Pollard shared water quality considerations with Virginia watermen
Betsy Ficklin 21.MAY.08
Delegate Albert Pollard shared water quality considerations with Virginia watermen last Thursday evening when members of the Virginia Waterman’s Association met in Kilmarnock to determine what can be done to cause compel the government to reverse the worsening condition of the estuary and its economically important marine resources.

In recent weeks the Association has entertained the possibility of bring a class action suit against the Commonwealth of Virginia for failing to meet the requirements of the federal Clean Water Act.

With an eye on a possible litigation, the Virginia Waterman’s Association and the Twin River Waterman’s Association have consulted with White Stone attorney Lee Anne Washington, the daughter of a former Virginia Waterman’s Association president. Washington was present at Wednesday’s meeting, along with Chesapeake Bay Foundation representative Anne Jennings.

Jennings told the watermen that the Foundation had been in court that day with the Philip Morris and that a satisfactory settlement had at last been reached. No specifics were recited, but the Foundation had sued the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality two years earlier for failing to impose lower nitrogen limits on the Philip Morris Company’s wastewater discharge permit.

Pollard delivered a fast moving and highly detailed power point presentation to the Virginia watermen and their guests. When The Journal joined the session, the Delegate was driving home the uniqueness of the estuary and its watershed, noting that its land to water ration is five times greater than anyplace else on earth.

Pollard noted the human population numbers on a watershed that is also home to a billion chickens, 3.3 million cows and a reported 3 million hogs. He emphasized the narrow 18-mile width at the mouth of the bay, a consideration that serious impairs the estuary’s ability to cleanse itself.

Pollard additionally noted that four centuries ago the estuary’s oyster population was able to filter and effectively remove contaminants from the water in three-day intervals. With a seriously diminished oyster population, such cleansing would take almost a year.

The Delegate spoke about the natural and manmade sources of pollution and the marginal progress that already has been made. The conclusion was that too little has been done and time may be running out.

A court order requires bay watershed states to do what is needed by 2010 to remove the estuary from the nation’s dirty waters list. With time running out, bay watchers advise that things are going in the wrong direction, despite efforts to reduce this state’s point source nutrient discharges.

The nutrients credited with declining water quality are nitrogen and phosphorous and sewage plant discharges are but one of many sources of those pollutants that are known to significantly compromise the estuary’s marine habitats.

Agricultural activities account for a significant portion of the estuary’s nutrient loads. Pollard advised that half of the load attributed to agriculture comes directly from manure. With the sewage plant discharge improvements already in being introduced, he suggested that the next best place to make the greatest impact would be the agricultural industry.

Pollard wasn’t targeting Virginia’s farmers. What he proposed was making a concerted effort to waste no time in implementing a set of improvements that would eliminate as much as 88 percent of the estuary’s nutrient loads at a cost no greater than 17 percent of the bottom line for completely eliminating the unwanted nutrients.

According to Pollard’s conjecture, the 88 percent reduction in nutrients could be a tipping point that would allow the estuary and its marine environment to actually rejuvenate itself, delivering a sustainable outcome that wouldn’t bankrupt any of the stakeholders who occupy the fragile estuary’s massive watershed.

Betsy Ficklin