PA Finally Making Progress on TMDL

The EPA mandated a contamination limit called the TMDL (total maximum daily load for nutrient contamination and sediment) to all the states in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed and Washington DC. The pollution limits were then partitioned to the various states and river basins based on the Chesapeake Bay computer modeling tools and monitoring data.

The Chesapeake Bay states and Washington DC together known as the Bay jurisdictions agreed to create state-specific plans to implement 60 percent of their Bay cleanup practices by 2017 and 100% by 2025. These plans are called Watershed Implementation Plans or WIPs and were designed to help restore the Bay and improve the health of local waterways.

Though EPA approved Pennsylvania's "Phase I" WIP in 2011, EPA cited several deficiencies in Pennsylvania's plan that resulted in EPA imposing "backstops" to assure pollutant reductions in the plan would be achieved. Backstops can range from withholding federal funds to imposing regulations on smaller farm animal operations or tightening discharge limits for wastewater treatment plants. The EPA annually reviews each of the six Bay watershed states’ efforts to reduce nutrient and sediment pollution. If any state fails to meet its milestones and hasn’t done enough to get on track, agency officials take some “backstop” actions to force the state to meet their goals.

As you can see below Pennsylvania had not meet their goals. In an attempt to get there (and meet EPA requirements), the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) announced its “Strategy to Enhance Pennsylvania’s Chesapeake Bay Restoration Effort”, pledging renewed commitment to nitrogen, phosphorus, and sediment reductions. Because agriculture dominates much of the landscape of the Chesapeake watershed in Pennsylvania, it was the focus of the new strategy.

With funding provided by the Chesapeake Bay Program and the state, Conservation District and DEP staff visited 1,125 farms from October 2016 through March 2017. Though this was still an inspection rate below what is needed to achieve the annual goal of visiting 10% of farms each year it was a start; and the pace of inspections has quickened now that the process is established.

Most of the farms visited had not previously worked with Conservation Districts, so they were less likely to have conservation plans and nutrient management plans in place than the general farm population. Of farms required to have plans, 70% had manure management plans, and 68% had erosion and sediment control plans. The inspections, however, only assessed whether the required plans exist, not whether they were properly implemented and actually address water-quality concerns—a major shortfall of state efforts to date.

Farmers received a notice before the inspector visited, and noncompliant farms were given time to write their plans and become compliant before enforcement actions were taken. Historically, progress on implementation of the WIP was based on reported data regarding conservation practices established with assistance from public agencies. Many farmers, however, adopt practices on their farms independent of public financing. A recent Penn State survey documented a high volume of previously uncounted conservation practices, including several hundred thousand acres under nutrient management, and nearly 6,000 acres of forested streamside buffers that were previously undocumented. These inspections will serve to inform and engage farmers in conservation practices and document compliance.

In Virginia the Soil and Water Conservation Districts design the plans for our farmers and the state shares in the cost of implementation. We review the plans every few years and verify implementation and functioning of the mitigation.