Obama Orders EPA to Take the Lead in Bay Cleanup.

[elleng]

President Obama took a dramatic step to revive faltering efforts to clean up the Chesapeake Bay yesterday, issuing an executive order that could empower the federal Environmental Protection Agency to set a more demanding timetable and penalize states that fail to meet it.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/12/AR2009051202469.html?hpid=artslot

[imdjh]

1. K&R

[KT2000]

2. Yeah!

That's how to do it.

[Wednesdays]

3. K&R

:kick:

[Shireling]

4. That's Great!!!

Now let's protect the polar bears and the wolves. Oh, and stop mountaintop mining, too!!!

[DCKit]

5. Reasonable laws, rules and regulations have been in place for a long, long time.

Meanwhile, there has been little enforcement and the bay has continued to die.

It's time to bring the hammer down. However, it'll be interesting to see how those people - companies, politicians, bureaucrats - who squeezed every penny out of non-enforcement, will now scam the system to generate income streams from enforcement.

[elleng]

6. Its largely farm runoff, I think.

.

[DCKit]

7. Largely, but not all.

However, too many farmers have been unwilling to plant buffer zones between their fields and waterways just as cities and towns have refused to deal with storm runoff or the problems it causes with direct deposits of raw sewage, silt and chemicals into waterways.

I was born and raised on the Susquehanna river (the largest bay tributary) and I've seen how fields are plowed to the edge of rivers and streams, that animals are not properly excluded from flowing streams and that cities and towns all over PA and NY (VA and WV too) are using ancient technology to treat sewage and are still mixing storm water and raw sewage instead of having separate systems - not that storm water should ever be sent directly into any waterway, but it's less destructive when it's not mixed with raw sewage.

However, instead of utilizing any of the countless low cost methods of dealing with the problems caused by runoff and the pollutants it carries, many jurisdictions have continued to avoid doing anything and few farmers are willing to give up a few acres and the resulting dollars for the bay. Enforcement and fines are the only way to convince some people to act correctly.

Maryland, one state with a HUGE stake in the health of the Chesapeake, is moving forward and making the choice to keep the bay productive, providing a helping hand where they can and fining the shit out of those who don't play nice. However, asking NY, PA, VA and WV to get their shit together isn't having much of an effect because those states don't benefit directly from a healthy bay ecosystem, nor do they have to live with the cost of the damage they do.

If you can find the show "Outdoors Maryland" on the Internet, check out a few episodes. It's a really well done nature show with plenty of content about the bay.

[elleng]

8. Have seen the show, on tv actually, some time ago.

I'm in Silver Spring, and sure want things to improve. Used to fish on the Bay.