Saving the Chesapeake
More Backsliding, or Real Progress?
The Chesapeake Bay is the largest estuary in North America, home to more than 3,600 species of plants and animals. The Chesapeake Bay watershed—the land that drains into the Bay—encompasses parts of six states and Washington, D.C. This national treasure has been deteriorating since the 1930s.
For three decades, states in the Chesapeake Bay watershed entered into voluntary agreements with one another promising to clean up the Bay with little to show for their efforts. No single state is solely to blame for the lack progress; rather, the repeated failures can be attributed to a dysfunctional “collaborative partnership” between the various states, all of which came to the negotiating table with wildly different priorities. CPR President Rena Steinzor and then-Executive Director Shana Jones wrote about the phenomenon in Collaborating to Nowhere: The Imperative of Government Accountability for Restoring the Chesapeake Bay.
Read more >>Phosphorus and the Chesapeake Bay
After spreading extreme quantities of manure, all but one industrial-scale chicken farm on Maryland’s Eastern Shore has fields with excessive soil phosphorus, a major Chesapeake Bay pollutant.
Holding Bay Polluters Accountable
The Chesapeake Bay ecosystem faces grave challenges. CPR works to ensure that the various government agencies responsible for enforcing the law are indeed holding polluters accountable.
The Bay Enforcement Network
CPR has convened an informal network of organizations working to ensure enforcement of the Chesapeake Bay TMDL. Learn about availalble resources and meetings.
Enforcing the Pollution Diet
The "pollution diet" for the Chesapeake Bay embodied in the EPA's TMDL is both ambitious and workable, but it requires that the states in the Bay watershed live up to their commitments. Unfortunately, that hasn't been their history.
Preserving a National Treasure
In May 2009, President Obama breathed new life into Bay restoration efforts when he issued an Executive Order directing EPA to take a leadership role in cleaning up the Bay. The resulting Bay-wide pollution diet, referred to in the Clean Water Act as a total maximum daily load (TMDL), followed in 2010. It imposed strict limits on the quantities of nitrogen, phosphorus, and sediment that could be discharged into the Bay and allocated the total permissible amount of each pollutant among the Bay states and the District of Columbia. The Bay TMDL is the most ambitious and largest TMDL in the country and, if implemented correctly, offers the estuary its best chance at recovery.
In September 2013, a federal judge upheld the TMDL against a challenge by the American Farm Bureau Federation. Read CPR’s summary of the decision.
CPR Member Scholars and staff are working to ensure that the Bay states remain on track to meet this pollution diet.
Highlights of CPR's Recent Work on the Chesapeake Bay:
- Mapping Phosphorus in Maryland's Eastern Shore Farms. All but one industrial-scale chicken farm on Maryland’s Eastern Shore has fields with “excessive” soil phosphorus, a major Chesapeake Bay pollutant.Check out CPR's new interactive map of the region.
- Legal Challenge to Interstate Air Pollution Controls: EPA v. EME Homer City Generation, L.P.: Supreme Court’s Revival of the Transport Rule Means a Cleaner Chesapeake Bay, CPR Case Brief #1403, by CPR Member Scholar Victor Flatt and Policy Analyst Anne Havemann, May 2014.
- Comments to the Chesapeake Executive Council, March 17, 2014, by Rena Steinzor and Anne Havemann, urging a more stringent interstate agreement for pollution reduction.
- EPA Enforcement Retreat: EPA’s Retreat from Enforcement Will Harm the Chesapeake Bay, CPR Issue Alert #1402, by CPR President Rena Steinzor, Member Scholar Robert L. Glicksman, and Policy Analyst Anne Havemann, January 2014. Also see the day-of release blog post, and the follow-up letter to EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy.
- Legal Challenge to Trading. Case Brief: Food & Water Watch v. EPA: Judge Rejects Challenge to the Trading Provisions of the Chesapeake Bay Pollution Diet, CPR Case Brief #1312, by CPR President Rena Steinzor and Policy Analyst Anne Havemann, December 2013.
- Lagging CAFO Regulation in Maryland. Falling Behind: Processing and Enforcing Permits for Animal Agriculture in Maryland is Lagging, CPR Issue Alert #1310, by CPR President Rena Steinzor and CPR Policy Analyst Anne Havemann, November 2013. Or read the summary. Also see the day-of release blog post, and the news release.
- Legal Challenge to CAFO Regulation: Alt v. EPA: District Court Ruling Opens Gap in Clean Water Protections, Invites CAFOs to Ignore Pollution Standards, CPR Case Brief #1311, by CPR Member Scholar William Andreen and Policy Analyst Anne Havemann, December 2013.
- Legal Challenge to the TMDL. Case Brief: American Farm Bureau Federation v. EPA, CPR Case Brief #1308, by CPR Policy Analyst Anne Havemann, October 2013. Read the blog post by the author.
- Economic Gain from Pollution? Read No Profit in Pollution: A Comparison of Key Chesapeake Bay State Water Pollution Penalty Policies, CPR Briefing Paper 1305, by CPR Member Scholar Robert Glicksman and Policy Analyst Aimee Simpson, April 2013. Read a day-of-release blog post by the authors.
- Ag Secrecy. Going Dark Down on the Farm: How Legalized Secrecy Gives Agribusiness a Federally Funded Free Ride, CPR White Paper 1213, by Member Scholar Rena Steinzor and Policy Analyst Yee Huang, September 2012. Read the blog post by Yee Huang.
- Criminal Enforcement of Pollution Laws. Going Too Easy? Maryland's Criminal Enforcement of Water Pollution Laws Protecting the Chesapeake Bay, CPR White Paper 1212, by Member Scholar Rena Steinzor and Policy Analyst Aimee Simpson, September 2012. Read the news release and day-of-release blog post from co-author Aimee Simpson.
- Nutrient Trading and Environmental Justice. Fairness in the Bay: Environmental Justice and Nutrient Trading, CPR Briefing Paper 1208, by Rena Steinzor, Robert Verchick, Nick Vidargas, and Yee Huang, August 2012.
- Regulating CAFOs. Manure in the Bay: A Report on Industrial Animal Agriculture in Maryland and Pennsylvania, CPR Briefing Paper 1206, by CPR Member Scholar Rena Steinzor and Policy Analyst Yee Huang, June 2012. Read the news release.
- Principles of Nutrient Trading. Accountability: Water Quality Trading in the Chesapeake Bay, CPR Briefing Paper 1205, by CPR Member Scholar Rena Steinzor, Policy Analysts Yee Huang and Nick Vidargas, and consultant Shana Jones, May 2012. Read the introductory blog post.
- Back to Basics: An Agenda for the Maryland General Assembly to Protect the Environment, CPR White Paper 1110, by CPR Member Scholar Rena Steinzor and CPR Policy Analyst Yee Huang, October 2011. Read the blog post.
- Implementing the TMDL. Missing the Mark in the Chesapeake Bay: A Report Card for the Phase I Watershed Implementation Plans, CPR White Paper 1102, by CPR Member Scholars William Andreen, Robert Glicksman, and Rena Steinzor and CPR staff Yee Huang and Shana Jones, January 2011. Accompanying detailed evaluations of the plans from the Bay jurisdictions: Delaware, Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia.
- MDE’s Enforcement of the Clean Water Act. Failing the Bay: Clean Water Act Enforcement in Maryland Falling Short, CPR White Paper 1004, by CPR Member Scholar Robert Glicksman and Policy Analyst Yee Huang, April 2010. Read the news release.
