The Executive Council of the Chesapeake Bay Program has extended its cleanup deadlines for the bay with governors pushing for faster progress. In our weekly series with the Bay Journal Delmarva Public Media's Don Rush talks with reporter Jeremy Cox about what the new deadlines mean for the bay. The full interview can be heard on this Friday's Delmarva Today at noon on WSDL and WESM.
RUSH: The deadline for the Chesapeake Bay Watershed agreement has been extended. This is Don Rush. In a meeting this month, the executive council of the Chesapeake Bay program, had a full compliment of four governors and the mayor of DC on hand, who pushed for faster results. In our weekly series of Bay Journal, we talked with reporter Jeremy Cox about what was accomplished.
COX: So this extends number one, the deadline, the current deadline is set to expire at the end of this year for many of the outcomes in the current Bay Agreement, and this extends it to 2040. Number two is really the central part of the bay cleaned up is to reduce sediment and nutrient pollution for the sake of the deep waters of the bay to reduce the dead zones that you get because of the algae dying off. And this bay agreement doesn't actually set any targets for that. That's guided by a separate agreement. And what's interesting about this one is that it doesn't have any numbers, any numeric targets because that pollution diet, as it's called, is set to be greatly reworked in the next few years because of some updates to computer modeling. And eventually the parties came together and said, okay, we will come together in 2030 and set some new goals once we have these new models in hand.
RUSH: What kind of assessment did they have in terms of where they are in all of this? I know there was some achievement, or at least some of these programs are now on track. Others obviously are not.
COX: Of those original 31 outcomes in the 2014 agreement 18 have been, or are expected to be met. And that's a lot of things like public access and taking down dams that block fish passage and that sort of thing. But really a lot of the core issues like creating wetlands and the streamside buffers and of course the pollution targets for nutrients, sediment, those are a long way off and [there are] many reasons for that. Just population increase has made it difficult to reach a nutrient reduction targets... climate change is making it more difficult. So this is the fourth time that they've had a target for meeting goals and had to kick the can down the road, as it were.
RUSH: In terms of the environmental community, what has been their reaction? Chesapeake Bay Foundation, those folks, what do they see in terms of this revising, I guess it is of this program?
COX: They were really pushing for more ambition, quicker pace as the comprehensive evaluation report suggested more immediate proximal impacts to the shoreline in here than many contracts. They got some of what they wanted and some that they didn't. And I think a lot of groups now are trying to keep their powder dry, not to be openly at war, and generally positive comments. And there is a lot to like here in the agreement as far as they're concerned. Those are the things that they're trying to underscore right now. But if the next few years don't see the kind of speed and progress, I think you're going to see a return to the open criticism. But the problem is you're facing threats of population increase and climate change, increased industrialization of farming practices on Delmarva and elsewhere that [are] just kind of holding things steady as opposed to moving in a more of a reduction direction here.
RUSH: Bay Journal reporter, Jeremy Cox, the full interview can be heard on this Friday's Delmarva Today at noon on WSDL and WESM, this is Don Rush for Delmarva Public Media.
