The Chesapeake Bay Foundation is not playing around anymore. After seeing more than two decades' worth of efforts to clean up the Chesapeake Bay fail and watching deadlines come and go, apparently helpless to do anything about it, the CBF has filed a lawsuit against the federal Environmental Protection Agency for failing to enforce the Clean Water Act and neglecting to help the ailing bay recover. CBF President William Baker said scientists know how to clean up the bay but lack the political will to actually do it.
The most recent of three signed agreements since 1983 between the CBF and its watershed states, the Chesapeake 2010 agreement, was a commitment to reduce bay pollution sufficiently to have the estuary removed from the federal "impaired waters" list by 2010. This goal will not be met, and the EPA has acknowledged that fact; the discussion now is about pushing the deadline back another 10 years or more.
The CBF lawsuit alleges that political dogma and policies of deregulation have wreaked havoc in terms of environmental protection (among other areas), even as science and the force of law have been subordinated. The CBF has compiled a detailed list of 33 suggested actions the EPA and federal government could take to achieve an effective cleanup of the bay, including ensuring wastewater treatment plan compliance with pollution reduction goals, improved enforcement of existing laws, toughening of construction stormwater permits, more stringent limits on municipal stormwater discharges and more. Visit www.delmarvanow.com to see a list of 10 suggestions made by the CBF.
The legal action is timed to get the attention of the incoming Obama administration and CBF leaders are hoping for a change in environmental policy that will help get bay restoration efforts back on track. Also signing onto the suit are a variety of stakeholders, including fishing and watermen's organizations and other officials from throughout the region.
If restoration efforts are taken more seriously, if enforcement is given greater attention and the bay begins to respond as hoped, not only would crabs and oysters benefit, but so would the rest of us --seafood lovers, watermen, recreational boaters and anglers, property owners and anyone involved with tourism. And a successful bay restoration would serve as a model for the rest of the world.
