Efforts to clean up Bay falling short, report says

Despite some modest gains last year, the health of the Chesapeake Bay remains "degraded and vulnerable," while progress toward meeting key cleanup goals by 2010 is falling badly behind, a new federal report conclude d.

Released Thursday in Maryland, the report also warn ed that development trends and anticipated harm from global warming might put millions of acres of ecologically important forests, farmland and coastal wetlands at risk over the next 20 years, further limiting chances for saving the Bay.

Jeff Lape, director of the Chesapeake Bay Program, a branch of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that published the report, said the results show a need for "new actions that are more effective" in reversing the Bay's slow and steady decline.

While he did not mention specific ideas, Lape said the mid-Atlantic region, from New York to Virginia, needs to "fundamentally change" how it builds new homes, roads and businesses. He also called on residents to be more environmentally sensitive when going about their daily routines.

Citing a recent study, Lape noted how homeowners on average use 10 times the fertilizer that farmers spread, resulting in nutrient-rich runoff washing off lawns and gardens and polluting the Bay through storm drains.

Excessive nutrients, such as nitrogen and phosphorus, are the biggest problems facing the Bay today. They spark algae blooms, which in turn steal oxygen from the water and make life difficult for aquatic plants and animals.

Government leaders pledged eight years ago to dramatically decrease nitrogen and phosphorus entering the Bay by 2010. But, according to the report Thursday, more than double the accepted amount of nitrogen flowed into the Bay last year. Phosphorus levels also were too high, according to the report.

Consequently, only about 12 percent of the Bay met oxygen standards during summer months in 2007 - a decrease from 28 percent in 2006.

"Data gathered from more than 150 monitoring stations throughout the Bay show us that the health of the bay remains poor," said Bill Dennison, a researcher from the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science. "We are not on the road to recovery."

Dennison and colleagues gave the Bay's overall condition a "C-" for 2007, up from a "D+" in 2006. "At best, we are holding our own against population and growth taking place throughout the Bay watershed," he said.

Environmental groups, led by the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, have been calling for increased attention and energy to the cleanup for years, arguing that the effort has been bogged down amid too many meetings and too little funding.

The foundation last month asked the federal government to skip the next two years and start working now on a new strategy for turning around the Bay.

The request came in the wake of the government conceding that it will not meet a 2010 deadline for restoring water quality enough to remove the Bay from a national list of polluted waters.

"It is time for the EPA" to require tough actions, wrote foundation vice president Roy A. Hoagland, "that will ensure restoration of what we all recognize as a national treasure in a condition of national disgrace."

For its part, Gov. Timothy M. Kaine's administration has appropriated more than $500 million over the past two years to upgrade sewage treatment plants across Virginia and curb storm water pollution.

But facing lean economic times and budget deficits, Virginia was forced to cut back certain environmental programs this year. Kaine had pledged to greatly expand efforts at curbing farm and urban runoff affecting the Bay this year, but had to settle for a milder effort.

Scott Harper, (757) 446-2340, scott.harper@pilotonline.com