Chesapeake Bay Foundation wants Merck to meet nutrient pollution standard for 2011

The Chesapeake Bay Foundation filed suit Monday in Richmond Circuit Court asking that Merck’s Elkton plant meet a nutrient pollution goal it originally agreed to in the Shenandoah-Potomac River basin.

If Merck cannot meet its original 2011 goal, the bay foundation is asking Virginia’s Department of Environmental Quality and the State Water Control Board to assure that the Virginia basin goal on nutrient pollution be offset elsewhere.

Merck received approval in April from the State Water Control Board to amend its original 2011 nutrient pollution goal by discharging 29,216 more pounds of nitrogen and 3,288 more pounds of phosphorous than the original goal allowed.

Merck officials say even with the amendment, the Elkton plant will be discharging 80 percent less phosphorous and nitrogen into the Shenandoah-Potomac basin than it does now.

Helen Penrod, a project scientist for Merck’s environmental department, said Merck expects to purchase credits with other Virginia industries to meet its original nutrient pollution goal.

“We think we will have to spend the money to keep track of nutrient loading,” said Penrod.

Merck is spending $16 million to upgrade its wastewater facility, she said.

Penrod said Merck determined that the original nutrient pollution goals for the Elkton plant “were technically infeasible.”

Joe Tannery, staff attorney and deputy director of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation’s Virginia office, said amending nutrient caps like the water control board did is not acceptable.

“If Merck is going up, someone needs to go down. There must be a balancing of the books,” he said.

Tannery said he has heard Merck’s cut of 80 percent in nutrient pollution, but added, “If 80 percent is not enough, we are not doing what we need to do.”

Local sewer authorities and public works departments are also under a mandate to reduce nutrient pollution from wastewater treatment plants, and farmers are voluntarily reducing agricultural runoff to streams and rivers by participating in buffer and fencing programs.

Tannery said there will be some lag time between caps on nutrient pollution and the improvement of water quality in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed and the bay.

But over time, he said, the water quality of bay tributaries and the bay itself will improve.

Tannery said the result for the Chesapeake Bay will include better fishing, swimming and other improvements, such as a healthier oyster population.

The unknown is how long the turnaround will take.

“No one can have a crystal ball, but if we increase pollution limits, we won’t get there,” he said.

Merck’s Elkton plant has been in operation since 1941, and employs 650 people in the production of a broad spectrum of antibiotics, drugs to lower cholesterol and combat Parkinson’s disease, and a vaccine for human papillomavirus (HPV).