Earlier this year President Barack Obama referred to the Chesapeake Bay as a “national treasure” and issued an executive order to restore its health. His plan, revealed on Monday, calls for the EPA to set a series of two-year milestones meant to bring the current cleanup effort (started in 2000) up to speed by 2025. This strategy represents a shift in leadership from the state level to the federal one.
J. Charles Fox, the EPA’s Senior Advisor on the Chesapeake Bay and Anacostia River, says efforts on the state and individual levels will still be a crucial component for success, “We have to do this in close partnership with state governments and those in the private sector. We simply cannot succeed on our own,” he said in a conference call with reporters.
It appears that the Obama administration will try to elicit change with both the incentive of benefits and the threat of punishments. Federal officials pledged $90 million more a year in payments to farmers operating within the Chesapeake Bay watershed. This “aggressive, voluntary partnership effort” is meant to get farmers to incorporate environmentally friendly practices (such as planting cover crops in the winter) in order to prevent polluted runoff from entering the Chesapeake Bay.
There are also provisions in the plan to work with Maryland and Virginia agencies on rebuilding the oyster and crab populations. On an individual level, volunteers would have the opportunity to join a proposed Chesapeake Conservation Corps, where they would learn “green” job skills while working to improve the estuary’s health.
If states aren’t meeting EPA guidelines, possible consequences could include rejection of environmental permits, cuts in federal funding, or the blocking of new development, however the specific sanctions won’t be spelled out until later this year. The public will have a chance to comment on this plan until Jan. 8 when it will enter its finalization stage. Chestertown residents will have a chance to question Mr. Fox in person this week.
Both Mr. Fox and Ann Pesiri Swanson, Executive Director of the Chesapeake Bay Commission will be at the Prince Theatre this Sunday delivering a lecture entitled, Restoring the Chesapeake Bay: The Next Step (For details, visit www.ehos.org). This event, hosted by Echo Hill Outdoor School, is the inaugural Walter B. Harris Memorial Environmental Lecture.
John Mann is the Assistant Director of Echo Hill Outdoor School
Ken Noble says
re: “It appears that the Obama administration will try to elicit change with both the incentive of benefits and the threat of punishments.”
Those “volunteer” jobs they promise to bring: I am totally for rebuilding oyster reefs, but I have been on enough of these “volunteer” projects where only a few are getting paid the big bucks and half of the time they know less about the science of the problem than the volunteers do. We need this Corps to be like the old Depression CCCorps….Pay us to do this. Send us money for SUSTAINABLE Comprehensive Planning. The CCC left a lasting legacy and we need a similar PAYING Corps to do that now. There are plenty of unemployed and/or underemployed. PAY THEM. It is as simple as a visit to Ben Bernanke. Come on. Tell them to make these jobs “paying” jobs. We can fly thousand of troops to Afghanistan and leave millions at home unemployed. There is something wrong with that picture. Have they not read the statistics on unemployment? If you are going to throw money at a problem, which these two miserably failing offices (EPA and Chesapeake Bay Commission) have been involved in for years, you may as well throw it to the people. We need more start ups like Environmental Concern (Easton) taking this on and hiring the unemployed. Volunteer? For shame, man. We have hungry people in this community and an economic development plan that completely misses Green opportunities. Talk is cheap. We do not need a one way dialogue on how to be good stewards of our Bay.
There my elicitation. Love it or leave it.
Brent Hunsinger says
Until we deal with the increase in human population in the Bay watershed and tackle non point source pollution we will be throwing the money away…..we have thrown millions at restoring oysters and the effort has been clumsy and uncoordinated. The lack of communication and sharing of research information is staggering. More money does not mean a better Bay….it must be targeted and utilized in a more efficient manner than in the past.
LIly Cutter says
I was looking at a map of the Bay pollution earlier today. I live on the Elk River at the top of the Bay. Whenever it rains I can see the increase in turbidity in the water. I;d like to see efforts and education on how siltation and nutrient inflow can be controlled at the tributary level. Something that could be initiated throughout the system would be so usefull. Perhaps introducing ways to slow the streamflow or increase marsh area. I have seen models of floating vegitation islands which can be used to help filter water vegitatively. I’d loved to get involved in some local efforts but I have no idea about what makes sense that local citizens could do. The amount of siltation flowing past the end of my street seems masive already. I’m ignorant of what would make an impact and where and how to initiate such. I mentioned getting involved with volunteer stream monitoring a year or so ago and one of my conservative neighbors almost throttled me. I don’t want the Bay cleanup to become another “Glen Beck” moment sort of thing with partisan politics absorbing the energy needed to get the job done.