The six Bay watershed states and the District of Columbia submitted their Draft Watershed Implementation Plans (WIPs) to EPA on September 1, 2010. The public comment period for the plans will be held from September 28 through November 8, 2010. Visit the EPA TMDL website for details.

What is the Bay-wide TMDL?

In this video, CBF Senior Water Quality Scientist Dr. Beth McGee explains the TMDL in plain English and  how it connects to CBF's lawsuit against EPA and the President's Executive Order. Double-click for full-screen and audio controls.

In 2000, the federal government, the Bay states, and the District of Columbia promised to work together to clean up our waterways enough to get the Chesapeake Bay and its rivers off the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) "dirty waters" list. The promises delivered few results and the established goals were not met by 2010. So now, as required by the court, EPA and the states are setting up firm pollution limits to be implemented no later that 2011.

EPA is developing these new Bay-wide enforceable pollution limits through a regulatory plan—called a TMDL (Total Maximum Daily Load)— required under the Clean Water Act.

A TMDL establishes a "pollution diet" that, if achieved, leads to the restoration of a polluted body of water.

While similar restoration efforts have mimicked this process, the differences between them and the new Bay-wide TMDL include:

• EPA will require the states to specify, in great detail, how they will achieve pollution reductions from all sources through enforceable or binding, rather than voluntary measures.
• EPA wants these plans designed to ensure 100% implementation of pollution reduction practices by 2025.
• EPA has indicated its intent to invoke strict consequences if the states fail to develop adequate implementation plans or to make progress in achieving the necessary pollution reductions.
• The TMDL will require states to set pollution caps for smaller geographic areas than in the past, e.g., counties, because much of the reduction efforts will occur at the local level. To clean-up the Bay and its tidal rivers, we need to reduce pollution from all the streams and rivers that feed them. So implementing the TMDL will help clean up local streams as well as the Bay.
• The local pollution caps will increase accountability by providing a goal against which local efforts can be measured.

The Situation

Opposition to the TMDL is lining up. It includes developers, lobbyists, homebuilders, farming lobbyists, municipal waste water treatment groups, and more. They argue that EPA doesn’t have the authority to impose the consequences it has specified or require that states develop specific plans that will reduce pollution from all sources. They may file lawsuits to derail the TMDL process, which would not only cost taxpayer money but could delay improvements to our local and regional water quality for years.

The Solution

Passing the Chesapeake Clean Water Act will help to kickstart the Bay recovery process, limiting challenges and binding EPA both now and under future administrations to continue to enforce pollution reduction. The Act adopts the Bay-wide pollution caps and the state cleanup plan requirements, but it also clarifies and strengthens EPA's role in ensuring the needed pollution reductions occur. In addition, the legislation includes more than 1.5 billion dollars in grants for state and local governments to help cover the costs associated with implementing those reductions. It also establishes an interstate trading program designed to lower the costs of compliance with the required pollution reductions, particularly for local municipalities.