A feature article Sunday in the Philadelphia Inquirer, by Sandy Bauers, describes the impressive restoration of the Lititz Run, a stream located in the Lower Susquehanna Watershed in Pennsylvania. Lititz Run flows into the Susquehanna River, which contributes about 40 percent of the nitrogen in the Chesapeake Bay, as well as a significant amount of phosphorous and sediment. Efforts to curb runoff, change agriculture practices, and upgrade sewer treatment plants by the local community changed the run from a fetid, polluted waterway into a healthy, permanent habitat for trout. The water quality in the stream has improved significantly over the last ten years: nitrogen has been reduced by 47 percent, along with nearly 10-percent reductions in sediment and phosphorous.
The agriculture sector contributes the largest share of pollution into the Chesapeake Bay, amounting to 42 percent of the nitrogen, 45 percent of the phosphorous, and 60 percent of the sediment. The other giant contributors are the urban and suburban sectors, which together contribute 16 percent of the nitrogen, 31 percent of the phosphorus, and 19 percent of the sediment. While restored forests and stream buffers and other management practices have reduced the pollution load from agriculture, the pollution load from the urban and suburban sector has increased. The population in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed has grown by 8 percent, but the amount of impervious surface, or surface that prevents natural absorption of rainwater by the ground, has increased by 41 percent.
CPR has worked extensively on Chesapeake Bay issues, proposing to strengthen accountability in the Bay Program and among states. In a June 2009 publication, Reauthorizing the Chesapeake Bay: Exchanging Promises for Results, CPR President Rena Steinzor and Executive Director Shana Jones recommended:
Today the EPA and other federal agencies will release a series of draft reports on the Chesapeake Bay examining issues such as the impact of climate change; stormwater management practices; and the existing federal regulatory programs, including the CWA. As mandated by President Obama’s executive order on the Chesapeake Bay, these drafts are the precursors to official reports due in November, and those reports will be subject to formal public comment. Chuck Fox, the EPA’s Senior Chesapeake Bay Advisor, has said that the draft reports may contain more provisions to deal with urban and suburban runoff from existing developments and to bring more concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) into compliance under the CWA.
Stay tuned for more soon on these draft reports from EPA.
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Yee Huang | September 9, 2009
A feature article Sunday in the Philadelphia Inquirer, by Sandy Bauers, describes the impressive restoration of the Lititz Run, a stream located in the Lower Susquehanna Watershed in Pennsylvania. Lititz Run flows into the Susquehanna River, which contributes about 40 percent of the nitrogen in the Chesapeake Bay, as well as a significant amount of […]
Matthew Freeman | September 6, 2009
CPR’s Dan Rohlf had an op-ed in The Oregonian on Friday, taking the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality to task. Faced with news that the nation’s largest emitter of mercury pollution is a cement plant in the state, DEQ moved quickly to…defend the polluter. Rohlf writes: The biggest mercury polluter in the entire United States […]
Douglas Kysar | September 5, 2009
Prominent environmental commentator Bjorn Lomborg is at it again, this time convening a blue ribbon panel of five economists to assess the relative merits of different possible methods for addressing climate change. As reported by Reuters Friday morning, Lomborg’s panel concluded that “‘climate engineering’ projects, such as spraying seawater into the sky to dim sunlight, […]
Ben Somberg | September 4, 2009
The AP reports: A federal judge presiding over hundreds of lawsuits against Chinese drywall makers and installers said Thursday that he plans to hold the first trial in January for the cases, which claim the imported products emit sulfur, methane and other chemical compounds that have ruined homes and harmed residents’ health. U.S. District Judge […]
Holly Doremus | September 3, 2009
This item cross-posted by permission from Legal Planet. We had a flurry of posts on geoengineering a while back (see here, here, here, and here). If you want to learn more about geoengineering, a great resource is this report, just issued by the Royal Society. It clearly explains the background, the approaches being proposed (which […]
Rena Steinzor | September 2, 2009
Those of us worried sick over climate change confronted a depressing piece of excellent reporting in Monday’s Washington Post. Environment reporter David Fahrenthold wrote that environmental organizations are getting their proverbial clocks cleaned by a well-organized and pervasive campaign mounted by affected industries in small and mid-size communities throughout America. “It seems that environmentalists are […]
Ben Somberg | September 1, 2009
A recent article on Forbes.com, “China: Where Poisoning People Is Almost Free,” gave great examples of just how cheap it often is to pollute in China. And it pointed to potential consequences: While companies can get away with pollution atrocities for years, the Chinese government, in the long run, may have to pay a high […]
Matt Shudtz | August 31, 2009
Earlier this month, EPA released for public comment a new white paper on probabilistic risk assessment, marking the Obama Administration’s first major foray into the contentious debate about EPA’s evolving risk assessment methods. Back in May, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson announced changes to the way the Office of Research and Development (ORD) will update risk […]
Yee Huang | August 28, 2009
Last week, the Environmental Protection Agency agreed to set specific, statewide numeric standards for nutrient pollution in Florida, marking the first time the EPA has forced numeric limits for nutrient runoff for an entire state. This settlement, based on a 1998 EPA determination that under the Clean Water Act all states were required to develop […]