For Immediate Release:
July 23, 2015
Contact:
Erin Montgomery erin.montgomery@maryland.gov
Shareese Churchill shareese.churchill@maryland.
410-974-2316
Lt. Governor Boyd Rutherford Attends Chesapeake Bay Program Executive Council Meeting
Hogan Administration Calls for Greater Collaboration Between Partners on Bay Restoration
ANNAPOLIS, MD — Lt. Governor Boyd Rutherford today attended the Chesapeake Bay Program Executive Council meeting where members announced strategies for meeting the goals of the Chesapeake Bay Watershed Agreement. Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe hosted the meeting, which was attended by Washington, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy, Chairman of the Chesapeake Bay Commission L. Scott Lingamfelter, and representatives from Delaware, New York, and Pennsylvania.
“Governor Hogan is leading the most significant bay restoration effort in decades and we look forward to working with our partners and all stakeholders to continue the progress in our own state, upstream, and throughout the watershed,” said Lt. Governor Rutherford. “While we all have one common goal — a restored, healthy, and economically vibrant watershed — there is still a lot of work to be done and collaboration will be critical to our success.”
After years of previous administrations failing to successfully negotiate with the environmental and farming communities, Governor Hogan successfully established enhanced Phosphorus Management Tool (PMT) regulations earlier this year, bringing these communities together with a fair and balanced plan for limiting phosphorus levels. PMT will limit or prohibit phosphorus application in soils already heavily saturated and should incrementally reduce residual levels of phosphorus in the soil over time.
Governor Hogan also signed SB 863 earlier this year, the Rain Tax Mandate Repeal, which was a major step in providing flexibility to local jurisdictions by repealing the requirement that forced local jurisdictions to collect a stormwater remediation fee, while upholding accountability and appropriate oversight.
At the annual meeting, members reviewed progress and finalized strategies that will guide partner actions over the next decade. At last year’s Executive Council meeting, members committed to 10 broad goals to create a restored Chesapeake Bay. In the year since, all partners have worked through a public process to identify 29 specific management strategies to meet those goals. Demonstrating its dedication to restoring the bay, Maryland has committed to all 29 management strategies.
Lt. Governor Rutherford led a discussion on innovative financing methods for bay restoration, while encouraging neighboring states to join with Maryland in cleaning up the bay. Following the discussion, members agreed to convene a symposium on financing, which will include representatives from federal, state, and local governments; private capital firms; nonprofit organizations; and academic institutions and others, within the next year.
“Restoring the bay will require a renewed focus on cost-efficiency and effectiveness,” Lt. Governor Rutherford said. “Today, we invited the EPA and watershed states to join us in our pursuit of a financing system that will not only achieve bay restoration goals, but will do so in the most cost-effective and impactful way possible.”
On June 10, 2015, the EPA reviewed each jurisdiction’s progress toward achieving the bay Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) goals, which were also discussed at the Executive Council meeting. TMDL goals represent the maximum amount of nutrient and sediment pollution that can enter the bay from each state, which states are mandated to achieve by 2025. The review shows that Maryland is the only state with steady progress on all four of the EPA’s categories: agriculture, urban/suburban, wastewater, and trading/offsets.