Virginia gets a thumbs up on Chesapeake Bay efforts, not so Pennsylvania and Maryland

The non-partisan environmental watchdog group the Environmental Integrity Project (EIP) has released a five-page “Executive Summary” of its 40-plus page report on developmental and environmental impacts on stormwater flow into the Chesapeake Bay from the Bay’s wide, multi-state watershed of rivers contributing to the freshwater flow – though not always THAT fresh – into the Bay.

Involved states and communities have either volunteered and/or been mandated to make improvements to pollution sources impacting their parts of the Bay watershed in an effort to protect the billion-dollar annual fishing and seafood industry the Chesapeake generates. Those federal mandates generating from the Environmental Protection Agency began in 2010.

In the below Executive Summary and linked report, Pennsylvania and Maryland are criticized for cutbacks to their stormwater/pollution abatement efforts, while Virginia gets a positive nod for maintaining its efforts, which includes limiting stormwater and pollutant runoff into the Shenandoah River and its branches, including Front Royal and Warren County’s share of the Shenandoah.

“In contrast, Pennsylvania and Maryland retreated in their proposed efforts to reduce urban and suburban runoff. This is significant because Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia account for about 90 percent of the urban and suburban runoff pollution fouling the Bay,” the EIP Executive Summary points out.

The report and its summary cite some staggering rainfall numbers from 2018-19 that resulted in this assessment: “The amount of freshwater pouring into the nation’s largest estuary in 2019 was by far the highest ever recorded, averaging 130,750 cubic feet per second, according to U.S. Geological Survey.”

The Executive Summary continues to note, “Both of these recent high-water years dealt blows to Chesapeake cleanup efforts. But they were not freakish events. In fact, the amount and intensity of rainfall across the whole region have been gradually creeping upward for the last century, according to data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.”

Click here to read additional detail in the Executive Summary.