MENU

Sections

  • Home
  • About
    • Contact Us
    • Editors and Writers
    • Join our Mailing List
    • Letters to Editor Policy
    • Advertising & Underwriting
    • Code of Ethics
    • Privacy
    • Talbot Spy Terms of Use
  • Art and Design
  • Culture and Local Life
  • Public Affairs
    • Ecosystem
    • Education
    • Health
    • Senior Life
  • Community Opinion
  • Sign up for Free Subscription
  • Donate to the Talbot Spy
  • Cambridge Spy

More

  • Support the Spy
  • About Spy Community Media
  • Advertising with the Spy
  • Subscribe
May 12, 2025

Talbot Spy

Nonpartisan Education-based News for Talbot County Community

  • Home
  • About
    • Contact Us
    • Editors and Writers
    • Join our Mailing List
    • Letters to Editor Policy
    • Advertising & Underwriting
    • Code of Ethics
    • Privacy
    • Talbot Spy Terms of Use
  • Art and Design
  • Culture and Local Life
  • Public Affairs
    • Ecosystem
    • Education
    • Health
    • Senior Life
  • Community Opinion
  • Sign up for Free Subscription
  • Donate to the Talbot Spy
  • Cambridge Spy
Archives Ecosystem Eco Lead

Infrastructure Bill would Boost Bay Restoration Funding, Senate Eyes $238M Funding Increase over Next Five Years

August 4, 2021 by Bay Journal

The struggling Chesapeake Bay restoration effort stands to get a hefty infusion of funding from the ambitious $1.2 trillion infrastructure deal reached over the weekend in the U.S. Senate.

The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act calls for providing $238 million over the next five years to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Chesapeake Bay Program, which coordinates the state-federal restoration effort.

The Bay restoration effort is among $21 billion in environmental remediation projects that would be funded under the bill. The 2,702-page measure also includes money for physical infrastructure, such as highways, bridges, transit and rail, airports and ports, power and water systems, waterways, broadband access and electric vehicle charging stations.

Hammered out by a bipartisan group of senators, the infrastructure bill is much smaller than the $2.6 trillion plan that Biden proposed in March. Many Republicans had criticized that plan because it included funding for things not traditionally deemed as infrastructure, such as workforce training and care for the elderly and disabled.

Those are now to be included in a separate $3.5 trillion spending bill that Democrats are working on, which faces an uncertain future in the closely divided Congress.

The bipartisan infrastructure bill, which is expected to pass the Senate with the backing of Republican leaders, also slashed funding for clean energy tax credits intended to help fight climate change.

But the bill increases spending overall on environmental remediation above what Biden had proposed. It would provide funds for cleaning up abandoned mine land and Superfund sites, as well as for improving the resiliency of degraded ecosystems, such as the Great Lakes, Puget Sound and Gulf of Mexico.

The Chesapeake restoration effort also could get additional help from the bill’s proposal to boost funding nationally for water and wastewater infrastructure. Two EPA programs that provide loans to states for upgrading sewage and stormwater treatment facilities and for enhancing drinking water systems each would get an additional $14.7 billion over the next five years. That would more than double the current annual level of funding for such projects.

The Chesapeake Bay Program received $87.5 million for fiscal year 2021, and President Biden has proposed increasing that by $3 million for fiscal year 2022, which starts Oct. 1. The House has already approved that level of funding. The infrastructure measure, if passed, would boost that by roughly 50%, providing an additional $47.6 million a year.

“As we work to modernize our infrastructure and tackle climate change, it’s crucial that we’re investing in protecting our watersheds,” said Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee. “That’s why we fought to include funding for the Chesapeake Bay Program in the bipartisan infrastructure deal.”

Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD) cited the Bay Program funding as one of the reasons he supported the infrastructure bill. “Marylanders will be pleased to see this includes funds for ecosystem restoration,” he said in a statement.

The bill’s text doesn’t say how the EPA is to use the additional money. The Bay Program typically funds research and helps assess cleanup progress, but nearly two-thirds of its money also goes to states, local governments and nonprofit groups for on-the-ground projects.

Even without such details spelled out in the bill, Bay advocates hailed the proposed funding increase. Kristin Reilly, director of the Choose Clean Water Coalition, called it “a shot in the arm” for the states and federal government, which could help them get closer to putting all needed pollution reduction practices in place by their 2025 deadline.

“While currently there is ambiguity on the exact allocation of this funding, we are heartened to see the restoration of our waterways is recognized as a national priority,” Reilly said in a statement. “This investment will not only help provide all the benefits clean water brings, but the many on-the-ground restoration projects this funding supports will also deliver good jobs and stimulate local economies.”

With just four years to go to meet the deadline of the “pollution diet” that the EPA set for the Bay in 2010, advocates and state and local officials have been urging Congress to boost funding for the restoration effort, which remains far short of many of its goals.

At least one-third of the outcomes pledged in the 2014 Chesapeake Bay Watershed Agreement are lagging badly or in limbo. An internal Bay Program review found that seven, including the key goal of meeting nutrient and sediment pollution reduction targets, are unlikely to be met by the 2025 deadline.

In May, governors of the six Bay watershed states, the mayor of the District of Columbia and the chair of the Chesapeake Bay Commission, a tri-state legislative advisory body, wrote Congress seeking an additional billion dollars for the effort. They didn’t specify how the extra money could be spent.

The Choose Clean Water Coalition, representing dozens of environmental and community groups across the six-state watershed, also wrote congressional leaders that month asking in part for a $132 million boost in Bay Program funding. It proposed distributing the increased funding in grants to states and local governments to support their restoration efforts.

By Timothy B. Wheeler

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

Filed Under: Archives, Eco Lead Tagged With: bay, Chesapeake Bay, cleanup, environment, infrastructure, restoration

EPA hit with lawsuits over Chesapeake Bay cleanup

September 12, 2020 by Bay Journal

Making good on threats issued months ago, three Chesapeake Bay watershed states, the District of Columbia and the Chesapeake Bay Foundation took the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to court Thursday for its failure to push Pennsylvania and New York to do more to help clean up the Bay.

In their lawsuit, the attorneys general of Maryland, Virginia, Delaware and the District of Columbia accused the EPA of shirking its responsibility under the Clean Water Act by letting Pennsylvania and New York fall short in reducing their nutrient and sediment pollution fouling the Bay.

“This has to be a collective effort,” said Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh. “Every state in the Chesapeake Bay watershed has to play a part, and EPA under the law has to ensure that happens.”

Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh said the Chesapeake Bay cleanup must be a collective effort. Photo courtesy of the Maryland Office of the Attorney General.

The Chesapeake Bay Foundation, joined by the Maryland Watermen’s Association, a pair of Virginia farmers and Anne Arundel County, Md., made similar complaints in a separate federal lawsuit. Both were filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, where they’re likely to be consolidated into a single case.

“The courts must ensure that EPA does its job,’’ Will Baker, the Bay Foundation president, said in an online press conference held with attorneys general from Maryland, Virginia and the District.

At issue is the EPA’s duty to enforce a decade-old plan the agency drew up for restoring the Chesapeake to ecological health. The plan, known as a total maximum daily load, requires each of the Bay watershed states and the District to do what’s needed by 2025 to reduce their share of the nutrient and sediment pollution harming the Bay.

Progress has been made toward restoring the Bay’s water quality, though much more remains to be done. In particular, Pennsylvania and New York have fallen far behind in meeting their pollution-reduction targets, especially in curbing nutrient runoff from farmland.

All six Bay watershed states and the District were required to submit plans last year spelling out the measures each would take by 2025 to make the needed pollution reductions.

Most of the plans indicate that states will have to increase pollution-reduction efforts to unprecedented levels to reach their cleanup goals. But Pennsylvania’s and New York’s plans don’t even achieve their goals on paper. Pennsylvania’s falls short on curbing nitrogen, the most problematic nutrient, by about 25%, while New York’s was around 33% short. Pennsylvania’s plan also identifies an annual funding gap for cleanup activities of approximately $250 million a year through 2025.

The EPA cited those shortcomings for both states but hasn’t taken any action against them. The lawsuits contend that the federal government is abdicating its legal responsibility by accepting clearly inadequate cleanup plans with no reasonable assurance the two states can achieve their assigned pollution reductions.

Without responding directly to the lawsuits’ core complaint, an EPA spokesman issued a statement defending the agency’s role in the Bay cleanup.

“EPA is fully committed to working with our Bay Program partners to meet the 2025 goals,” the statement said. “We have taken and will continue to take appropriate actions under our Clean Water Act authorities to improve Chesapeake Bay water quality.”

The spokesman noted that in just the past year, the EPA and other federal agencies have supplied “nearly a half billion dollars” to support Bay watershed restoration efforts. The agency also has provided “thousands of hours” of technical assistance to the states, it said.

Those filing the lawsuits say that’s not enough. Unless the federal government holds the states accountable for doing their part to reduce nutrient and sediment pollution, the 37-year effort to restore the Bay’s water quality is likely to fail, they warn.

Will Baker, president of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, said that the courts must make sure the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency “does its job’’ in enforcing Bay cleanup actions. Photo by Mike Busada, courtesy of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation

“When EPA uses its bully pulpit to tell a state that they’re failing to meet their obligations, action follows,” said the foundation’s Baker. “We’ve seen that with Pennsylvania in the past.”

The agency briefly withheld about $3 million in federal funds from Pennsylvania five years ago to prod it to come up with a plan for getting its cleanup back on track. Critics suggest the EPA also could leverage state compliance by threatening to block permits that are needed to build or expand businesses.

Environmentalists and Maryland officials have been complaining for some time that the EPA is not doing more to press Pennsylvania over its lagging cleanup pace. But discontent ramped up in January when Dana Aunkst, director of the EPA’s Chesapeake Bay Program office, described the 2025 cleanup deadline as “aspirational” and said the Bay TMDL was “not an enforceable document.”

The litigants said they didn’t relish taking the EPA to court but felt they had no choice. They faulted the Trump administration, contending it had not only abandoned the federal government’s role as enforcer of the Bay TMDL, but had threatened the cleanup further by rolling back or weakening federal environmental regulations.

The Annapolis-based environmental group and the attorneys general had served the EPA formal notice in May of their intent to sue and followed up later with a letter offering to meet and discuss their concerns. The EPA did not respond, they said.

“We’re here to enforce the agreements,” said Karl Racine, the District’s attorney general. “It’s not unusual at all that when parties don’t do what they’re supposed to do by law, we go to court to have it enforce the remedy.”

Neither Pennsylvania nor New York are defendants in the lawsuits, though their alleged shortcomings are key issues. Deborah Klenotic, spokeswoman for the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, declined to comment on the litigation, saying, “We remain focused on our work to improve water quality here in Pennsylvania and in the Chesapeake Bay.”

But Maureen Wren, a spokeswoman for the New York Department of Environmental Conservation, disputed assertions the state isn’t doing its part to help clean up the Bay.

“New York is fulfilling its clean water responsibilities under the Chesapeake Bay TMDL and is a committed partner” in the federal-state Chesapeake Bay Program, she said.

State officials now expect to meet New York’s nitrogen reduction targets based on new information about Susquehanna flows and a change in the Bay Program’s computer model.

Maryland’s Anne Arundel County, which has more than 500 miles of shoreline on the Bay and its tributaries, joined the foundation in its lawsuit.

County executive Steuart Pittman of Anne Arundel County, MD, walks one of the shorelines in his jurisdiction that border the Chesapeake Bay. The county has joined the Chesapeake Bay Foundation in its suit against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Photo by Dave Harp, courtesy of Bay Journal News Service

“Anne Arundel County residents have invested far too much in the Chesapeake Bay restoration effort to watch from the sidelines as upstream states and the EPA abandon their obligations,” said Anne Arundel County Executive Steuart Pittman. The county has spent more than $500 million in the last decade on Bay protection and restoration, officials estimate.

The Maryland Watermen’s Association, which has been at odds with the Bay Foundation over the state’s management of oysters, also joined in the group’s lawsuit. Observing that “water runs downhill,” Robert T. Brown, Sr., the group’s president, said the nutrients, sediment and debris coming down the Susquehanna River from Pennsylvania and New York are having a devastating effect on watermen.

“So goes the health of the Bay, so goes [our] industry and seafood,” he said. “…We need to have the EPA do its job.”

Also suing are Robert Whitescarver and Jeanne Hoffman, who raise livestock on a farm in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley. Whitescarver, a former Natural Resources Conservation Service representative, has long advocated for farm conservation practices. He said farmers have a stake in this issue.

“All jurisdictions need to do their fair share,” he said. “The efforts that Virginia and Maryland farmers have put into sustainable farming are harmed by EPA’s failure to require all jurisdictions to meet the commitments they agreed to.”

At least a couple of the states suing the EPA to put the heat on Pennsylvania and New York could find themselves on the receiving end of similar pressure if their lawsuit succeeds. Only the District of Columbia and West Virginia have met their 2025 goals ahead of schedule, according to recent data. None of the others are on track to reduce nitrogen by the needed amount.

“If any of the Bay states fall significantly short in implementation, CBF will call on EPA to take action,” Baker said.

By Timothy B. Wheeler

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

Filed Under: Eco Lead Tagged With: bay, Chesapeake Bay, clean water act, cleanup, environment, EPA, lawsuit, pollution

Copyright © 2025

Affiliated News

  • The Chestertown Spy
  • The Talbot Spy

Sections

  • Arts
  • Culture
  • Ecosystem
  • Education
  • Mid-Shore Health
  • Culture and Local Life
  • Shore Recovery
  • Spy Senior Nation

Spy Community Media

  • Subscribe
  • Contact Us
  • Advertising & Underwriting

Copyright © 2025 · Spy Community Media Child Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in