My reaction to Attorney General Bondi’s assertion when
questioned during her campaign swing through Martin County that she had joined
the litigants opposing the Environmental Protection Agency’s involvement with
the six states that control the Chesapeake Bay watershed as a “Federal
Takeover” of states’ rights doesn’t hold water!
The facts are: for far too many years unregulated manure and
fertilizer from industrial-scale agricultural operations flowed from the six
watershed states and the District of Columbia into Chesapeake Bay.
The once prolific aquatic plants that provided ample food
for tens of thousands of migrating waterfowl died. Acres of the world famous Chesapeake oysters
are sadly diminished. The most important
breeding areas for the prized striped bass is so polluted that the young bass
survival is threatened.
For 30 years the governors of Virginia, Maryland,
Pennsylvania, plus the District of Columbia were bombarded by their concerned
citizens to form some kind of a pack to begin a joint effort to control the
gross pollutants from entering the Bays’ watershed. Their efforts were plagued by changes in
governance and the failure of New York and Pennsylvania, both major
contributors to the massive pollution loading of the Bay, to join in a joint
effort.
The Clean Water Act passage in 1972 dramatically increased
enforcement of industrial wastes disposal and offered the states’ millions of
dollars of funding to upgrade and build modern sewage treatment plants.
The states formed a Chesapeake Bay Commission that finally
successfully urged the states of New York and Pennsylvania to join the
downstream states in a unified effort to restore the once prolific Bay.
Progress has been slow but increasingly effective. The Bay is responding.
Factory hog farms generate 44 million tons of manure a year
in the Chesapeake Bay watershed and cleaning up the run-off from those
operations is a major problem. That is
similar to the manure pollution of Lake Okeechobee – the second biggest lake in
the United States – and the fertilizer run-off problem that has plagued the
Everglades, the St. Lucie Estuary, and hundreds of lakes and streams throughout
Florida.
The combined states and the District have agreed on a new
timetable for action and enforcement. They requested assistance from the
Environmental Protection Agency to set water quality standards that must be
met.
Far from General Bondi’s assertion that EPA is attempting to
‘seize control’ over the combination of the states and District joint efforts,
the vast majority of the citizens who live and make a living from the Bay
welcomed EPA’s involvement and expertise.
Farming interests that will be required to reduce runoff of
their manure into the tributaries filed suit claiming that EPA was orchestrating a ‘take over’ of the
pollution control measures required to produce clean water to restore the Bay’s
productivity.
Frankly, General Bondi should have applauded the effort to
cleanse Chesapeake Bay as a model of what Florida’s five Water Management
District's and our states Department of Environmental Protection should be
championing with her assistance instead of filing as a Friend of the Litigants
who do not want to obey strict water quality standards that are being developed
and enforced.
A close examination of the continuing water quality
violations impacting thousands of miles of Florida’s river, estuaries and lakes
should be her main concern rather than sticking her nose into Chesapeake Bay at
the request of the ‘usual suspects’ whose campaign contributions prove that
Florida’s agricultural polluters fear EPA’s ability to set rigorous water
quality standards that are so desperately needed not only to save Chesapeake
Bay but the vast majority of Florida’s precious waters.
Nathaniel Reed
