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1 1 (July 8, 2016)

handle is hein.crs/govccxw0001 and id is 1 raw text is: FF. ' riES- - $rh ,i . , Updated July 8, 2016 Restoring Chesapeake Bay's Water Quality: Where It Stands Since 2009, the Chesapeake Bay jurisdictions (New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia) have made progress in reducing pollutants that impair the quality of Bay waters. However, further reductions are needed in order to reach water quality goals established for the Bay by 2025. Basinwide, nitrogen loadings to Bay waters will need to be reduced an additional 20.4% from levels measured in 2015, phosphorus loadings will need to be reduced an additional 5.8%, and sediment loadings will need to be reduced an additional 8.6% by 2025. Despite several decades of activity by governments, the private sector, and the general public, efforts to improve and protect the Chesapeake Bay watershed have been insufficient to meet restoration goals. Although some specific indicators of Bay health have improved slightly or remained steady recently (such as blue crab populations and underwater bay grasses), others remain at low levels of improvement, especially water quality. Scientists conclude that overall, the Bay and its tributaries remain in poor health, with polluted water, reduced populations of fish and shellfish, and continued degradation of habitat and resources. The primary pollutants causing impairments are excess nutrients (nitrogen and phosphorus) and sediment discharged from multiple urban, suburban, and rural sources around the Bay. Agriculture is the principal source of these pollutants. Reducing pollution is critical to restoring the watershed, because clean water is the foundation for healthy fisheries, habitats, and communities across the region. In May 2009, President Obama issued an executive order that declared the Bay watershed a national treasure and charged the federal government with developing a new strategy for protecting and restoring the Chesapeake region. A central feature of the strategy was development of a Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) for Chesapeake Bay by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). A TMDL is a pollution budget, containing a scientific calculation of how much pollutant loadings need to be reduced to achieve state-established water quality standards. (For background, see CRS Report R42752, Clean Water Act and Pollutant Total Maximum Daily Loads (TMDLs).) The Chesapeake Bay TMDL is the largest single TMDL developed to date. It addresses all segments of the 64,000- square-mile Bay watershed, including tidal tributaries. Nitrogen and phosphorus are considered the main contributors to poor water quality because, in excess amounts, they spur algae blooms, which block sunlight critical to underwater grasses that support crabs, fish, and waterfowl. When the algae die, they sink to the bottom and decompose in a process that depletes the water of oxygen, creating so-called dead zones, which are harmful to aquatic life. Sediment also depletes water of oxygen. To implement the TMDL, the Bay jurisdictions created state-specific plans called Watershed Implementation Plans, or WIPs. The WIPs provide detailed plans of specific pollutant reductions required of sectors such as agriculture and wastewater treatment. The WIPs track progress toward achieving two goals established in the TMDL-an interim goal of having 60% of cleanup practices and policies needed to attain water quality standards in place by 2017 and 100% of practices and policies in place by 2025. Each jurisdiction also established interim, two-year cleanup goals called milestones. The two-year milestones and progress reports are intended to be critical tools for holding the states and the federal government publicly accountable. WIPs provide states with flexibility to determine the mix of specific controls they deem appropriate to meet the overall reduction goals. The TMDL also embodies an adaptive management framework that allows states to modify their strategies to achieve reductions in the most efficient way. The Chesapeake Bay TMDL has been controversial with a number of groups over concerns about implementation costs and fear that it will hamper economic growth. Challenges to the TMDL were brought by agricultural and home builder groups, who argued that EPA had exceeded its authority and impinged on the responsibilities of states to manage water quality. Federal courts rejected the challenges and upheld the TMDL. In June 2016, EPA provided evaluations of the jurisdictions' progress towards meeting their sector-specific 2014-2015 milestones and progress toward the 2017 and 2025 goals. EPA compared 2015 measured loads with 2009 levels, the year before the TMDL began. (EPA's evaluations are available at https://www.epa.gov/ chesapeake-bay-tmdl/epa-oversight-watershed- implementation-plans-wips-and-milestones-chesapeake- bay.) For each jurisdiction, EPA evaluated these sectors: agriculture, urban/suburban stormwater, wastewater and combined sewer overflows (CSOs), onsite septic systems, and forestry. In 2015, for the Chesapeake Bay basin as a whole, phosphorus loading was down 20%, nitrogen loading was down 7%, and sediment loading was down 7%, compared with 2009. However, reductions of specific pollutants in individual jurisdictions varied widely (see Figure 1). Collectively, the Bay jurisdictions are on track to meet the watershed-wide 2017 targets for phosphorus and sediment, but not nitrogen. While the goal is to achieve 60% of the load reduction by 2017, nitrogen is currently projected to be at only 46% of the 2017 targeted reduction. Looking toward the 2025 goal, EPA made the following assessments. .O 'T p\w -- , gn'a', goo mppm qq\ a , q 'S I 11LIANJILiN,

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