in response to the findings of that study.

Two decades after the Bay Program was started, though, he said he was not surprised the task of restoring the Chesapeake was still under way. "I had hoped it could be completed long before this, but in a way there is no completion," he said. "It is an ongoing problem because of the difficulties that feed the problem."

"The fact there are thousands of homes being built ultimately ends in a greater burden on the Bay from all kinds of pollution," he said. "We are beginning to realize that it has to be an ongoing project. As long as there are human activities in the Bay there are going to have to be offsetting programs to deal with them."

Nonetheless, he said, "I think we've come a long way." And, he said, other politicians should follow his lead by taking a trip like his to appreciate the diversity of issues afflicting the nation's largest estuary. "I would recommend it."

Chesapeake Bay Health

Officials: Chesapeake health costly


By Rory Sweeney, The Times Leader, Wilkes-Barre, Pa.

Nov. 18--ASHLEY -- Fixing the ailing Chesapeake Bay will cost everyone living in its watershed area, but it will also create local benefits, said federal officials who came to the area on Tuesday to outline their massive plan to put the bay on a "diet."

"We probably have enough technologies to do what we need to do. It's just expensive," said Bob Koroncai, the Environmental Protection Agency's manager for the bay's "total maximum daily load" program. "The decisions have not been made on who will shoulder those costs."

http://www.waterworld.com/index/display/news_display/137906107.html

Chesapeake Algae Project

ChAP: Biofuel from aquatic algae
by Joseph McClain for Ideation magazine | November 11, 2009

Even if the wild, abundant—yet bony—diatoms aren’t ideal little bags of oil, they do offer some benefits: “They pay you back by growing very rapidly. So a low shell-to-lipid ratio is often made up for by the rate of growth,” Manos said. “If I can grow three grams of something that’s half as efficient in the time it takes you to grow one gram of something that’s perfectly efficient, I still win.”

http://www.wm.edu/news/ideation/current/algae-biofuel-two-007.php



StatoilHydro has seeded the enterprise with an initial $3 million investment. Other key partners are the Williamsburg energy advisory firm Blackrock Energy, the University of Maryland, the Smithsonian Institution, the University of Arkansas and HydroMentia, a Florida company that works with water-treatment technologies.


http://smartregion.org/2009/11/norwegian-company-seeds-chesapeake-algae-project/

Gulf of Mexico and Chesapeake Bay Dead Zones 2009

Revised estimates of Gulf and Chesapeake Bay Dead Zones

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/28/science/earth/28zone.html?_r=1

Dead Zone in Gulf Is Smaller Than Forecast but More Concentrated in Parts

By HENRY FOUNTAIN
Published: July 27, 2009

Scientists said Monday that the region of oxygen-starved water in the northern Gulf of Mexico this summer was smaller than forecast, which means less disruption of shrimp, crabs and other marine species, and of the fisheries that depend on them.

But researchers found that although the so-called dead zone along the Texas and Louisiana coasts was smaller — about 3,000 square miles compared with a prediction of about 8,000 square miles — the actual volume of low-oxygen, or hypoxic, water may be higher, as the layer is deeper and thicker in some parts of the gulf than normal. And the five-year average size of the dead zone is still considered far too big, about three times a target of 2,000 square miles set for 2015 by an intergovernmental task force.
...........

http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/features/green/2009/07/bay_dead_zone_bigger_than_pred.html

Bay 'dead zone' bigger than predicted
The fish-stressing "dead zone" in the Chesapeake Bay is bigger than predicted this summer, scientists say.

Just about a month ago, University of Michigan scientists had forecast that the amount of oxygen-starved water in the Chesapeake should be much lower than average for the troubled estuary. University of Maryland scientists had followed with similar predictions that the bay's ''dead zone'' -- where dissolved oxygen levels in the water are too low for fish to breathe comfortably, if at all -- was likely to be one of the smallest ever measured.

The scientists had based their predictions on below-normal flows in late spring of the Susquehanna River, which supplies half of the fresh water entering the bay. Though it rained a lot in Maryland and Virginia in May and June, it had been relatively dry in the Susquehanna's drainage basin in New York and Pennsylvania.

But based on water sampling conducted every two weeks since May, University of Maryland scientists hve found that the volume of water with little or no oxygen in it has exceeded the forecast -- increasing from below-average in late May to above normal for June and remaining about average for this month, even as rains locally subsided.
.........

Dissolved Oxygen in Chesapeake Bay

A very detailed paper on Dissolved Oxygen level in Chesapeake Bay.

http://www.eco-check.org/pdfs/do_letter.pdf

TESTIMONY OF SENIOR ADVISOR TO ADMINISTRATOR of US EPA

http://www.epa.gov/ocirpage/hearings/testimony/111_2009_2010/2009_0420_jcf.pdf

TESTIMONY OF J. CHARLES FOX
SENIOR ADVISOR TO ADMINISTRATOR LISA JACKSON
U.S. ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY
BEFORE THE
WATER AND WILDLIFE SUBCOMMITTEE
COMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENT AND PUBLIC WORKS
U.S. SENATE

April 20, 2009

Excerpts

In general, the Bay Program partners have made some important – but not sufficient progress to reduce nutrient pollution from agriculture and wastewater treatment plants. Agriculture is the single largest source of nutrient and sediment pollution to the Bay, with about half of that load directly related to animal manure. However, the pollution from urban and suburban stormwater is actually increasing.”

...

The straightforward conclusion is that the Chesapeake Bay ecosystem remains severely degraded, despite the concerted efforts by many for more than 25 years.”

Chesapeake Bay - buy back of crabbing licenses

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/09/AR2009070902685.html

CHESAPEAKE BAY
Maryland Seeks to Buy Back Small-Scale Crab Licenses

By David A. Fahrenthold
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, July 10, 2009

The state of Maryland is offering to buy back crabbing licenses from about half of the state's watermen in a bid to rebuild the Chesapeake Bay's beleaguered stock of blue crabs by reducing the number of people trying to catch them.

The offer was mailed Wednesday to 3,676 watermen who hold "Limited Crab Catcher" licenses, state officials said. These are the state's small-scale crabbers, licensed to set out 50 or fewer wire-mesh crab traps, or "pots." The other half of the state's watermen, with licenses to use more pots, were not included in the offer.

The state will use a "reverse auction," officials said: Each crabber will submit a bid, saying how much he or she would accept in exchange for giving up a license. Officials will accept the bids, starting with the lowest, until the money runs out or the price reaches a level the state deems too high.

Lynn Fegley, an official with the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, said the auction aims to eliminate uncertainty about the state's crab harvests. She said that about 1,060 crabbers who hold the small-scale licenses have not worked on the water since 2004. Others catch relatively few.

But all of them might suddenly choose to catch more, she said. She said the state would like to buy back 2,000 licenses.

"You have a lot more [fishing] capacity out there than the resource can bear," said Douglas Lipton, a University of Maryland economist who helped design the buyback system. "This is a way, in the future, to have more of a handle on that."
ad_icon

Maryland and Virginia have put restrictions on the blue crab catch in the past two years, trying to stem a sharp drop in the population. Virginia officials are also planning a license buyback program, a state official said, but the details have not been worked out.

---------------------------
All this is so unnecessary.
Nualgi can be used to treat the Bay.

Gulf of Mexico Dead Zone

News about the Gulf of Mexico Dead Zone

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/06/090618124956.htm

Large 2009 Gulf Of Mexico 'Dead Zone' Predicted

ScienceDaily (June 18, 2009) — University of Michigan aquatic ecologist Donald Scavia and his colleagues say this year's Gulf of Mexico "dead zone" could be one of the largest on record, continuing a decades-long trend that threatens the health of a half-billion-dollar fishery.
The scientists' latest forecast, released June 18, calls for a Gulf dead zone of between 7,450 and 8,456 square miles—an area about the size of New Jersey.
Most likely, this summer's Gulf dead zone will blanket about 7,980 square miles, roughly the same size as last year's zone, Scavia said. That would put the years 2009, 2008 and 2001 in a virtual tie for second place on the list of the largest Gulf dead zones.
It would also mean that the five largest Gulf dead zones on record have occurred since 2001. The biggest of these oxygen-starved, or hypoxic, regions developed in 2002 and measured 8,484 square miles.
"The growth of these dead zones is an ecological time bomb," said Scavia, a professor at the U-M School of Natural Resources and Environment and director of the U-M Graham Environmental Sustainability Institute.
"Without determined local, regional and national efforts to control them, we are putting major fisheries at risk," said Scavia, who also produces annual dead-zone forecasts for the Chesapeake Bay.
The Gulf dead zone forms each spring and summer off the Louisiana and Texas coast when oxygen levels drop too low to support most life in bottom and near-bottom waters.
The Gulf hypoxia research team is supported by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Center for Sponsored Coastal Ocean Research and includes scientists from Louisiana State University and the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium.
The forecast for a large 2009 Gulf hypoxic zone is based on above-normal flows in the Mississippi and Atchafalaya rivers this spring, which delivered large amounts of the nutrient nitrogen. In April and May, flows in the two rivers were 11 percent above average.
Additional flooding of the Mississippi since May could result in a dead zone that exceeds the upper limit of the forecast, the scientists said.
"The high water-volume flows, coupled with nearly triple the nitrogen concentrations in these rivers over the past 50 years from human activities, has led to a dramatic increase in the size of the dead zone," said Gene Turner, a lead forecast modeler at Louisiana State University.
Northeast of the Gulf, low water flows into the Chesapeake Bay shaped Scavia's 2009 forecast for that hypoxia zone.
The Bay's oxygen-starved zone is expected to shrink to between 0.7 and 1.8 cubic miles, with a "most likely" volume of 1.2 cubic miles—the lowest level since 2001 and third-lowest on record. The drop is largely due to a regional dry spell that lasted from January through April, Scavia said. Continued high flows in June, beyond the period used for the forecasts, suggest the actual size may be near the higher end of the forecast range.
"While it's encouraging to see that this year's Chesapeake Bay forecast calls for a significant drop in the extent of the dead zone, we must keep in mind that the anticipated reduction is due mainly to decreased precipitation and water runoff into the Bay," he said.
"The predicted 2009 dead-zone decline does not result from cutbacks in the use of nitrogen, which remains one of the key drivers of hypoxia in the Bay."
Farmland runoff containing fertilizers and livestock waste—some of it from as far away as the Corn Belt—is the main source of the nitrogen and phosphorus that cause the Gulf of Mexico dead zone.
Each year in late spring and summer, these nutrients make their way down the Mississippi River and into the Gulf, fueling explosive algae blooms there. When the algae die and sink, bottom-dwelling bacteria decompose the organic matter, consuming oxygen in the process. The result is an oxygen-starved region in bottom and near-bottom waters: the dead zone.
The same process occurs in the Chesapeake Bay, where nutrients in the Susquehanna River trigger the event. In both the Gulf and the Bay, fish, shrimp and crabs are forced to leave the hypoxic zone. Animals that cannot move perish.
The annual hypoxia forecasts helps coastal managers, policy makers, and the public better understand what causes dead zones. The models that generate the forecasts have been used to determine the nutrient-reduction targets required to reduce the size of the dead zone.
"As with weather forecasts, the Gulf forecast uses multiple models to predict the range of the expected size of the dead zone. The strong track record of these models reinforces our confidence in the link between excess nutrients from the Mississippi River and the dead zone," said Robert Magnien, director of NOAA's Center for Sponsored Coastal Ocean Research.
U.S. Geological Survey data on spring river flow and nutrient concentrations inform the computer models that produce the hypoxia forecasts.
The official size of the 2009 hypoxic zone will be announced following a NOAA-supported monitoring survey led by the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium on July 18-26. In addition, NOAA's Southeast Area Monitoring and Assessment Program's (SEAMAP) is currently providing near real-time data on the hypoxic zone during a five-week summer fish survey in the northern Gulf of Mexico.

Chesapeake Bay Program - President Obama -more studies and reports

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/12/AR2009051203232.html

Federal Action on the Bay
President Obama wades into the Chesapeake.

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

AS EXPECTED, the meeting of the Chesapeake Executive Council yesterday did not come up with any magical prescriptions for the deteriorating health of the bay. But it was accompanied by something new, and potentially valuable: an executive order from the president that commits the federal government to a more direct and assertive role in cleaning up the nation's largest estuary.

The Chesapeake Bay Protection and Restoration order establishes a Federal Leadership Committee to oversee and coordinate all state and federal activities to clean the waterway. Lisa P. Jackson, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, will lead the outfit. She will consult with Cabinet secretaries and state authorities to devise a master plan for the bay's revival. The order also commands federal agencies with land in the watershed to implement land management practices that will benefit the health of the bay. Authority under the Clean Water Act is Ms. Jackson's hammer to ensure that the goals President Obama sets out are met.

On the one hand, you could look at yesterday's meeting with a certain weariness. Officials from the federal government, along with the six states and the District of Columbia that share the bay's 64,000-square-mile watershed, promised -- surprise! -- more studies and reports. A draft report on the key challenges to protecting and restoring the bay is due within 120 days. Final reports from the Agriculture, Commerce, Defense and Interior departments are due within 180 days. A draft of the overall strategy for public comment is also due within 180 days, with the final document submitted within one year. As if nodding to the work already being done by states, including Maryland, Virginia and the District, Mr. Obama encourages them to keep going before the final strategy has been adopted. But there's been so much study of what ails the waterway that these deadlines surely could be met earlier.

On the other hand, Mr. Obama's leadership could prove to be a big deal. Not since 1984 has a president shown such concern for the sorry state of the Chesapeake Bay. That's when President Ronald Reagan mentioned it in his State of the Union address and put a dollop of money into the budget to fund what would become the Chesapeake Bay Program of the EPA. But despite that program and unending promises, conditions in the bay have only declined in the two and a half decades since. Now Mr. Obama has put the full weight of the White House behind cleaning up the historic waterway. If the effort fails this time, he'll own it.

Chesapeake Bay Program Annual Report: More Bad News for the Bay

http://www.paenvironmentdigest.com/newsletter/default.asp?NewsletterArticleID=12108

Chesapeake Bay Program Annual Report: More Bad News for the Bay

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Chesapeake Bay Program latest Bay Barometer has given the Bay's health a score of 38 percent out of 100 percent in terms of the estuary's recover.

According to the report, despite increased restoration efforts, water quality in the Bay is still poor, habitats continue to be degraded and populations of several key fish and shellfish species, including blue crabs, oysters and shad, remain low.

However, there was some good news. The Chesapeake Bay Program exceeded its goal for land preservation, with 7.3 million acres permanently protected from development. Underwater grasses, which provide shelter for aquatic life, improve water clarity, increase oxygen and reduce shoreline erosion, grew by 18 percent, and now total 76,861 acres.

Most of the problems of the Bay can be attributed to excess nitrogen, phosphorus and sediment entering the water, according to the report, which said that the main sources of these pollutants are agriculture, urban and suburban runoff, sewage treatment plants, and air pollution.

The complete Bay Barometer report is available online.
http://www.chesapeakebay.net/content/publications/cbp_34915.pdf

Chesapeake 2000 - Targets

http://www.chesapeakebay.net/content/publications/cbp_12081.pdf

Nutrients and Sediments


Continue efforts to achieve and maintain the 40 percent nutrient reduction goal agreed to in 1987, as well as the goals being adopted for the tributaries south of the Potomac River.


By 2010, correct the nutrient- and sediment-related problems in the Chesapeake Bay and its tidal tributaries sufficiently to remove the Bay and the tidal portions of its tributaries from the list of impaired waters under the Clean Water Act. In order to achieve this:

1. By 2001, define the water quality conditions necessary to protect aquatic living resources and then assign load reductions for nitrogen and phosphorus to each major tributary;

2. Using a process parallel to that established for nutrients, determine the sediment load reductions necessary to achieve the water quality conditions that protect aquatic living resources, and assign load reductions for sediment to each major tributary by 2001;

3. By 2002, complete a public process to develop and begin implementation of revised Tributary Strategies to achieve and maintain the assigned loading goals;

4. By 2003, the jurisdictions with tidal waters will use their best efforts to adopt new or revised water quality standards consistent with the defined water quality conditions. Once adopted by the jurisdictions, the Environmental Protection Agency will work expeditiously to review the new or revised standards, which will then be used as the basis for removing the Bay and its tidal rivers from the list of impaired waters; and

5. By 2003, work with the Susquehanna River Basin Commission and others to adopt and begin implementing strategies that prevent the loss of the sediment retention capabilities of the lower Susquehanna River dams.

------------------
It appears that these goals have not been met.