EPA agrees to make Pennsylvania cut Chesapeake Bay pollution
A fisherman tests his skills from the shoreline at Fort Smallwood Park in Baltmiore as the sun rises over the Chesapeake Bay on August 12, 2020. (Brian Krista/Baltimore Sun/Tribune News Service via Getty Images) BALTIMORE - Pennsylvania must minimize its outsized role in polluting the Chesapeake Bay, according to a proposed settlement agreement announced Thursday that would subject the state to increased oversight from federal environmental officials.The agreement comes after other jurisdictions in the bay’s watershed — Maryland, Virginia, Delaware and the District of Columbia — filed a lawsuit in 2020 arguing Pennsylvania wasn’t pulling its weight in their collective effort to reach a 2025 pollution reduction goal.
The states were looking to reduce harmful nutrient and sediment runoff that flows from farms and cities into the Chesapeake.Environmental groups also filed a similar lawsuit around the same time, and the two were combined.
Thursday’s agreement between the plaintiffs and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency would resolve both."The bay is a national treasure and a vital part of Maryland’s identity," Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown said on a call with reporters Thursday afternoon. "Marylanders deserve a clean, healthy bay … but we can only get so far without the commitment and the effort of all jurisdictions within the bay’s watershed."The nation’s largest estuary has been gradually rebounding under a federal cleanup program launched in 1983 that put an end to unbridled pollution, but more recent efforts have been lagging.In Pennsylvania, the Susquehanna River cuts through the state’s farmland, picking up polluted runoff before pouring into the Chesapeake in Maryland — producing about half of its.
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