Case Dismissed

The Chesapeake Bay Foundation (CBF) sued the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) and the State Water Control Board to push for regulations that would require Virginia's largest livestock operations to fence off streams to keep their animals out of the water. CBF claimed that the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) and the State Water Control Board erred in approving a new 10-year Virginia Pollution Abatement permit governing the state's largest confined dairy, cattle, pig, and poultry farms that allowed for voluntary installation of stream exclusion fencing.

Oral arguments were heard by Judge C.N. Jenkins Jr of the Richmond Circuit Court on July 2, 2015. CBF arguing the state is failing to protect streams, rivers, and the Chesapeake Bay by allowing farm animals unfettered access to streams. Jon Mueller, who argued the case for CBF said stream exclusion should be required to maintain buffer zones between surface waterways and where manure is applied. The foundation claims the word “applied” should not be limited to material spread by farmers, but also include that deposited directly by livestock.

Judge C.N. Jenkins Jr. said the word "applied," while ambiguous in the law, surely referred to the work of farmers, not cow and dismissed the case.

It surprised and offended me that CBF would choose litigation on this topic to advance their agenda and try to dictate their preference for command and control regulations. That is not how things are done in Virginia. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency had recently completed an evaluation of Virginia’s animal agriculture programs.The EPA’s assessment looked at Virginia’s implementation of federal and state regulatory programs that manage the large scale permitted concentrated animal operations, as well as the voluntary incentive-based programs for animal operations and crop operations to meet the nutrient and sediment reduction commitments in its TMDL Watershed Implementation Plan (WIP).

The voluntary programs are implementation of agricultural BMPs by farmers with the help of the Soil and Water Conservation Districts (where I volunteer) who oversee the cost share programs that are used to encourage farmers to use the BMPs on their farms. Thought there had been criticism that the agricultural programs were largely voluntary, the EPA found the programs to be effective and well implemented and monitored.

Last year the Chesapeake Bay Foundation (CBF) and the Choose Clean Water Coalition (CCWC) issued their report reviewing the results of the 2012-13 pollution reduction milestones against the states’ WIPs and found that “Virginia met its overall pollution reduction goals for 2013. Of the eight practices assessed, the Commonwealth met or exceeded its goals for fencing cattle out of streams and urban stream restoration, and was very close to meeting the goal for agricultural practices such as nutrient management, pasture management, and cover crops. Virginia fell short of its goals for forest buffers, conservation tillage, stormwater practices, urban nutrient management, and composite urban practices.” Yet, CBF sued us- maybe you want to reconsider where your donations go.

The Cost of Implementing the Virginia WIP to Meet the Chesapeake Bay TMDL

Last Friday, January 6th 2012 I attended the Potomac Watershed Roundtable meeting in Warrenton, VA. The Potomac Watershed Roundtable is a regional forum open to Virginia citizens, community groups and local governments to promote collaboration and cooperation on improving and maintaining water quality of the Potomac Watershed. In recent years this has become about the Chesapeake Bay pollution diet, the Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) mandated by the EPA to the six Chesapeake Bay Watershed states (Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, New York, Pennsylvania and West Virginia) and the District of the Columbia. The meeting’s first speaker was Jeff Corbin, Senior Advisor to the EPA Administrator for the Chesapeake Bay.

The TMDL addresses only pollution from excess nitrogen, phosphorus and sediment. The TMDL does not address toxic, carcinogenic or endocrine disruptors that may be present in the Watershed. The excess nitrogen, phosphorus and sediment in the Chesapeake Bay cause algae blooms that consume oxygen and create “dead zones” where fish and shellfish cannot survive, block sunlight that is needed for underwater Bay grasses, and smother aquatic life on the bottom. The result is fish kills and murky water that threaten the aquatic industry and recreational use of the bay.

The TMDL sets a total Chesapeake Bay watershed limit for the six states and Washington DC of 185.9 million pounds of nitrogen, 12.5 million pounds of phosphorus and 6.45 billion pounds of sediment per year which is a 25% reduction in nitrogen, 24% reduction in phosphorus and 20 %t reduction in sediment from the current levels. The pollution limits are then partitioned to the various jurisdictions and river basins based on the Chesapeake Bay modeling tools and monitoring data. The Chesapeake Bay TMDL and the Watershed Implementation Plans (WIP) Phase I and II are designed to ensure that all pollution control measures needed to fully restore the Bay and its tidal rivers are in place by 2025, with at least 60 % of the actions completed by 2017. While it will take years after 2025 for the Bay and its tributaries to fully heal, EPA expects that once the required best management practices (BMPs) are in place there will be gradual and continued improvement in water quality as BMPs reduce the nutrient and sediment run off and better control storm water so that the Chesapeake Bay ecosystem can heal itself.

Since 1985 the excess nutrient contamination to the Chesapeake Bay has decreased, but the Bay’s waters remain seriously degraded. Phosphorus, nitrogen and sediment are released to the Chesapeake Bay Watershed by waste water treatment plants that service the millions of residents of the watershed, and by rainwater that percolates to the groundwater carrying excess nitrogen from septic and washes soil, nitrogen, and phosphorus into storm water and ultimately reaches the rivers, streams and bodies of water that make up the Chesapeake Bay Watershed. Though control of nutrient contamination has improved in all areas of the region, the massive growth of the population and expansion of developed land since 1985 has contributed to the nutrient and sediment pollution problem while the reductions in nutrient contamination have not come fast enough to meet the goals agreed to in the past. More needs to be done to have a healthy Chesapeake Bay and federal action was taken to enforce faster action.

The US EPA has taken control of the situation and can utilize what they call “back stop measures”, but are simply reductions in the allowed (permitted) releases from point source permits (waste water treatment plants, municipal separate storm sewer systems, and confined animal feed lots) to achieve the TMDL. At this time EPA can regulate only point source contamination, they cannot regulate non-point source contamination, which is runoff from roads, parking lots, yards and agricultural fields. The point source reductions are the most expensive way to achieve the reductions in nitrogen, phosphorus and sediment in the bay and would serve as a penalty to the state for failure to meet the targets under the watershed implementation plans. While the Prince William County HL Mooney Advanced Waste Water Treatment Plant is state of the art, other plants in the state are not and the cost to achieve the reduced effluent numbers would far exceed the estimated cost of $7 billion to implement BPM’s to non-point sources.

The real plan is to implement (and maintain) enough BMPs to meet the reductions in the TMDL according to the Chesapeake Bay Model. The actual costs of BMPs are highly variable. For example the cost to plant a cover crop is much less than to fence a stream or stabilize an eroding river bank, and the $7 billion estimate may be the low cost estimate from implementing a BMP on every agricultural acre in the Virginia portion of the Chesapeake Bay Watershed. The local communities in Virginia have been asked by the Virginia Department of Natural Resources request to develop land use information and BMP inventory to meet the local WIP Phase I effort level. With the help of some computerized tools they are going to use the EPA model to determine the least cost method to reach the “acceptable level of effort” necessary to meet the EPA allocations.

Fundamentally, complying with the WIP is about spending enough money, putting in enough BMPs to have the Chesapeake Bay Model say that we meet our TMDL. BPMs are not always easy to see to the untrained eye. There are a long list of techniques to manage storm water to reduce runoff of nutrients and soil from urban, suburban and rural areas. A really expensive (and easy to see) BMP would be to repave roads and parking lots with pervious pavement so that storm water could soak into the road way thereby reducing runoff. This can be impractical as a retrofit because of cost of replacing roads and parking lots. More practical way to limit large volumes of storm water runoff would be to install a rain garden system along roadways and parking lots to infiltrate street runoff. Rain gardens look like landscaping. EPA has a long list of acceptable BMPs at various costs and effectiveness that can be used by communities to meet the requirements of the TMDL under the WIP. The challenge is determining what needs to be done, convincing people to do it (there is tremendous resistance to installing and maintaining BMPs by residents of communities, farmers and politicians) and paying for the BMPs.

Cost is a big issue. For FY 2012 EPA maintained the budget for the Chesapeake Bay Program at 2010 levels, $50 million, enough to monitor, advise and enforce the implementation of the seven WIPs, but clearly no money to pay for BMPs. In creating the Chesapeake Bay TMDL EPA has created an obligation of between $1,000 and $2,500 per person for everyone living in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed to meet the requirements of the WIP Phase I. The Virginia portion of complying with the WIP Phase I is estimated to cost at least $7 billion. As a conservationist, I fully support the common goal of a cleaner, healthier Chesapeake Bay watershed, but worry about the costs to implement the solution.

Nutrient Trading Markets, a Regulatory Pipe Dream

Under the Clean Water Act Virginia is required to meet the “waste load allocations” contained in the Chesapeake Bay TMDL. This can be accomplished though the Watershed Implementation Plans, WIP I and II, using a combination of agricultural BMPs, wastewater treatment plant upgrades, and improvements in stormwater management. If Virginia fails to meet these goals EPA will use the only regulatory sticks they have to force compliance. This could mean reducing Virginia’s federal funds for water quality or it might mean EPA directly permitting facilities in Virginia. This could mean more stringent requirements for wastewater treatment plants, MS4s, other stormwater permitting and confined feedlot operations.

So given the state of the federal budget (or lack there of) it seems a fairly certain that that Virginia will have to find a way not only to fund meeting the TMDL, but to get the local communities to embrace the WIPs, implementing the various strategies to reduce nutrient and sediment pollution. First, many existing wastewater treatment plants will have to be upgraded and any future population growth will require additional upgrades. These are major capital projects that will impact sewer fees within the communities served. We cannot meet the TMDL goal by only addressing wastewater treatment plants. Even if we could, there would still be a need for nutrient smoothing as expansions and technology improvements happened in spurts. Existing stormwater control systems will have to be upgraded in addition to having future development meet much more stringent current and future standards. Finally, agricultural nutrient management will have to be improved and widely implemented.

Much of the coastal area and northern Virginia is suburban. Curtailing future stormwater runoff by adopting low impact development, LID, techniques in new housing and in other development projects would, in many cases, not involve significant additional costs, but it will not achieve the goal of reducing the current nutrient and sediment pollution level as required under the TMDL. In addition, significant regulatory and business practices would have to change to implement LID. The changes would have to include zoning policies, current construction practices and building codes and any change is costly. The impervious surfaces associated with development like concrete sidewalks and asphalt roadways, and the buildings themselves create increased stormwater flow. Instead of soaking into the ground and recharging groundwater, rainwater runs across paved areas, collecting used motor oil, pesticides, fertilizers, and other pollutants. Under the TMDL mandate LID would not be enough to allow for any future construction in the Chesapeake Bay watershed.

Further nutrient reductions would be required to decrease the total nutrient load in the linear fashion dictated by the EPA. These nutrient pollution reductions could be achieved by requiring that new housing and other land development in the Chesapeake Bay watershed “offset” any new nutrient pollution load it generates by reducing the nutrient load elsewhere. These offsets could be provided directly or through the payment by developers of an “offset development fee.” The money from the fee could then be spent for upgrading stormwater control systems at older developments. This will have the effect of pushing up the cost of real estate in the Chesapeake Bay watershed by raising the cost of construction by the required fees. Existing housing and commercial building values would increase by the offset fees as well. Offset development fees are just one way to achieve this goal, but possibly the most painless. Another possible way to achieve the required reductions in nutrient and sediment pollution is to require all homeowners and building owners to implement improved stormwater control. The costs of these controls might not be reasonable in some cases, and lets face it, Virginia is struggling to get homeowners to appropriately maintain their alternative septic systems, adding stormwater control requirements does not seem likely to succeed.

Finally, it has been suggested that another way to achieve the TMDL goals is the regulators darling- the nutrient pollution trading model. Conceptually, pollution trading is appealing as a cost effective and flexible way to achieve and maintain water quality goals. However, I believe that it will prove impossible to create a pollution trading market place because of fatal flaws in the conceptual model. First, from a Bay-wide watershed perspective, the lowest-cost reduction efforts are not necessarily located within the watershed where a reduction is needed and the TMDL reductions do not appear to be tradeable on an intrastate basis. So the effective market for trading may be much too small to establish a market place. Uncertainty in reductions from agricultural sources cannot be entirely eliminated and must be implemented or maintained and funded every year, indefinitely, into the future. Monitoring and verification of BMPs are costly. http://www.dcr.virginia.gov/documents/lrNutrientTradingInTheStateOfVirginia.pdf

The regulators envision private entities that purchase large quantities of credits from nonpoint sources for the purpose of re-sale to potential buyers, such as regulated point sources. The regulators envision firms that are willing and able to accept and somehow manage the risks associated with trading fictional credits that have no other value, in an undeveloped and miniscule sized market place with an irregular demand based on economic and population growth and regulatory mandated decreases in the TMDL. In addition, the time lag inherent in BMP installation and verification will magnify the market instability and inefficiency by lagging market signaling.

The regulatory vision of a vibrant nutrient market cannot be achieved. In an economic sense, the regulations create an endowment- a regulatory endowed asset. New generation of nutrient pollution and sediment are prohibited while old activities are allowed (but must decrease over time). Unfortunately, unlike a really good asset, you can not value it, sell it or borrow against it and these are all requirements for property exchange. You cannot create a market without property rights that can be owned and sold. In addition, since the allowed activities and endowed asset are created by regulations they can vanish at regulatory whim.

There is no true economic value of a BMP (regulatory compliance not withstanding) so that installation cannot be financed and this would have to be a cash investment market that installs and maintains BMPs to have credits ready on demand. There are markets that function without credit, but the returns are venture capital returns (or illegal drug returns). In addition, BMPs do not pay “rent” and unlike bonds they cannot be warehoused, instead they are often seasonal and require expenditures and maintenance to continue to be viable. A series of nutrient markets can not succeed within the Chesapeake Bay watershed. The Commonwealth would be better served by regulators and local planning boards working together to effectively price and sell offsets to developers and wastewater treatment plants then ensure that they are installed and maintained if necessary.

Prince William Allows Backyard Chickens with Limitations

On April 19th 2011 the Prince William Board of County Supervisors, voted to approve the latest staff proposal for a zoning change to allow backyard chickens in Prince William County. The approved amendment incorporated some of the less stringent requirements of the Planning Commission recommendations with the earlier staff recommendations. The amendment changes the zoning and land use regulations within the county. The full text, comments and history of the amendment can be read at this link.The new zoning regulations allow the keeping of chickens, pigeons, doves and other domestic fowl on any A-1 (agricultural) zoned property of at least one acre located within a Domestic Fowl Overlay District to be created by the Board of Supervisors. In addition, on properties zoned SR-1, SR-3 and SR-5 (semirural) with a minimum of one acre by Special Use Permit within the Domestic Fowl Overlay District. The keeping of domestic fowl is not permitted outside of the Domestic Fowl Overlay District, except on A-1 zoned lots of ten acres or larger. A Domestic Fowl Overlay District was created by ordinance upon resolution of the Board of County Supervisors and aligns roughly with the Rural Crescent.
 The maximum number of fowl allowed is proportional to the lot size. One bird unit per acre is allowed for properties of 1 to less than 5 acres, three bird units per acre for properties of 5 to less than 10 acres. There is no limit on the number of bird units allowed on properties greater than 10 acres. A bird unit is:
10 chickens (though only one rooster per acre) or
6 ducks or
4 turkeys, geese or pea fowl or
1 ostrich or emu
20 pigeons, doves, or quail

The new fowl regulations require coops or cages and runs on any lot with less than five acres and specifies construction standards and humane areas for each bird, distance from Resource Protected Areas (RPA) under the Chesapeake Bay Act, distance from well heads. In addition, waste management for surface and groundwater protection must be established using the new Prince William Soil and Water Conservation District guidelines. These guidelines should prevent (or at least significantly reduce) contamination of the groundwater, a major drinking water supply for the area, and prevent the backyard chickens from adding contaminated runoff to the Chesapeake Bay.

As our area has become more suburban, density has increased, along with the utilization of groundwater for domestic purposes and the density of septic systems. This suburban development has increased the suburban runoff and nutrient contamination to our groundwater and the Chesapeake Bay watershed. Virginia is under a federal mandate to reduce nitrogen, phosphorus and sediment contamination to the Chesapeake Bay. The federal pollution diet requires that Virginia reduce our non-point source pollution of nitrogen, phosphorus and sediment. The only responsible way the County Supervisors could allow property owners the right to have backyard chickens was to control the waste in a way that would not add to the nitrogen, phosphorus and sediment pollution. It was appropriate and necessary for them to leverage the resource of the Prince William Soil and Water Conservation District to develop guidelines for low impact backyard chickens.
The proposed zoning change to allow backyard chickens contain limited regulations of the micro poultry “farms” to manage the waste and location of coops according to the protective separation requirements of the septic regulations. This hopefully will ensure that best management practices will be adopted by the backyard micro farmers without being unduly burdensom.

You may also want to read a later article https://greenrisks.blogspot.com/2017/06/the-rules-for-backyard-chickens-in.html

Dairy Farmers, Cattle Operations and Poultry Farms Grab Your Cost Share Money Before It’s Gone

The Commonwealth of Virginia has earmarked $3.4 million for new stream protection practices under the Virginia Watershed Implementation Plan (WIP) and the Chesapeake Bay Protection Act. This week the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR) has awarded $690,120 or 20% of that money to the soil and water conservation districts in Fauquier, Loudoun, and Prince William Counties to be used to provide technical assistance and cost share money for new livestock exclusion and new stream protection practices being implemented within the next four months. If you are interested in learning more about these funds and conservation practices contact Nicole Ethier,Conservation Specialist, Prince William Soil & Water Conservation District, (703)594-3621 or follow the links on the county names to their websites.

Over the past quarter century the excess nutrient contamination to the Chesapeake Bay has decreased, but the Bay’s waters remain seriously degraded. As a result, US EPA has taken control of the situation and has developed a new federally mandated total maximum daily load (TMDL) to restore the local waters. The TMDL allocates a pollution budget among the states which will decrease over time.

The final version of the Virginia Chesapeake Bay Watershed Implementation Plan to approved by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency spells out how Virginia will attain the TMDL goals. There are local TMDLs as well as state TMDLs. As a show of good faith, the Governor of Virginia included $36.4 million new dollars in the state’s Water Quality Improvement Fund in his 2011 budget amendments. This $3.4 million money earmarked for new stream exclusion is money already available that is being "reprogramed."

Last fall the US Department of Agriculture released a draft of a report evaluating conservation practices in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed. The USDA report stated 81% of farms lacked comprehensive nutrient management plans and practices. The report found that on over 2 million acres of cropland within the six state Chesapeake Bay watershed, that conservation practices are not being used at all. According to the current version of the EPA watershed model (to be revised in 2011), cropland accounts for 25% of sediment in the bay, 32% of the nitrogen and 27.5% of the phosphorus while accounting for only 10% of the Chesapeake Bay watershed acreage.

For agricultural operations in Virginia (and other states) the revised WIP requires the implementation of resource management plans on most agricultural acres which may include: 35 foot grass or forest riparian buffers between cropland and perennial surface waters; stream exclusion of livestock; and implemented nutrient management plans. Though funds are limited, the Commonwealth will provide cost-share funding to implement these best practices through the soil and water conservation districts. The WIP calls for farms to implement "resource management plans" to reduce pollution but does not mandate what those plans should include and requires them only if adequate funding is available through the cost share programs. However, the TMDL has to be met and the best money spent could be to implement agricultural nutrient management plans. Thus, the first money available for compliance with the Virginia WIP is for the cost share program at the soil and water conservation districts.

Riparian buffers, nutrient management plans and stream exclusion have been shown to be very effective in reducing nutrient pollution. Researchers at Virginia Tech found that orchard grass filter strip 30 feet wide remove 84% of the sediment and soluble solids from surface runoff. Recent studies northeast of Richmond, VA demonstrated that forested riparian buffers could reduce concentrations of nitrate-nitrogen in runoff from croplands by 48%. While studies performed on the Maryland shore found that riparian buffers removed between 89% and 95% of the nitrogen from field run off. While riparian areas can be important sinks for phosphors, they are generally less effective in removing phosphorus than either sediment of nitrogen. (Parsons 1994, Cooper and Gilliam 1987).

In addition, protecting livestock from pollutant-contaminated waterways also leads to improved animal health, enabling local farmers to produce higher quality meats and poultry. According to the Department of Natural Resources, farmers report higher yields from animals grazing on lands where streams are protected from livestock “The best management practices promoted by conservation districts improve public and animal health and build(a) wealth,” said Jim Christian, Chairman of the Loudoun Soil and Water Conservation District. “Cost-share programs, tax credits, and contributions by participating landowners create a lucrative return on investment.” Many animal farms can operate well beyond the baseline level and will be able to sell nutrient credits under the nutrient exchange program to municipalities and others who are above the discharge baseline. Now is the time to call your soil and water conservation district and be proactive.

Protecting the Chesapeake Bay Watershed with Best Management Practices

With the expansion of suburbia, the nature of the Prince William County has changed. There are fewer and fewer truly agricultural properties and an increasing number of suburban developments and hobby farms. We are, nonetheless, still in the “Hunt Country.” Horse farms here are typically small in size often just five to ten acre properties with only a portion of that dedicated to horses. My own neighborhood consists of 10 acre properties which allow 6 horses each under the HOA rules. According to the Prince William Soil and Water Conservation District, PWSWCD, horses will naturally graze 18 hours each day if allowed free access to pastures. Too many horses on too few acres can quickly denude green meadows and threaten the health of the horses and the environment and straining relationships among neighbors. Our neighborhood has a very small on-site horse population so our problems are limited.
In the most recent rainstorms exposed soil, horse manure, and whatever else was there wash across the neighborhood. I was digging sediment, leaves, plastic and all manner of odd things out of the drainage ditch at the end of the road this morning after watching the ditch flow brown to the river yesterday. I am still trying to figure out where some of the wash waste came from. There were plastic milk jugs dated 6 months ago, where have they been hiding? I walk the two miles of road next to the ditch regularly and collect trash and trust me much of the waste that appeared in the rain was not evident last weekend. Chestnut Lick is directly down hill from the drainage ditch and in turn runs right into Bull Run and finally onto the Bay. The wooded hillside generally protects Chestnut Lick from the drainage ditch muck and trash, but requires that I clean the trash out of the woods, I rather clean the muck out of the ditch, I’m much less likely to get Lyme disease.
Where the river and streams are not as well protected the run off containing soil sediment and excess nutrients from fertilizers and animal manure contribute to the high nitrate, potassium and sediment concentration in the Chesapeake Bay. To prevent these problem Horse farms can use basic principals called Best Management Practices (BMPs) so that they don't damage the environment. The PWSWCD created a model horse farm to demonstrate these principals include the installation of fencing to exclude the horses from a 25 foot buffer/filter area alongside the stream, waterlines and troughs to provide an alternate source of drinking water for the horses, pasture seeding and renovation to discourage weed growth, interior fencing to allow for rotational grazing, manure storage that allows for properly timed application or removal for off-farm use, and the installation of confinement paddocks for non-pasture turnout.
The ‘Big Reveal’ of the Chesapeake Bay-Friendly Horse Farm project in Gainesville, VA on is on Friday June 11 from 11am-1pm, and well worth the trip for anyone involved with horses. Check with the PWSCD website for other scheduled tours. The project was developed by the PWSWCD with a grant from the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation for $125,000. An equal amount was contributed by PWSWCD and its' more than 20 partners in direct funding, staff and volunteer time, products, and services. The model farm was in poor condition at the start, so many of the ideas can be incorporated into less stressed properties cost effectively. Check out the PWSWCD web site for more information.
In addition, the PWSWCD has free metal signs that indicate a property’s commitment to protecting the Chesapeake Bay Watershed by becoming a SWCD "Cooperator." Just like a Hybrid in the driveway they could become the status symbol for the environmentally conscious horse-keeper. BMPs could also become required under the new Strategy for the Chesapeake Bay Watershed. Call the District if you've cooperated in the past, if you've been doing the right thing all along, or if you're interested in implementing BMPs at your property. Prince William Soil and Water Conservation District is in Nokesville, VA (703) 594-3621.

The EPA’s Chesapeake Bay Cleanup Agreement

The Chesapeake Bay Commission was created in 1980 to coordinate Bay-related policy across state lines and to develop shared solutions for cleaning up the Chesapeake Bay. The catalyst for their creation was the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) seven-year study (1976-1983) on the decline of the Chesapeake Bay. The six Bay watershed states are Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, New York, and Delaware and the District of Columbia and are all parties to the Chesapeake Bay Agreement.

Despite more than 25 years of effort, the Bay’s waters remain seriously degraded as measured by the agreed upon criteria and considerably short of attaining the 2010 water quality goals set forth in the Chesapeake 2000 agreement. As a result US EPA was under a court order to draft a new Bay-wide cleanup plan by May 2011. Because of the region’s failure to meet the 2010 deadline for water quality in the Bay, EPA is now developing a new federally mandated Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) plan to establish and apportion an allowable pollution budget among the states.

On Tuesday, May 11th 2010 the EPA announced that it will mandate that the six states and the District of Columbia who are parties to the Chesapeake Bay Agreement limit their nitrogen, phosphorus and sediment flow into the bay in compliance with an overall daily maximum being formulated by the federal agency. On Wednesday, the administration laid out their initiative to purify (as measured by nitrogen, phosphorus and sediment) 60 percent of the Chesapeake Bay's waters within 15 years, combining federal resources with a mandate that requires the six Bay watershed states (Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, New York, and Delaware) and the District of Columbia to develop the regulatory blueprint.

The plan is to develop a top down regulation model. EPA will dictate numeric pollution values for every surface water of the regions and force the states to develop an acceptable (to the federal government) regulatory framework to achieve those goals. This will avoid direct federal regulation of rural, urban and suburban runoff only in the most technical sense, eliminate local control of decisions on land use and water supply. Each state will be required to propose its own regulations for developers, farmers, homeowners, and other sources of non-point source pollution to be approved by the federal government. The EPA is trying to determine how much reduction is necessary to meet the targets. Then, under the agreement it signed this week, it will require the six watershed states and the District to come up with pollutant reductions that bring them into compliance with those goals. Some of the ideas being tossed about are the imposition of a ban on pesticides for ornamental use in at least some areas of the watershed, limitations on farming, developing incentives or requirements for farmers to utilize best practices.

Non-Point Source Pollution and Best Management Practices

Non-point source (NPS) pollution is a major factor impacting the quality of the water supply. The rate at which diffuse sources of pollution are generated and delivered to water resources is greatly affected by human activities and natural processes. These pollutants are transported to surface water bodies by runoff, which results from precipitation or snowmelt (Leeds et al., 1993). Storm water is part of the natural hydrologic process; however, human activities, especially urban development and agriculture, cause significant changes in patterns of storm water flow and infiltration and the type and quantity of contaminants carried from land into receiving waters.

Urban storm water runoff includes all flows discharged from urban land uses into the storm water systems and receiving waters. Urban runoff includes runoff from landscape irrigation, dewatering, and water line and hydrant flushing as well as the wet-weather storm water runoff. Water quality can also be affected when runoff carries sediment and other pollutants such as oil and grease, pesticides, paints, cleaners and other products associated with modern life into streams, wetlands, lakes, estuarine and marine waters, or groundwater.

Agricultural activities that cause NPS pollution include confined animal facilities, grazing, plowing, pesticide spraying, irrigation, fertilizing, planting, and harvesting. The major agricultural NPS pollutants that result from these activities are sediment, nutrients, pathogens, pesticides, and salts. Agricultural activities also can damage habitat and stream channels. Agricultural impacts on surface water and ground water can be minimized by properly managing activities that can cause NPS pollution, by utilizing good environmental stewardship.

Good environmental stewardship means using land and animals in a way that protects and improves the environment. Environmental stewardship begins by evaluating the farm to identify likely pollution sources and their possible effect on the surrounding environment. Overgrazing pastures; applying too much manure; giving animals free access to streams, ponds, wetlands, or marshes; mismanaging manure; and allowing excessive erosion can reduce water quality. The type, size, and numbers of animals affect the amount of management required for your farm. Kate Norris of Prince William Soil and Water Conservation District has put together a series of articles outlining the basic techniques to use to minimize environmental impact from a horse property. Many of these techniques can be used with any small scale livestock farm or hobby horse farm.

Overstocking causes most of the water quality damage on small-scale livestock farms and hobby horsefarms. It occurs when too many animals are kept on too few acres. Overstocking can strip areas of pasture, increasing polluted runoff. On farms where animals are confined and manure is collected, overstocking often leads to large amounts of manure that must be managed. So called Best Management Practices, BMPs, range from making simple changes to building structures that hold manure, but they in total add up to less run-off of pollution. They can be comprehensive and consider how the parts of the farm are related. BMPs are meant to be practical and easy to implement. They are intended to be modified to fit the type of operation, and the environmental and geological factors specific to the site. Unbelievably enough, the Soil and Conservation Districts throughout the nation are there to help you manage your properties for free.
BMPs minimize inputs of fertilizers, pesticides, labor, etc. to achieve a desired level of course performance and quality while protecting the environment. BMPs are designed to benefit water quality while maintaining or even enhancing agricultural production.Agricultural BMPs are practical, cost-effective actions that agricultural producers can take to reduce the amount of pesticides, fertilizers, animal waste, and other pollutants entering our water resources. The most recent National Water Quality Inventory reports that agricultural nonpoint source (NPS) pollution is the leading source of water quality impacts to surveyed rivers and lakes, the third largest source of impairments to surveyed estuaries, and also a major contributor to ground water contamination and wetlands degradation. Good environmental stewardship of these properties can go a long way in making agriculture sustainable.