April 28, 2011
CHARLES TOWN - It was the consensus of county and municipal officials attending Wednesday's Jefferson County Council of Governments meeting in Charles Town to collect data showing what each jurisdiction is doing to improve water quality, proving they are complying with new regulations to clean up the Chesapeake Bay.
"We're not getting credit for what we're doing," Jefferson County Commissioner Lyn Widmyer protested. "Our best defense is to show what we're doing."
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, per a presidential executive order, has imposed very strict pollution limits on the states in the Chesapeake Bay watershed. The greater, eight-county Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia is in the Potomac River watershed, and the Potomac is a major tributary to the bay.
At the end of last year, in the first phase of its bay restoration program, the EPA issued new, very low amounts of nutrients, that is nitrogen and phosphorus, and sediment that can reach the bay by way of its tributaries. The EPA program targets three areas in which to reduce pollution: agriculture, wastewater treatment plants and stormwater runoff.
In Phase II of the program, local jurisdictions must implement measures to reduce nutrient and sediment pollution, showing how they are complying with the new, stringent pollution-control mandates.
A series of meetings sponsored by Region 9 Planning and Development Council and the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection are scheduled to begin next month that will form the basis for Phase II of the state and local plan to comply with EPA requirements.
"Now is the time to push for local input - now is the time that we need to do it," Jefferson County Commissioner Frances Morgan said.
"If we collect data and show the methodology, we'll have solid evidence and our voice will be stronger and bigger," Charles Town Councilwoman MaryLois Gannon-Miller added.
Ranson Mayor Dave Hamill agreed that the effort has to be collective.
"Each has to tell its story, and collectively, we need to tell our story," he said. "We need to tell people exactly what we're doing, and they can look at it and say, "These guys really are doing something.'"
Jefferson County Commission President Patsy Noland, who presided over the meeting, said a plan will be formulated to implement the data collection, such as who will do the collecting, what format the data be in, where it will be stored and so on.
Jefferson County administrator Tim Boyde and Jennifer Brockman, director of Jefferson County's Department of Planning and Zoning, also attended the meeting.
No one from Bolivar, Harpers Ferry or Shepherdstown attended.
The group decided to meet again in a month
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