State Moves Ahead on Pollution Reduction to Protect Chesapeake Bay

Ry Rivard has a nice article in the Charleston Daily Mail on the politics of the Chesapeake Bay clean up and its potential effect on West Virginia farmers. In order to protect the Bay, all the dischargers along the Bay's tributaries will have to cut back discharges. That means farmers will have to use less fertilizer and keep cattle out of streams, suburban homeowners will need to use less lawn fertilizer, and cities will have to control combined sewer overflows and sewage treatment works better. It's a tough chore to get everyone to ratchet back, but it's for a good cause.

Each state is making its own cuts in nitrogen and phosphorus to meet the cap assigned to the state. In West Virginia, government agencies like the Agriculture Department, Forestry Division and DEP are working on improving the models that predict the effect of activities that are intended to reduce nutrient loading. They'll use the models to assign pollution reduction limits. Theresa Kuhn (hope I spelled her name right) is heading up this process for the DEP.