Alarms have been raised after the newly appointed regional head of the Environmental Protection Agency seemed to walk back long-held pollution reduction goals last week.
Now, Anne Arundel County, Maryland, Executive Steuart Pittman is speaking out, asking for the EPA’s backing, and recommitting his county to the cleanup efforts in the Chesapeake Bay, the nation’s largest estuary.
“We really would like to have the EPA on board and putting the pressure to actually finish the job we started,” Pittman said.
With most states and the District working to meet the goals set forth in 2010, it came as a surprise when, at a meeting on Friday, the head of the EPA’s Chesapeake Bay Program, Dana Aunkst, said those goals were only “an aspiration” and not enforceable.
Pittman told WTOP that “everybody’s jaw dropped” at those words.
He says Anne Arundel is committed to reducing bay pollution but worries that the EPA’s comments could be used by some — like Pennsylvania — to shrink away from their commitments.
“The water comes from Pennsylvania down into the Bay,” Pittman said. “It’s frustrating when the other states don’t step up.”
“Without that pressure coming from the federal government, there’s less likelihood that people will invest the money that it takes and do the work.”
Pittman says the “political will” in some jurisdictions is stronger than others. But Anne Arundel County will continue its commitment, investing $270 million over the next three years in programs that reduce pollution.
Nearly 10 years ago, the EPA adopted a series of milestones that would help the Chesapeake Bay and the region’s streams, creeks and rivers reach a certain level of cleanliness by 2025.
This plan, established in late 2010, was called the Chesapeake Bay Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL), that the EPA called a “pollution diet” in a fact sheet published at that time.
The EPA’s plan set forth a number of milestones that Delaware, Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia and D.C. would have to hit that would put the region on a path to reaching the pollution reduction measures by 2025.
WTOP’s Dick Uliano and Dan Friedell contributed to this report.
