West By God Virginia Bay Diet Passes EPA Muster

EPA OKs 2nd phase of W.Va.’s plan to reduce pollution entering Chesapeake Bay watershed

West Virginia is moving to the next phase of its plan to reduce pollution in the Chesapeake Bay watershed.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has accepted the second phase of the state’s watershed implementation plan, part of a six-state and District of Columbia partnership to reduce pollution entering the bay.
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“The big news is the EPA took off the backstops from the agriculture segment,” Alana Hartman, the Potomac River Basin coordinator for the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection, told The Journal (http://bit.ly/MQmfPH ).

Backstops are federal contingency actions that can be used, if necessary, to spur progress. The EPA had placed the backstops when West Virginia submitted the plan’s first phase because the agency was not satisfied with how it addressed pollutant runoff from agricultural operations.

So what happened to the concept of the sovereign states that got together to form a union?