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Farm Bureau targets EPA pollutant limits for Chesapeake Bay
by Karl Blankenship
The Bay Program has launched a new feature on its ChesapeakeStat website to allow the public to track and verify nutrient reduction progress toward Bay cleanup goals.
The EPA on Dec. 29 established a Total Maximum Daily Load for for each state and major tributary in the Chesapeake that set the nitrogen, phosphorus and sediment reductions needed to clean up Bay water. Under the TMDL, 60 percent of the reductions are needed by 2017, and the rest must be in place by 2025.
The new Bay Tracking and Accounting system, or BayTAS, is intended to let people see if pollution reduction efforts are on track. The website contains the 2009 baseline levels of nitrogen, phosphorus and sediment, based on computer modeling, which are displayed geographically on maps for all jurisdictions and waterways.
It also displays the TMDL nutrient reduction goals within a basin or jurisdiction for different sources, such as agriculture, urban, wastewater and onsite septic tanks.
The site also allows people to look up information about specific permitted wastewater treatment plants, as well as determine the current estimated nutrient discharge and the goal assigned for the plant. Information about all significant wastewater dischargers in the watershed - generally the largest facilities - is included on the site.
BayTAS is intended to be improved over time, with future versions reporting on the implementation and verification of agricultural best management practices, the tracking of pollution offsets and other details. Updated information from more recent computer model runs will also be included as it becomes available.
The January release of BayTAS met a commitment of the federal strategy to implement President Obama's Chesapeake Bay Executive Order and the EPA's 2010 agreement with the Chesapeake Bay Foundation to settle a lawsuit, both of which called for the tracking and accountability system.
The site's address is http://stat.chesapeakebay.net/BayTAS.
It is part of ChesapeakeStat, a broader online tracking system maintained by the Bay Program to allow the public to track progress toward various Bay goals.
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