Govs appeal for $365M in federal funding for Bay

The governors of Virginia and Maryland are asking the federal government for $365 million next year to restore the Chesapeake Bay.

Virginia Gov. Timothy M. Kaine and Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley asked for the money in a Nov. 25 letter to President Barack Obama.

“Federal assistance is absolutely essential if our efforts to fully restore the health of the Bay are to succeed,” the governors wrote.

The $365 million would represent roughly a 50 percent increase in federal funding for the bay, according to the federally led Chesapeake Bay Program. Current funding is estimated at about $240 million.

The money would be used to protect land, help farmers reduce pollution, restore streams and help upgrade Washington’s Blue Plains sewage-treatment plant, among other things.

While the governors are asking for money for the year beginning in October 2010, the bay probably needs a similar level of federal spending for many years after that, said Jeff Corbin, Kaine’s assistant secretary of natural resources.

States will be providing money, too, Corbin said. During Kaine’s term, the governor and the General Assembly have committed more than $1 billion for the bay cleanup, largely to help improve sewage plants, Corbin said.

But federal funding, he said, “needs to be ramped up.” The money would be divided among the six bay-region states and Washington, D.C.

Restoring the Blue Plains plant alone is estimated to cost $3.2 billion over the next 10 years, the governors said in their letter.

They said $365 million would be “similar in magnitude to the level of federal investments being made in restoring the Everglades, the Great Lakes, and other natural treasures [and would] return enormous dividends to both the economy and the environment.”

Without the money, they said, “the Bay will continue to face stagnating or deteriorating ecological conditions, decreasing economic value, and increasing restoration costs.”

Obama officials, asked by phone and e-mail for a response, did not respond Thursday by early evening.

Federal and state governments have been working to restore the Chesapeake since the 1980s, but the bay continues to be contaminated by pollution that runs off farms and other lands and comes from sewage-plants.

President Barack Obama issued an executive order in May placing renewed emphasis on the bay cleanup.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recently indicated it will punish states — perhaps by withholding federal grants - that don’t do enough to reduce bay pollution.

Because of that pressure, it makes sense for the governors to seek federal dollars, said Carl Tobias, a University of Richmond law professor. “The states don’t have a lot of money.”

Rex Springston is a staff writer for the Richmond Times-Dispatch.