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Chamber members refute EPA's Chesapeake Bay cleanup mandates

Says Pa.'s plan is fair, realistic approach to addressing water quality issues

The federal Environmental Protection Agency has rejected Pennsylvania’s fair, realistic plan to reduce nitrogen, phosphorous and sediment into the Chesapeake Bay, and is proposing in its place impossible and draconian mandates in which costs significantly outweigh the benefits.

The PA Chamber recently submitted official comments to the agency and the state Department of Environmental Protection regarding EPA's proposed Chesapeake Bay Total Maximum Daily Load for the Susquehanna and Potomac Basin watersheds, and regarding DEP's related Pennsylvania Chesapeake Bay Watershed Implementation Plan (WIP).

In September, Pennsylvania submitted to EPA its plan detailing how it would reduce nitrogen, phosphorous and sediment in the watershed. The PA Chamber believes that the Pennsylvania WIP -- built upon a decade of stakeholder involvement -- while not perfect, comes closest to providing a fair, realistic and achievable approach to nutrient reductions. For certain sectors, including significant municipal and industrial point sources, the WIP represents a series of commitments and courses of action that are already well underway. Although expensive, the WIP reflects actions that industry and publicly owned treatment works have engaged to deliver. Nonetheless, EPA dismissed the plan as "seriously flawed" and is now attempting to impose a Backstop TMDL containing impossible and draconian mandates.

EPA proposes to arbitrarily and unfairly move nitrogen, phosphorous and sediment reductions from non-point sources (farms, housing developments, forestland, etc.) to municipal and industrial wastewater facilities, even though non-point source loads represent the vast majority of nutrient and sediment deposits into the bay. EPA's proposal would push every municipal treatment plant to the "limits of technology," and for industries, push to levels that are well beyond any known technology. EPA's proposal will cost billions of dollars to implement, while achieving roughly only a 6 percent reduction in these deposits into the bay, raising serious cost/benefit questions.

The issue is particularly critical for impacted industries, which are already making significant investments to reduce deposits into the bay and are enduring costs that cannot readily be passed on to customers, given the nature of global competition and the minimum margins allowed in a competitive market in which producers in other regions or other parts of the world do not face such costs.

The PA Chamber is asking EPA to consider how much each sector contributes to loadings received by the bay; the steps each sector has already taken to reduce its loadings; what steps, commitments and investments are already in progress; how well are existing loadings from each sector understood; how will proposed loading limits impact citizens, taxpayers and businesses; and within each source sector, whether there are truly viable actions that can be taken in a cost-effective manner.

Pennsylvania Chamber members urge EPA to make sure that its mandates reflect viable, cost-effective clean up options, and to recognize the commitment already underway to improve water quality within the watershed.

The PA Chamber's letter to EPA is available here.

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Founded in 1916, the Pennsylvania Chamber of Business and Industry is the state's largest broad-based business association, with its membership comprising businesses of all sizes and across all industry sectors. The PA Chamber is The Statewide Voice of Business.

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