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The Mississippi River and the Chesapeake Bay Water Quality Strategy

HAVRE DE GRACE, Md.—As environmental groups and policy analysts in the Mississippi River basin seek solutions to shrink a massive “dead zone” that forms off the coast of Louisiana each year, they have looked to a regional clean-up program in the Chesapeake Bay as a model.

A key component of that effort, known as the Chesapeake Bay Program, is regulation.

For nearly 15 years, it’s included a legally enforceable, multi-state pollution quota—one of a select few in the nation. This “total maximum daily load” aims to reduce the amount of nutrients, like phosphorus and nitrogen, that run off into the Bay’s waters. 

Too much of chemicals that derive from these elements, commonly used to grow crops and fertilize lawns, can cause algae blooms and die-offs that rob waters of oxygen and suffocate aquatic life.

But the Bay program’s scientific advisors recently noted the strategy is imperfect. 

After two missed deadlines to reduce nutrient runoff, and a third looming, Mid-Atlantic state and federal officials are reevaluating their options.

A Unique Legal Agreement

In 1983, the Maryland, Pennsylvania and Virginia governors along with the mayor of Washington and administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency signed the Chesapeake Bay Agreement, a pledge to reduce the pollutants and sediment entering the Bay that contribute to the loss of organisms like seagrasses, shellfish and waterfowl.

The tapering of nitrogen and phosphorus remained the focus of subsequent agreements, but the jurisdictions did not meet their goals voluntarily, so in 2010 the EPA created the country’s most expansive pollution quota. It applied to six states—Delaware, Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia—and the District of Columbia.

For AG & Water story only ” data-image-caption=”

Denice Heller Wardrop, executive director of the Chesapeake Research Consortium, stands for a portrait on April 4, 2024, at the Havre De Grace Maritime Museum in Havre De Grace, Maryland. Photo by Bennet Goldstein, Wisconsin Watch

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