Virginia's Chesapeake Bay TMDL Report Card

The Chesapeake Bay and its tidal waters have been impaired by the release of excess nitrogen, phosphorus and sediment. These pollutants are released from waste water treatment plants, agricultural operations, urban and suburban runoff, wastewater facilities, septic systems, air pollution and other sources that enter the tributaries and Chesapeake Bay. These pollutants cause algae blooms that consume oxygen and create dead zones where fish and shellfish cannot survive, block sunlight that is needed for underwater grasses, and smother aquatic life on the bottom.

Since the 1980’s the six bay states- Virginia, Maryland, West Virginia, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New York-and Washington DC have been trying to clean up the Chesapeake Bay. Though the excess nutrient contamination to the Chesapeake Bay has decreased over the past thirty years, the Bay’s waters remain degraded. As a result, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, has mandated a contamination limit called the TMDL (total maximum daily load for nutrient contamination and sediment) to restore the local waters. 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 % reduction in sediment from the 2011 levels. 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 TMDL addresses only pollution from excess nitrogen, phosphorus and sediment.

In addition, each of the six states and Washington DC were required to submit and have approved by the EPA a detailed plan of how they intend to achieve the pollution reduction goals assigned to them. These plans are called the Watershed Implementation Plans, WIPs. The Virginia WIP and the other plan) lay out a series of pollution control measures called best management practices, BMPs that need to be put in place by 2025, with 60% of the BMPs 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 BMPs are in place (and maintained) there will be gradual and continued improvement in water quality as the BMPs reduce the nutrient and sediment run off and better control storm water so that the Chesapeake Bay ecosystem can heal itself.

About half of the 39,490 square mile land area of Virginia is drained by the creeks, streams and rivers that comprise the Chesapeake Bay watershed, and two-thirds of the state's 8.26 million population lives within the watershed. To develop a remediation plan acceptable to the EPA and likely to achieve the goals of the revised WIP, the state legislature passed a series of laws and the state implemented a series of regulations addressing among other items: nutrient management plans, septic regulations, limitations of the sale and use of lawn maintenance fertilizer, banning deicing agents containing urea, nitrogen, or phosphorus intended for application on parking lots roadways, and sidewalks, or other paved surfaces, etc.

Many of these laws and regulations address non-point source pollution (NPS) which 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 do not come out of a pipe, but are transported to surface water bodies by runoff, which results from rain or snowmelt. The way to reduce impact of this non-point source pollution on the environment is to implement what has been called “best management practices.” BMPs minimize the use of fertilizers, pesticides, etc. to achieve a desired level of performance and quality while protecting the environment. BMPs are also designed to reduce runoff and  benefit water quality while maintaining or even enhancing agricultural production. EPA has never had the authority to regulate non-point source pollution, but through the TMDL and WIPs that is exactly what they are doing.

Recently, 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 pollution is being reduced in every state and Washington DC. They report 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.”

Virginia remains significantly agricultural and has used the voluntary agricultural cost share program implemented by the state’s conservation districts to reach out to farmers to educate and assist in the implementation of BMPs and verify their maintenance. There has never been a program designed to educate and implement BMPs in suburban communities. In the past several years Virginia has invested hundreds of millions of dollars to upgrade wastewater treatment plants and utilized its Soil and Water Conservation Districts to expand the utilization of stream exclusion fencing by offering to have the state pay for the total amount of the fencing. Conservation districts were very successful in giving away fencing to farmers and are working to count the fencing that already exists and is effective and might not meet current cost share program guidelines.

In the first two years of the WIP, Virginia has struggled to build programs and methods for data gathering to address the problems with managing and tracking implementation of what is essentially remedial programs for farming operations both large and small and for individuals. EPA is using the WIPs to reach down and manage what is called non-point source pollution. Much of the urban stormwater management in Virginia is suburban and is a house by house, street by street series of plans that will be implemented by builders and existing homeowners, and maintained by homeowners and some will have to be retrofitted to existing communities. It is not clear how that will be accomplished, nor tracked as the new stormwater regulations have been delayed due to the challenges of implementation. Given these challenges it is not at all surprising that the first steps taken towards the TMDL were the ones that could be most easily implemented and tracked. The steps taken had the programs in place to both implement and track progress.

from CBF

It was noted by CBF and CCWC in their review that conservation tillage acres had actually declined since 2011. This is probably not true; the cost share incentives for conservation tillage have declined as the practice has become more widely adopted by farmers without the need for financial incentives. However, the farming practices that are not part of the cost share program have not been routinely tracked. So, the decline in conservation tillage acres may simply be a reflection that the Commonwealth does not track nor document every activity of every farmer in the state. Though, this may become necessary to satisfy the requirements of the EPA to require the implementation of resource management plans on most agricultural acres.

from CFB

Virginia also has a lot of work ahead to develop the infrastructure for the implementation of Virginia’s new Stormwater Management Regulations especially in smaller communities. Ways to work with existing homeowners and communities to address these diverse small sources of contamination will require the development of programs, education and outreach. The time and difficulty in implementing septic regulations on alternative septic systems and having the homeowners comply with regulations to inspect and maintain their systems is a challenge that is yet to be solved. It is not clear what level of data collection and tracking will be necessary for the individual homeowner. EPA is mandating to counties and towns actions that will raise property taxes, and require changes to properties and behavior. Citizens will first have to be convinced to support these programs.

To meet the demands of the WIP, the total amount of stormwater runoff will have to be reduced. This means that there will have to be implementation of improved stormwater management in existing developments to meet reductions in nutrient and sediment loads. The Commonwealth needs to reduce pollution from stormwater running off urban streets and parking lots by mandating reductions in state permits for large city stormwater systems and requiring some implementation of improved stormwater management in suburban developments. According to the Chesapeake Bay Foundation stormwater runoff remains the only source of water pollution in Virginia that continues to increase and must be aggressively addressed if restoration of the Bay is to succeed.

Given the challenges of developing programs for addressing non-point source pollution to meet the TMDL pollution reduction goals one home and a few acres at a time, it is not surprising that Virginia has used the big nutrient reduction numbers from waste water treatment plant upgrades and a big push in stream exclusion fencing by having the state pay the full cost to achieve the first round of benchmarks. The CBF Virginia Executive Director, Ann Jennings, says in the report: "Our analysis of the 2012/13 milestones indicate that reductions from wastewater treatment plants will not carry us across the goal line. The McAuliffe Administration has a unique and important opportunity to put Virginia on course for success by taking more aggressive steps to confront agricultural and urban pollution." I am very interested in seeing what those aggressive steps might be.

Your Tax Bill, Property Rights and the Virginia’s Phase II Watershed Implementation Plan

On March 30th Virginia submitted the final version of the Phase II Watershed Implementation Plan, WIP, to the US Environmental Protection Agency, EPA. The Commonwealth had initially hoped to meet the EPA mandated TMDL goals on an overall state basis, but that approach was rejected by EPA who required that each segment of the Virginia Chesapeake Bay Watershed that had been assigned a TMDL meet that target and that Virginia submit 2017 and 2025 input “decks” so that EPA may assess the strategies within the WIP using the Chesapeake Bay computer model to do this. Meeting the TMDL on a statewide basis might have allowed the Commonwealth of Virginia to implement the most cost effective best management practices regardless of location, and it might have moved the compliance with the EPA mandate up to the state level from the local budgets. The Phase II WIP commits our local communities and property owners to implementing nitrogen, phosphorus and sediment reducing Best Management Practices (BMPs), that will increase our taxes, determine the future allowed use of land within the Chesapeake Bay Watershed, the costs of our septic systems, and the level of regulation within the Commonwealth. This document was submitted to the EPA without disclosure of the details of the “deck” to the public so that we will understand what the costs will be in terms of taxes and requirements to install BMPs on private land.

About half of the land area of Virginia is drained by the creeks, streams and rivers that comprise the Chesapeake Bay watershed, and two-thirds of the state's population lives within the watershed. Chesapeake Bay pollution diet, the Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) of nitrogen, phosphorus and sediment was 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 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 BMPs completed by 2017. While it will take years after 2025 for the Bay and its tributaries to fully heal, EPA expects and their computer model predicts that once the required 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.

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 % 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 computer modeling tools and monitoring data. Fundamentally, complying with the EPA mandate and the Virginia WIP is about spending enough money, putting in enough BMPs to have the Chesapeake Bay Model say that we meet our TMDL. The WIPs identify nitrogen, phosphorus and sediment reduction actions from all major sources, including sewage treatment plants, industrial facilities, suburban and urban areas, agriculture, forestry and septic systems.

BPMs are not always easy to see to the untrained eye. They are a list of techniques to manage storm water to reduce runoff of nutrients and soil from urban, suburban and rural areas. Examples are BMPs like nitrogen reducing alternative septic systems, increasing annual septic pump outs, pervious pavement, developing and maintaining urban nutrient management, bio-retention ponds and swales. The Phase II WIP Appendix A summary lists converting 200,000 acres of agricultural land to forest and grass buffers, doubling the agricultural conservation land acres and nutrient management acres, and many more BMPs for the agricultural sector. For urban and suburban locations the WIP lists over half a million acres of nutrient management, reductions in impervious surfaces, stream bank restoration, and others. EPA has a long list of acceptable BMPs at various costs and assigned effectiveness under the computer model that can be used by communities to meet the requirements of the TMDL under the WIP and Virginia developed computer tool to allow local staff to test various strategies to meet the TMDL within EPA’s computer model. Government by computer model. The farmers, homeowners, property owners and residents of Virginia will have to pay for this plan. The challenge for developing the Phase II WIP was determining what needs to be done to get the computer models to say that we have met the EPA mandated TMDL. The challenge for the Commonwealth is to engage the public and bring them into the process.

As part of the Phase II WIP Virginia had the Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR) staff subdivide the TMDL allocation from the 39 segments to the local government (county and town level) and the staff created a computer input data “deck” with BMP implementation levels and nutrient loadings to meet the TMDL. This “deck” was not disclosed as part of the Phase II WIP posted by DCR. The public has no indications what the cost of these BMP will be, but with all of the computer data inputs and models there might be estimates of costs on a local basis. Counties and residents will be required to install the BMPs (often on private land) that were submitted to the EPA and raise the property taxes, storm water fees, waste water charges, septic fees to pay for and maintain the BMPs. Reducing the nitrogen, phosphorus and sediment runoff by about a quarter is not going to happen by increasing regulation on future construction and developers, and the WIP II does not suggest it. Without public engagement in the process but based on surveys that indicate we want a clean and a restored Chesapeake Bay, we are about to be required to install BMPs at our homes, businesses, farms and private land and pay for the public improvement. A clean and restored Chesapeake Bay is good, but the price in terms of dollars, taxes and regulations must be known and disclosed.

On April 1st 2012, Virginia opened a 60 day comment period for the Phase II WIP and said that they will have public hearings. Though no public hearings are yet scheduled, it is important that you understand what meeting the EPA mandated TMDL through the Virginia Phase II WIP will mean to your property rights and pocketbook. The local governments had not had the opportunity to approve the potentially expensive BMP strategies and commitments made to the EPA within the WIP (which may be enforceable at least as it relates to the stormwater BMPs). A small example and just one little portion of the Phase II WIP, Fairfax County staff has estimated that the stormwater fee on all property owners (within their county) will have to increase to a “nickel” which is $250 on a $500,000 home to meet the Phase II WIP stormwater requirements. The current rate is 1.5 cents or $75 on a $500,000 home. Waste water fees which have increased significantly in the past few years will continue to have to rise to pay for the improvements to the wastewater treatment plants. The written plan that is available for viewing on the DEQ website does not specify what BMPs were used for each county to meet the goal, but sight unseen you will pay for it. We should find out what the costs will be and how we will be paying for them and what new restrictions and requirements will be placed on us.

Low Impact Development and Why it Matters

It has been called green infrastructure, conservation design, sustainable storm water design, natural stormwater management, and rain management but Low Impact Development, LID, seems to be the term that has taken hold in the United States for the site level actions and strategies. LID is a strategy of stormwater management emphasizing conservation and natural features combined with small scale stormwater controls to mimic as closely as possible the natural hydraulic properties of a site. The idea is to move water slowly through open conveyance systems and use distributed stormwater retention in open unpaved areas to allow infiltration of rain water into the earth. This reduces the quantity and velocity of stormwater as it leaves a site reducing the damage that uncontrolled stormwater runoff can cause when we change the amount of impervious surfaces a site has by building roads, sidewalks, playgrounds, and structures and compacting soil.

Traditional development practices cover large areas of the ground with impervious surfaces such as roads, driveways, sidewalks and buildings. These paved and impervious surfaces prevent rainwater from infiltrating into the ground, causing it to run off site at velocities and volumes that are much higher than would naturally occur. The collective force of such rainwater scours streams erodes stream banks resulting in large quantities of sediment and other pollutants entering streams, rivers, estuaries and bays every time it rains or snow melts. The US EPA believes that sediment and nutrient pollutions contained in runoff from urban areas is the largest source of water quality impairments to estuaries (areas near the coast where seawater mixes with freshwater) in the United States and has turned its water quality focus on these areas starting with the Chesapeake Bay Watershed and moving forward with the Gulf Coast estuaries.

Groundwater is recharged from rain and sources of surface infiltration. In many areas where development has occurred, we pump the groundwater for drinking water supplies (both public and private) and create barriers to rain infiltration by paving significant portion of the urban and suburban landscape as well as allowing if not encouraging storm water to leave a site as quickly as possible reducing the time that rainwater has to infiltrate the remaining soil and percolate into the subsurface. If we do not allow adequate rain water infiltration we will deplete the groundwater aquifers as we continue to pump water from wells. The U.S. Geological Survey’s (USGS) Groundwater Resources Program has found that the volume of groundwater stored in the earth is decreasing in many regions of the United States, and if this continues we could deplete our groundwater. We are running a groundwater deficit in many parts of our country, though we have adequate rainfall. LID can help by increasing water infiltration and reducing runoff.

In addition to the problems caused by stormwater and non point source runoff, many older cities (including many of the largest cities in the United States), have combined sewage and storm water systems which results in the storm water runoff overflowing the combined sewer system during storm events and diluted, but nonetheless raw sewage being released to rivers and estuaries. This is an ongoing problem in Baltimore and at Blue Planes in Washington DC as well as other cities throughout the nation. In the late 20th century, most cities that attempted to reduce sewer overflows did so by separating combined sewers, expanding treatment capacity, expanding storage within the sewer system, or by replacing broken or decaying pipes. San Francisco and many other cities have taken all of these steps, but still have much more that needs to be done. It is unfortunate that more of the stimulus dollars were not spent to repair expand and improve the waste water treatment facilities in our oldest cities instead of pursuing $54 billion in direct loans and loan guarantees to green energy companies. Repairs and improvements to our waste water treatment systems would have served our nation for several generations rather than been wasted on unproven technology or enriching favored entrepreneurs.

Managing rain water and snow melt is at the heart of LID. Rain water and storm water management under LID is landscape based and not particularly new. At the larger regional or watershed scale, green infrastructure is the interconnected network of preserved or restored natural lands and waters that provide essential environmental functions. Large-scale green infrastructure may include habitat corridors and water resource protection. At the community and neighborhood scale, green infrastructure incorporates planning and design approaches such as compact, mixed-use development, parking reduction strategies and urban forestry that reduces impervious surfaces and creates walkable, attractive communities.

At the site scale, green infrastructure is LID and mimics natural systems by utilizing permeable surfaces to absorb storm water back into the ground (infiltration), using trees and other natural vegetation to convert it to water vapor (evapotranspiration) and using rain barrels or cisterns to capture and reuse storm water. These natural processes manage storm water runoff in a way that maintains or restores the site’s natural hydrology, allowing groundwater to recharge. Site-level green infrastructure is LID, and can include rain gardens, porous pavements, green roofs, infiltration planters, trees and tree boxes and rainwater harvesting for non-potable uses such as toilet flushing and landscape irrigation. LID not only reduces the velocity and quantity of runoff protecting our streams, rivers, lakes and estuaries, it is essential to allow the recharge of groundwater.

The difficulty with LID is compliance and maintenance. Federal Clean Water Act requirements, such as the Combined Sewer Overflow (CSO) Control Policy and National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit program, do not allow for deviance from traditional control strategies. EPA guidance which encourages LID and green infrastructure to manage storm water is inconsistent with permit requirements under NPDES that call for more conventional methods of stormwater management.
NPDES regulations require development and implementation of a municipal separate storm sewer system (MS4) program to address post-construction runoff from newly developed and redeveloped areas. Investments in stormwater management and wastewater treatment plants are driven by compliance with regulations, which do not allow local policy makers to implement watershed-based or decentralized LID infrastructure solutions that may not yet have the data necessary to demonstrate performance and receive regulatory credit under a permit. Within the Chesapeake Bay Watershed the Chesapeake Bay Model provides credit under the Watershed Implementation Plans for LID retrofits, but not all practices are credited appropriately (both because of the amount of time needed for these practices to show long-term performance, as well as limitations in historic data collection). LID is by its nature a distributed design involving, rain gardens, porous pavements, green roofs, planters and rainwater harvesting require ongoing maintenance of the plants, replanting after severe winters or prolonged droughts, weeding, and clearing of porous pavements. There does not yet exist a method of ensuring that these features are maintained appropriately to continue functioning over time and that any repairs or replacements are done with LID in mind.

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.

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.

Potomac Watershed Roundtable Meeting:The Chesapeake Bay, the Virginia Watershed Implementation Plan, and the EPA mandated TMDL

The most recent meeting of the Potomac Watershed Roundtable was in Warrenton, VA at Lord Fairfax Community College and had a series of speakers on the Chesapeake Bay strict pollution diet, the Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) mandated by the EPA to the six Chesapeake Bay Watershed states and the District of the Columbia. The TMDL addresses only pollution from excess nitrogen, phosphorus and sediment. No action has been taken on other pollutants that might be present in the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries.

On November 29th 2010 Virginia, submitted the final version of the Virginia Chesapeake Bay Watershed Implementation Plan (WIP) to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The introduction to the revised plan states that full implementation of the plan would cost more than $7 billion dollars the WIP went on to state that “In these austere times, we cannot guarantee what additional funding will be provided by our General Assembly. It is our position that the success of the WIP may be subject to the provision of sufficient federal funding to assist in covering these massive new unfunded mandates.”

If you recall the first version of the Virginia WIP the plan did not meet the TMDL loading levels with “reasonable assurance.” On December 29th the EPA accepted the revised version of Virginia’s WIP and issued the “final” TMDL, but Virginia will have enhanced oversight. The January 7th 2011 meeting of the Potomac Roundtable addressed the next steps for the counties and towns in the Potomac Watershed. Russ Baxter, from the Virginia Department of Environment Quality, DEQ, closed the meeting with the State’s perspective and issues facing the state and local governments in implementing the WIP. I found Mr. Baxter’s perspective to be very enlightening and so I share some of his points.

Mr. Baxter was emphatic that the WIP is a living document intended to attain the TMDL and contains proposed management action among the sectors of the Chesapeake Bay Watershed that are the source of nutrient contamination to the Bay. The WIP is designed not only to satisfy the demands of the Federal regulators but to allow flexibility to the local governments in implementation to allow them to use the most cost effective approach to achieve the TMDL goals. Also, Mr. Baxter acknowledged that the septic portion of the WIP read like a limitation on developing new housing in the region, but that was not intended to happen.

When the Chesapeake Bay Model is revised to correct know deficiencies in the near future the TMDLs mandated to Virginia and the other states and DC will be revised and the Phase II of the WIP will have to be developed to reflect these changes. Though, the Phase II WIPs are supposed to be due in 2011, EPA has yet to notify the states and DC of the changes and in reality it is unlikely that the changes will be available before the annual Virginia Legislative session. Mr. Baxter pointed out that the WIP is intended to achieve the current 2017 check points with “reasonable assurances” and achieve a restored Bay by 2025. We know what direction we are heading in and can start this leg of the journey, making course corrections as we go.

The Potomac Watershed Roundtable was founded in 2000 and serves as a regional government-citizen forum to collaborate and cooperate on environmental issues among the various local government and stakeholder groups of nine counties, six towns and cities, the six soil and water conservation districts and various stakeholders including interested citizens.