Chesapeake Bay debate splits Virginia Republicans

By Ben Pershing, Published: July 28

Virginia has more than 7,000 miles of shoreline on the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries, but when it comes to keeping the bay clean, the state’s members of Congress are all over the map.

In a Capitol Hill delegation in which each party’s lawmakers tend to stick together, the Chesapeake is the rare issue that has divided Virginia Republicans. The intraparty break is especially important now as the GOP-controlled House makes repeated attempts to lessen the federal government’s anti-pollution efforts.

“There is a complete split,” said Rep. Gerald E. Connolly (D), who added that the bay was a regular topic of discussion — and disagreement — at the state delegation’s monthly lunch meetings.

The House could vote Friday on a possible amendment by Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R) that would block the Environmental Protection Agency from implementing its Chesapeake cleanup plan. The EPA program, which outlines what six states and the District must do by 2025 to help clean up the bay, is supported by environmental groups but has drawn criticism from business and agricultural interests.

The House approved similar language in February during debate on a short-term spending resolution, with every Virginia Democrat voting against Goodlatte’s amendment and every Republican voting for it — except Rep. Rob Wittman (R). The language was left out when the final version of the bill became law in April.

But July 13, when the House passed a measure preventing the EPA from enforcing national water quality standards, the vote broke a bit differently. While 95 percent of House Republicans supported the legislation, three from Virginia sided with most Democrats against it — Wittman and Reps. Frank R. Wolf and Scott Rigell.

Last week, a House committee cleared a separate Wittman-authored bill, requiring a strict accounting of every dollar spent on bay restoration efforts, that has attracted a bipartisan crew of co-sponsors, including Goodlatte and several Democrats.

(In Maryland, the lines are clearer: The state’s two House Republicans have consistently voted with their party against federal cleanup efforts.)

Support for cleaning the Chesapeake seems to drift with the currents, but there is some pattern to how Virginia’s members vote.

Doug Siglin, the director of federal affairs at the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, notes that lawmakers whose districts sit on the bay or on the Potomac or Rappahannock rivers — such as Wittman, Wolf and Rigell — tend to look more favorably on cleanup efforts.

“I think those districts are very water-sensitive, and I think the representatives . . . are more sensitive to those issues than other parts of the state are,” Siglin said.

That appears true of Wittman, whose 1st District includes the Northern Neck and the banks of the Potomac and James rivers. Although he has a strongly conservative record on most issues, Wittman has been unafraid to buck his party when it comes to the Chesapeake.

“Folks agree on the ends — to clean up the bay — but they disagree on the means,” Wittman said.

He said that although he doesn’t agree with everything the EPA does, he opposes efforts to reduce the agency’s role because “in the end, everybody needs to be a partner in cleaning up the bay. . . . Virginia suffers if other states aren’t doing their jobs.”

On the other side of the debate stands Goodlatte, the vice chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, who represents a farm-laden slice of western Virginia. He thinks the EPA’s Chesapeake cleanup plan — which puts the bay on a “pollution diet” by setting limits on the “total maximum daily load” of chemicals that can flow into it — is not only bad policy, but also violates clean water law by usurping authority that belongs to the states.

The American Farm Bureau Federation and the National Association of Home Builders have filed separate suits against the EPA in federal court, making a similar case.

Goodlatte and other critics contend that the EPA’s plan could be economically ruinous for the states that have to comply.

“The fact of the matter is the impact of the decisions they’re taking from on high in Washington are having a very dramatic effect on farmers and small businesses all across the Chesapeake watershed,” Goodlatte said.

Goodlatte has not said whether he will offer another amendment blocking the EPA plan, though he could do so Friday as the House debates the bill funding the agency.

The February vote on Goodlatte’s amendment, Rep. James P. Moran Jr. (D) said, “created the most striking disparity between our respective visions of the bay.”

With Wittman on one side of the fight and Goodlatte on the other, Rigell is the man in the middle.

“I think the federal government has an interest in ensuring we have clean water,” said Rigell, whose 2nd District includes Virginia Beach and the Eastern Shore, as well as portions of Hampton and Norfolk.

He said he voted against the recent bill on water-quality standards because it “would’ve severely restricted the EPA’s ability” to regulate on what’s clearly a multi-state issue.

“Where I sometimes part ways with the EPA is the timeframe” for the cleanup, Rigell said, adding that he voted for Goodlatte’s amendment this year because the EPA’s plan is “too aggressive.”

More legislation is in the pipeline. Wittman’s bipartisan accountability bill is ready for a floor vote in the coming weeks. Connolly is pushing a measure to improve management of storm-water runoff. And Sen. Benjamin L. Cardin (D-Md.) is mulling whether to reintroduce a wide-ranging Chesapeake cleanup bill that did not make it to a vote in the last Congress.

With debate raging over the federal debt, some critics say now is the time for the EPA to scale back its plans.

“The federal government has no money,” said Wilmer Stoneman, associate director of government relations for the Virginia Farm Bureau Federation. “We’ve got to think about things we can and can’t do and see that everyone is treated fairly in the process.”

But defenders of the bay say clean water is in the financial interest of all Virginians.

“I have to emphasize this: We do a lot of talking about jobs and the economy,” Wittman said. “The bay is a jobs creator. It is an economic engine.”

Bay project manager position created

New job will coordinate local efforts to meet EPA Chesapeake ‘pollution diet’

July 28, 2011

By John McVey, Journal staff writer , journal-news.net

MARTINSBURG - To get an accurate accounting of local efforts to comply with new, strict pollution-control requirements, the Region 9 Planning and Development Council has created a Chesapeake Bay project manager.

Carol Goolsby, Region 9 executive director, announced Wednesday that Matthew Pennington has been hired to fill the new position. Pennington was a planner for the Berkeley County Planning Department.

"He will develop and maintain a database quantifying efforts of local entities relating to (the Chesapeake Bay restoration program)," she explained in a telephone interview Wednesday.

Goolsby said Pennington also will assist local governments and agencies to develop policies to implement the Chesapeake Bay program, generate public awareness of the program and work with the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection on its Water Implementation Plan for the bay watershed, among other responsibilities and duties.

The idea of a bay program coordinator for Berkeley, Jefferson and Morgan counties came out of a Jefferson County Council of Governments meeting in May.

Representatives of Jefferson County Commission and Ranson and Charles Town councils wanted to keep track of what local jurisdictions as well as nongovernmental organizations are doing to improve water quality and get credit for their work.

Last year, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency ordered the six states in the Chesapeake Bay watershed and the District of Columbia to drastically reduce pollution getting into the bay via its tributaries, like the Potomac River.

The Potomac is a major tributary of the bay and the greater, eight-county Eastern Panhandle is in the Potomac River basin.

EPA's new regulations, dubbed a "pollution diet," put dramatically lower limits on the amounts of nutrient and sediment that can be discharged into bay tributaries from wastewater treatment plants, agricultural operations and stormwater runoff.

Pennington's position is funded through an EPA Chesapeake Bay Regulatory and Accountability Grant that is administered by the WVDEP, Goolsby said. Region 9 is a subrecipient, she said.

The grant is for $100,000 with a local $25,000 in-kind service match, she said.

The bay project manager is a contract position and is funded for one year, but it could be extended for another four years depending on the availability of grant and matching funds, Goolsby said.

Pennington starts on Aug. 8.

State GOP leaders gather in Shepherdstown to discuss general issues, including Chesapeak Bay watershed compliance

July 23, 2011

SHEPHERDSTOWN - The West Virginia Republican Party met at the Clarion in Shepherdstown Friday to discuss general issues around the state, including Chesapeake Bay watershed compliance and redistricting.

Between discussions about Marcellus Shale and rallying the party members around Bill Maloney's campaign for governor, Curtis Keller spoke about the Chesapeake Bay watershed compliance issue affecting the Eastern Panhandle and other surrounding counties.

Keller, manager of the Berkeley County Public Service Sewer District, explained to the party that these Environmental Protection Agency standards for the Chesapeake Bay affect eight counties in the eastern part of the state.

To meet these standards, these counties must upgrade their various wastewater treatment plants to remove excess amounts of nitrogen and phosphorous. To comply with EPA standards, Kellet said the 13 facilities in the eight counties are spending an upward of $200 million.

"It's an issue across the country. Different areas have been looking at nutrient removal," Keller said. "It's very costly."

Keller said, however, upgrading plants to implement new technologies is not the only component to compliance. The other has to do with stormwater management.

Keller said there also was a cap on how much the plants can serve, and he worries about serving businesses that want to come into the area decades in the future.

"Our responsibility is to serve the customers as they come on," he said.

The state Legislature passed a bill this past session which would pay for 40 percent of the costs of meeting Chesapeake Bay standards, but ratepayers still need to pay the rest.

Berkeley County resident and tea party activist Rainer Kissel asked how much he can expect his and other residents' bills to increase.

Keller said on average ratepayers pay about $47 a month for approximately 4,500 gallons of water. He said customers can see anywhere from $65 to $70 a month; some, he said, could see a 150 percent increase in their bills depending where they live.

Before the party broke to take a bus tour around Jefferson County, Delegates Walter Duke, R-Berkeley, and Gary Howell, R-Mineral, explained to party members the redistricting process just days after many legislators submitted their drafts of what the new districts should represent.

Duke, who explained to attendees the fundamentals of the redistricting process, served on the redistricting committee, which he said would gather for one-hour sessions in Charleston once a month one top of holding 11 public hearings around the state.

Duke said the Eastern Panhandle alone gained 43,000, a 48 percent growth, allowing for two new delegate districts.

The conversation turned to the topic of single-member districts, the idea of one legislative member designated to each electoral district. This concept, Duke said, is something the state House of Delegates leadership does not favor.

"Whatever (the Democrats) want and submit will probably happen," he said.

Howell said he believes multi-member districts can "dilute a minority vote."

Many party members in attendance voiced their opinions that single-member districts would benefit the Republican Party. Mike Stuart, state WVGOP chairman, even cited a Charleston Gazette editorial advocating against the districts, asking "cool heads" to prevail, "not selfish interests."

Jim Mullins, WVGOP executive committee member from Beckley, said, "I think that there's living proof right around us in this area, single-member districts are not an absolute guarantee of electing republicans to office. So this idea that we're seeking single-member districts because we know that suddenly the House is going to turn upside down overnight's not a guarantee."

Stuart said he believed single-member districts were something that could affect both parties.

"I don't believe this is a partisan issue," he said.

Stuart added, "I'm still hopeful we get single-member districts."

The meeting will reconvene today at the Bavarian Inn.

Chesapeake Bay 'pollution diet' coming along

July 12, 2011

journal-news.net

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) - An ambitious plan to restore the Chesapeake Bay by 2025 is off to a positive start, with the first round of pollution control reductions on target, the Environmental Protection Agency announced Monday.

EPA administrator Lisa Jackson said the reductions, primarily from sewage plant improvements, are a significant milestone in the effort "to protect and restore the Chesapeake."

"Ultimately we've come together on the federal, state and local levels as never before," Jackson told governors and District of Columbia Mayor Vincent Gray.

The news was delivered at the annual meeting of the Chesapeake Executive Council, which establishes the policy agenda for the Chesapeake Bay Program.

Jeff Corbin, the EPA's senior adviser on the bay's restoration, delivered the interim report on cleanup targets established in 2009 for the six states in the bay watershed and the District of Columbia. The states are Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania and New York.

The numbers reflect progress in achieving pollution-reduction goals at the two-thirds mark of the first two-year milestone. Some states made more progress than others but collectively they are moving forward in cleaning up the 64,000-square-mile watershed, Corbin said.

The EPA is directing the restoration of the nation's largest estuary after years of inaction by the states. The bay has been in steady decline because of pollution and runoff from farmland and the hard urban surfaces created by the 17 million people who live within its watershed.

The pollution has created dead zones devoid of life and virtually wiped out the native oyster. The bay's blue crab population has rebounded over the past few years, primarily because of measures to limit its catch.

While every speaker applauded the goals of the restoration, Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell raised the question of the ultimate price tag. Virginia has estimated the cost of its measures at $7 billion to $8 billion through 2025.

"What we all discussed candidly is how it this going to be paid for," McDonnell said after a closed luncheon with Jackson and other members of the council. "We don't want to set goals and then set ourselves up for failure."

McDonnell said he is seeking a better understanding of how much costs state and local governments will have to shoulder for the bay's cleanup.

"Otherwise the multi-multi-billion price tag of this very honorable goal will be such that we won't have a plan or we just fall short," he said.

Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley praised his state for nearly reaching its 2011 milestones and urged officials to stick with the pollution-reduction goals.

"Cleaning up the bay is expensive," he said. "Letting her die is even more expensive, and we're not going to allow that to happen."

O'Malley said Maryland is 98 percent of the way to reaching the 2011 milestones for nitrogen and phosphorus reductions. The two pollutants come from sources such as a fertilizer, animal waste and auto and power plant emissions.

Jackson, who did not address the funding questions raised by McDonnell, said earlier she understood the difficult budget realities faced by the states.

A key message of the council meeting stressed the importance of individual actions of individuals in making a difference in the bay's health. They include water conservation, reductions in lawn-care products and the purchase of rain barrels to collect water for lawns and gardens.

"Actions by government at the federal, state and local level will not be sufficient - it will take each and every one of us doing our part," Jackson said.

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett also attended the Richmond meeting.