[Senate Hearing 113-727]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 113-727
CHESAPEAKE BAY RESTORATION:
PROGRESS AND CHALLENGES
=======================================================================
FIELD HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON WATER AND WILDLIFE
of the
COMMITTEE ON
ENVIRONMENT AND PUBLIC WORKS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
SEPTEMBER 3, 2013--GRASONVILLE, MD
__________
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COMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENT AND PUBLIC WORKS
ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
BARBARA BOXER, California, Chairman
MAX BAUCUS, Montana DAVID VITTER, Louisiana
THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware JAMES M. INHOFE, Oklahoma
BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, Maryland JOHN BARRASSO, Wyoming
BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont JEFF SESSIONS, Alabama
SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, Rhode Island MIKE CRAPO, Idaho
TOM UDALL, New Mexico ROGER WICKER, Mississippi
JEFF MERKLEY, Oregon JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas
KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND, New York DEB FISCHER, Nebraska
MAZIE K. HIRONO, Hawaii
Bettina Poirier, Majority Staff Director
Zak Baig, Republican Staff Director
----------
Subcommittee on Water and Wildlife
BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, Maryland, Chairman
THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas
SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, Rhode Island JAMES M. INHOFE, Oklahoma
JEFF MERKLEY, Oregon JOHN BARRASSO, Wyoming
KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND, New York JEFF SESSIONS, Alabama
MAZIE K. HIRONO, Hawaii DEB FISCHER, Nebraska
BARBARA BOXER, California (ex DAVID VITTER, Louisiana (ex
officio) officio)
C O N T E N T S
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Page
SEPTEMBER 3, 2013
OPENING STATEMENTS
Cardin, Hon. Benjamin L., U.S. Senator from the State of Maryland 1
Vitter, Hon. David, U.S. Senator from the State of Louisiana,
prepared statement............................................. 72
Boozman, Hon. John, U.S. Senator from the State of Arkansas,
prepared statement............................................. 73
WITNESSES
Sarbanes, Hon. John P., U.S. Representative from the State of
Maryland....................................................... 4
DiPasquale, Nicholas, Director, Chesapeake Bay Program, U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency................................ 5
Prepared statement........................................... 8
Baker, William C., President, Chesapeake Bay Foundation.......... 31
Prepared statement........................................... 34
Spies, Paul, Agricultural Conservation Planner, Chester River
Association.................................................... 45
Prepared statement........................................... 48
Neuman, Laura, County Executive, Anne Arundel County, Maryland... 53
Prepared statement........................................... 57
CHESAPEAKE BAY RESTORATION: PROGRESS AND CHALLENGES
----------
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 3, 2013
U.S. Senate,
Committee on Environment and Public Works,
Subcommittee on Water and Wildlife,
Grasonville, MD.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 11 a.m. at the
Chesapeake Bay Environmental Center, Grasonville, Maryland,
Hon. Benjamin L. Cardin, chairman of the Subcommittee,
presiding.
Present: Senator Cardin.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. BENJAMIN L. CARDIN,
U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF MARYLAND
Senator Cardin. Let me welcome you all to the field hearing
of the Environment and Public Works Committee's Subcommittee on
Water and Wildlife.
I particularly want to thank Senator Boxer and Senator
Vitter and Senator Boozman for their help in arranging this
hearing. We have worked together on the Chesapeake Bay in our
Committee, and we have had several hearings related to the
health of the Chesapeake Bay. And I appreciate their
willingness to allow me to hold--this is actually our second
field hearing. We held one in 2009 in Annapolis, and this is
the second field hearing we have held on the status of the
Chesapeake Bay.
I particularly want to thank my colleague, John Sarbanes,
for being here. I think it is very appropriate that this
hearing is being held at the Chesapeake Bay Environmental
Center. I say that with Congressman Sarbanes here. This center
provides an educational experience for particularly young
people to understand what we need to do in order to protect the
Chesapeake Bay for future generations. Congressman Sarbanes has
been the leader in our State in recognizing that children need
to get out and understand the environmental responsibilities
that we all have. And I thank him for his leadership and I
thank him for being here today.
I have been involved with the Chesapeake Bay, I guess, my
entire political life, but I particularly cherish the times
that I spent with Governor Hughes in Maryland when he was
Governor of our State and really initiated the Chesapeake Bay
Program. It was started in Maryland as an understanding that
our Chesapeake Bay is critically important to the State of
Maryland, particularly important to our region, not just as an
environmental treasure as it is. It is a national treasure. It
is actually an international treasure as Presidents have
declared, but it is also critically important to our economy.
And we have documented just how significant that is.
The Chesapeake Bay was in serious, serious trouble. There
were parts of the coast that you did not even want to go near
because of the amount of pollution that we saw in the 1970s
when we first started this effort to clean up the Chesapeake
Bay. And I do applaud Governor Hughes for his leadership in
bringing together not just the State of Maryland but bringing
together other States, all the States in the region, engaging
the Federal Government, and particularly engaging the private
sector as we came together with a strategy to improve the
Chesapeake Bay. This hearing is going to concentrate on how far
we have come and how far we still need to go on cleaning up the
Chesapeake Bay.
We have two panels. One will include EPA, and I thank Mr.
DiPasquale for being here. We will have a second panel that
will deal with some of the principal stakeholders in our effort
with the Chesapeake Bay.
The University of Maryland's most recent Chesapeake report
card graded the Bay as a C, a marked improvement over the
previous year with a D+. The report card noted several
important indicators including decreased nitrogen and
phosphorus pollution, an improvement of water clarity and
dissolved oxygen. That is very important because it meant less
dead zones in the Chesapeake Bay. So today is an opportunity
celebrate those successes and to highlight the strong efforts
of all stakeholders, our farmers, our cities, our counties who
are working so hard to make a difference for the Chesapeake
Bay.
Now, the Chesapeake Bay help is critically important to our
ecology. It is important also to our economy. The Chesapeake
Bay Foundation estimates that the Bay is worth $1 trillion to
our fishing, tourism, properly values, and shipping activities.
Between just Maryland and Virginia, the commercial seafood
industry equals $2 billion in sales, $1 billion in income, and
more than 41,000 jobs per year.
But like most watersheds in this Nation, the Bay has had to
deal with challenges that come from a growing and expanding
population. It is just a great place to live. More people want
to live here. We are proud that people are coming from all over
the world to live in the Chesapeake Bay watershed. In the 30
years since the Chesapeake Bay Program started, the number of
people living in the watershed has exploded. The population of
the Chesapeake Bay watershed has grown from 12 million when the
program started to nearly 18 million residents today. That is a
50 percent increase.
With people come environmental challenges. Because of this
dramatic growth, the amount of impervious surfaces has
increased by about 100 percent during that same 30-year
timeframe.
Among the impacts of this increased regional growth is an
excess of nitrogen and phosphorus flowing into the Bay, causing
the concentration of dissolved oxygen in water to decrease to a
level that no longer supports living aquatic organisms,
creating vast dead zones.
The problems that plague the Bay are stark but they are not
unique. The same challenges exist in many of our watersheds
around the Nation from the Gulf of Mexico to the San Francisco
Bay. So what we do here is not just important for the
Chesapeake Bay, but it gives us a model for other watersheds
around our Nation. And we have been at this a lot longer than
many of the other communities. But what we have done here has
certainly helped our national effort.
If we want to improve the health of the Bay and continue to
develop practices that can be applied across the country, we
need to increase our commitment and become more creative in our
solutions. And the question cannot be whether the Federal
Government should take more responsibility. It is how it should
take that responsibility.
One way I believe the Federal Government can make a
difference is by supporting our farmers in their conservation
efforts. Agricultural runoff represents the largest proportion
of nutrient pollution for the Bay and, therefore, offers the
greatest opportunity for achieving meaningful nutrient
reductions.
In Maryland, our farmers have been at the forefront of
working with us in conservation efforts to reduce the impact on
our environment. They are some of our best stewards of the
land. In the past 2 decades, Maryland farmers have spent
millions of dollars to install and maintain conservation
practices on their farms to protect natural resources and the
health of the Chesapeake Bay.
But more needs to be done. That is why I worked so hard on
the Farm Bill. I know we are looking at a new way to deal with
conservation programs that can help the Chesapeake Bay
watershed. The bill that was reported out by the Senate
incorporates new opportunities for us to help farmers so that
they cannot only do the right thing with the Bay but they can
have a viable business and be able to compete in today's global
agricultural economy.
Beyond the potential to support agricultural efforts to
improve the Bay, the Federal Government has a critical role to
play to make sure our water infrastructure is in a good state
of repair. Even as the demand for clean water has increased, we
have been underfunding investments in our infrastructure at the
Federal level which, in turn, presents major challenges for
local water authorities.
During this month of August, I visited some of our water
authorities and seen firsthand the challenges they have with
aging facilities, with the fact that they basically rely on the
ratepayers for a lot of their improvement. And the rates have
gone up and there is a limit as to how much you can charge the
ratepayers. And our densely populated cities are served by
pipes that are least 100 years old. The task of meeting the
challenges generally falls on the shoulders of local
municipalities.
EPA has estimated that more than $630 billion will be
needed over the next 20 years to meet the Nation's drinking
water and wastewater infrastructure needs. Most of this will
need to be funded locally. Well, we have got to step up and
help. We have got to do a better job. As I said a little bit
earlier, we need to find new, creative ways to help deal with
the challenges that we have in the Bay.
But here is the good news. The United States Department of
Commerce estimates that each job that we create in the water
infrastructure will create almost four jobs in the private
sector. So this is a jobs issue. By investing in water
infrastructure, we help our economy not only directly but also
indirectly. It has been estimated that for every dollar we
spend in water infrastructure, there will be almost a $3
economic output in other industries.
Since water infrastructure is critical to everything from
reducing runoff and pollutants to creating good paying jobs, I
firmly believe the Federal Government has an important role in
ensuring that local governments can continue to provide clean
and safe water. The public demands that when they turn on their
tap, they have safe water. We have to help the local
governments make sure that is maintained. It is critical to the
health of our communities and for the health of the Chesapeake
Bay.
So today we know the Bay is making progress, but we still
have a way to go. I look forward to hearing from the experts
today so that we can develop a strategy to move forward for the
future.
Before turning to Mr. DiPasquale, let me first turn to my
colleague, Congressman Sarbanes, once again thanking him for
being here but, more importantly, thanking him for the
leadership that he has shown on protecting our Chesapeake Bay.
STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN P. SARBANES,
U.S. REPRESENTATIVE FROM THE STATE OF MARYLAND
Representative Sarbanes. Thank you very much, Senator
Cardin. It is a real privilege to be here today for this very
important hearing.
I want to first off salute the Senator for his leadership
with respect to restoring the health of the Chesapeake Bay. No
one is doing more nationally for any treasure of the kind like
the Chesapeake Bay than Senator Cardin is, and we certainly
have benefited from his leadership in Maryland and in the
Congress.
The third district, the newly drawn third district, has
even greater portions of the coastline of the Chesapeake Bay
now, not from the eastern shore but from the western shore,
including Annapolis and the coastline coming down from Gibson
Island. So as much as I was focused on the health of the Bay
before, I am even more keenly concerned that we continue to
move forward with respect to our efforts to improve the health
of the Bay.
The Chesapeake Bay Program is a critical partnership for
years now and has focused the efforts of these resources and
many, many different players in making sure that we are
achieving this progress. And we are looking forward to your
testimony today on this important issue.
You know, having the EPA's involvement in the health of the
Bay is so important because you get that overarching
perspective. Different States within the Chesapeake Bay
watershed and the six States and the District of Columbia,
obviously, which directly affect the health of the Bay, are all
engaged in their own efforts to contribute to this important
project. But you need that national perspective because there
are things that nature crosses State lines, and in the absence
of that perspective, we are losing critical components. That is
why I am happy to have the EPA's perspective at this hearing
and it is so important.
My particular focus--and the Senator was gracious in
alluding to my efforts on behalf of citizen stewardship,
particularly reaching out to the next generation and making
sure they understand what is at stake and connecting them to
the environment, to environmental literacy, to the Chesapeake
Bay if they happen to live in Maryland or one of these other
important States that are part of the watershed so that they
grow up with that value instilled in them and they become
stewards in the future. And I have supported strongly the
efforts to connect young people to nature across the country in
terms of integrating environmental literacy with the full needs
of instructional programming.
I am also very interested generally in how we involve
ordinary citizens as partners in our efforts to clean up the
Chesapeake Bay and environment and have sponsored legislation
such as ``The Chesapeake Bay Homeowners Act'' where we give
homeowners the opportunity to contribute in quantifiable ways
through credits that local jurisdictions and States are trying
to achieve with respect to the pollution diet put in place by
the EPA.
To close, I will just echo what Senator Cardin said at the
outset of his remarks and at the end, which is this is about
the economy of this region. If you invest in the things that
clean up Chesapeake Bay, you are also investing in things that
create jobs and help to produce a very important economy of our
region and the State of Maryland. And that is why this is so
critically important.
So I appreciate the opportunity to be a guest and
participate in the hearing today. Thank you, Senator Cardin.
Senator Cardin. Thank you, Congressman Sarbanes.
Our first witness is Nick DiPasquale, who is the Director
of the Chesapeake Bay Program at the United States
Environmental Protection Agency. Mr. DiPasquale previously
served as Deputy Secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of
Environmental Protection and Director of the Environmental
Management Center for the Brandywine Conservancy in Chadds
Ford, Pennsylvania and as Secretary of the Delaware Department
of Natural Resources and Environmental Control. So he brings a
lot of experience not just at the Federal level but also at the
State level. It is good to have EPA lead off this discussion.
The Obama administration in 2009, by Executive order,
really elevated the Federal Government's commitment and
partnership to the Chesapeake Bay, and this gives us a chance
to review the current status of the Federal commitment to the
Chesapeake Bay.
STATEMENT OF NICHOLAS DiPASQUALE, DIRECTOR, CHESAPEAKE BAY
PROGRAM, U.S. ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY
Mr. DiPasquale. Good morning, Mr. Chairman, and Congressman
Sarbanes. I am Nick DiPasquale, Director of the EPA's
Chesapeake Bay Program Office in Annapolis.
I want to thank you for the opportunity to testify about
the progress the Chesapeake Bay Program Partnership is making
to restore the watershed. The partnership, as you know, has a
long history of bringing together the intellectual and
financial resources of various State, Federal, academic, and
local watershed organizations to develop and adopt policies
that support a unified plan for watershed restoration.
This year, we recognize the 30th anniversary of the
partnership and celebrate many of its successes. Our
accomplishments and scientific developments are studied and
used as a model throughout the United States and, as you
recognized, throughout the world actually internationally.
During the last 30 years, actions taken at the Federal,
State, and local level have made a significant impact.
Activities such as improved controls in wastewater treatment
plants, enhanced conservation practices to reduce nutrients and
sediment runoff from farms, more effective stormwater controls
in both urban and suburban areas, and better requirements and
technologies that reduce air deposition of nutrients.
However, increased impervious surfaces, as again you
recognized, the changing environmental conditions, and other
developments that support a growing population have lessened
the impact of these achievements.
Although the ecosystem generally remains in a degraded
condition, the Bay's health has slowly improved in a number of
areas, and we are witnessing clear signs of continuing recovery
across the watershed. Data from actual water quality monitoring
locations show a trend of improving water quality condition in
many parts of the watershed. During the past 25 years, nitrogen
and phosphorus concentrations have decreased at almost 70
percent at the monitoring sites within the watershed and
sediment has decreased by about 30 percent at these sites. A
2011 study by Johns Hopkins and the University of Maryland
showed that summer dead zones leveled off in the Bay's deep
channels during the 1980s, and they have been declining ever
since.
The Bay ecosystem is showing other signs of recovery such
as progress in rockfish restoration, better managed crab
populations, restored grass beds despite heavy rains and more
frequent and severe storms. These signs of progress show an
ecosystem that is regaining its resilience. This is an
important aspect of the restoration effort. But challenges do
remain.
Other collaborative efforts that are making a difference
include the Chesapeake Bay total maximum daily load, or TMDL,
and President Obama's Chesapeake Bay Executive order strategy.
With involvement from States, local governments, and
numerous stakeholders, the EPA issued its final Chesapeake Bay
TMDL in December 2010. Through the TMDL, States are putting in
place practices for reducing nutrient and sediment from urban
lands, including measures to limit runoff through storm flow
capture and draining initiatives and the creation of stormwater
utilities to help finance these improved control measures.
Additionally, many wastewater treatment plants have reduced
nutrients down to the limits of technology.
The agricultural sector has done much to reduce pollution
to the watershed as well and continues to do so through the use
of new technologies and practices such as cover crops.
With the continued effort of all of these sectors, these
actions will help ensure that we maintain our progress.
The positive effects of these efforts are already being
seen in the watershed simulation showing that the partnership
has achieved more than 25 percent of reductions in nitrogen,
phosphorus, and sediment that are going to be required by the
2025 deadline in the TMDL. The partnership also agreed to a
series of 2-year milestones to measure its progress, and I am
pleased to say that all of the Bay's jurisdictions are largely
on track to achieve their reductions for this year.
We have also seen progress as Federal agencies have
implemented the President's Executive order on the Chesapeake
Bay restoration. For example, Federal agencies have added new
monitoring stations to non-tidal areas of the watershed. They
planted nearly 100 acres of oyster reefs in Harris Creek. They
have implemented conservation practices on more than 342,000
acres of high priority working lands, and they have protected
more than 1,300 acres at defense installations within the
watershed.
But even with these recent developments, in July 2011, the
Chesapeake Bay partners agreed that after 13 years, the
Chesapeake 2000 agreement needed to be updated. We are now in
the process of developing a new agreement. This new plan will
clarify our shared goals and outcomes, and it is intended to be
more flexible to increase transparency and accountability and
to allow greater participation by all partners, including the
watershed States of West Virginia, New York, and Delaware.
Finally, the partnership continues to address complex and
emerging issues that can adversely affect the Chesapeake Bay
watershed through a process called ``adaptive management.''
Examples of some of the emerging issues include a continued
increase in impervious development, impacts related to climate
change, the development of new technologies, new scientific
understandings about the effects of dams, invasive species, and
the effects of weather on the watershed. The partnership is
committed to considering these issues to best inform our
restoration strategies.
In closing, I want to reiterate that while we have made
progress, additional reductions are still needed from all
sectors to meet water quality standards in the Bay and in local
waterways. Despite these signs of progress, the job is far from
complete, and major water quality and ecosystem challenges
remain.
The EPA and the Chesapeake Bay Partnership remain committed
to working with all stakeholders to achieve a healthy
Chesapeake Bay watershed. Working together, we can have
thriving communities, productive and profitable farms and
restored waters.
Again, I want to thank you for the opportunity to testify
today, and I would be pleased to answer any questions that you
may have.
[The prepared statement of Mr. DiPasquale follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Senator Cardin. Well, thank you again for your testimony
and thank you for your leadership in this area.
You do point out the progress that we have made. We all
acknowledge that. As I said earlier, I remember days that you
did not even want to go near the water in some parts of some
coasts. We were in danger of having to put permanent
restrictions on the recreational use of the Bay, and we went
through some very tough periods with what recreational fishing
could do on the Bay as far as the rockfish, et cetera. And this
year has been a pretty good year for rockfish. So we have seen
some progress.
But looking at the 2011-2012 Bay barometer, which noticed
improvement on the oxygen levels and the reduction of dead
zones, it also points out that we have challenges to meeting
the overall goals. I look at some of the specifics. Bay grasses
are at 26 percent of what was a goal set. The bottom habitable
is 45 percent. The American shad, 34 percent. The Atlantic
menhaden, 25 percent of what we would like to be at. So it
seems like we still have a significant achievement to reach the
goals that we all said were where we wanted to be.
Now, I understand we are going to look at moving forward
from the 2000 agreement, but do you agree that we are only
doing a C, that there is still a lot more that could be done,
using good science, good economics to get the Bay where it
needs to be?
Mr. DiPasquale. Yes. There is no question that we need to
redouble our efforts and make the improvements that you are
suggesting. When you look at the trends from year to year,
sometimes there are a number of factors that can impact how
that particular resource is responding. For example, with Bay
grasses, the storms that occurred from Hurricane Irene and
Tropical Storm Lee had a really significant impact on
underwater grasses, but when you take a look at the Susquehanna
Flats, for example, which we expected would suffer some severe
damage like it did in Agnes in 1972, it was not as severely
impacted as we thought it would be. And that is an example of
the resilience that I mentioned. It is starting to get rebuilt
back into the Bay system.
But we need to look at trends over a longer period of time,
and that is why I think the Hopkins and the University of
Maryland study is instructive in that regard. The ecosystem
sometimes takes a while to respond to the measures we implement
to reduce pollution loading. We are at the point now, for
example, under the TMDL--we have only had really about 2 and a
half years of implementation. Phase II watershed implementation
plans have been approved and the first 2-year milestones--we
are 1 year into the first 2-year milestones under the TMDL. But
I think we are at a point now where we are going to see some of
these measures being implemented and we are going to get over
that tipping point for the Bay restoration effort. We are going
to see some significant improvement, for example, in stormwater
controls. Many of the localities are adopting stormwater
utility fees. They have got projects that they are ready and
willing to undertake. And as those projects are implemented, we
are going to see more and more progress taking place.
Senator Cardin. Let me just quickly go through the
different major areas of concern. In agriculture, which a large
part is not under the EPA's direct jurisdiction, which I
understand, we have made a lot of progress in our State. The
Farm Bill is critically important in the conservation sections
and we hope that we can resolve them.
The administration could move more aggressively on the
nutrient trading program. They have the authority and we have
seen it work in other areas where we have provided the right
incentives for the private sector to develop more cost
effective solutions. Pennsylvania has used a nutrient trading
program in agriculture.
Where are we as far as the administration looking at ways
to implement an effective nutrient trading program for the Bay
region?
Mr. DiPasquale. As you know, there are three States right
now that have active trading programs: Maryland, Virginia, and
Pennsylvania. We are not developing a single trading program at
EPA that then is delegated to the States. What we are trying to
do is harmonize the trading programs that are out there, and we
are issuing a series of technical memoranda that will
essentially set the expectations for the jurisdictions to use
in either establishing or refining their own program so they
can get credit under the TMDL. We have probably got about half
the technical memoranda we have identified out and being
reviewed or in the process of being implemented, and the States
will be making changes, hopefully, to their programs to be more
consistent with that overall general expectation.
But I agree that once the rules of the game are well
defined, we are going to see more active participation on the
part of buyers and sellers in that market.
Senator Cardin. I think there is a role for the Federal
Government to play here. I understand the States are moving
forward, but I would just encourage you to take a good look at
this because I think this is a win-win situation. We are
looking at some of the costs on the local governments on
dealing with water issues versus working with the agricultural
community for nutrient reductions. The cost issues could very
well dictate some help for local government on nutrient trading
programs. So I think a Federal role is needed here, and I would
just urge you to just look at this and see whether we cannot
move it forward aggressively in dealing with the nutrient
reduction levels.
Let me talk just a little bit about development. We are
still waiting for the runoff regulations on storm runoff issues
from EPA. We have been waiting a long time. We would like to
see that issue. The stormwater runoff issue is the largest
growth area of concern of pollutants going into the Bay.
I was at a brick company. August gives me a chance to get
out and see my State. So we have this greater Maryland tour,
and we went to the Ernest Maier Brick Company. I always give
plugs to Maryland businesses. And they have ways of doing
surfaces that look like they are concrete, but the water is
managed on the runoff, giving us the best of all worlds, giving
you the use of the surface but also helping us on runoff and
doing it in a more responsible way to actually control the
volume of runoff by how they do the underpinnings to the brick
work.
It seems to me that there is a lot of potential here in
dealing with stormwater runoff that you have not yet met, and
the Federal Government really does need to be in the
leadership. So can you give me a status as to how we are doing
on the stormwater runoff issues?
Mr. DiPasquale. Well, I am hopeful that proposed regulation
will be promulgated relatively soon. I think it will help
provide incentives for using low impact development types of
techniques similar to that which was undertaken by the District
of Columbia in their MS-4 permit. I think that really kind of
set an example for how we can use low impact development, green
roofs, tree plantings, and that sort of thing to take up both
stormwater flow and the nutrients that are contained within it.
I am aware of the example that you mentioned, and in fact,
when I am out talking, I use that as an example of ways that
communities can make investments because putting those pervious
pavers in local communities where they are manufactured
actually end up creating more jobs.
Also in that area, there was a local firehouse that put a
green roof on. They were able to essentially contain all of the
water that came down on their facility, and whatever overflow
actually occurred, they had a storage tank that they would
contain the water in and then use that for firefighting
purposes. They would actually use it to fill their tanker
trucks.
So that kind of creative thinking. As I go around the
watershed, I see a lot of innovation occurring.
Charlottesville, Virginia; Lynchburg, Virginia; Lancaster City,
Pennsylvania. You see some very creative approaches being taken
by public works directors and local city councils to deal with
some of the issues that are before them. They know the cost is
high. They are looking for ways to reduce the cost and still
make the improvement in water quality that they are expected to
make.
Senator Cardin. And we would hope that your policies will
encourage that. We understand that population growth will
continue. People want to live in this area. That means there is
more pressure on construction. Construction done in the right
way can help us deal with the problems, but in the wrong way,
compounds the challenges. So if we are all going to work
together, then we have to have an aggressive policy to deal
with the realities of construction whether it is public
construction or whether it is private construction, and the
Government has be in the leadership. That is why the
regulations here are particularly important. We understand we
have got to get it right. We want to work with you to move
ahead in this area.
Last, let me just mention the problems of local
governments, and we will hear from some of the local people
today. Financially they need a more aggressive way of dealing
with development, particularly how they deal with water
infrastructure. We need creative ways. Mayor Stephanie
Rawlings-Blake testified before our Committee--this was a year
or a year and a half ago--urging some new approaches. And I
have introduced legislation on the resiliency trust fund where
we try to leverage dollars to deal with the dollar amounts. The
numbers that you are throwing out on the need for water
infrastructure are huge. We need some new initiatives. There is
just not enough money under the current programs to deal with
this challenge.
Mr. DiPasquale. Well, we have held a series of
environmental finance workshops throughout the watershed to
provide local communities with a variety of tools and
approaches that they can use to help finance those kinds of
improvements. Again, as I mentioned previously, we see a lot of
innovation taking place. That is driven by the high cost of
implementing some of this, and we are trying to use those as
example throughout the watershed for other communities to
consider.
I also think there is a role for the private sector.
Private sector financing and trading is another example of
using a mechanism to drive the costs down while achieving the
water quality objective. But the private sector is out there.
They are interested. We get contacted on a pretty routine
basis. They are looking for opportunities to use private
capital to make some of these improvements. And actually one of
the concerns we have is with the capacity of local governments
to take on a large number of projects all at one time. We see
the use of the private sector as being a way to help get the
job done essentially.
Senator Cardin. I agree with that. What brings our
Committee together, Democrats and Republicans, are ways that we
can leverage investment, whether it is roads, bridges, transit
systems or whether it is water infrastructure. It brings us
together. I think, finding what has worked in local communities
and trying to model that, and trying to provide incentives for
that makes sense.
So we hope that you will share best practices and creative
ways. We know the deficit that is there. We have had too many
Beltway closings and business evacuations in our State and
around the Nation too many times. We have seen businesses and
lives put at risk because of water main breaks. We have got to
deal with this, and finding creative ways, I am convinced that
we can get the critical mass of Congress to support critical
ways to advance investment in modernizing our water
infrastructure. So I hope that you will encourage local
governments to come in with creative solutions where we can
help as a partner in advancing a greater commitment to
infrastructure improvement.
Let me turn to Congressman Sarbanes.
Representative Sarbanes. Thank you, Senator. I just have a
couple of quick questions.
Let me just preface it by saying this concept of resilience
is really an exciting one. It is when those who are trying to
help the Bay sort of enter into partnership with the Bay
itself. As we hit those tipping points as the Bay achieves
resilience or portions of the Bay achieve this resilience, we
want to make sure we preserve that and do not slide back. So I
am very intrigued by your observations in that regard.
I wondered if you could just describe the importance of
bringing new States into the agreement that is being put
together now for the next version of the Chesapeake Bay Program
and sort of the potential that is represented to do this in a
more formal way.
Mr. DiPasquale. Well, as you may know, currently the
headwater States are participating on the water quality side of
it through a memorandum of understanding. So they have never
really been full partners in the partnership agreement,
although some of them certainly have interest in fisheries and
habitat and some of the other components of the partnership
effort.
The new agreement is not going to be an overhaul of the old
agreement. It is basically going to be a refinement and it is
going to provide some unique features that have not existed
before. So we have been going through a process over the last
almost 2 years now of looking at the goals that were set out
under previous agreements under the Executive order strategy
under the TMDL, and we are trying to harmonize those so that
all of these efforts are moving in the same direction at the
same time and that we are making the most effective use of our
resources. In fact, the Executive order strategy anticipated
that and directed us to do that. The Chesapeake Bay Executive
Council likewise directed us to go out and refine our goals and
outcomes. So we have been engaged in that process for about 2
years.
After the first of the year, we really started to take a
look at how we could develop a new agreement that is going to
be a lot more flexible. So one of the things we have done is
incorporated an adaptive management decisionmaking framework
into the day-to-day implementation activities that are
anticipated under the new agreement. We have started to do that
previously with the goal implementation teams that we have,
fisheries habitat, water quality, so that we actually use the
data we are collecting. We are analyzing it. We are trying to
determine what factors may be influencing whether or not we are
achieving our goal. We are using that as a feedback mechanism
to make changes and improvements in the way we go about doing
business.
The other feature of the new agreement that I think is new
is the use of management strategies to articulate how we intend
to achieve each of the outcomes that will be established under
the new agreement. Management strategies have not been used
previously. This will be a new feature. Everybody who has an
interest in participating, whether it is a State jurisdiction,
local government, non-governmental organization, academic
institution, would all sign on to this management strategy that
is designed to achieve a particular outcome. It would have
periodic check-in periods every 2 years, similar to the
milestones, so we make sure we are staying on target and moving
toward that outcome. It would take into account things like
impact from land use or the effects of climate change. It would
articulate the resources that each of the entities brings to
bear on achieving that particular outcome.
So it is increasing the transparency of the way we do
business because there will be a plan. This management strategy
essentially would be a plan that anyone could look at and
participate in or question. So it would be developed with full
public participation and people would be able to weigh in on
it. It also becomes the accountability vehicle ultimately for
making sure we stay on target. I think that is an important
feature.
Also, in terms of flexibility, under the agreement as
currently drafted, the Executive Council, which is the
Governors of the States, the Chairman of the Chesapeake Bay
Commission, the EPA Administrator, and the Mayor D.C. would
essentially delegate to the principal staff committee, which
are the executive secretaries in each of the agencies in each
of the jurisdictions, the ability to make changes to the
outcomes. So that as we get information and need to make
adjustments, that body would be able to make changes and would
not have to go back to make changes to the agreement to
accomplish that.
Again, this would be done with full public participation.
So I think there are a number of features like that that really
are an improvement over the previous one.
Representative Sarbanes. And then the last question.
First of all, let me thank the EPA for working closely with
us and trying to further develop and pilot this idea of
communities stepping up and taking real ownership of efforts to
reach these TMDL goals and objectives. And the Chesapeake Bay
Homeowner Act we have introduced will basically help us sort of
model what could that look like if you have ordinary homeowners
who have a menu of options for things they can do on their own
property that will, in fact, reduce runoff and otherwise add to
the water quality and in so doing move that jurisdiction in a
quantifiable way toward the TMDL obligations.
What I am interested in hearing from you is do you believe
that if this kind of effort is embraced by ordinary homeowners
across the watershed, that it could, in fact, have a meaningful
impact on the efforts to move us toward the goals we have.
Mr. DiPasquale. Yes. I do not think there is any question
that it would have meaningful impact. In my mind, we have an
environment that has been degraded and essentially died a death
of a thousand cuts, as you have probably heard mentioned, and
the only way we are really going to repair that is to repair
those individual cuts. We can take care of the big sources of
pollution, but I think we need to take care of the little
sources of pollution as well.
Your bill--and if I may be so presumptuous to commend you
for it--I think is really landmark legislation in the sense
that it increases public awareness, No. 1. No. 2, it gives us
an insurance policy that we are going to, in fact, get these
reductions in nutrients. Specifically in Maryland, I have been
told that turf grass now exceeds cropland in terms of the
amount of acreage that is in the watershed. So that is a
significant source. The legislature in Maryland has passed a
fertilizer law that essentially reduces nutrients and makes
those improvements. I think there is an appetite among
homeowners to put in rain gardens, put in rain barrels, to look
for ways to divert stormwater runoff from city streets and
ultimately storm sewer systems. I think we have to do that if
we think we are going to get to where we need to be in an
expeditious fashion. So thank you again for your leadership in
that regard.
Representative Sarbanes. Thank you.
Senator Cardin. What is the timeframe for trying to get the
parties together on the updated agreement?
Mr. DiPasquale. Right now we are making good progress. In
fact, there will be a meeting this afternoon where we go over
some of the changes that have been agreed to, but we are
looking at probably early to mid-December for having an
agreement ready to sign by the Executive Council members.
Senator Cardin. And it will provide for a more open review?
Mr. DiPasquale. Yes. We will be having a 30-day comment
period. We had one, essentially an outline for the agreement
and the initial set of goals and outcomes that we put out for
public review and actually got a pretty good response on that.
We are in the process now of actually developing a narrative
that would fill out the agreement, and we intend at this point
to put that out for public notice probably toward the end of
September, and we have public review for 30 days. Then we would
take the input that we have from that process, make changes,
and hopefully have a final agreement ready to be signed by mid-
December of this year.
Senator Cardin. One of the major challenges of the previous
agreements has been the rigidness, as you point out. To try to
make adjustments and reconvene and try to get to the next
agreement was cumbersome and basically not an option that was
available. So I am intrigued by the process that you anticipate
would be included here where adjustments can be formally made
through a less formal process.
Mr. DiPasquale. The overall structure of the partnership is
goal implementation teams who I say do the heavy lifting of the
organization. They are the science folks, the technical people
who make recommendations up to the management board, and the
management board, which I chair, is kind of the implementation
level for the partnership. And the management board actually in
this case is going to--as the agreement is currently drafted,
would be overseeing the development of the management
strategies, and they would review and approve those.
The next level up is the principal staff committee, which
is the executive secretaries from each of the agencies and
counterparts, for example, in the commission and in the Federal
agencies. They would have the authority to make changes to the
outcomes only, not the overall goals of the partnership, but
the outcomes, those things that are specifically deliverable,
for example, setting a reforestation goal. If for some reason,
that needed to be adjusted up or down, the principal staff
committee using the adaptive management process that I referred
to earlier would take a look at whether or not they agreed with
doing that, and then they would make the decision at that level
with full public participation. All of the meetings that we
have had, management board meetings, principal staff committee
meetings are all advertised. They are open to the public. We
have opportunity for public review and comment in that process.
So the principal staff committee would be given the authority
to make changes in those specific outcomes.
Senator Cardin. Of course, it cuts both ways. It can be
used to strengthen, but it also can be used to give more leeway
and perhaps weaken. And so it is of concern.
But I think to make this a little less rigid makes sense,
provided that it is an open process. And again, based upon the
best science and outcome available to reach the goals that have
already been established to me makes a lot of sense. So I would
urge you to do this in a very open, transparent manner, as you
are already suggesting, so the confidence this program has
enjoyed for 30 years is maintained.
Thank you very much. We appreciate your testimony.
We will move to our second panel. Let me invite up Will
Baker, a familiar face on the effort of the Chesapeake Bay.
Will Baker is the head of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, the
largest not-for-profit conservation organization dedicated
solely to preserving and protecting and restoring the
Chesapeake Bay. He was rightfully acknowledged to receive the
Presidential Medal for Environmental Excellence.
Paul Spies is the Agricultural Conservation Planner of the
Chester River Association. He continues to assist his family to
operate their 1,000-acre grain farm and vineyard in Talbot
County, Maryland, not far from where we are here.
It is a pleasure to have Laura Neuman, who is the County
Executive for Anne Arundel County, Maryland, not very far from
where we are right now. And under her leadership, she has
brought Anne Arundel County together, and I applaud her for her
incredible leadership in the county. That is one of our great
counties in our State.
We will start with Mr. Baker.
STATEMENT OF WILLIAM C. BAKER, PRESIDENT, CHESAPEAKE BAY
FOUNDATION
Mr. Baker. Thank you very much. Senator Cardin, Congressman
Sarbanes, you all both have been great leaders.
And, Congressman, allow me just to say a few more words
about Senator Cardin. His leadership goes back all the way to
the Maryland House of Delegates. Some in the audience may not
know you were elected when you were still in law school. You
were the youngest speaker of the house in Maryland, and you
went on to Congress. What outstanding contributions you have
made to our State and to the health and benefit of the
Chesapeake Bay.
Senator Cardin. I will give you an extra 5 minutes.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Baker. I was going to bargain for 6, but I will take 5.
So thank you both.
The Bay is America's largest estuary with Washington, DC,
at the very center of its watershed. It is a national and, as
you said, Senator, even international treasure with 17 million,
close to 18 million people, and it is growing at 150,000 people
a year.
So how is it doing? The Bay is getting better, but it is
still a system dangerously out of balance. Let me repeat it. It
is getting better, but it is still dangerously out of balance.
CBF's scientists score the health of the Chesapeake at a 32 on
a scale of 0 to 100. That is a D+. We are a little bit harder
graders than the University of Maryland. So the Bay is still
ecologically functioning at only about a third of its historic
capacity.
Every summer we know about the mainstem and the tributaries
plagued by dead zones, not enough oxygen to sustain life. On
average, about 60 percent of the Bay and its tidal tributaries
have insufficient levels of oxygen.
But the Chesapeake Bay is still a significant economic
engine. In 2009, the commercial seafood industry in Maryland
and Virginia alone contributed $3.4 billion in sales, $890
million in income, and almost 34,000 jobs to the local economy.
Think, if the Bay were fully restored, what that would mean,
and think of the loss just with oysters in the last 30 years,
$4 billion in lost revenues in Maryland and Virginia.
So let us look at what has been done so far.
The first three Bay agreements, 1983, 1987, and 2000, had
no enforcement protocols. Elected officials signed them with
great fanfare and terrifically good intentions, but when the
deadlines arrived, pollution reduction targets were missed not
by an inch but by a mile every time. So in 2009, CBF and a
number of partners sued EPA for failure to enforce the Clean
Water Act and the terms of the Chesapeake Bay agreements.
In December 2010, EPA and the jurisdictions finalized a new
agreement, this one with teeth. It was called the TMDL, what
the Chesapeake Bay Foundation calls the Chesapeake Clean Water
Blueprint. Two-year transparent, reportable, and enforceable
milestones, each of which must build to the ultimate deadline
of 2025 make it very different from what has come before.
In July, we evaluated the progress being made toward the
2012-2013 milestones and found that all of the jurisdictions
were making some progress toward their goals for that
milestone, but no jurisdiction was on track to implement all of
the pollution reduction practices they committed to achieve by
the end of 2013. So while much remains to be done, scientists
are seeing examples of improved water quality, better habitat
conditions, and there is evidence that the dead zone, as you
reported, is getting smaller, not gone but at least going in
the right direction. And as you all mentioned, scientists
speculate that we may be beginning to see some positive
feedback loops as improvement strategies build one on the
other.
Think of this as a vicious cycle in reverse. We have had
plenty of vicious cycles in the Bay history. Now maybe we are
seeing one in reverse. In my full testimony, we detail a number
of success stories, including Mattawoman Creek in Maryland, the
Litiz Run in Pennsylvania, Muddy Creek in Virginia, Gravelly
Branch in Delaware, and others.
But we also detail sobering news. 2012 was the third year
in a row that acres of underwater grasses declined on a Bay-
wide scale with current levels approaching a low last reported
in 1986. And one of the most prized fresh water sport fish
species, smallmouth bass, has suffered fish kills and
perplexing illnesses in several Bay tributaries. In some areas,
smallmouth bass populations have plummeted and there are signs
that the health of the Bay's iconic rockfish, striped bass, is
deteriorating. And finally, just this last summer, we have seen
way too many ``no swimming'' advisories issued by health
departments.
So we must do more. Critical to the effort is Federal
funding and technical assistance to local jurisdictions. To
quote Yogi Berra, we must not snatch defeat from the jaws of
victory. I think Yogi Berra said that. I actually just assume
that. But we are getting close. We cannot lose it at this
point. So we are on the verge of success. We need Federal
leadership to continue. The Federal Government is the only
jurisdiction--when you look at this chart, six States, 64,000
square miles--the Federal Government is the only jurisdiction
of government that can do what science says has to happen:
manage this as one single ecological system. So we need the
Federal Government to continue its leadership.
The States and all of the stakeholders also need certainty
that Bay implementation is fair. This certainty will come from
a transparent clean up process so that all parties know that
each other party is doing its job and Federal assistance to
provide consistent funding and technical assistance to help
individuals and communities defray the cost. Existing programs
in the Clean Water Act are helpful, but local governments--and
I am sure Ms. Neuman will talk about this--local governments
need more, such as a dedicated grants program to help address
polluted runoff, the only source of pollution which continues
to increase.
Finally, the importance of the Bay Program. As we have
heard from Nick, it coordinates the science and the research
and modeling and support services, data collection. It is
essential for the Bay Program to continue to operate. The Clean
Water Blueprint has infused new life, but what it has undone
far exceeds what has been done to date. Now is not the time to
rest. Now is, as Don Bosch says, the moment in time. We have
got the best science, the technology, the know-how to get the
job done. This is our watch. Our legacy to leave our children
and grandchildren is an imperative.
Thank you very much, Senator. Thank you, Congressman.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Baker follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Senator Cardin. Thank you very much, Mr. Baker.
Mr. Spies.
STATEMENT OF PAUL SPIES, AGRICULTURAL CONSERVATION PLANNER,
CHESTER RIVER ASSOCIATION
Mr. Spies. I would like to thank you for the opportunity to
present today and thank your staff for helping a first-timer
get his presentation in. And though it is a little late, I am
here and it is in. So thank you and thank you for the
opportunity.
I am a fourth generation farmer from Talbot County,
Maryland, the neighboring county from where we are today. We
grow corn, soybeans, wheat, 10 acres of grapes, and a 1-acre
greenhouse complex for European cucumbers. I serve as the Vice
President of the Maryland Grain Producers and a member of the
local farm bureau. I also work with the Chester River
Association as a conservation planner, working as a liaison
between the environmental organization and the farmers in my
community.
My position has given me a unique, although sometimes
uncomfortable, position to view the work and the progress made
in the Chesapeake Bay restoration efforts. This is the
viewpoint I speak from today as, like most farmers, an
environmentally concerned producer.
Today's hearing is entitled ``Chesapeake Bay Restoration:
Progress and Challenges.'' So I can end on a positive note, I
will start with the challenges.
First, the goals we set for ourselves are lofty but not
impossible. To use a sailing analogy, we need to use full sail
and everyone at the oars. One sector pulling their load is not
going to equal a clean Chesapeake Bay. Each sector will need to
pull its weight and contribute significant reductions.
Agriculture faces a threefold educational challenge.
First, how to educate a growing population with less and
less ties to the industry. Each generation gets further and
further away from agriculture and food production and the food
production experience. People are losing sight of how important
agriculture and farmers really are. In the State I produce,
Maryland, agriculture is an $8.25 billion industry. 50 percent
of that revenue comes from animal production. 50 percent of the
revenue. The non-agriculture sector needs to grasp that it is
not perfect industry, but still it is a vital part of our
economy. The old adage rings true. You cannot throw the baby
out with the bath water. Agriculture is important to our
present and to the future of the State and to the Chesapeake
Bay watershed.
The second educational challenge is understanding how far
advanced our local farmers are in terms of nutrient management.
And we need to be. We directly affect a public treasure, the
Chesapeake Bay. Farmers in others area believe that it is not
their problem because they do not live close to the Bay, but I
would like to remind them that clean water is an everywhere
problem. Streams, rivers, aquifers, lakes, the Gulf of Mexico.
Basically if you use water, nutrient management is coming to an
area near you.
With that said, our Chesapeake Bay farmers are leaders in
the field of nutrient management. From nutrient management
plans to new fertilizer application technology, we put more
effort into improving our nutrient use efficiency than any
other part of the country.
The final education challenge is the understanding of how a
non-point source nutrient moves from the time of application to
the time that it enters our streams and Chesapeake Bay. I am
not sure if you received it, but I work with the USGS service.
They put out a map of timeframes from the time nutrients are
applied in the field to when it enters the local bays and
streams. It is a little bit scary, especially for someone whose
salary is directly related to the outcomes of clean water
efforts. But from the time we apply the nutrients in
agriculture to the time it enters our Bay and streams and
estuary, it can be 30 years or even more. So when we talk about
the next generation and how important it is, what we are doing
today--we are not going to see the benefits until the next
generation 30 years from now.
The final challenge is a request. We need to avoid
division. I have been part of multiple projects that
environmental and agricultural sectors have come together to
accomplish big things. The more we can work together and not
point fingers, the more we will accomplish for the Chesapeake
Bay.
Onto the positives. Agriculture is doing its part.
Milestones have been met, and with continued work future
milestones will be met. One thing that no one is good at these
days is patience. Cell phones, instant news, fast cars. When we
push a button or the accelerator, we do not just want results,
we want fast results. That is just not possible in the world of
the Chesapeake Bay and cleaning it up. Agriculture has never
said we do not want to do our part, but time is needed for
change. I urge gracious patience, not the kind of patience that
is given with the idea that patience is not needed or deserved,
but the kind of patience you give a partner or a teammate.
One of the biggest successes of the process has been
research and advances in new technologies and ideas. One I have
been part of is active nitrogen application, applying nitrogen
based upon the crop's need as you are applying it instead of a
uniform rate across the field. And a new study that we are
working with USGS on is looking at irrigation and improving the
irrigation technology and how we irrigate our crops. As you
understand, the more information we have, the better decisions
we can make. So as we improve our nutrient application and our
irrigation technology, the better we will be able to grow our
crops with less nutrients and still produce the food that we
need.
I am one of four brothers. We are all different, look
different, talk different, have different interests, but we are
a family and we have real interest in the health and success of
each other. When we were young and our father gave us a chore
to do, many times we all had our own ideas how to do it. We
would tell the other ones to stop bothering us and we would go
off and try to do it on our own. At some point we would realize
that we were not getting much done and the Dukes of Hazzard was
about to come on. We would huddle up, open ourselves up to new
ideas, make a plan, and work together. Sometimes we would use
mostly my plan. Most of the time we would not. I will tell you,
though, when we worked together, we always got the job done. We
never missed Bo and Luke slinging gravel in Hazzard. The
Chesapeake Bay Program has brought us together. We look
different. We talk different and we have different interests.
But we all had to come together for the health of the
Chesapeake Bay. I hope we can come together, to be open to new
ideas, make a plan, and work together.
The final thing. Progress. The dictionary definition: a
forward or onward movement; gradual betterment. Many would like
to change ``gradual'' to ``immediate.'' Using Webster's
version, I would like to say we have been successful and are
making progress. If we all stay together, pull our oars, and
keep the sails up, we can have a better Chesapeake Bay.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Spies follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Senator Cardin. Mr. Spies, thank you for that comment. I
think you summarized it well about how success depends upon all
being in and everyone doing their share because we cannot just
do it alone. I appreciate that comment.
Ms. Neuman.
STATEMENT OF LAURA NEUMAN, COUNTY EXECUTIVE, ANNE ARUNDEL
COUNTY, MARYLAND
Ms. Neuman. Good morning, Senator. Good morning,
Congressman. I want to thank the Committee for inviting me to
participate in this important hearing, and I also want to
acknowledge you, Senator, for your commitment to the
restoration of Chesapeake Bay and to my colleagues for their
dedication and expertise.
When I moved to Anne Arundel County 21 years ago, I moved
to be close to the Chesapeake Bay. There is nothing more
beautiful or more worthy of preserving. I think we can all
agree that to preserve the Bay's future, we must preserve it
today.
Anne Arundel County is a primary beneficiary of the Bay
with over 500 miles of shoreline within our boundaries. There
is no question that we must continue to focus our attention on
Bay clean up not just for today but for years to come.
How we clean up the Bay is of particular concern to me,
specifically how much that clean up will cost our taxpayers and
our accountability to them.
When I was appointed County Executive in February, our
county council was prepared to pass the stormwater management
fee, which is not so affectionately known as the ``rain tax.''
This tax was mandated by the State legislature in 2012 as a
funding source to reduce pollutants associated with stormwater
runoff.
In 2012, the Maryland General Assembly mandated the State's
10 largest jurisdictions, not all 24, but a select 10, to adopt
local laws by July 1st, 2013. I vetoed the bill because our
county did not deserve another tax and also because the country
had not done a good enough job educating the public about the
fee and, more importantly, what the money would be used for.
Ultimately my veto was overridden by the council. I will talk
more about that in the context of challenges.
But first, overall on the watershed implementation plan. In
July 2012, Anne Arundel County submitted its detailed water
implementation plan to the Maryland Department of Environment,
which is designed to achieve the necessary 32 percent reduction
in nitrogen and 47 percent reduction in phosphorus and sediment
to meet our pollution diet by 2025. It falls into three
separate categories that need to be addressed.
First is wastewater treatment plants. Anne Arundel County
has made significant progress in reducing the pollutants from
wastewater treatment plants. The county is halfway through the
implementation of a $250 million program to provide enhanced
nutrient removal, or ENR, at all seven wastewater plants. This
work will be completed by 2017 and will remove nearly 470,000
pounds annually of nitrogen. At ultimate plant capacity, the
pollutant load removal increases to nearly 720,000 pounds
annually.
This effort is dependent on the Chesapeake Bay restoration
fee, also known as the ``flush tax,'' that was imposed by the
State legislature on all property owners across the entire
State. By applying the tax to the broadest base, the rate was
kept lower and has been viewed as a cost-effective means of
addressing a major source of Bay pollution. No one wants taxes,
but when they are spread across the board, it is a fairer
process and the pain seems a little bit more tolerable.
The second area is stormwater I want to address as well.
When it comes to addressing urban runoff and the challenges of
stormwater, the estimated cost to implement a strategy in Anne
Arundel County is $1 billion by 2025. This mandate is under the
regulatory authority of the EPA. The EPA should have undertaken
a fiscal impact analysis to evaluate each jurisdiction's
capacity to raise and expend this level of funding. This does
not even consider the extraordinary requirements of covering
septic systems to county homes converting septic systems to
county public sewer with infrastructure requirements in the
billions, a far bigger project.
As I mentioned, in 2012, the Maryland General Assembly
mandated the State's 10 largest jurisdictions to adopt the laws
by July 1st to establish a watershed protection and restoration
program and include a stormwater remediation fee, also known as
the ``rain tax,'' for the purposes of funding the 2025 TMDL
stormwater goals. I am not aware of any other Bay region State
that has imposed new taxes for both wastewater treatment plant
upgrades and stormwater remediation.
Candidly, I vetoed the local stormwater tax in Anne Arundel
County because I did not like the way in which it was imposed
on our residents by the State. It has resulted in what I call a
``race to the bottom'' among the 10 jurisdictions to see who
could impose the lowest tax, including one jurisdiction that
has refused to impose a local tax at all.
I have personally read hundreds of emails on this subject,
if not thousands. Last week, while I was speaking to a group of
reporters and editors in Baltimore, they asked me what was the
top question I received from the constituents. Without even
thinking about it or blinking, I reported the rain tax.
My staff and I have received numerous complaints from every
type of taxpayer: residential, nonprofit, religious
organizations and businesses. People do not understand the
causal connection between urban runoff and sediment pollution
in the Bay. There was no large-scale public education campaign
to let citizens know what TMDL stands for and they were totally
unprepared for yet another tax on their property, this time to
pay for stormwater projects. Because the county council
promptly overrode my veto, we have a stormwater tax in effect
in Anne Arundel County.
Our hands are tied and so we are moving forward. Anne
Arundel County is implementing a watershed protection and
restoration program. The stormwater tax is now assessed on
residential and non-residential properties within the county
and appears on the property tax bill. The residential fee is
assessed based on zoning density. The non-residential fee is
assessed on impervious surface determined from aerial
photography. The base rate is $85 per 2,940 square feet. When
fully phased in over 3 years, the stormwater tax will generate
$22.5 million in fiscal year 2016.
Our county's current 6-year capital improvement plan is
budgeted for $460 million to fund stormwater projects which
will achieve a 10 percent reduction in nitrogen, 25 percent
reduction in phosphorus, and 22 percent reduction in sediment
by 2019. Anne Arundel County taxpayers are already carrying a
significant share of the Bay clean up.
The rain tax has received the most attention, but to place
so much emphasis on this one area is to ignore the biggest
challenge which looms in front of us, which brings us to
septics.
The third and most costly sector toward meeting our
pollutant reduction mandates is the conversion of septic
systems to public sewer. Anne Arundel County has over 40,000
septic systems which deliver an estimated 515,000 pounds of
nitrogen to the Chesapeake Bay each year. We must reduce our
nitrogen loads by 230,000 pounds annually, requiring us to
convert roughly half our septic systems to public service
systems, which is over 20,000 connections. This is estimated to
cost Anne Arundel County nearly $1.5 billion.
The technical and regulatory challenges associated with
this effort are daunting. Success will require an integrated
partnership of Federal, State, and local governments. Local
governments cannot do this alone. Unfortunately, we have to.
Yes, the Chesapeake Bay is a treasure for our community, but it
is also an economic development engine for the eastern half of
the United States. When you consider the widening of the Panama
Canal, the Chesapeake serves an important economic development
function for the eastern half of the United States, and
cleaning up the Bay is an important job for everyone who
benefits from the Bay.
In the 1970s when the Clean Water Act came into being, the
Federal Government provided 87.5 percent of funding to help
local governments pay for the massive investment in extending
sewer service to unserved areas. Today's challenges are similar
in the magnitude of what we are being asked to do. The
Chesapeake Bay is a national treasure. It is a shared resource
and it should be a shared responsibility.
We are not having an honest conversation if we are not
including all three areas of water treatment and management
that must be addressed. All three areas, not just stormwater.
On to compliance and challenges and emerging issues, we
certainly have many challenges ahead. Without question, where
you stand on this important issue of stormwater in Maryland
will be a defining issue in the 2014 election regardless of
your position. Consequently, the Maryland legislature will have
pressure to revisit the issue during the 2014 session. It will
inject more uncertainty into the program, which received no
financial assistance from the State. Public acceptance of a
benefit they cannot visualize is an ongoing challenge for every
elected official.
Although the efforts of Federal and State governments are
appreciated, financial assistance has been woefully inadequate
compared to the costs local governments are facing for
stormwater retrofits. Finding the dollars to comply is an issue
of legitimate concern, particularly for local governments who
have limited tax bases to support such a costly undertaking. We
look to our Federal partners for a more creative and
collaborative approach to achieving our goals.
A more technical challenge involves navigating a lengthy
and difficult Federal regulatory process, probably the biggest
challenge of all, to obtain necessary permits for stream
restoration projects. My colleagues might agree with me on
that. Getting permits often takes 1 to 2 years. Often the
permits require extensive and costly pre- and post-construction
monitoring. Every environmental group I have worked with has
named this as their primary challenge. This results in
significant additional project costs, as well as expansion of
project schedules due to the duration and timing of the
required monitoring, costing taxpayers more money.
Federal permitting requirements become a barrier to Anne
Arundel County achieving mandated targets. In the past year,
Anne Arundel County has engaged in an ongoing dialog with
Federal and State agencies to address the permitting issue.
This is an action item that demands resolution.
In conclusion, if there is anything to take away from
lessons learned, it is a fact that the Chesapeake Bay is the
Nation's largest estuary and one of the world's most productive
bodies of water worthy of national attention, no different than
the Federal response to the Great Lakes or Florida's
Everglades. No one county, no one State, no one region should
have to bear the entire burden of remediation. We must all be
in this together. When we shift this responsibility to a few
counties, we are placing the burden of a national resource on a
local community. At a time when Maryland is struggling to be
competitive, we are putting ourselves at a competitive
disadvantage with yet another tax.
On behalf of the citizens of Anne Arundel County, I
appreciate the opportunity to share with the Subcommittee a
local government experience to date in meeting the EPA's
pollution diet for the Chesapeake Bay. Thank you for inviting
me to speak today.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Neuman follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Senator Cardin. You are welcome. Thank you for your
testimony and thank all three of you for your testimony.
It is very clear from all of your testimony that, first,
the public wants a clean Chesapeake Bay. You moved here, Ms.
Neuman, because of the Bay. They expect when they turn on their
faucet, they are going to get clean water. They expect us to
deliver and protect the environment.
And it was the Congress, not the Environmental Protection
Agency, that passed the Clean Water Act. It was a very popular
thing to do because it speaks to a national priority. We wanted
clean water. We passed the Clean Air Act because we wanted
clean air.
And I applaud Bill Baker for saying it is one thing to have
a law. It is another thing to enforce a law. And it was not
easy to get different stakeholders together on the Chesapeake
Bay Program, and it was well intended. No question about it.
And Mr. Baker is absolutely right. As we look at the different
progress States--we did not miss by a little bit. We missed it
by a lot what we thought we should be able to get done.
So now we are looking at a progress chart that is not as
rosy as we had anticipated it to be. And I agree with all three
of your testimonies, and that is, it is not up to the farmers,
it is not up to developers, it is not up to local government.
It is up to all of us to figure out a plan that works where
everyone is held accountable and responsible for what they
should be able to achieve, not just public good science tells
us, but good politics tells us.
I particularly appreciate your point, Ms. Neuman, that this
has got to be done in a way the public will accept. Otherwise,
we cannot sustain this. This is democracy. So we have got to
get this done right.
So, Mr. Baker, let me start with you. Why are we not going
to reach the 2015 goals? Is it a matter of political will? Is
it a matter of finance? Is it a matter that we set goals too
high? Why are we not achieving more?
Mr. Baker. The 2016 interim goal?
Senator Cardin. Right.
Mr. Baker. We have optimism and hope that we will meet
that.
Senator Cardin. Oh, good. I thought you said in your
testimony that all of the jurisdictions are making progress but
not enough progress.
Mr. Baker. This is in the milestone for 2012-2013. Each of
the States has committed to doing certain things, and so for
the 2013 deadline of the milestones, the interim report was for
half of that 2-year term. They reported on what they were doing
and none of them were meeting but all were doing some. We have
confidence that some of the States may yet pull out the 2013
milestone and meet all of their requirements, but it is going
to be a big lift in this current year and what is left of this
year.
In terms of the 2016, 60 percent of the way toward the 2025
deadline, we are still hopeful that that can be met, but it is
going to take a lot of work.
Senator Cardin. What is the greatest challenge the
stakeholders are facing?
Mr. Baker. With respect, Ms. Neuman, the greatest challenge
is hearing local officials complain about how costly this will
be and using dollar amounts that are simply unsubstantiated by
reality, scaring people into thinking that we cannot afford to
save the Chesapeake Bay. Over and over again, you will see huge
numbers come out of local governments, and once implementation
starts, those numbers start to go down dramatically. I think
that is the greatest challenge, that people are being scared,
that political agendas are being pursued to try to foment
opposition to cleaning up the Chesapeake Bay to saying things
like the only source of pollution that is being attacked is
stormwater when that is simply not the case. So I do object to
using the Chesapeake Bay and its clean up as a way to tell
people that what is being asked is impractical and impossible
to achieve. It is not.
Senator Cardin. On the eastern shore of Maryland, in fact,
in most parts of our State, if you are talking to the farmers,
they think the farmers are the ones who are being picked on the
most as far as dealing with the clean up of the Bay.
So, Mr. Spies, what do you find to be your greatest
challenge in trying to meet the expectations that government
has of a clean farming?
Mr. Spies. One of the issues--and I do not have a fix to
it, but a lot of the grants that I have been involved in and a
lot of grants that other people have been involved in have been
where people really look at the new technology, the next best
thing. We know cover crops are working. We know nutrient
management plants have a benefit, but what is that next thing
farmers can do and agriculture can do to reduce their burden on
the Bay? So there are a lot of exciting things coming down the
pike, but part of the crux of that is once we have researched
it and we start using it, to put it into the plan of the TMDL,
there is a process and it needs to be evaluated. It needs to be
peer-reviewed. Then it is put into our TMDLs and our WIPs as a
temporary goal that is usually pretty conservative. And so
agriculture does not from my point of view--I do not know about
the others, but agriculture is not really reaping all the
benefits of some of the practices that we have been doing and
the money we have been pumping into reduction of nutrients. So
I think it is an important process to evaluate each new
technology and make sure that it is living up to what has been
billed. It would just be nice if there was a way to kind of
track that and follow that along through the process instead of
it being put off until 2017 or later.
I am excited about the programs. I am working within
agriculture and I think agriculture will be able to meet its
goals. It is going to hurt. It is going to take work. But some
of the technologies that are coming and the research that is
coming are exciting.
Senator Cardin. Thank you.
Ms. Neuman, most of your relationship in regards to the Bay
is with the State. The State has come up with a plan. The
counties are responsible for their sector. The legislature has
passed certain laws in regards to funding. My question is what
would you like to see the Federal Government do to make your
job a little bit easier in dealing with the responsibilities
you have with the Chesapeake Bay.
Ms. Neuman. Well, I believe the Chesapeake Bay is a
national resource. The Government could take a lead just like
they did with the Everglades or Great Lakes in cleaning up the
Bay and the tributaries that flow into the Bay. The Chesapeake
Bay benefits everyone in this country not just because it is a
beautiful body of water, but it is a major economic development
engine. If you consider the widening of the Panama Canal, it is
more important. So I believe that the Federal Government should
take a lead in the overall clean up.
What is happening in the State is that when this
remediation fee was passed by the General Assembly, what they
did was push it down to the 10 counties rather than the 24
jurisdictions. So those 10 counties competed in what I call a
race to the bottom to see who can propose the lowest tax. It is
not a fee. It is a tax.
We all agree that the Bay needs to be cleaned up. There is
not any question about that. That is why there are over 600
nonprofits that in some way are focused on cleaning up the Bay
or the tributaries flowing into the Bay. It is very important.
We need to do it. It needs to be done, but to push it down to
10 counties in the State of Maryland when the entire country
and certainly the eastern half greatly benefits from this huge
body of water I think is unfair at the county level and it
requires a broader perspective. It requires work at the Federal
level to manage this process much like you have done with the
Everglades and the Great Lakes.
Senator Cardin. Well, part of reforming the conservation
sections of the Farm Bill is the recognition by the Federal
Government that there are critical areas of this country of
great interest to the entire country so that there are programs
tailored to provide additional help in critical environmental
areas such as the Chesapeake Bay watershed. And the same thing
is true as we look at the Chesapeake Bay Program as to how we
can get national attention to an area that is important to the
entire country because it is a national responsibility, not
just a regional responsibility.
Congressman Sarbanes.
Representative Sarbanes. Thank you.
Mr. Baker, I wanted to ask you about--you talked about the
three agreements that took place and the striking failure to
meet the objectives that have been set out in each of those.
Why do you think we missed those? It seems to me the
information and knowledge we had at our fingertips before those
agreements were in place was nothing like what we have now, and
it is harder to own the problem than solve it when you
distribute it out to all stakeholders. I imagine you would
say--but I would like to hear your thoughts on this--that we
cannot pretend now we do not know what we need to know in order
to make significant progress. It is not a matter of knowledge
anymore. It is about meeting the expectations.
But can you comment on sort of how we move to a new place
with the information and knowledge available to us to provide
the stakeholders with that ownership that we ought to be able
to expect from the stakeholders to solve the problem, that that
might be one of the things that helps make a difference this
time out?
Mr. Baker. Yes, sir. And it is important to remember that
we had 90 percent at least of the science in 1987 when the 40
percent reduction for nitrogen and phosphorus was set. The
numbers in the TMDL blueprint are near exactly the same as they
were in the 1987 agreement in terms of how much pollution needs
to be reduced. What is so different this time--and you asked
why. And I think one is that there is better information, but
also people are impatient and they are impatient when after 35
years progress has not been made in saving something that is as
important to our economy and to our well-being as Chesapeake
Bay. They do demand more. So I think the constituents of our
elected officials in this six-State region said now is the time
to get serious.
The reason this one is different is because it headed off
what hurt the last ones, which was toward the end of the cycle,
whether it was either 1987 and 2000 or 2000 and 2010, elected
officials started to say, you know, I just do not think we are
going to be able to make it. I wish I had been around early on
when we first got started because we would have gotten started
earlier. We have delayed. This one requires the 2-year
incremental reportable and measurable steps. Each State has to
get to the 2025 deadline, and if the States do not meet those
2-year milestones, the EPA can impose sanctions against the
States. We think this is a critical difference.
But do not take my word for it. Look who is opposing it.
Some of the most powerful associations in this country are
opposing the TMDL in Federal court and in Congress because they
think this time it has got a real chance to succeed, and they
are afraid of success. So you have the Fertilizer Institute,
the National Chicken Growers, the Hog Council, the Grain
Growers, the Homebuilders Association of America all suing in
Federal court to try to take away the TMDL, and they are
lobbying in Congress.
So this one is different. People have been impatient. We
know more and we decided that something had to be done that was
enforceable.
Representative Sarbanes. I like the concept that we have
now, in effect, an early warning system, on the political side
of this to check in at regular intervals to adjust and enforce
and insist in ways that we could not do before with the way the
plan was designed and structured.
Talk a little bit and then I will ask you, Ms. Neuman, to
speak to this as well. But let us talk about the public's
relationship to the Chesapeake Bay and to these efforts
generally. I know the Chesapeake Bay Foundation periodically
does surveys to get a sense of what the public's perspective is
and what the appetite is in the public to step up and do the
right thing with respect to the Bay. Then it is a ``connect the
dots'' exercise if, as I imagine you are going to tell me now,
there is strong support for a cleaner Chesapeake Bay, that you
then show people, well, these are the things that have to be
done in order to achieve that. But talk a little bit about what
you get when you go and survey the public and how that helps to
inform the position and policy.
Mr. Baker. Well, we do do routine public opinion surveys,
and we just finished one in Virginia. There is a gubernatorial
election coming up. We hired both a Republican and a Democratic
polling firm to work together. We will be glad to provide the
results to you and to the rest of the Committee members.
The results are startling: overwhelming support not only
for cleaning up the waters of the rivers and streams of the
Chesapeake Bay, but for paying for it. Overwhelming support of
paying for the clean up. And it is a broad-based survey. There
is a lot more than that, but the short answer--I know we have
limited time and others want to speak--overwhelming public
support every time there is a survey done.
Representative Sarbanes. Ms. Neuman, as you go around the
county, I imagine you sense that commitment to the health of
the Bay and a willingness on the part of the residents of Anne
Arundel County to try to do their part. Do you think there is a
way to kind of capture that interest and energy and commitment
and to channel it so the residents of the county and others in
Maryland and beyond will take greater ownership of some of the
resource side of the equation that needs to go with it?
Ms. Neuman. I would, without question, say there is
overwhelming support for cleaning up the Bay and the revenue
streams that flow into the Bay. I do not think any of us would
debate that point. We all agree on that. It needs to be cleaned
up. We have been cleaning it up for 35 years.
The question is how are we going to pay for that. Are we
going to ask a handful of jurisdictions in the State of
Maryland to bear the financial burden? This is a national
problem, and if you are a woman who is 60 years old living in a
1,000-square-foot house on 1 acre in Glen Burnie, you are being
asked to pay $170 a year right now, which is, by the way, your
40th tax increase in 7 years--tax or fee increase in 7 years.
They are pushing back. It is the No. 1 question I get asked
everywhere I go.
And even those who support the Bay--and that includes me. I
mean, I really moved to Anne Arundel County because of the Bay.
I grew up in east Baltimore. I had never been on a boat. I
wanted to go out and see what it was like. I got in a boat at
27 and moved to Annapolis 2 weeks later. I love being on the
Bay. There is no greater activity. Those of us who benefit from
being on it, know the beauty of it. Not everyone has that
opportunity. If you live on the water in Anne Arundel County,
if you are of a certain socioeconomic class and you can see the
benefits of being on the Bay, it makes a lot of sense to do
that. Some people have that privilege. Not everyone does. Most
of our citizens do not have that privilege.
If you want people to appreciate the Bay, you need to get
them on the Bay, but if you have never been on the Bay or if
you do not benefit or directly understand the economic benefit
of preserving the Bay, this national treasure that is a major
economic engine, in addition to being a natural beauty, it is
hard for you to connect with another $170 a year tax which, by
the way, is going up to several hundred dollars over the next
several years. And when you have 10 counties out of 24 who are
being asked to pass this tax on to their citizens, it seems
fundamentally unfair.
And the tax rate is not consistent. So in one county, it is
$35. In our county, it is $170. They say it is $35, but I sent
in my request to find out and it was $170. So it is not
uniformly applied and citizens in 10 counties in our State are
being asked to bear the financial cost of it. It does not seem
fair to me or to every citizen I have spoken with who is
opposed to this tax.
There needs to be a national approach to addressing this
issue. The Bay does need to be cleaned up. It needs to be
addressed nationally. And I believe our local and our statewide
elected officials will be pressed hard on this in the next
round of elections.
Representative Sarbanes. Well, I am sure the two of us
would agree with the notion that the Federal Government can be
contributing more in resources certainly. I think we have
advocated bolstering the partnership and a shared
responsibility that you are referring to. But I do think there
is a potential to connect the strong feelings that people have
about the Bay to an ownership and stewardship of progress we
have made there that includes being not necessarily loving of
the Bay but being accepting of the notion that some additional
resources to promote the benefits from the Bay are to be
expected.
The other thing is that I think there is real opportunity,
as counties and jurisdictions design their stormwater
management fee structure, to offer credits to homeowners and
others who are affected by it when they take meaningful steps
to reduce their particular footprint. And the legislation that
I have offered, The Chesapeake Bay Homeowners Act, has
initiatives that the EPA is taking to model how that would work
and what is the potential. So then the homeowner and consumer
or resident is not just looking at this through the lens of I
am going to get hit with X dollars' worth of tax, but I have an
opportunity through things that I do in my own property,
initiatives that I undertake to reduce that and at the same
time be contributing both in kind and partially, yes, with some
dollars contributed to the overall health of the Bay. And that
is the kind of partnership between government, nonprofit
organizations, and ordinary citizens, of whom there are 18
million of us residing in the Chesapeake Bay watershed that can
get us to those critical tipping points that we heard about
earlier.
Ms. Neuman. I think it is a great idea. It is a frequently
asked question for those who have invested in remediation
projects on their property, whether it be residential or
commercial. They are asking us to be aware of that. But there
are three fees associated with cleaning up: Chesapeake Bay
Restoration Fund, the stormwater remediation fee, also known as
the rain tax, and in our county we have the septic issue which
is exponentially larger than either of those issues.
Senator Cardin. Well, let me thank all three of our
witnesses. I think this has been extremely helpful.
And, Mr. Baker, the map that you put out I think is very
telling. We have enjoyed support not just from Virginia and
Maryland and Delaware and the Nation's capital but also from
the people of Pennsylvania and the people of New York and
people of West Virginia who are in the watershed but do not see
it quite as visibly as we see it because we get the beauty of
the Bay. They have the tributaries that are critically
important for the health of the Bay. We have had that type of
support over the years with the partnership. And I think all of
your testimonies have been extremely helpful to us.
Once again, I want to just thank the leadership of the
Environment and Public Works Committee for allowing us to get
out into the community to develop a hearing on how we can, as a
practical matter, help. There is no question that there is a
commitment in this country to clean water. There is a
commitment for improving the watershed. The Chesapeake Bay
partnership has been a model program that looks at ways that we
can really make the results the Clean Water Act would dictate
us to make and that the people of this country expect us to do.
But we have got to find a practical way to achieve that.
We have been working at this for a long time. But for the
work that we have done, we would be in much worse shape today.
But it is frustrating that we have not been able to achieve
more. And I could not agree with Mr. Spies more that everyone
has to be at the table. It cannot be one person. All of us have
to come. And it does cost money. We have to have the resources.
I know the State of Maryland can meet its obligations and has
tried hard to find a way to do that in conjunction with all of
the people of our State.
So I will take this back. Senator Boozman has been one of
our partners in this. He is the ranking Republican member of
the subcommittee. He has been very interested in the Chesapeake
Bay. And I also want to thank, as I said earlier, Senator Boxer
and Senator Vitter, the chairperson and the ranking Republican
on the full committee, for their commitment for us to try to
develop a record so that our Committee can act in a responsible
manner.
Once again, thank you all for your participation.
And with that, the subcommittee hearing will be adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:40 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.]
[Additional statements submitted for the record follow:]
Statement of Hon. David Vitter,
U.S. Senator from the State of Louisiana
Mr. Chairman, thank you for calling today's hearing. I also
thank our witnesses for testifying before the Subcommittee on
Water and Wildlife.
It is no secret that taking on incredibly complex
restoration efforts--whether in the Chesapeake Bay, Louisiana,
or elsewhere--requires cooperative and trustworthy
relationships between numerous parties, including local, State
and Federal officials, farmers, industry representatives,
municipal utility interests, nonprofit organizations, and
others. I am concerned, however, that Federal officials and
environmental groups are not holding up their end of the
bargain.
For example, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
wants the various Chesapeake States to work together on
restoration issues, yet is at the same time undermining State
and local environmental authority through various regulatory
programs. EPA recently determined, without State input, that it
will assess Bay Watershed States' animal feeding operation
standards and has indicated that it will take ``appropriate
actions'' if the State program isn't satisfactory to the
agency. This type of veiled threat serves no one. It completely
ignores the States' primary role in environmental regulation,
and it does a disservice to restoration efforts by pitting the
local jurisdictions against the Federal Government.
Likewise, environmental groups continue to pursue endless
litigation against anyone who dares to use natural resources to
provide food and jobs to our fellow Americans, often at the
cost of real environmental progress. And we should all remember
that one of the primary roles of our Federal Government is to
facilitate commerce, not to frustrate it. I was disappointed to
learn last week that farmers in Maryland will not be able to
recoup $3 million in legal fees incurred in defending an
outrageous Clean Water Act lawsuit filed by the Waterkeeper
Alliance. It is well known here that the tactics the
Waterkeeper Alliance used to persecute the farmers were
dubious, but the Alliance was not held to account. If
environmental groups truly want improved restoration efforts,
they should think twice before suing the people who are putting
food on our plates in an environmentally responsible manner.
I am pleased to have as the minority witness the County
Executive for Anne Arundel County, Laura Neuman. She is a local
official who understands the importance of a balanced approach
to Chesapeake Bay restoration. Through her opposition to the
so-called ``rain tax'' and other efforts, the County Executive
has worked to ensure that those who want restoration to involve
more than just environmental groups and government bureaucrats
have a voice in Maryland.
Once again, I thank the Chairman for calling today's
hearing.
Statement of Hon. John Boozman,
U.S. Senator from the State of Arkansas
Chairman Cardin, thank you for holding today's hearing on
the progress and ongoing challenges of efforts to improve water
quality in the Chesapeake Bay watershed.
Earlier this year, when I became Subcommittee Ranking
Member, I appreciated the opportunity to visit with you and to
receive a progress report from you on the Chesapeake Bay
Program.
Today's hearing is nationally significant for several
reasons. First, the Chesapeake Bay--our nation's largest
estuary, with a watershed that stretches from New York down
throughout the mid-Atlantic region--is a vital resource of
national significance. Second, the actions taken to restore the
Bay set precedence that may be duplicated in other watersheds.
Finally, the positive and negative experiences of Chesapeake
Bay watershed stakeholders, from all walks of life, will inform
other communities with similar challenges.
Much of today's testimony is encouraging. In many respects,
the Bay's water quality is improving and critical ecosystems
are becoming healthier and more resilient. However, as our
nation continues to borrow at a rate of billions of dollars
every single day--an unsustainable level of borrowing--water
quality stakeholders are rightfully concerned that an
increasing share of the burden for restoration activities could
be shifted to State and local governments. We have experienced
this type of burden in Arkansas, as well. For example, in
northwest Arkansas, a handful of relatively small communities
have invested over $250 million over the last decade to improve
their wastewater treatment plants, with very little support
from the Federal Government.
To maintain support, the Chesapeake Bay Program and
activities carried out under the President's Executive Order
must remain focused on water quality improvement; and where
these activities have been focused on other agenda items
unrelated or only tangentially related to water quality
improvement within the watershed, I urge our agencies to
refocus and redirect efforts toward solving water quality
challenges. For example, we hear about climate change as part
of the Federal Government's Chesapeake Bay restoration efforts.
We also hear of a Federal ``Mid-Atlantic Elementary and
Secondary Environmental Literacy Strategy,'' and the like.
Instead of focusing on the problems that have the potential to
unite citizens behind Chesapeake Bay restoration efforts, these
peripheral efforts create the impression that the
Administration is using the Program to advance its own
political agenda. Congress may debate climate-related policies
or whether there should be Federal incentives for schools to
place a higher emphasis on environmental science than on other
areas of need, such as medicine, but the Chesapeake Bay efforts
should not be used to preempt these important debates. The
threat of ``mission drift'' is real, and if the Bay Program
appears to be too political, support will be undermined.
I also want to address the importance of cooperative
federalism. Too often the EPA begins by threatening the States
and other non-Federal stakeholders. Many future water quality
improvement efforts--both in the Bay watershed and across our
country--will depend on voluntary actions by farmers, community
leaders, and ongoing local taxpayer support. The EPA's
aggressive posture could undermine local support and voluntary
actions.
Moving forward, we should continue to promote cooperation
and support. We should continue to invest in State revolving
fund capitalization grants. We should support voluntary trading
initiatives that allow resources to be most effectively used.
And we should continue to emphasize the role of partners, like
NRCS, that have earned trust in our communities.
Finally, I regret that I was unable to attend today's
hearing, but I look forward to reviewing the testimony and
continuing to work with you, Mr. Chairman, to support water
quality improvement efforts in the Chesapeake Bay watershed and
throughout our country.
Thank you.
[all]