EPA gives poor marks to Pa. on protecting Chesapeake Bay watershed

For the second time in as many years, Pennsylvania’s efforts to reduce agricultural pollution damaging the ecological health of Chesapeake Bay have received failing grades.

The latest report, released last week by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, said the bay pollution control programs of Pennsylvania and Virginia have “significant deficiencies that will have to be rectified if clean-up goals are to be achieved.”

According to the EPA, only about 30 percent of Pennsylvania’s 40,000 farms in the Chesapeake Bay watershed comply with existing regulations to limit runoff of animal manure and manure fertilizer into streams and rivers.

The report notes that Pennsylvania has relied on voluntary compliance with the agricultural pollution regulations; does not have a consistent strategy or spend sufficient resources to ensure that farmers comply with the law, and that the state only inspects farms in response to complaints.

As a result, the EPA report said, the state has failed to meet the 2013 agricultural pollution reduction targets that were established by the EPA’s “Chesapeake Clean Water Blueprint.” The agency set those targets to speed up reductions of nitrogen, phosphorus and sediment discharges into the bay’s tributary rivers and streams after President Barack Obama, responding to the slow pace of Chesapeake restoration efforts, issued an executive order in May 2009.

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