For more than two decades, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has made promises -- broken time and again -- to clean the Chesapeake Bay.
Now, under an agreement announced yesterday, the federal agency is legally bound to take action, cleanup advocates say.
The agreement settles a lawsuit filed by the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, an environmental group, against the EPA on Jan. 5, 2009.
Bay advocates called the settlement a huge advance, but others wondered yesterday if much had changed in the oft-delayed cleanup.
"This is a legal document" that spells out EPA's requirements, said foundation President William C. Baker. "We have never had that before."
Among other things, the agreement calls for the EPA to reduce pollution from sewage-treatment plants, storm-water runoff, and certain livestock farms. If the EPA falls short, Baker said, "We're prepared to go back to court" to force the pollution cuts.
Obama officials said a year ago that they would bolster efforts to clean the bay. Federal officials plan to announce more details today.
EPA Deputy Administrator Bob Perciasepe said the EPA under President Barack Obama and the bay group "share the same goals of clean water in the Chesapeake Bay." For that reason, Perciasepe said, entering into the settlement "was far more positive than defending a lawsuit filed in the Bush administration."
The settlement is an important step but probably not the savior of the bay, said Carl Tobias, a University of Richmond law professor. Precisely what the EPA does to help the bay could be determined in court if developers, farm groups or others sue to block tougher pollution requirements, he said.
Howard R. Ernst, a U.S. Naval Academy political scientist who has written two books on the bay, said he was not impressed by the settlement.
"The fact is, we already have a binding agreement that requires the EPA to reduce pollution across the watershed," he said. "It is called the Clean Water Act, and it was passed in 1972.
"I, for one, will withhold my excitement until the EPA actually follows through on its threats" to crack down on polluters.
Wilmer Stoneman, associate director of governmental relations for the Virginia Farm Bureau, said, "My question is, is anything really new, or are [the bay group and the EPA] just ginning up press?"
The federal government and bay states agreed in 1983 to clean the bay, but they missed a 2000 deadline. The EPA and the states then pledged to clean the bay by 2010. They missed that deadline, too.
In yet another announcement, the parties agreed in May 2009 to put controls in place by 2025 that would clean the bay. Because of the settlement, the bay should be "much improved" by 2017, the bay group's Baker said.
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