Bay cleanup progress lags, reports say

Population growth is among problems hindering the effort

Friday, Apr 04, 2008 - 12:09 AM

By LAWRENCE LATANE III

TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER

Population growth is undermining modest gains in the Chesapeake Bay cleanup, according to regional reports released yesterday.

Furthermore, pollution decreases in most of the bay's major tributaries are still too small to prevent Virginia and its bay-state neighbors from missing a federal deadline to improve water quality.

The reports by the Chesapeake Bay Program, of which Virginia is a part, and the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, add to the drumbeat of warnings that the bay can't be saved at the current pace.

"We are disappointed we don't have better news to report this year," said Bill Dennison, vice president for science applications at the University of Maryland center.

The bay's health actually improved slightly last year, according to the university's second annual assessment of the estuary. Scientists there graded it C-, compared to last year's D+. "But, we were expecting more," Dennison said, because dry summer weather should have reduced the flow of polluting nutrients reaching the waterway.

Both reports underscore the hurdles Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania and the federal government face in a 20-year clean up campaign regarded as a model for watershed and water-quality protection.

Budget woes are compounding the problem.

In Virginia, for example, a proposed $100 million fund to help farmers adopt the best management practices such as planting trees along streamsides and other controls to reduce farmland runoff, was reduced to $20 million in the General Assembly this year despite broad political support.

"Nobody will tell you that the environment is not important," said Assistant Virginia Secretary of Natural Resources Jeff Corbin. "But, if you've only got $1 and you have $3 of things to fund, the environment always seems to be low on the list."

The bay-program report said 12 percent of the bay and its tributaries met dissolved-oxygen standards last summer. That means 88 percent of the estuary was inhospitable, possibly deadly, to crabs, oysters and fish.

The same report shows that underwater grasses in the bay increased to almost 65,000 acres, up from 59,000 in 2006, but still far short of the 185,000-acre goal for 2010 the cleanup partners set in 2003.

That report also said that only 12 percent of the bay had acceptable water clarity in 2007.

State governments in the region agreed in 2000 to take steps to remove the bay and its tributaries from a federal dirty waters list by 2010. The bay-program report reiterated the conclusion by governors in the region late last year that the deadline will be missed.

The report highlighted how population growth and development is thwarting the cleanup.

The population of the Chesapeake Bay Watershed has jumped from 8 million in 1950 to almost 17 million, with associated roads, buildings and other "impervious surfaces" growing even faster.

About 130,000 people are added to the region every year, the report said. During the 1990s, the population climbed 8 percent, while impervious surfaces jumped 41 percent.

That means more rainwater runoff from suburbia carrying pet wastes, seepage from septic tanks and lawn fertilizers and other pollutants.

Dennison said he remains optimistic the bay can be restored.

For the second year in a row, water quality has improved near the head of the bay, spurring dense growth of environmentally important submerged grasses.

"It's a great example of what kinds of improvements we can get if we take actions needed to reduce urban and suburban storm-water runoff and agricultural runoff," he said.

Contact Lawrence Latané III at (804) 333-3461 or llatane@timesdispatch.com.