Nov 5, 2009 6:33 pm US/Eastern
Md. Part Of EPA's Bay Restoration Expectations
ANNE ARUNDEL COUNTY, Md. (WJZ) ―
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The federal EPA put Maryland and five other states in the Chesapeake watershed on notice to improve water quality or face the consequences.
CBS
Call it tough love for the bay. The federal EPA put Maryland and five other states in the Chesapeake watershed on notice to improve water quality or face the consequences.
Alex DeMetrick reports that ultimately means reducing the worst pollution by 100 million pounds a year.
Watermen have been watching their catches and incomes shrink for years as grassbeds die and dead zones grow in the bay.
Dr. Beth McGee, who studies water quality for the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, thinks that's changing.
Now a warning has been issued to Maryland and five other bay states to come up with plans to cut pollution.
"The level of detail they're going to require in these plans is unprecedented. They're going to go down to very small geographic scale," said McGee.
That means big and small communities will have to reduce the nitrogen pollution flows out of sewage treatment plants. Farms will have to do a better job of keeping fertilizer and animal waste out of streams. Stormwater runoff from cities and suburbs will have to be filtered by natural buffers, like plants and open space, before entering streams.
The goal is to reduce nitrogen pollution, which feeds algae that creates dead zones, by 100 million pounds by 2025.
Officials plan to do all they can to ensure the goal is met because the bay hangs in the balance.
Among the consequences the EPA might impose on states for not meeting pollution goals are fines and the withholding of federal funds for other projects.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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