EPA touts collaborative efforts against pollution following Chesapeake Bay settlement

Aug 06, 2023

For decades, the states that are part of the Chesapeake Bay Watershed have struggled with the question of who's responsible for the environmental health of the nation's largest estuary.

Earlier this year, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, an environmental advocacy group, gave the watershed a D-plus grade, urging the various stakeholders to door more to stem the tide of runoff pollution that flows south from Pennsylvania into the bay.

As part of a statewide initiative, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Pennsylvania office is working with the Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay to get farmers to limit agricultural water pollution.

“We’re in a time in history where we need to step it up," Adam Ortiz, the EPA's Mid-Atlantic Regional Administrator, told The York Dispatch. "We’ve got to do it by working together.”

Ortiz and other EPA staff are touting the Pennsylvania Conservation Assessment Initiative, which aims to build connections with farmers and help them control water pollution from manure and sediment runoff.

Concerns over widespread water pollution in Pennsylvania caused the initiative, launched in April 2023, to asses farms. As part of the overall goal, the initiative is using two grant-funded projects to tackle water quality issues in York County.

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There are an estimated 25,000 miles of contaminated waterways in Pennsylvania alone, Ortiz said. He said there is pressure to make progress on clean water in the Chesapeake Bay and the entire state.

The initiative was created from the Clean Streams Fund in the Pennsylvania 2022-2023 state budget via $220 million in federal funding via the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA). It provides financial and technical assistance to have farms use “best management practices,” within Pennsylvania. Best management practices are measures that minimize water pollution from stormwater runoff and erosion.

Projects have to meet certain criteria in order to get initiative funding and single grants over $500,000 have to be reviewed by the State Conservation Commission before approval.

All of this comes against the backdrop of a July settlement agreement to a case in which various plaintiffs claimed the EPA violated the Clean Water Act by failing to hold Pennsylvania accountable for meeting its commitments to reducing pollution into the Chesapeake Bay.

At the time of the settlement, Ortiz said it "close[d] a chapter of division."

"We’re all in this together and, thanks to the Biden administration, will seize the momentum we have with unprecedented funding going to Pennsylvania and other Bay states," he said.

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The Chesapeake Bay Foundation, one of the key plaintiffs in the case, noted the additional funding that would go toward reducing pollution originating from Pennsylvania.

"While we are encouraged by recent investments from the Commonwealth and leadership from EPA, we still have a long way to go," Hilary Harp Falk, the foundation's president, said, in a written statement.

Water pollution is an ongoing concern for the York County — and not simply agricultural runoff.

In late February, the York County Board of Commissioners voted unanimously to join a class-action lawsuit against the manufacturers of per- and polyfluorinated substances, or PFAS, commonly found in firefighting foam and water-resistant clothing.

At a municipal level, residents in Lower Windsor Township have been pushing to keep Modern Landfill, owned by Republic Services, from expanding further into the township. Several residents even had their well water tested after the Susquehanna River Keepers found high levels of PFAS in the creek the landfill drains it’s wastewater too.

So what does agricultural water pollution look like?

For starters, sediment and manure runoff from farms pollute waterways and the Chesapeake Bay with phosphorus and nitrogen, Kelly Shenk, the agricultural advisor for EPA Region 3 said.

Chesapeake Bay Program estimates from 2015 show the agriculture industry contributes 42% of nitrogen, 55% of phosphorus and 60% of sediment that enters the Chesapeake Bay.

The EPA and the Alliance have two ongoing projects in York County, both of which have somewhat dense, jargon-filled names: the Outcomes-Based Model for Accelerating Pollutant Reductions in Pennsylvania and Maryland and the Healthy Streams Farm Stewardship initiative.

The first addresses how farm field runoff takes manure and sediment with it directly into waterways.

Pennsylvania is no small contributor to these types of water pollution with its robust agricultural community. There are 38,000 farms in the Pennsylvania portion of the Chesapeake Bay and well over half of those are farm animal operations.

“That's six times as many animal operations than what's in Maryland. We have a lot of small animal operations in Pennsylvania and managing animal manure is a big challenge,” Shenk said.

There's $1 million in funding for this effort from the Fish and Wildlife Foundation-funded Innovative Nutrients and Sediment Reduction Grants from 2022, according to the EPA.

Developing trust and relationships is vital to the project’s success. The agricultural industry is the missing link in the Alliance's efforts to reduce bay pollution, according to Jenna Mitchell, agricultural director at the Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay. They bring farmers to the table and ask them what they need in order to meet the bay’s pollution reduction goals.

For this particular project, riparian buffers are being used to filter the manure and sediment runoff. A riparian buffer is a combination of trees and shrubs next to a stream, lake or wetland that filter out pollutants, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

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The project's goals are to create at least 155 acres of new riparian buffers and engage with 12 dairy farmers.

The Alliance’s agricultural department confronts this issue with a two-pronged approach: working and communicating with all members of the dairy supply chain and implementing best management practices, Mitchell said.

In this case, the practices are a variety of strategies from creating nutrient budgets, which limit the amount of manure going on a field, taking excess manure to farms that need it and creating manure storage facilities.

And it’s not just York County seeing the impact of these efforts. Anne Arundel, Hartford and Charles Counties of Maryland and Lancaster, Lebanon and Franklin Counties of Pennsylvania are also part of this project.

The second project, Healthy Streams Farm Stewardship, also uses riparian buffers but its ultimate goal is species conservation. The threatened Chesapeake logperch, a freshwater fish that's one specific target for conservation, used to inhabit the Potomac River but that population went extinct because of pollution and sediment flooding the water, according to the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission.

Craig Highfield, the Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay's forests director, said Chesapeake logperch is only found in the lower Susquehanna Basin. The health of its populations serve as an indicator of the health of the ecosystem at large.

Highfield said that to preserve the remaining populations, the Alliance is working to get York, Lancaster and Maryland-based farmers to install riparian buffers with an incentive program.

“It’s the most inexpensive, most efficient practice I think that we have out there for reducing nutrients and sediments in our waterways,” Highfield said.

It is also funded by the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation through Small Watershed Implementation Grants from 2020 putting $487,837.36 to the project.

The Alliance’s goal is to get 160 acres of new buffers in York and Lancaster counties in Pennsylvania and two Maryland counties within three years.

They can't just expect farmers to install buffers though as often farmers have more pressing environmental or conservation practices to put their money towards, according to Highfield. However, through the buffer incentive program, farmers who install riparian buffers get $4,000 per acre that they can use on other conservation issues at their farms.

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As of May 2023, there were 176 acres of new buffers and are wrapping up the initiative, Highfield said. The buffers will prevent sediment and other pollutants from getting in the basin allowing the Chesapeake logperch to rebound quickly, he said.

“That’s been a really great program,” Highfield said. It has built momentum and they are applying for additional National Fish and Wildlife Foundation funding.

It’s not just York County-based agriculture operations that are getting conservation projects funded by the initiative either. To learn more about state-wide projects and how to apply for initiative funding, visit https://www.agriculture.pa.gov.

— Reach Noel Miller at [email protected] or via Twitter at @TheNoelM.