Bay goals downgraded

The federal government is putting the Chesapeake Bay on a pollution diet, but officials say it can be a little less strict than in the past.

Instead of counting calories, officials count pounds of harmful nutrients that cause the bay's infamous, oxygen-deprived "dead zone."

Federal officials announced yesterday that the bay can be allowed to have 200 million pounds of nitrogen pollution and 15 million pounds of phosphorus per year. Those are more generous limits than the last set of goals: 175 million pounds of nitrogen and 12.7 million pounds of phosphorus.

In 2008, the bay absorbed 283 million pounds of nitrogen and 16.3 million pounds of phosphorus, according to government data.

Officials, however, stopped short of calling the new pollution limits less ambitious than the old ones. And they suggested there's a chance the numbers could change before the pollution diet is finalized at the end of 2010.

"These are target numbers. They are likely to change … it's not a final set," Rich Batiuk of the Environmental Protection Agency's Chesapeake Bay Program told reporters during a conference call.

Batiuk said scientists have figured out that past pollution was actually much worse than originally estimated. So the starting point was adjusted higher, and the final targets were adjusted as well.

Officials at the nonprofit Chesapeake Bay Foundation aren't worried about the change in the final pollution goal.

The ultimate goal is still the same: make sure there's enough oxygen in the water for aquatic life to survive, said Beth McGee, a scientist for the foundation.

"If we hit 200 and it's not enough, then we'll need to do more. … The bay will tell us when it's fixed," McGee said.

On the other hand, noted author and bay cleanup critic Howard Ernst said the changed goal won't necessarily help the bay at all.

"It took the EPA less than two months to weaken their nitrogen pollution limit by 25 million pounds. At this rate of backsliding, they can declare the bay saved by the spring without reducing a pound of pollution," said Ernst, a political science professor at the Naval Academy who just published a new book, "Fight for the Bay."

A pollution diet

The old target pollution levels were just that - voluntary targets. The new numbers are being incorporated into a more enforceable plan that's officially called a "total maximum daily load," or TMDL.

The TMDL is often referred to as a "pollution diet" or "pollution budget."

The total amount of allowable pollution will be divvied up by states and major river systems. The state governments will have to craft plans for how to get pollution down to the new levels.

The plans will include cutting air pollution as well as pollution from sewage plants, septic systems, farm fields, developed areas and new development.

The bay is harmed by excess nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus, which spur an overabundance of algae. When the algae die, they suck life-sustaining oxygen from the water, making it inhospitable for crabs, fish and shellfish.

Also, fine particles of dirt called sediment wash into the bay and its rivers, clouding the water and smothering bottom-dwelling critters such as oysters.

If the nutrient and sediment reduction plans aren't up to snuff - or if states can't get their pollution levels down - the EPA can step in with sanctions. The EPA can yank federal funding or block permits, including those for new construction.

The ultimate deadline for meeting the new pollution budget is 2025. Governors from bay-area states agreed to that new end date during a meeting earlier this year.

By 2017, states will have to be 60 percent of the way toward the 2025 limits.

Previous deadlines of 2010 and 2000 have gone unmet.

Dawn Stoltzfus, a spokeswoman for the Maryland Department of the Environment, said meeting the goals will be a challenge, but not impossible. She said the state already is working on how to meet the pollution budget.

'New era'

EPA leaders said kicking off the pollution budget process is a bold step that ultimately could jump-start the stalled effort to clean up the bay.

Chuck Fox, the EPA's point person on the bay, said the effort is about "establishing a new era of federal leadership for Chesapeake Bay - one that is marked by new accountability and performance … throughout the watershed."

The pollution diet isn't the only effort the federal government is making where the bay is concerned.

In May, President Barack Obama issued an executive order that basically charged federal agencies to step up their efforts on the bay.

The EPA promised to speed up its schedule for the pollution budget - legally, it doesn't have to be done until 2011 - and agreed to look into more closely regulating pollution sources, especially farms with animals.

More details on those executive-order-inspired promises are due Monday.

Meanwhile, Congress is considering legislation from U.S. Sen. Benjamin L. Cardin, D-Md., that would put a lot of these efforts into law, as well as spend more money on fixing stormwater runoff problems.