vvEPA
Cleaning Up of the
Chesapeake Bay
The Federal Role
903R89104
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Cleaning
Up the
Chesapeake
Bay
The
Federal
Role
CONTENTS
A National Treasure 1
What's Wrong With the Bay 3
What's Being Done to Save the Bay 4
Role of the Federal Government 5
The Course Ahead 8
Role of the Public 9
Cover photograph by M.E. Warren.
Other photos courtesy of M.E. Warren
and Chesapeake Bay Foundation.
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private agencies are joined in a long-term ef-
fort to restore and protect the Bay and its
tributaries. The U.S. Environmental Protec-
tion Agency (EPA) has had a key role in this
rescue operation from the beginning.
Congress directed EPA in 1975 to under-
take a comprehensive investigation into the
causes of the estuary's decline. This study was
carried out over the next seven years at a cost
of $27 million.
EPA's research findings and recom-
mended remedies led to the signing of the
1983 Chesapeake Bay Agreement, forging the
first links in what has become an enduring
commitment to the restoration of the Ches-
apeake among Maryland, Pennsylvania, Vir-
ginia, the District of Columbia, the Chesa-
peake Bay Commission, and EPA.
A second Agreement, signed in Decem-
ber 1987, goes well beyond the original com-
pact, establishing major objectives and spe-
cific commitments for action to achieve the
overall goals of the Chesapeake Bay
Program.
Both the federal Clean Water Act and the
1987 Agreement give EPA a continuing role
in the Chesapeake Bay Program. Nine other
federal agencies also are active participants
in the restoration effort.
The Chesapeake Bay is the country's largest
estuary, but it is not size alone that makes
the Chesapeake\ national treasure. Despite
more than three centuries of increasingly in-
tensive use, the Chesapeake Bay is still a rich
source of oysters, soft-shell clams, and fin-
fish and continues to be the world's largest
producer of blue crabs. The Bay provides a
huge habitat for waterfowl and other wildlife,
serves as a key commercial waterway, and of-
fers an almost endless array of recreational
pursuits on the water and along its shores.
Time has taught, however, that this won-
der of nature has been wounded by the works
of man. Persistent symptoms of environ-
mental decline loom like the dark clouds of
an oncoming summer squall over the future
of the Bay. Oyster yields are less than half
those of the early 1970s. Dwindling popula-
tions of rockfish have prompted moratoriums
in Maryland and Virginia. Perch also are pro-
tected in Maryland waters because of their
increasing scarcity. Underwater grasses that
offer food and shelter to both fowl and fish
have disappeared in many reaches of the Bay.
The people and the governments of the
Chesapeake Bay watershed are not conced-
ing that this wondrous waterway is beyond
environmental salvation, however. Public and
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What's Wrong with the Bay?
The Chesapeake Bay basin is a giant, 64,000-
square-mile ecosystem that defies simple
cause-and-effect equations. The EPA study
of the Bay focused on three key areas:
nutrient enrichment, toxic contamination,
and a decline in submerged aquatic vegeta-
tion (SAV). These are still primary areas of
concern for the Bay Program as a whole.
Nutrient Enrichment. Nitrogen and phos-
phorus are essential elements in the Bay's pro-
ductivity but in excess they lead to the low
levels of dissolved oxygen that periodically
threaten the survival of fish and shellfish in
parts of the estuary, especially in the hot sum-
mer months. Sewage treatment plants, animal
manures, and chemical fertilizers used on
farmland, lawns and gardens feed nutrients
to the Bay. The overabundance triggers dense
growths of algae that block off sunlight
needed by underwater plants. When these
algae die and sink to the bottom, they con-
sume precious oxygen as they decompose,
further handicapping the survival of other
species of life in the Bay.
The 1987 Bay Agreement calls for a 40
percent reduction by the year 2000 in nitro-
gen and phosphorus reaching the Bay. Com-
puter modeling shows that reductions of this
magnitude will achieve a significant improve-
ment in oxygen levels in many areas of the
Bay.
Toxic Contamination. Literally thousands
of toxic substances reach the Bay in waste-
water discharges from industrial and mun-
icipal treatment plants, in runoff from fields
and urban areas, and in groundwater that
reaches streams and the Bay. During the EPA
study of the Bay, researchers found high con-
centrations of toxic metals and organic com-
pounds in industrialized areas such as the
Elizabeth and Patapsco rivers, and metal con-
tamination in sediments in the upper Po-
tomac, the upper James, sections of the Rap-
pahannock and York rivers, and in some mid-
Bay areas.
The significance of toxic contamination
for the Bay as a whole is not well understood,
however. The basinwide toxics reduction
strategy adopted under the 1987 Bay Agree-
ment emphasizes action to correct known
problems while more information on the
distribution and concentrations of other con-
taminants is gathered through monitoring
and research. A Toxics Loading Inventory is
being developed as a tool to identify major
sources of toxic contamination and provide
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a practical measure of progress in achieving
reductions. The long-term goal of the strategy
is a toxics-free Bay. By the year 2000, dis-
charges are to be reduced to levels that en-
sure no toxic or bioaccumulative effects on
life in the Bay or on human health.
Submerged Aquatic Vegetation. Unlike
toxics and nutrient enrichment, SAV is an en-
vironmental asset to be conserved rather than
a contaminant to be controlled. SAV func-
tions as a critical link among the different
levels of the Bay food web and the physical
environment. It provides food and habitat for
fish and fowl. More than any other single
group of organisms, SAV provides a biolog-
ical index of the health of the Bay's shallow
waters. The sharp decline of SAV throughout
the Bay, especially in its upper reaches, was
one of the early indications that the estuary
was in trouble.
EPA's research study concluded that
nutrient enrichment was the primary factor
in the decline of SAV beds in the Bay. By fuel-
ing the growth of algae, nutrients cause a
decrease in water clarity and an increase in
the number of organisms that grow on the
leaves of the plants. Both of these responses,
in turn, cause a decrease in life-giving light
available to the vegetation. Suspended sedi-
ments also block light, contributing to the
decline of SAV.
What's Being Done to Save the Bay?
Along with the control of nutrients and
toxics, the 1987 Bay Agreement calls for
action on many other fronts to safeguard
Eving resources, to protect tidal and non-
tidal wetlands, to broaden the participa-
tion of local governments and the public
in the restoration program, to strengthen
efforts to manage population growth and
development, and to begin or continue
dozens of other activities that will con-
tribute to the preservation and protection
of the Bay.
Implementation of the Agreement is
building on the progress already achieved
in the past decade. Millions of dollars have
been invested in improved treatment of
sewage and industrial wastes. Thousands
of farmers have put into practice "best
management practices" to fceep animal
wastes, chemical fertilizers, and toxic
pesticides from the waters of the Chesa-
peake system. Builders have accepted as
standard practice the use of techniques to
prevent erosion of eonstrutipn sites that
sends sediment into streams and the Bay,
These steps are encouraging, but the
challenging agenda set Forth in the Bay
Agreement demonstrates that the restora-
tion program has far to go. Decades of
environmental abuse and over-use of the
Bay are not readily reversed. Population
growth in the watershed (an overall 20 per-
cent increase projected by the year 2020)
will add considerably to the environmen-
tal stress on the Bay and challenge and test
the will and commitment of governments
and the public for years to come.
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Role of the Federal Government
EPA established a Chesapeake Bay Liaison
Office in Annapolis in 1984 to coordinate
cleanup initiatives of federal and state agen-
cies. Amendments to the Clean Water Act
enacted in 1987 made maintenance of the
Liaison Office a matter of law and directed
the agency to continue its ongoing assessment
and reporting on Bay problems. The 1987
legislation also authorized EPA to spend up
to $13 million a year on Bay activities, with
most of that money going into matching
grants that help fund state programs.
Through its Liaison Office, EPA provides
administrative and technical support to the
network of regional committees, subcommit-
tees and work groups that runs the Bay Pro-
gram under the overall direction of the Ches-
apeake Executive Council. Under the terms
of the 1987 Agreement, the Administrator of
EPA represents the federal government on the
Council. The other Council members are the
governors of Pennsylvania, Maryland and
Virginia, the mayor of the District of Col-
umbia, and the chairman of the Chesapeake
Bay Commission.
Along with other support activities,
EPA's Liaison Office maintains a computer
center for the entire Bay Program. Informa-
tion gathered from monitoring stations up
and down the Bay and along its major
tributaries is reviewed, processed, and ana-
lyzed at the center. Monitoring data also are
used in building mathematical models used
to estimate pollution loads and project the
impact on Bay water quality of various con-
trol alternatives.
EPA has supported public information,
education and participation activities in the
Bay basin since 1977 through grants to the
Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay, a non-profit
federation of citizen groups, business enter-
prises and other organizations active since
1971 in stimulating support for the preser-
vation of the Bay. Since 1984, these grants
also have funded the Alliance's citizen
monitoring program along selected tribu-
taries and administrative support for the
Chesapeake Executive Council's Citizen Ad-
visory Committee (CAC).
The CAC had a significant role in the
development and public review of the 1987
Bay Agreement and continues to provide a
cross-section of citizen opinion on restora-
tion plans and policies.
EPA also funds the program's Scientific
and Technical Advisory Committee and a
new panel, the Local Government Advisory
Committee, which was formed in 1988 to
carry out an Agreement commitment aimed
at broadening participation in the program
among Bay basin governing bodies.
EPA's national environmental programs
—including Superfund, hazardous waste
management requirements, ground water
protection, wastewater treatment regulations,
and air quality standards — also contribute to
the protection of the Bay.
Other federal agencies cooperate in the
Bay Program, generally working under for-
mal written agreements with EPA. Their Bay-
related programs reach every part of the
watershed. Participating agencies include the
Soil Conservation Service, Forest Service,
Agricultural Stabilization and Conservation
Service, and Cooperative Extension Service
of the Department of Agriculture; the Fish
and Wildlife Service and the Geological
Survey, Department of the Interior; the Na-
tional Oceanic and Atmospheric Administra-
tion, Department of Commerce; the Depart-
ment of Defense and, under a separate agree-
ment, the Army and its Corps of Engineers.
Interior's National Park Service and the
National Highway Administration and Coast
Guard in the Department of Transportation
also participate in the Bay Program but have
not entered into formal agreements with
EPA.
The roles these agencies play in the Bay
Program are as varied as the programs they
administer. Here's a sampling of the federal
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activities under way in support of the restora-
tion of the Bay:
Fish and Wildlife Service. FWS efforts
focus on the living resources of the Bay and
their habitat. The agency's wide-ranging
research program includes studies of migra-
tory birds, nutrient dynamics, contaminants
and submerged aquatic vegetation (SAV). Its
SAV program also includes monitoring,
transplanting, field guide development and
education.
Working with Maryland and Virginia,
FWS has raised, tagged and released more
than 1,000,000 striped bass since 1985 as part
of the program to restore this traditional
fishery.
The agency spends about $1 million a year
on restoration and protection activities and
related public education and information
projects.
Soil Conservation Service. SCS was the
first Agriculture Department agency to be-
come an active partner in the Bay program.
Working through state and local soil and
water conservation districts, SCS provides
technical and financial assistance to indi-
vidual farmers and public and private
organizations.
The agency has assigned 31 people and
budgeted more than $1 million a year to a
special Bay support effort, supplementing a
staff of more than 200 people and an annual
allocation of $12.5 million for ongoing pro-
grams directly related to water quality in the
Bay watershed.
SCS provides technical expertise to train
state and local conservation staffs and to
develop standards, specifications and guide-
lines for agricultural practices that reduce
amounts of nitrogen and phosphorus reach-
ing the Bay. An SCS staff member has been
assigned to EPA's Chesapeake Bay Liaison
Office since 1984 to coordinate Agency ac-
tivities Baywide. Another staff member as-
sists with development of Bay computer
models at the Liaison Office.
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Ad-
ministration. NOAA's Estuarine Program
Office spends about $1.5 million annually on
fisheries stock assessment, the improvement
of fisheries statistics, oxygen depletion
studies, data management and other pro-
grams specific to the Bay restoration.
Another $2 million a year funds Bay-
related research by NOAA Sea Grant pro-
grams in Maryland and Virginia. The Bay
restoration also benefits from $4 million a
year NOAA channels to coastal resources
programs of these two states and agency
funding for research on shad, striped bass
and river herring. NOAA also participates in
Bay monitoring, modeling, and data manage-
ment programs. A NOAA staff member
works full time with Bay living resources
programs.
Army Corps of Engineers. CoE has a lead
role in the development of a new generation,
time-variable computer model that will gen-
erate highly sophisticated projections of the
effects population growth and alternative en-
vironmental actions would have upon the
water quality of the Bay. Other Corps pro-
grams specific to the Bay include Hydrilla
management in the Potomac River, an ex-
amination of the potential of reservoirs as a
means of maintaining freshwater flows at
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levels beneficial to estuarine habitats, and
shoreline protection studies.
CoE exercises authority over dredge and
fill proposals affecting wetlands, carries out
research related to dredging and the use of
dredged materials, and performs site specific
and comprehensive water quality planning.
The Corps is responsible for the design and
construction of facilities for the Army, which
has a number of major installations in the
Bay watershed.
Department of Defense. DoD has an ex-
tensive program under way to carry out rec-
ommendations produced in a comprehensive
study of its 66 Bay area installations and their
potential to pollute. Remedial work is aimed
at effective management of hazardous and
toxic materials, increased monitoring of con-
ventional and toxic pollutants, and systematic
evaluations of pollutants reaching the Bay or
tributaries in runoff from DoD facilities.
Other Bay-related Defense projects in-
clude cleanup of abandoned waste sites, up-
grades of wastewater treatment plants, train-
ing of treatment plant operators, programs
to preserve undeveloped lands, and the im-
plementation of "best management practices"
to protect wetlands, forests, and other natural
resources.
Geological Survey. USGS regularly mon-
itors water quality and flow volumes in major
tributaries at the "fall line" —the boundary
between the coastal plain and the piedmont
region. These data help characterize and
measure pollutants that come to the Bay from
the upper parts of the watershed. The agency
also is evaluating the results achieved from
agricultural and urban "best management
practices." USGS spends about $1.4 million
a year on Bay programs.
Forest Service. Bay programs of this
newest member of the state/federal partner-
ship will ensure a continuing focus on the
major role trees can play in protecting and
preserving shorelines and preventing pollut-
ants from reaching streams and the Bay. The
agency manages three national forests in the
basin and provides financial and technical
assistance to support forestry programs of
states, municipalities and private land
owners. The Service assigned a forester to the
Bay Program in mid-1989 to foster closer
coordination with related agencies.
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The Course
Ahead
"When will rockfish be plentiful again?" ...
"Will redhead ducks return to the Bay some
day?" ... "Are oyster harvests ever going to
improve?" .. . "Will the shad come back?"
There are thousands of questions that
could be asked about the future of the Bay—
questions that environmental scientists sim-
ply cannot answer completely now.
Commitments written into the 1987
Agreement range over the gamut of concerns
about the Bay and its tributaries, but there
are still many unknowns in the environmen-
tal equation that defines the Bay ecosystem.
The significance of toxic contamination Bay-
wide is still a question mark. The long-term
effectiveness of measures to control con-
taminants from farm fields, city pavements
and other nonpoint sources has yet to be fully
assessed. Changes achieved through cleanup
actions must be sorted out from natural
variations in water quality and fish and
shellfish populations that occur from year to
year.
Continued research, monitoring, and
practical experience should in time make up
much of the shortfall in current knowledge
of the Bay system. But complete answers will
not come quickly. Meanwhile, the cleanup ef-
fort will pursue the course already charted
on the basis of past research. There is no
question, for example, that excess nutrients
cause an overabundance of algae that rob
other species of oxygen they must have to sur-
vive. And there is equal certainty that popula-
tion growth in the watershed will make it all
the harder to staunch the flow of nutrients
to the Bay unless growth is carefully managed
to control its impact on the environment. In
short, restoration of the Bay is not so much
a question of WHAT must be done but
WHO will do it and HOW will the costs be
paid.
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Role of the
Public
The Bay Agreement recognizes that the "un-
derstanding and support of the general public
and interest groups are essential to sustain-
ing the long-term commitment to the restora-
tion and protection of the Chesapeake Bay
system and its living resources."
EPA's funding support for the Alliance
for the Chesapeake Bay is an important
mechanism for offering Bay information to
the public and bringing citizen comment and
opinion to the government agencies involved
in the cleanup.
In addition to its publications and spon-
sorship of workshops, conferences and other
public meetings, the Alliance operates the
Chesapeake Regional Information Service
(CRIS), a toll-free telephone facility that of-
fers up-to-date information on Bay Program
events and topics over a wide range of Bay
issues.
Other private organizations and public
agencies throughout the Chesapeake basin
also are active in providing information about
the Bay Program and encouraging direct
public participation in the restoration effort.
For More Information
There are many sources throughout the
Chesapeake region where individuals
or organizations can obtain publica-
tions, arrange for speakers, or get
answers to questions about the restora-
tion of the Bay.
For more information about the
Bay Program, scheduled meetings, or
other current activities, call the
Chesapeake Regional Information
Service toll-free by dialing
1-800-662-CRIS.
For additional information about
EPA's role in the Bay restoration, call
or write:
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Chesapeake Bay Program
410 Severn Avenue
Annapolis, MD 21403
301-266-6873
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