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CPR Submits Comments on the Chesapeake Bay Watershed Agreementby Anne HavemannMaryland faces an important deadline in its long-running effort to clean up the Chesapeake Bay. By 2017, the state will be legally required to have put in place a number of specific measures to reduce the massive quantities of pollution that now flow into the Bay from a range of pollution sources in the state. Unfortunately, if the terms of a draft Chesapeake Bay Watershed Agreement are any indication, we’re going to miss the deadline.
Today, CPR President Rena Steinzor and I submitted comments to the Chesapeake Executive Council, a collaborative partnership of Bay state governors currently chaired by Gov. Martin O’Malley, arguing that the Agreement falls well short. As the first interstate agreement since EPA issued the Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) for the Chesapeake Bay, the Agreement is an opportunity to build off the TMDL and tackle the issues that plan does not address. Instead, the draft Agreement ignores some of the most pressing issues facing the Chesapeake Bay today.
Our comments urge the Bay state governors to:
This tepid don’t-rock-the-boat agreement harks back to yesteryear, when Bay states spent two full decades getting very little done. We urge Governor O’Malley, the head of the Chesapeake Executive Council, and other Bay state governors to revise the Agreement so the final document reflects the true value Bay restoration represents to the region.
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