This article is part of MACo’s Policy Deep Dive series, where expert policy analysts explore and explain the top county policy issues of the day. A new article is added each week – read all of MACo’s Policy Deep Dives.
In 2014, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia signed the Chesapeake Bay Watershed Agreement of 2014, establishing 10 goals and 31 outcomes to restore the Bay, its tributaries, and the surrounding lands by 2025. The 2014 agreement, built off of decades of other agreements and was meant to be the definitive push to restore the health of the watershed. Every two years, the EPA publishes an evaluation of where each jurisdiction stands in meeting its goals and areas that need improvement. Below is an analysis of the recently released Maryland 2022-2023 & 2024-2025 evaluation.
Major finding across all seven jurisdictions:
- At the sector level, every jurisdiction, except the District of Columbia, is significantly off track in meeting its Phase III WIP commitments in the urban/suburban stormwater sector. Recognizing this, and that the stormwater sector supplies a significant portion of the nutrient and sediment loads to the Bay, EPA is exploring opportunities for increased oversight in this sector.
Strengths & Progress
- Bolstered existing wastewater facilities through equipment upgrades, increased staffing, and additional technical and financial support.
- Supported the 5-Million Trees Initiative to increase seedling production and provide tracking tools to further support forest buffer and tree planting projects. This resulted in increased implementation for both forest and grass buffers, such that Maryland met its 2025 planning target for forest buffers.
- Continued targeting land conservation and climate resilience projects through efforts such as Targeted Resilience Areas Project Portfolio Development and the creation of the Coastal Resilience Easement in Talbot County.
- Maryland Department of the Environment released its Environmental Justice Screening Tool on June 6, 2022, to provide data to inform decisions on siting, permitting, enforcement, and infrastructure improvements to help underserved communities in Maryland.
Areas to Improve
- Accelerate BMP implementation in the agricultural sector, especially since Maryland did not meet several of its agriculture BMP implementation targets in the 2022-2023 milestone period. Include updates on specific programmatic efforts and associated BMP implementation in progress reporting.
- Include updates in the 2024-2025 milestone progress that speak to the activities related to the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA)/Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) investments. Significant funding has been provided to the Chesapeake Bay watershed jurisdictions, and milestone progress reporting should highlight the benefits and activities that result from those investments.
Highlights
- Maryland did not achieve its statewide 2023 target for nitrogen but did achieve its statewide 2023 targets for phosphorus and sediment.
- Maryland is predominantly relying on agriculture BMP implementation to meet its 2025 targets based on its Phase III WIP. Maryland continues to make incremental progress toward its goals, but the current pace of implementation is not on track to meet its statewide nutrient targets.
- Commits to finalize the Maryland Healthy Watershed Assessment (MHWA) Standard Operating Procedure to help local planners utilize the findings for healthy watershed.
What this means for counties:
Maryland is not progressing enough in urban/suburban stormwater and agricultural source sectors. This will mean additional pressure from the state on local governments to implement best management practices (BMPs), which could be costly. Additionally, changes to how the state calculates stormwater targets may place more pressure on local capacity and possibly hamper future development.
