The Chesapeake Bay TMDL

• Author: Ridgway M. Hall Jr.
• Position: Retired founding partner of Crowell & Moring, LLP, where he started the firm's environmental practice
• Pages: 34-39

Page 34 ❧ THE ENVIRONMENTAL FORUM Copyright © 2011, Environmental Law Institute®, Washington, D.C. www.eli.org.

Reprinted by permission from The Environmental Forum®, May/June 2011

Co v e r sT o r y

In December 2010, EPA issued the largest Total

Maximum Daily Load of pollutant assignments

ever under the Clean Water Act, covering the

Chesapeake Bay and its 92 tidal segments. For

decades bay water quality has been severely im-

paired, with no-oxygen dead zones showing up every

summer. Water quality standards for dissolved oxy-

gen, chlorophyll-a (an indicator of algae levels), and

water clarity are not being met because of excessive

discharges of nitrogen, phosphorus, and sediment

to the bay and its tributaries, mostly from human

activities. As a result, populations of f‌ish, crabs, oys-

ters, and other aquatic life have been far below his-

toric levels. is in turn has caused severe economic

losses to the once large commercial f‌ishing industry,

to recreation and tourism companies, and to numer-

ous other businesses that support or rely on them, to

say nothing of human enjoyment of this treasured

resource. To reverse these losses, the Chesapeake Bay

TMDL requires major reductions in annual pollut-

ant discharges between now and 2025.

e Chesapeake Bay is the largest estuary in North

America. Even today it is one of the most biologi-

cally productive marine waterbodies in the world. Its

watershed covers 64,000 square miles in Delaware,

Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West

Virginia, and the District of Columbia. e popula-

tion in the watershed is 17 million and growing, in-

cluding a large agricultural community. ousands

of rivers and streams carry pollutants from a wide

variety of activities to the bay. But while society’s

demands on the Chesapeake and its tributaries have

risen steadily over the past century, its carrying ca-

pacity has not.

Beginning in 1983, Maryland, Pennsylvania,

Virginia, and the District of Columbia, later joined

by Delaware, New York, and West Virginia, signed

a series of “bay agreements” to develop strategies to

improve water quality, including appropriate pro-

grams and practices. Extensive monitoring programs

were launched along with ef‌forts to identify pollu-

tion sources and reduce the discharges. In 1987 the

signatories established a goal of reducing nitrogen

and phosphorus loadings by 40 percent by 2000 and

agreed to develop a bay-wide strategy to achieve this.

at same year, Congress added a new Section 117

to the Clean Water Act which created and funded a

Chesapeake Bay Program within the Environmental

Protection Agency’s Region 3, designed to coordi-

nate state and federal ef‌forts.

EPA worked closely with the states to develop re-

vised water quality standards to ref‌lect current ob-

e Chesapeake

Bay TMDL

To save a national treasure, the new Total

Maximum Daily Load requirements for

the bay and its tributaries comprise an

extraordinary example of governance — a

collaboration among federal agencies and

states, with input from all stakeholder

groups and af‌fected parties

Ridgway M. hall Jr. is a retire d

founding par tner of Crowell & Mor-

ing, LLP, where he start ed the rm’s

environmenta l practice. He currently

serves on the B oard of the Chesa-

peake Legal Allianc e. He can be

reached at rid gehall@gmail.com.