Republicans against the Chesapeake Bay
Save the Bay? No way! Virginia Republican Congressmen Bob Goodlatte, Randy Forbes, and Scott Rigell support cutting off federal funding to clean up the Chesapeake Bay.
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February 24th, 2011 at 5:25 am
I have to point out that Rep. Rob Wittman voted correctly. He is a good advocate for the Chesapeake Bay. Rigell could learn a thing or two from him.
So now Rigell is on record voting against the Bay and voting against homeless veterans. The 2nd will be a swing district for Obama in 2012. If we can field a good candidate, those bad votes can come back to haunt Rigell.
February 24th, 2011 at 6:55 am
Eileen: Credit where credit is due to Rep. Whittman. His lifetime LCV is 26%, which is good for a Republican. For comparison, see Rep. Forbes lifetime LCV of 4%. Rep. Rigell is on track to be a single digit midget.
February 25th, 2011 at 9:08 am
Be careful when mis-characterizing this issue and this vote. The Chesapeake Bay “pollution diet” – or TMDL – is a hugely complex subject. It’s more complex than even those that think it is complex can imagine.
Besides being an enormously expensive measure to those evil developers, and putting a mostly un-accountable (to the voters) federal authority in charge of massively onerous restrictions on everything from development to grass to green roofs to bulkheads to fertilizer, it also creates a largely unfunded mandate to the localities. What, for instance, does the City of Virginia Beach do in the case of Pembroke Mall, developed before the CBPA Ordinance and generating a significant pollutant loading into Thalia Creek?
Does that pollutant load get added to the City’s TMDL, as it was lawfully entering the Bay as of the original passage of the CBPA Ordinance, which does nothing for the Bay?
Does that pollutant load get deducted from the City’s TMDL, forcing them to be more restrictive in other areas?
Does the City have to design and construct some sort of pollutant management facility at taxpayer expense?
Does the City have the authority to demand that the Mall owners – without an active redevelopment project under consideration – retrofit their hard surfaces to meet an arbitrary TMDL, at significant expense in terms of both dollars and physical land?
There are no easy answers to this problem, and a vote against the EPA funding is not the same thing as “voting against the Bay”. But I guess that’s what makes it a perfect topic for demagoguery here at vbdems.
February 25th, 2011 at 2:30 pm
Rep. Goodlatte’s amendmant specifically prevents the EPA from reducing pollution in the Chesapeake Bay. How is that not “voting against the Bay?”.
In other news, the General Assembly passed a bipartisan bill supported by developers, homebuilders, and turf managers to ban phosphorus from lawn fertilizers and require golf courses to control fertilizer runoff.
March 14th, 2011 at 7:53 am
David, it’s obvious that you’re willing to characterize every issue as black versus white for the sake of a sound byte, a catchy headline, or an item to demagogue. It really does your cause damage when it comes to those who would otherwise engage in a rational conversation.
I asked what I believe is a very fair and reasonable question, and provided four possible scenarios, and all I get from you is a childish rhetorical.
Unrealistic and arbitrary “pollution diet” limits which are based on questionable scientific models, and which are just a directive forced down from some federal or state bureaucratic agencies “on high”, do the Bay no better than wishing very hard that the pollutant fairy will come by and wave her magic wand.
March 14th, 2011 at 10:25 am
Open Minded: “Aye or No” votes in Congress are “either/or,” “black or white.”
Rep. Goodlatte’s amendment:
How is cutting off all federal funding for cleanup efforts not “against the Chesapeake Bay?”
For decades, Virginia has consistently failed to achieve what it has agreed to do to clean up the Chesapeake Bay. The science is extremely sound. The pollution diet is the culmination of decades of scientific research, public debate, and broad consensus. It is legally mandated by federal and Virginia law and court-approved settlement agreements. Even Republican Gov. McDonnell called the plan “rigorous but workable.”
It calls for a 25% reduction in nitrogen, 24% reduction in phosphorus and 20% reduction in sediment by 2025. It would provide federal funding to upgrade wastewater treatment plants and municipal storm water systems and to provide assistance to farmers to improve their agricultural practices. I don’t believe it would affect Pembroke Mall.
All I get from you is personal insults.
March 14th, 2011 at 8:12 pm
Personally, I am convinced that federal involvement is necessary to clean up the Bay. A few states contribute to the problem, not just Maryland and Virginia. For example, the watershed of the Susquehanna River, which drains into the northern end of the bay, provides half of its freshwater input. The river’s watershed drains 27,500 square miles covering half of Pennsylvania, significant portions of Upstate New York as well as some of Maryland.
If not everyone contributing to the problem makes a serious effort, even the best of efforts by others will be wasted. Pennsylvania and New York might not be as motivated to clean up the bay as might be Virginia and Maryland (they do not border on it).
I am not an expert and I have not formed on opinion on whether proposed regulation of run-off is realistic. I do have a firm belief that everyone contributing to the problem should be forced to play by the same set of rules, and to achieve that the feds have to be involved.
March 14th, 2011 at 9:37 pm
Wow, David. You can read the third paragraph of a 14-page Executive Summary on the EPA website. Sadly, that doesn’t make you an informed contributor. Your comment above is exactly the kind of short-sighted quip about which I wrote. Work a little harder to educate yourself before making your silly statements.
Cities and counties in the Chesapeake Bay watershed won’t be able to meet the TMDL’s by regulating wastewater discharge and farms alone. Tougher restrictions on urban stormwater runoff will have to make up the difference. That’s the runoff from developed sites after a rainfall which carries motor oil, fertilizer, sediments, and other pollutants into the Bay. One of the key initiatives included in Virginia’s WIP is “stormwater retrofits on developed land” and that doesn’t happen for free.
Pembroke Mall, opened in 1966, is generating a significant pollutant loading into the Bay. That stormwater runoff was legal and unregulated at the time of construction, but the pollutants become an important component of the City’s allocated TMDL. When the EPA and, in Virginia, the DCR, impose an arbitrary total loading for the City, the pollutant loading from the Mall could be “grandfathered” as existing pollutants which won’t be managed until the Mall redevelops, which does nothing to improve the health of the Bay. Otherwise, the pollutants from the Mall are included in the City’s allocated TMDL, and we’re left with the other three options I described above.
I would say that even the current stormwater regulations for redevelopment stand as a considerable barrier to the redevelopment of existing construction. Anything more than pavement maintenance or parking lot re-striping requires a 10% reduction of pollutant-laden runoff from the project area. The considerations of costs and land dedicated to stormwater management are onerous enough to render many redevlopment projects cost-prohibitive. I write this with the full knowledge that, even now, plans are underway for a significant reconstruction project at Pembroke Mall which will add a new anchor tenant. I expect that’s on the drawing board now because the Mall owners have realized that such a project would be almost impossible once the TMDL’s become effective in 2014, and especially in 2017 when the almost-inevitable backstops are enacted.
If you “don’t believe it would affect Pembroke Mall” then you just don’t understand the issue. Pembroke Mall will affect the City’s TMDL and the City’s TMDL will affect Pembroke Mall and both will affect the pocketbooks of the of the citizens of Virginia Beach in ways that nobody can predict. The County of York, for example, has estimated that their cost of compliance in 2014 will be $40 billion. For Virgina Beach? Hundreds of millions of dollars.
In a period of just six months, the EPA collected over 14,000 comments from 45 days of public hearings, compiled over 3,000 pages of comment responses, and now have finalized a TMDL for a 64,000-square-mile drainage area and are ready to implement a half-baked plan in 2014 which will have us 60% to the goal by 2017. Who are they trying to kid? This isn’t Health Care Reform, for crying out loud. This issue needs a little thought.
I understand it’s difficult for you to keep up with all the issues, especially the scientific ones, and craft them into your catchy headlines which fit your template of Republican demagoguery. You should really try a little harder to educate yourself before wading into the deep water; otherwise your unrestricted willingness to blast away with your partisan rhetoric betrays your intent. Better luck next time.
March 14th, 2011 at 9:50 pm
Little David, you wrote you haven’t formed an opinion on whether proposed regulation of runoff is realistic. Regulation of stormwater runoff from new development and redevelopment projects has been the law of the land in Virginia since 1988.
The jurisdictional review of construction projects is the most appropriate time to impose stormwater management regulations, and one opportunity when the legislative authority to impose new restrictions is undeniable. Unlike going to an existing developed property and telling the owner they have to clean up their act for stormwater – I repeat, stormwater – which was previously, legally, running off the property.
March 14th, 2011 at 9:59 pm
York County, $40 million. Not billion.
March 15th, 2011 at 6:52 am
The Goodlatte amendment cut off all federal funding to help clean up the Chesapeake Bay. I called that a vote “against the Chesapeake Bay.” Please explain how that isn’t “against the Chesapeake Bay.”
In Virginia, the primary focus of the spending would be upgrading wastewater treatment plants. As you said “that isn’t free.” It can’t be done without the federal funding that the Goodlatte amendment slashed. Without it, the burden shifts entirely onto the states and localities. “Nobody can predict” the costs to localities (except, apparently, you). Can you predict the economic consequences of a dead Chesapeake Bay compared to a healthy Chesapeake Bay?
Your comment 02/25/2011 was about the existing Pembroke Mall, which would not be affected. In your comment 03/14/2011, you pulled a bait-and-switch to a proposed new development at Pembroke Mall, which, of course, would be subject to stormwater runoff regulations for new construction.
The science is absolutely solid. The Clean Water Act requires it. There has been broad bipartisan agreement about what needs to be done. Virginia and the other states in the watershed under Governors of both parties have made agreements for 30 years but have not fulfilled their committments.
“We feel it is a stringent but workable plan that demonstrates Virginia’s commitment to cleaning up the Chesapeake Bay while providing for continued economic growth in the Commonwealth.” – Republican Governor McDonnell (partisan hack?)
“I am disturbed and disappointed to learn of the budget amendment that you [Goodlatte] introduced.” Republican Del. Morgan, Chairman of the Virginia House of Delegates Committee on Agriculture, Chesapeake, and Natural Resources (partisan hack?)
The impact of the Goodlatte amendment, according to Doug Siglin, Federal Affairs Director for the Chesapeake Bay Foundation (uninformed?)
March 15th, 2011 at 7:55 am
“The Goodlatte amendment cut off all funding to help clean up the Chesapeake Bay”. That’s patently inaccurate, and you’re just embarrassing yourself.
The very CBF document you linked to states that “about 80%” of the $491 million is earmarked for the new methodologies of TMDL’s and WIP’s. Let’s pause for a second…half a BILLION Federal dollars spent, more or less, on an Executive Order. Later, the same document says the amendment “would prohibit the disbursement of over $300 million” so there’s roughly $150 million or so still allocated outside the TMDL / WIP methods. Existing programs, arguably inadequate, will remain funded at existing or higher levels.
Here’s a news flash, David. We don’t have the money to spend. A $1.4 billion deficit means that we need to tighten our collective belt. You’ve never met anybody more interested in the health of the Chesapeake Bay than me, but this ain’t the way to get there.
March 15th, 2011 at 8:33 am
According to the Chesapeake Bay Foundation (which I believe may be “more interested in the health of the Chesapeake Bay” than you), the Goodlatte amendment “encompass[es] nearly every federal dollar going to Bay restoration activities in fiscal year 2011.”
Please enlighten us all about “the way to get there” without “money to spend.” Perhaps “the pollutant fairy will come by and wave her magic wand.”
March 15th, 2011 at 9:29 am
I understand why you’re confused. The CBF nearly contradicts itself in an effort to create a crisis on page one of the memo. And they use big boy words.
“Nearly every Federal dollar” on page one becomes “about 80% of these funds” ($393 of $491 million?) on the top of page two and “more than $300 million” by page four. We’re talking about the same money, and depending on your level of precision, all are accurate. But which is it?
The bottom line is that there are existing and ongoing (and, I repeat, arguably inadequate) functions of Bay cleanup that aren’t affected by this amendment. I’d say somewhere between $98 million and $191 million, dependent on the interpretations of “about 80%” and “more than $300 million”.
Keep setting them up, but it’s getting less and less interesting for me to knock them down.
March 15th, 2011 at 9:50 am
As someone who is supposedly “more interested in the health of the Chesapeake Bay” than anyone I have ever met, you still haven’t told us your plan for “the way to get there” without any “money to spend.”
March 15th, 2011 at 10:54 am
Well, look at that, Clarence. We’ve finally arrived at a rational and perhaps worthwhile discussion. It only took 15 comments, you accusing me of a bait-and-switch, offering false choices about “a dead Bay”, and (I guess intentionally, as the memo inferred) misinterpreting the figures in a memo from the CBF. I sure played my part, with plenty of accusations of childish rhetoric and ignorance.
One solution to the problem would be to pass a law for every property owner from Virginia Beach to northern New York to un-develop about 25% of their property and convert that impervious area back to vegetation. Unfortunately, that plan is only a little less realistic than the TMDL, but legislators voting against it would still give you the opportunity to write that they “voted against the Chesapeake Bay!!”
There are plenty of measures with regard to my field, primarily urban stormwater runoff, to be evaluated. The City of Virginia Beach has many lakes and ponds which could function as a BMP with a proper outlet control structure or maybe some dredging from the bottom. There’s a potential way to treat the stormwater runoff from existing developments in the bottom of each and every existing drainage structure, but unfortunately that’s not a method which has been classified by the DCR at a specific pollutant removal capacity. Existing BMP’s might need a minor tweak or some major maintenance to get back to the pollutant removal abilities that they had when they were installed, some as many as 20 years ago. Addressing only the new development and redevelopment projects isn’t going to get us there; there needs to be some cooperative effort of addressing the built environment (i.e. Pembroke and Lynnhaven Malls) because that’s where the lion’s share of the pollutants are coming from. One problem is that each BMP has to be rated for a pollutant removal efficiency by the EPA and DCR, and that figure could be wildly inaccurate depending on many factors. Converting an existing pond to a BMP could do a world of good for the health of the Bay, but it may not rank anywhere on the EPA’s credit list. Too bad.
The potential measures regarding wastewater discharge and farmlands offer significant opportunities as well, some of which have already been underway for a long time.
There are several conversations to have, and luckily you’re probably not going to meet anybody that’s actually “against the Chesapeake Bay” (though you’ll probably continue searching). We disagree on methods and models. It’s worth the discussion.
March 15th, 2011 at 12:24 pm
Don’t all current ponds and drainage ditches already serve (to a certain extent) to reduce stormwater runoff? It would be a good idea to take the measures you have described to restore or improve their efficiency in retaining pollutants. Urban stormwater management is an element of the EPA plan.
We are also in agreement that “potential measures regarding wastewater discharge and farmlands also offer significant opportunities.”
Unfortunately, federal EPA funding in the current fiscal year for those measures was slashed by Virginia Rep. Goodlatte’s amendment with the support of most House Republicans (including Virginia Rep. Forbes and Rep. Rigell). It is true that nobody actually says they are “against the Chesapeake Bay,” but certain people always seem to obstruct doing anything to clean it up.
March 16th, 2011 at 7:21 pm
Open Minded,
OK, I guess I should have said proposed INCREASED regulation of runoff.
I bow to your knowledge on this subject, but I sure wish you would identify what all the acronyms you throw around stand for.
March 17th, 2011 at 6:05 am
EPA – Environmental Protection Agency, the feds
DCR – Department of Conservation & Recreation, the enforcer in Virginia
TMDL – total maximum daily load, the “pollution diet” for the Bay to be arbitrarily imposed by the EPA on all 6 states and DC within the Bay watershed
WIP – watershed implementation plan, a plan to be developed by each locality to meet their allocated TMDL (i.e. unfunded mandate)
CBPA – either Chesapeake Bay Preservation Area, or the CBP Act, the original federal legislation passed in 1988
CBF – the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, a political organization which is a strident supporter and promoter of Bay cleanup and overall Bay health
BMP – best management practice, a method of development (not necessarily a built stormwater control, it could be a low-density subdivision) which employs the best available technologies and techniques to reduce stormwater runoff and pollution. sometimes misinterpreted as “big muddy pond”
SWMF – stormwater management facility – a constructed BMP to control stormwater flow rate and pollutants. Many people usually say “BMP” when we mean “SWMF”
March 31st, 2011 at 4:34 am
Update: PilotOnline reports that The Hampton Roads Planning District Commission is meeting to discuss the local costs of complying with the Environmental Protection Agency’s plan to restore the bay. Evidently this is part of considerations to file a legal challenge to the plan.
According to a comment on the piece:
Date: Thursday, March 31, 2011
Time: 9:30 am
The Regional Building
723 Woodlake Drive
Chesapeake, VA 23320
The entire PilotOnline piece can be found here:
http://hamptonroads.com/2011/03/panel-consider-bay-cleanup-chesapeake-meeting
April 13th, 2011 at 4:34 am
UPDATE: Rep. Goodlatte’s amendment to eliminate federal funding to clean up the Chesapeake Bay was not included in the budget compromise deal.
March 14th, 2012 at 10:38 pm
Chesapeake Bay Cleanup Can Be Done for Far Less
Rather than spend billions more on sewage treatment plant upgrades. Programs that are of questionable benefit. Instead, dramatic upgrade of Chesapeake Bay water quality can be accomplished faster and much less expensively by removing flood plain dikes, dams, and obstructing pipelines. And enlarging those roadway culverts that currently restrict twice daily tidal flows to invaluable marshland.
And simply by doing any necessary navigation channel dredging by pipeline dredge. And depositing those dredge spoils, by pipeline, on long intertidal slopes just seaward of certain bulkheads and eroded shorelines nearby. Saving hundreds of millions of dollars, involved in transporting navigation channel dredge spoils and placement in US Army Corps of Engineers’ (USACE) vertical dredge spoil sites such as Craney and Popular Islands,
As well as saving future monies planned for other, questionably effective, rehabilitation programs. Like oyster reefs, sewage treatment plant upgrades and Bacterra and Filterra Storm Water Filters. Saving, literally billions of dollars.
Government should rely less on sewage treatment plant upgrades and more on Mother Nature’s sewage treatment program…eg, healthy stands of intertidal Spartina Alterniflora marshes. To decontaminate spilled sewage. And doing so, without the use of deadly (at least to phytoplankton and zooplankton) chlorine.
We should cancel the installation of those multimillion dollar Bacterra and Filterra storm water filters as they are designed to be bypassed (in times of heavy sanitary sewer overflows) during heavy rains and during storm surges. And instead let the new living shoreline marsh grasses do it better and cheaper. Saving billions of borrowed dollars.
Note: Breaux Tidal Marshland restoration projects in Louisiana …that is pipeline dredging of shipping channels in the Mississippi River and placement of dredge spoils, on a long 1:6 intertidal slope immediately seaward of eroded shorelines so as to reestablish fringe marshes. Within one year, with minimal marsh grass planting. And without rip rap sills, new living shorelines can be established (reestablished)’. Living shorelines. Note: the sediment, turbidity and pollution in the Mississippi River far exceeds that of the Chesapeake Bay watershed. And if hydraulic pipeline dredge projects have worked in the Mississippi River, surely they can work in the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries.
And see: NASA’s BC Wolverton’s studies…the ‘new (living shoreline) marshes can remove sediment, nitrogen, phosphorous, raw sewage, Hepatitis A viral particles, heavy metals and fecal coliform bacteria from the waters that flow through them. And the microorganisms that thrive in the spartina alterniflora root network can degrade the benzene (gasoline) and PCB molecules that are filtered through this network. During twice daily tidal cycles. Accordingly, water clarity is markedly improved and thus the ability to grow submerged aquatic vegetation is enhanced!
Using the above proven watershed rehabilitation programs, the Chesapeake Bay watershed rehabilitation could be done much, much better than currently planned programs. And much faster. And it could be done for one tenth the cost. And it could be done without borrowed dollars!
George Meredith MD
Virginia Beach
March 17th, 2012 at 4:16 pm
Now you did it George, the environmentalists are going to start demanding we include all your ideas in everything else we are already doing because we can always do more.
The above was an attempt at humor, but I thank you for your ideas. I do not know if your ideas would bear fruit, but I am grateful that people who seem to know more then me are giving this subject some thoughts. I do support the clean up of the Bay. I am also sobered at the projections of the costs. Any ideas that can help make it more affordable I think should be explored.
Is it because of votes on the Cleanup the Bay issue that Scott Rigell was given an F on the water quality issue?
March 18th, 2012 at 8:45 am
I have no idea whether or not Dr. Meredith knows what he is talking about. Riparian buffers and restoration of natural shorelines are already part of the plan. It seems highly doubtful to me that sewage treatment plant upgrades should not be part of the solution, assuming that dumping untreated raw sewage into the Chesapeake Bay isn’t a good thing.
The cost of cleaning the Chesapeake Bay has risen and will continue to rise as long as we delay action.
Rep. Rigell’s F report card grade on water quality was based on his voting record in favor of clean water on just 3 out of the 12 key votes that are listed in the report. On the more comprehensive LCV scores, Rep. Rigell voted in favor of the environment just 17% of the time on 35 of the key votes that are described in the scorecard. That is a horrible record on the environment, compared to the 90% by the previous incumbent Rep. Nye.
March 18th, 2012 at 9:43 am
Yeah, but of those 12 key votes, how many of them were related to the Bay?
You are assuming that if the “upgrades” are not made, then that means raw sewage will be being pumped into the bay. Well, if we are talking “upgrades” that would seem to indicate some treatment already exists and we would only be adding improved treatments, not starting from scratch.
I will admit that my level of knowledge on this is lacking. I’d like to learn more, but I’d like to hear from both sides. From what I have been exposed to thus far, I think both sides make valid points.
March 19th, 2012 at 4:00 pm
This particular post was about one specific Republican effort to cut off federal funding to clean up the Chesapeake Bay.
At another post, Rep. Rigell flunked a water quality report card on 12 votes. Two of those were directly related to the Bay.
On the broader overall LCV scorecard, Rep. Rigell supported the environment 17% of the time on 35 specific votes.
About 20% of the pollution in the Chesapeake Bay is due to sewage treatment plants that are currently operating below federal standards. Sometimes, when conditions exceed capacity, raw sewage is dumped directly into the Bay.
March 19th, 2012 at 9:56 pm
But I have witnessed that Scott is trying to address the clean up the bay effort. His concerns on this issue might mimic my own. If you are not familiar with it, the issue is TMDL (Total Maximum Daily Load). You’re attempting to sidestep the real issues and saying that by bringing this issue into question, the questioner is in favor of pumping raw sewage into the bay.
I believe this issue is more complicated then that. It is not a matter of being in favor of raw sewage or being against it. The issue is much more complicated then you let on.
March 20th, 2012 at 3:00 pm
You are mixing two different issues.
First, what is Rep. Rigell doing to clean up the Chesapeake Bay? All I have “witnessed” is obstruction.
Second, Dr. Meredith has argued that sewage treatment plant upgrades are completely unnecessary.
March 23rd, 2012 at 5:25 pm
Well perhaps Dr Meredith could come back and further explain what he meant.
I took his post to mean that there were cheaper alternatives to the “costs be damned” efforts to clean up the bay.
I do not believe I am mixing up the issues, not if you want to look at different efforts to clean up the bay as being part of a greater whole.
I am less familiar with this topic then I am on others. I am aware though that the bay needs help. I am also aware that the costs to society might be prohibitively expensive if all of them are enacted. I guess thus far I am in favor of improvement, however I feel that pristine is an unrealistically expensive goal.
March 24th, 2012 at 2:21 pm
The longer we continue to delay, the more it will cost.
March 24th, 2012 at 6:08 pm
Yeah, and the longer I delay buying that Rolls Royce the more it is going to cost too. But the reality is that I can not afford the Rolls Royce today or tomorrow.
March 25th, 2012 at 1:10 pm
It is more like delaying a repair for your brakes. You can put it off if as long as you want, but it may eventually get you killed.
March 25th, 2012 at 6:46 pm
Yeah, but when I get my brakes repaired, I do not insist on gold plating on the brake shoes. I do believe that there are differences in the quality of brake shoes though. I prefer OEM because they seem to last longer and I am willing to pay a slightly higher price to get the guaranteed quality.
As for the bay? I want improved quality, but some environmentalists seem to want pristine and I am not willing to pay any price to get it.
An example of absurdity is spending large amounts of effort to protect coastal wetlands. We already know that sea levels are going to rise. What today are coastal wetlands will become permanently flooded and lose their filtering benefit. It seems to me that protecting these wetlands are wasteful. You can point to how this is just justification for why we must reduce greenhouse gasses, but it is my understanding that even if greenhouse gas emissions were reduced to sustainable levels overnight, we would still see sea level rise from that which has already been introduced into the environment.
March 26th, 2012 at 8:12 am
Dr. Meredith is the one saying we can rely solely on coastal wetlands.
I don’t think sewage treatment plants that meet current federal standards is too much to ask.
March 26th, 2012 at 4:51 pm
You motivated me to do a little searching on the subject while I was sitting here in Missouri getting unloaded.
Here is a link that claims wastewater treatment plant improvements might have actually done more harm then good. Improvements included increased capacity which enabled more development.
http://www.virginiaplaces.org/chesbay/savethebay.html
The link might not provide much new info for you (David), but since I know so little about this I found it to be informative. Perhaps it will be helpful to others as well.
March 27th, 2012 at 3:26 pm
The link you provided is the opinion of a GMU geography professor.
According to the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, upgrading sewage treatment plants “is one of the most cost-effective ways to clean up the Bay.”
March 28th, 2012 at 3:29 pm
After examining the link you provided, I think the link I provided was better.
While upgrading wastewater treatments plants might seem to be cost effective, my link provides that this solution has unintended, unconsidered consequences. The real culprit with TMDL is erosion caused by uncontrolled development.
I do not wish to be insulting to you David, but it would seem that you need to become more informed if you are going to be the one to educate me. I am open to education, I need it if I am going to become an informed citizen and develop an informed opinion.
If you want to tell me to go do my own research, OK I can do that. But the danger would be that the voices I am going to hear are not going to include your side of the argument. Google is good, but Google is not perfect.
My personal goal is to save the bay. My goal is to keep the efforts both affordable and politically achievable. I am willing to accept we are not going to get back to pristine, just as long as our most cost effective efforts are enough to keep it from death.
Can we agree on common objectives or is that too extreme for you?
March 29th, 2012 at 6:36 pm
We share the goal of “saving the bay.” Upgrading sewage treatment plants is one of the most cost-effective ways of doing that. Do you propose ending future development, or is that too extreme for you?
April 2nd, 2012 at 9:31 am
No, not at all. I am also pleased that it sounds you are not proposing that.
However the link I gave makes it sound like silt being washed out into the the bay as a result of development, and not just during construction, is part of the problem. As it states, as the areas are developed, ground that could help soak up storm water is paved. Groundwater then is drained off in ditches eventually ending up in streams and rivers, leading to increased erosion due to increased water flow.
I think some of the steps being called for to cause this erosion is warranted, however perhaps it goes too far when it calls for steps to be taken if existing developed properties are only improved. Also, if we are going to make any steps effective, they need to be a group effort. All areas which are part of the bay’s watershed need to be included. Efforts also need to be reasonable enough that they are not politically unattainable, although stringent enough that they accomplish the goal.
May 10th, 2012 at 3:48 pm
This year, the Virginia Senate Bill 494 that would have authorized $300 million in bonds for sewage treatment plants passed the Senate unanimously (40-0) and passed the relevant House Committee unanimously (22-0), but then was killed by the Republican-dominated House Appropriations Committee subcommittee.