Lynchburg native Bryant working hard to save Chesapeake Bay

A light bulb clicked on 14 years ago for Preston Bryant when he and some other freshman members of the House of Delegates toured the Chesapeake Bay and saw the effects of algae, declining fisheries, and other results of upstream pollution.

His hometown of Lynchburg was contributing to problems in the nation’s largest estuary, Bryant realized.

Flash forward to 2009.

Bryant is closing out a four-year stint as Virginia’s secretary of natural resources on Gov. Timothy M. Kaine’s cabinet.

His resume includes key roles in:

• Nearly 400,000 acres of open space preserved from development;

• More than $1 billion in sewage-plant improvements statewide;

• A behind-the-scenes initiative in President Obama’s executive order to clean up the bay; and

• New limits on storm water runoff in Virginia.

“Preston has done a remarkable job on all of these issues,” Kaine told The News & Advance editorial board a few weeks ago.

“He was really key to the 400,000 acres preserved; he was key to the Chesapeake Bay improvements,” Kaine said. Bryant wrote an early draft of what became Obama’s executive order regarding the bay.

The draft drew upon Bryant’s relationships with other states in the Bay’s watershed — Maryland, Pennsylvania, Delaware and New York, and all of them reviewed the draft, Kaine said.

Bryant said, “One of the things I am proudest of is the improved relationships with some of our key partners, Maryland being one,” along with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Environmental Protection Agency.

“On Bay-related matters, Virginia and Maryland had always operated in a very parochial manner,” on fisheries issues involving crabs, menhaden and oysters. “It was always, ‘these are my waters and those are your waters,’” Bryant said.

Kaine said he and counterparts in Maryland “became very collaborative” and the relationships have led to signs of recovery in the crab population. Virginia, for the first time, prohibited winter dredging of blue crabs, and the number of adult crabs increased surprisingly the first year, Bryant said.

Looking ahead to 2010, Bryant plans to continue serving as chairman of the National Capital Planning Commission, an unpaid post for which Obama tapped him. The commission has environmental oversight of $7 billion of building projects in and around Washington, D.C. this year.

Beyond that, Bryant said his plans aren’t definite yet. He said he expects to “return to the private sector, likely remaining in Richmond.”

Their differing political persuasions apparently have not affected Kaine’s and Bryant’s working relationship. Bryant was a Republican legislator; Kaine is now chairman of the Democratic National Committee.

When the two first talked about the possibility of Bryant’s taking a post on Kaine’s cabinet, on a November Saturday morning in Lynchburg, Bryant said Kaine told him, “Just because you may join my administration, you do not give up your right to be a Republican. He said, ‘you can do anything political you want to, just tell us about it ahead of time so we don’t read it in the paper,’” Bryant said.

Bryant’s political activities have been limited to supporting a couple of candidates — Mark Warner for U.S. Senate and Jody Wagner for lieutenant governor, both of whom are Democrats — because he’d worked with them before, Bryant said.

He doesn’t rule out a return to politics, and cites the resume he’d bring.

“I have no plans right now, but public service is something I enjoy,” Bryant said.

“I’ve been fortunate to have served at the local level of government (Lynchburg City Council), in the state legislative branch, in the state executive branch, and now I’m getting a taste of what federal service is like” on the capital planning commission, Bryant said.

“I’m still learning” how to balance issues in Washington, Bryant said. The commission reviews plans for highly public tourist sites, such as a new Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial, and highly secure buildings such as a new headquarters for the Department of Homeland Security.

There’s a challenge in designing landscapes that protect the structures without seeming intrusive, Bryant said.

As he leaves state service, Bryant drops hints of what he might have worked on if he’d had more time.

Virginia will need to make sea water drinkable if growth and development are to continue in its coastal areas, Bryant says.

The Hampton Roads area and part of the state’s Northern Neck are “supplied by exactly one aquifer,” or pool of underground fresh water, “and that is heavily stressed,” Bryant said.

For that reason, state officials have visited Israel to see its desalinization plants and the efficiencies of its crop-watering systems.

“We now are likely to see, in the eastern part of the state, proposed big developments where, the models are going to show, will be drawing more than the aquifer can sustain. Those developments will be put on hold, denied, or something,” Bryant said. “We haven’t gotten that far yet, but it is just around the corner.”

Bryant also left a few hints for incoming Gov. Bob McDonnell, especially concerning Virginia’s energy future.

Energy conservation will be a major need, Bryant said. But Virginia’s energy assets also need attention, and they include coal and nuclear power, along with a potential for building offshore wind turbines, Bryant said during a recent speech to a state Chamber of Commerce conference.

Another task still to be completed is the 400,000 acres of conservation easements. About 35,000 acres still are needed before Kaine can claim the goal has been accomplished.

“Given the easements currently in the pipeline, we feel confident that we’ll meet the goal,” Bryant said.

Another goal Kaine and Bryant have struggled with was Chesapeake Bay cleanup, and despite some successes the state is only about halfway to meeting the goals of curbing pollution from sediment and nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorous.

The state is close to enacting tighter restrictions on sediment controls from construction sites, and that task became a little less formidable this month when the Environmental Protection Agency re-evaluated its standards for phosphorous limits each state was releasing into the Bay.

Virginia has succeeded in its goal for reducing nutrients from sewage treatment plants.

Partly because of measures Bryant sponsored as a legislator, Virginia initiated a nutrient-credit trading program that, Bryant said, is successful.

“Just in the last year or so, that system is up and running and working well,” Bryant said.

It has enabled Virginia to declare to other Bay states that it will meet its goal for nutrient reductions from wastewater sources.

“That was huge,” Bryant said. “And we never thought we would be able to say that” by 2010, he said.

The Chesapeake Bay region’s cleanup goals have been reset under Obama’s executive order, with 2025 as the target date. Progress will be measured by the EPA every two years, and that means Virginia and other states will be held accountable, Bryant said.

“The EPA has bought into this, and they are going to be holding each state’s feet to the fire,” Bryant said. “There will be consequences from the federal government exacted upon each state if we are failing to meet those goals in the two-year milestones,” Bryant said.