How will Chesapeake Bay court settlement impact Pennsylvania?
Airdate: May 8th, 2023
Pennsylvania has been lagging behind other states in the Chesapeake Bay watershed in reducing pollution that runs into the bay. As a result, Maryland, Virginia, Delaware and the District of Columbia went to court and a second suit was filed that includes the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, claiming the federal government was not doing more to hold Pennsylvania accountable.
A tentative settlement has been reached in both suits.
On The Spark Monday, we looked at the details of the settlement and what it will mean for Pennsylvania.
Joining us on the program were Harry Campbell Director of Science Policy and Advocacy for the Chesapeake Bay Foundation in Pennsylvania, and Jon Mueller the head of Litigation for the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, who talked about why the legal action was taken,”The reason the suit was filed is that the Trump administration, EPA at that point was not exercising any of what we call our backstop actions. Those are things that tools EPA can use under the Clean Water Act to help states come into compliance with what we call the Chesapeake Bay total maximum daily load and their watershed implementation plans that are designed to limit the amount of nitrogen and phosphorus and sediment that enter tributaries to the Chesapeake Bay. All right. Felt that the only way to get things going was to file suit against the government.”
Mueller was asked what the settlement would mean for Pennsylvania,”It requires EPA to do a number of things, primarily to actually look at exercising some of the backstop actions that were identified in prior correspondence to the states. And in the TMD itself, there were eight different backstops identified. And the EPA is going to either undertake or examine undertaking four of those. Two of them are directed at what we call a residual designation authority. So I’m sure most folks are familiar with wastewater treatment plants and other big industries having permits that limit the amount of pollution they can discharge. A lot of the problems that we’re facing primarily in Pennsylvania is where it’s called non-point source pollution. They don’t have a permit. The sources are either too small or to diffuse to have a permit. So the Clean Water Act gives EPA the authority to go and look at those sources and say, you know, we can see that these sources are actually contributing to bad water quality downstream and that we can use our residual authority to require those to get permits with numeric limits or requirements for installing best management practices like trees, buffer areas, fencing, livestock out of streams, those sorts of things. And in urban areas, you know, the two big problem areas are between from agriculture and from urban and suburban stormwater, the runoff from impervious hard surfaces into local streams.”
Campbell said he believes there is a will in Pennsylvania to comply with what has to be done to keep pollutants from running into streams and rivers that eventually end up in the Bay,”This is the time at which there is more will and momentum in the state of Pennsylvania. The can do attitude from not only the state government all the way down to our individual communities and farmers. I’ve seen a substantial change in perspective over the last ten years, even five years in the state of Pennsylvania, that we can do this as long as we are receiving the necessary levels of support, the leadership, the commitment and the investment that is necessary to design and implement these practices. And part of that process, the three legged stool of success, as I like to call it, is outreach, education, technical and financial assistance. And compliance and enforcement. A store cannot stand without three strong legs, and those three together is the store of success.”
