Surpise! Cities Don't Want to Pay for the Bay Either

Bay watch: Creative funding will spur Chesapeake cleanup

Pennsylvania got about as good of a deal as it could on the Chesapeake Bay.

The federal Environmental Protection Agency finally agreed to back off on some of the more draconian measures it was ready to implement. At the top of that list was tighter controls of municipal sewer treatment plants...

So, last night we see the farmers didn't want to lose income or pay more to help the Bay.  Now we see that cities are doing their very best to wriggle out from under having to pay for cleaning up their shit as well.

Our sewer standards — while more stringent than in the past — will end up being less than those implemented on neighboring bay states such as Maryland.

An equally large sigh of relief is that the EPA is not going to immediately demand similar upgrades to local government storm water treatment. It is still a possibility the EPA will regulate it in the future if the state isn’t making enough progress, but municipalities aren’t going to have to rush out and invest millions in that as well.

To compensate, Pennsylvania will demand large changes from the agriculture community, which is the greatest polluter of phosphorous and nitrogen and other sediments into the bay, according to EPA models.

So, now we see why the farmers might be upset; they're being asked to shoulder a share of the cities burden in this.  But not to worry, they'll get a pittance of federal and state funds (i.e, someone else's money, including their own) to pursue some green projects to make up for their lost profits.

The Keystone State has proposed the creation of a $100 million Baywide Agricultural Technology Fund with federal and state funds. The money would go toward incentivizing agricultural improvements that will be necessary to realize the bay goals such as manure-to-energy projects.