Updated Chesapeake Bay Agreement Gets Closer

ANNAPOLIS — A revised agreement to restore the Chesapeake Bay is speeding toward final passage, after a key committee rejected Maryland attempts to strengthen parts of the plan and voted Tuesday to forward it to bay-area leaders for their OK.

The agreement approved by the Chesapeake Bay Program’s Principals’ Staff Committee will chart the future for the multiyear, multibillion-dollar effort to improve the bay. Final approval by bay leaders at their Dec. 2 meeting at the National Aquarium in Baltimore is considered a formality, since the principals’ staff committee includes representatives of the governors and other signatories of the agreement, including the federal government.

The document unanimously approved Tuesday looks a bit different than the proposal that was released for public comment earlier this year. That plan drew considerable criticism for rolling deadlines and weak goals.

The revised document includes a variety of goals, from forest conservation to wetland creation, oyster restoration and pollution reduction. And it sets 2040 as the deadline for jurisdictions surrounding the bay to meet those goals, instead of the earlier document’s multiple deadlines between 2030 and 2040,  depending on the goal.

Maryland officials had pushed for a 2035 deadline for the plan, but only Virginia supported that proposal when it was brought to a vote.

The agreement is signed by Delaware, the District of Columbia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New York, Virginia and West Virginia. It is also signed by federal agencies including the EPA and the Chesapeake Bay Commission, which represents state legislators in Maryland, Virginia and Pennsylvania.

EPA representatives were on hand Tuesday despite the ongoing federal government shutdown, and cast a vote to approve revised agreement — but other federal agencies were absent.

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Wayne Creed

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