January 6, 2017 – Andrea Sears, Public News Service (PA)
About 19,000 miles of Pennsylvania rivers and streams are damaged by pollution. (Beyond My Ken/Wikimedia Commons)
HARRISBURG, Pa. – The Chesapeake Bay is getting healthier, but a new report says Pennsylvania needs to step up its efforts to cut pollution flowing into the bay.
The latest State of the Bay report showed that the bay’s health index has gone up two points since 2014, from a grade of D-plus to C-minus.
Chesapeake Bay Foundation President William Baker cited gains across all three rating categories – fisheries, habitat and pollution – and for nine of 13 specific indicators.
“This is thanks to all of the states in the watershed and many federal agencies,” he said, “working together in partnership to put world-class science to work on a comprehensive plan to reduce pollution.”
The report said all six watershed states showed progress, but Pennsylvania, the source of half the water flowing into the bay, still is behind in meeting its pollution-reduction goals.
Last year, the state launched a reboot of its clean-water program and received additional state and federal funding for the effort. Harry Campbell, who heads the foundation’s Pennsylvania office, said the state’s Clean Water Blueprint provides the road map to success.
“We know what needs to be done,” he said. “With leadership, commitment and investment, and the precision of the right practices at the right places, and engaging the right people, we can get this job done.”
Pennsylvania has some 19,000 miles of impaired waterways.
Campbell noted that under the Chesapeake Bay watershed agreement, the Commonwealth is required to have 60 percent of its pollution-reduction efforts in place by the end of this year, or face consequences from the Environmental Protection Agency.
“We’ve already faced some of those consequences and have addressed those through the reboot,” he said, “but if we lose momentum and lose our way from the recent successes that we’ve had, we may be facing them again in the future.”
Baker added that, while the improvements listed in the State of the Bay report are good news, the ultimate goal is still years away.
“The bay is getting better,” he said, “but the recovery is fragile, there’s a long way left to go to achieve real success, and any slippage could rapidly reverse progress.”
The report is online at cbf.org.
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