More than 18 million people live in the Chesapeake Bay watershed.
Revisions to a multi-state cleanup agreement will be discussed Friday and potentially adjusted during a committee meeting in Baltimore. The gathering comes as The Chesapeake Bay Program hasn’t met cleanup goals that were deadlined for this year.
The Chesapeake Bay Agreement has been updated four times since 1983. A new update likely will be voted on this week to adjust the vision, goals and timeline for the initiative.
In public meeting documents, the year 2040 is repeatedly used as a new deadline.
Adrienne Kotula is the Virginia director of the Chesapeake Bay Commission. She says a notable adjustment to the plan likely will involve centering accessibility and residents’ needs.
"I think earlier iterations really placed science at the center of the process, and I think that that was and is a laudable goal. I think what we're trying to do now is blend those things, those two things together to make sure that we are staying true to the science, but also true to the people."
Keisha Sedlacek is the federal affairs director at the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, a nonprofit advocacy group. She hopes changes to the agreement will mean each of the seven localities working together will start thinking creatively about how to best address problems.
"So, one just example would be targeting where we're doing everything," Sedlacek notes. "So, looking for those hot spots where we know there's a lot of pollution happening and putting more practices right there."
Last week, Environmental Protection Agency head Lee Zeldin told a Senate panel the Bay program’s resulted in success stories across the watershed.
And though restoration efforts are potentially complicated by federal budgeting changes to governmental agencies like the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, state Department of Environmental Quality money is still flowing. $19 million dollars in grants for a range of water quality projects across the Commonwealth were announced last week.
This report, provided by Virginia Public Radio, was made possible with support from the Virginia Education Association.