The Bay Program is seeking public comment through March 17 on the final draft of its Chesapeake Bay Watershed Agreement, which will guide restoration efforts in the nation’s largest estuary, and its 64,000-square-mile watershed, for years to come. The draft released Wednesday outlines nearly two-dozen specific actions, from improving blue crab management and expanding black duck populations to increasing urban tree plantings and meeting nutrient control goals set in the Chesapeake Bay Total Maximum Daily Load.
The document hasn’t changed much since state and federal officials last revised in early November. It still omits any commitment to reduce — or even research — toxic pollution in the Bay and its tributaries despite mounting evidence of impacts to fish and other resources. Likewise, it omits any reference to climate change.
Numerous groups. including its own advisory committees, have criticized the Bay Program for those shortcomings, and the Chesapeake Bay Foundation quickly issued a statement denouncing the omissions.
“CBF is shocked that the new draft Agreement contains no specific goals to reduce toxic contamination,” said Vice President Kim Coble. “Twenty years ago the Executive Council debated, then agreed to set a goal of eliminating toxic impacts in the Bay. This draft agreement moves us backward, not forward, with regard to stopping toxic pollution.
“We are also shocked that this draft Agreement fails to address one of the most critical environmental challenges to our planet – global climate change. How could this be possible in 2014?”
Several officials have said they expect public outcry during the comment period to result in changes before the agreement is finalized in May. “Hopefully [we will] get the toxics wording in it and something included on climate change,” Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley told the Chesapeake Bay Commission, which represents legislatures of Maryland, Virginia and Pennsylvania, in January.
O’Malley chairs the Chesapeake Bay Executive Council which ultimately oversees the state-federal Bay Program partnership and will sign the final agreement, potentially as early as May.
The Executive Council, which signed the first Bay Agreement in 1983, includes the governors of Maryland, Virginia and Pennsylvania; the mayor of the District of Columbia; the Environmental Protection Agency administrator; and the chair of the legislative Chesapeake Bay Commission.
Since 1983, the Executive Council approved expansive agreements in 1987 and 2000. The agreements are meant to help coordinate restoration efforts for the Bay and its watershed.
The new agreement would, for the first time, expand the Executive Council’s membership to include the governors of New York, West Virginia and Delaware, as portions of those states also drain into the Bay.
Like earlier documents, goals are voluntary except for nutrient and sediment reductions required under the Bay TMDL, or pollution diet, which was approved by the EPA in December 2010.
The draft agreement contains seven overarching goals — to protect and restore fishery resources; to protect and restore habitats in the Bay and its watershed; to restore water quality; to protect existing high quality streams and watersheds; to promote conservation of forests, wetlands, farms and other important lands and landscapes; to improve public access to waterways; and to expand environmental literacy.
It includes 23 specific outcomes aimed at helping achieve those goals, many of which have measurable targets or deadlines. That’s far less than the previous two agreements: Chesapeake 2000 had more than 100 specific commitments, but many went unmet, and proponents of the new agreement say fewer, more focused outcomes will better focus efforts.
“The Agreement acknowledges that the Partnership cannot address every issue at once and that progress must be made in a strategic manner, focusing on efforts that will achieve the most cost-effective results,” the draft states.
Among the specific outcomes, the draft agreement calls for:
- restoring native oyster habitat and populations in 10 tributaries by 2025. That’s a decrease from a goal of 20 tributaries contained in an earlier federal Bay strategy, but the 20 tributary goal was considered to be unattainable and unaffordable.
- developing a strategy by 2016 to assess whether the Bay contains an adequate supply of forage fish to supply predatory fish, birds and other species in the Bay. That reflects increased concerns both in the region, and globally that populations of menhaden, herring, anchovies and other small fish may not be adequate to fuel the aquatic food chain.
- achieving an “ultimate outcome of 185,000 acres” of underwater grass habitats — a goal many scientists consider unattainable. But the agreement has lower goals for 2017 (90,000 acres), and 2025 (130,000 acres).
- increasing habitat for naturally reproducing brook trout populations by 8 percent.
- restoring 900 miles of riparian forests a year — more than three times the rate of recent years.
- establishing 85,000 acres of tidal and non-tidal wetlands, and to “enhance the function” of an additional 150,000 acres of degraded wetlands.
- maintaining the quality of 100 percent of state-identified healthy streams and watersheds.
- protecting an additional 2 million acres of land in the watershed from development by 2025, including 225,000 acres of wetlands and 695,000 acres of forests.
adding 300 new public access sites along the Bay and its tributaries by 2025. - expanding environmental education efforts by increasing the number of students who participate in “meaningful watershed education experiences.”
The agreement calls for various Bay Program Goal Implementation Teams to draft management strategies within a year outlining what actions would be taken to achieve each outcome. Those strategies will also outline what monitoring is needed to track progress, and how various groups, such as local governments or stakeholder groups will be involved. The strategies would be updated every two years. Continue reading…..
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