Fifteen More Years to Save the Bay

From Lancaster Farming, Chesapeake Bay Program Committee Resets Bay Improvement Goals for 2040

A key committee of the Chesapeake Bay Program voted unanimously this week to accept a revised agreement that charts a way forward for bay improvements through 2040. The vote clears the way for the program’s executive council to give final approval in December. Members of the principals’ staff committee broke out in applause after consensus was reached at the meeting in Annapolis, Maryland, on Oct. 28.

The revision is the result of “tens of thousands of hours” of work put in by program partners, said Josh Kurtz, secretary of the Maryland Department of Natural Resources and chair of the committee. While falling short of a 2035 target date favored by Maryland, Virginia and the Chesapeake Bay Foundation for some of the goals, Kurtz said the agreement aims to “improve and streamline” the current one from 2014.

Public comment this summer criticized the draft agreement as being weak and lacking clear target dates, leading to some revisions since the comment period closed on Sept. 1. “The desire for a stronger, time-bound commitment was the No. 1 thing heard from the public during the feedback period,” Kurtz said earlier in October.

The 2040 target date compromise came from recognizing that states are at “very different places” in meeting nutrient reduction goals, he said. Kurtz believes the timeline will be voluntarily accelerated for some of the desired outcomes. “We’re still going to meet a lot of those goals before the 2040 timeline,” he said. 

The revised agreement streamlines the number of goals from 10 in the 2014 agreement to four broader goals that specify outcomes for clean water, fish and wildlife, healthy landscapes and engaged communities. Watershed-wide, conservation initiatives have fallen short of some targets outlined in the 2014 agreement, including those for reducing nitrogen and phosphorus loads by 2025.

ChesapeakeProgress, a public website tracking the progress of bay improvements, estimated that conservation practices are on track to achieve 59% of nitrogen reduction goals, 92% of phosphorus reductions and 100% of the sediment reduction target by 2025 compared to 2009 nutrient loads. Despite sediment reduction goals being met for the watershed as a whole, the website reported that Delaware, New York and Pennsylvania have not yet met their statewide targets. Meanwhile, the District of Columbia and West Virginia have met their statewide nitrogen, phosphorus and sediment targets, while Maryland has met its phosphorus and sediment goals and is on course to meet its nitrogen target for 2025.

I'll just be that in 2040, many of the goals will be unmet, and they will be looking at another round of funding. As Milton Friedman notes  “Nothing is so permanent as a temporary government program.”