Capital Gazette Communications

The federal government unveiled the Chesapeake Bay's "pollution diet" Friday, listing strict limits for local rivers and chiding some states for not having strong enough plans to meet the diet's restrictions.

For the first time, pollution limits have been devised for individual rivers that, along with the bay itself, also suffer from poor water quality. In some cases, Anne Arundel County residents, farmers, busi-nesses and the government will have to cut in half the pollution that drains into the water.

"It's not going to be easy," said Shawn Garvin, regional administrator for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

This summer, the EPA set broad limits for nitrogen, phosphorus and sediment - which sully our waters - and charged the states surrounding the bay to come up with plans to meet the new limits.

Maryland's plan listed many ways of cleaning up - from upgrading sewage plants and septic systems to cutting air pollution and requiring more eco-friendly farming practices.

The plan didn't say how much it would cost or how the state would be able to pass new regulations and laws that would be necessary.

The EPA found Maryland's plan largely acceptable and incorporated it into the overall 569-page pollution diet issued yesterday.

The District of Columbia also got a thumb's up, but other states were not as fortunate.

Virginia, Pennsylvania, New York, West Virginia and Delaware incurred "backstopping" actions from the EPA, which included actions such as changing how allowable pollution amounts were divvied up and asking the states to agree to tougher sewage plant permits and farmers to do more on their lands.

"I don't think that anybody would suggest that for any of our jurisdictions that we're 100 percent for anything. Maryland and D.C. are much further on the way of getting us there," Garvin said.

The ultimate goal is to have enough pollution-reduction actions in place by 2025 to get the Chesapeake off the nation's "impaired waters" list. The waters of the bay and most of its rivers are too polluted and contain too little oxygen for wildlife.

Three decades of voluntary efforts from the states and feds have failed to make a significant improvement in water quality.

As a result of that failure, the pollution diet was triggered. The states will have a chance to revise their cleanup plans before the end of the year. In 2011, state officials will be required to get more specific with their plans.

Maryland's cleanup plan aims to do better than 2025; it sets a self-imposed goal of 2020.

"The actions proposed will improve our environment and public health and help create jobs to protect the enormous economic value of the Chesapeake Bay," Gov. Martin O'Malley said in a statement.

Environmentalists weighed in yesterday. Will Baker, longtime president of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, said finally, the federal government has stepped up.

"If they do what they said they're going to do today, it will be a new day for the Chesapeake Bay," said Baker, whose organization sued the EPA in 2009 and succeeded in speeding up the pollution diet process.

But Baker said his group will be watching the pollution diet closely and remains concerned about foot-dragging from some of the bay watershed states.

"We're guardedly optimistic that EPA is committed to enforcing the Clean Water Act and reducing pollution, but we have a healthy skepticism," he said.

Added Tommy Landers of the advocacy group Environment Maryland: "If Maryland's leaders continue their good work, keep all the best ideas in their final plan, and make some other key improvements, we could get ourselves on track to once and for all clean up the bay and all of our local waterways."

Information about the pollution diet is posted at www.epa.gov/chesapeakebaytmdl. A series of public meetings are planned, including one at 2 p.m. on Oct. 13 at the Sheraton Annapolis, 173 Jennifer Road.

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