Bay Journal Op-Ed: 'Stopping Rules' Would Say When It's Time to Shift from Debating to Acting
This op-ed originally ran in the Bay Journal. Reprinted with permission.
Science is hard, environmental policy is complicated and regulatory science can seem endlessly confounding.
It does not have to be. Earlier this year, the Chesapeake Bay partners stepped into a time-worn trap, heeding calls from overly cautious states to wait for more refined scientific modeling of climate change impacts before taking action to eliminate pollution in the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries. Having punted action until 2021 at the earliest, the Bay Partnership needs policies to prevent further delay. An innovative policy tool called "stopping rules" could be the answer.
Chesapeake Bay Program scientists have determined that Bay states need to eliminate an additional 9 million pounds of nitrogen pollution and 500,000 pounds of phosphorus to offset the impacts of climate change and ensure that dissolved oxygen standards can be met in the Bay by 2025.
To be clear, the stakes are much greater than dissolved oxygen levels in the middle of the Bay. Local streams and rivers throughout the watershed face increasing loads of inorganic nitrogen from climate change, which may be responsible for more frequent and intense algae blooms.
Higher water temperatures are likely to worsen …
The City of Baltimore is wrapping up an $800 million upgrade of its largest sewage treatment plant. At the same time, the city is starting a $160 million project to retrofit a drinking water reservoir; is in the midst of a $400 million project to realign a major section of its sewer system; and is spending several million on projects throughout the city to manage polluted runoff from its streets and other paved surfaces.
And these are just a few of the city's many infrastructure projects to upgrade drinking water and wastewater facilities, improve the systems of pipes that deliver clean water to homes and, separately, sewage to their treatment plants, and begin to deal with the thousands of acres of pavement that channel filthy water into the city's harbor.
Managing our need for water is both expensive and complicated. If you consider the challenge involved in …
Yesterday, the Chesapeake Bay Program released its latest estimate of nutrient and sediment pollution in the Bay watershed. The annual model run of the program's Watershed Model shows that the estimated nitrogen, phosphorus, and sediment loads decreased by three percent, three percent, and four percent, respectively, compared to 2014 levels. These are important improvements, but much work lies ahead to improve water quality in the Bay and boost the fisheries, wildlife, and recreational activities it supports.
The estimated decrease in nitrogen loads of nearly 7 million pounds brings the Chesapeake Bay a bit closer to the 2017 interim target under the restoration plan known as the Chesapeake Bay Total Maximum Daily Load (Bay TMDL). However, the watershed as a whole – including the six Bay states of Delaware, Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia, plus the District of Columbia – remains significantly off track.
The latest annual …
Last week the Maryland Court of Appeals heard several hours of oral argument in back to back (to back) cases regarding whether five different municipal stormwater (“MS4”) permits issued by the Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE) complied with the federal Clean Water Act and state water pollution laws. Although divided into separate cases due to their unique procedural histories, the three cases were consolidated into one marathon oral argument due to the substantial overlap of the issues involved. The legal arguments have changed significantly since the first motions and petitions were filed several years ago, with some of the most ambitious legal theories having fallen away. What remains in dispute in these cases are largely procedural, though still crucial, issues regarding how to structure the permits so as to ensure that the permits are enforceable and that the counties are accountable to the public. Basically, the …
Last Wednesday, a Montgomery County Circuit Court judge held that the Montgomery County Water Quality Protection Charge is invalid and that the plaintiff should not have been required to pay any stormwater fee to the county. The case could have significant ramifications across the state for jurisdictions that have, like Montgomery County, established a stormwater fee similar to the one invalidated in the case.
First, some background. In 2012, the Maryland General Assembly passed HB 987, which required any jurisdiction subject to a certain federal stormwater permit (including, for example, Baltimore City and Prince George’s County) to implement an annual stormwater remediation fee and a local watershed protection and restoration fund to hold those new funds. The law did not require the local governments to set the fee at any specific level or otherwise require them to collect a specified amount in revenues; each jurisdiction had …
Editors’ Note: This is the fourth in a series of posts on measuring progress toward the 2017 interim goal of the Bay TMDL. The first three posts cover the region as a whole, and then Pennsylvania and Virginia. Future posts will explore the progress of the remaining four jurisdictions.
Judging from the Chesapeake Bay Program’s modeling of pollution in the Chesapeake Bay, Maryland is a tale of two states when it comes to reducing its polluting emissions. On the one hand, the state is clearly lagging in reducing nitrogen pollution, one of two main contributors to the algal blooms that lead to “dead zones” in the Bay. On the other hand, it has made some progress. Indeed, Maryland’s experience appears to be quite similar to that of Virginia, a leader in reducing nitrogen to date, in that it owes most of its success to significant …
The State of Maryland released a long overdue report on Monday regarding the state’s plan to finance its implementation of the Chesapeake Bay Total Maximum Daily Load (Bay TMDL) requirements. The report was prepared by the Environmental Finance Center at the University of Maryland on behalf of the Maryland Department of the Environment, the Department of Natural Resources, and several other agencies in response to a 2014 request by the budget committees of the Maryland General Assembly.
Originating from a request in early 2014 by the joint chairs of the budget committees, the report was supposed to be released along with a companion report on past expenditures associated with restoring the Chesapeake Bay in time for preparation of the fiscal year 2016 budget this past winter. However, in the preface to the report on historic expenditures, the agencies indicated that the report on future funding needs …
Today, the Baltimore Sun published an op-ed by CPR President Rena Steinzor and Public Justice Center attorney Sally Dworak-Fisher entitled, "Maryland's whistleblower laws need teeth."
According to the piece:
Whistleblowers can help identify and put a stop to all sorts of illegal activity, if they're properly protected. Dozens of state and federal laws include provisions intended to shield whistleblowers from retaliatory actions by employers who have been outed. But this piecemeal approach, with different laws enforced by different agencies, is too complicated and has too many holes.
To take the load off of overburdened state investigators, Marylanders need a new law that gives whistleblowers the right to sue employers who retaliate. A comprehensive law with that fail-safe mechanism would be an invaluable tool for promoting better practices at worksites across the state because it would encourage workers to raise red flags when their employers skirt the …
