Report: Bay program needs to do more | Maryland Gazette (HometownGlenBurnie.com)

The Environmental Protection Agency's Inspector General found the Chesapeake Bay Program isn't doing a good job at accurately describing the slow pace of restoration. And it faults the bay program for not getting involved in local development issues and not doing enough to prevent pollution from farms and airborne sources.

"Through its reporting responsibilities, EPA could better advise Congress and the Chesapeake Bay community that (a) the Bay program is significantly short of its goals and (b) partners need to make major changes if goals are to be met," the report stated.

The report is the latest in a series of evaluations of the bay program's shortcomings. The reports were issued after U.S. Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski, D-Md., asked for an independent accounting of the bay program's progress in 2005. It cost $253,615 for the EPA's Inspector General staff to produce the report.

Despite the expense, the report turned up little new information.

"In some ways, the assessment has a wondrous lack of surprises," said Roy Hoagland with the nonprofit Chesapeake Bay Foundation. "What the report says is we need to be bigger, better and faster."

There needs to be a bigger infusion of cash and "political will" and better-targeted use of the money, Mr. Hoagland said.

"And faster because the 2010 deadline is fast approaching and we're not going to reach it," he said. "We need to accelerate it."

"Chesapeake Bay Blues" author Howard Ernst, one of the few vocal critics of the bay program, also found little new in the report.

"The Office of Inspector General spent a quarter of a million dollars to tell the public what they already know: The bay is severely degraded and the restoration effort has failed to meet its most basic goals," said Mr. Ernst, who also teaches political science at the Naval Academy.

Mr. Ernst said the report is further evidence that the largely voluntary effort to clean the bay needs to be replaced by a cleanup program with teeth.

"While this is not the end of the type of sticky sweet environmental programs that got the bay into this mess, it is another import step in that direction," he said.

The Chesapeake Bay Program is led by the EPA, but involves various other state and federal agencies in bay cleanup efforts. The bay program has a goal of reducing pollution enough by 2010 to get the bay off the list of the nation's "impaired waters."

Bay program officials have acknowledged that 2010 will come and go without meeting the pollution goals.

But according to the Inspector General report, the bay program doesn't always make that clear.

"Despite many noteworthy accomplishments by the Chesapeake Bay partners, the Bay remains degraded," the report states. "This has resulted in continuing threats to aquatic life and human health, and citizens being deprived of the Bay's full economic and recreational benefits."

The report notes there is no dedicated stream of money to pay for restoration. It also points to areas where the bay program could get more involved: local planning to reduce harmful sprawl, helping farmers institute eco-friendly practices and weighing in on important changes in air-pollution laws.

Pollution that reaches the bay comes from diverse sources: urban stormwater runoff, farm runoff, sewage plant discharges and air pollution from cars, factories, power plants and commercial ships.

The EPA refused to make any officials available for interviews. But the agency released this comment, attributed to Benjamin H. Grumbles, the agency's assistant administrator for water:

"The report notes accomplishments and recommendations for the future and we are acting on them with our partners."