The term “backstop” is used to refer to a secondary device
put in place to ensure a particular outcome in the event the primary device
fails. A recent example in the
governmental arena is the across-the-board budget cuts that took effect at the
federal level when Congress could not agree on a budget-trimming package.
A backstop is built into the Chesapeake Bay Clean Water
Blueprint. The Blueprint, which many
consider our best hope for cleaning up both the Chesapeake Bay and our local
waters that feed into it, consists of three basic components:
- The Total Maximum Daily
Load (or TMDL), which establishes maximum levels of the pollutants causing
the Bay’s impairment -- nitrogen, phosphorus, and sediment – that may be
released by various categories of sources, such as agriculture, urban
stormwater, and sewage treatment plants.
- State-specific plans,
developed by the six states within the Bay watershed and the District of
Columbia, to achieve these pollution limits.
- The “backstop” mechanisms, which the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is able to activate if a state falls short of meeting its pollution-reduction goals.
This ongoing effort to clean up the Bay is different than
previous attempts because it is more equitable, including the entire range of
sources contributing pollution; and because there is more accountability, with deadlines
for achieving pollution reductions and consequences for failing to meet them.
The Bay states committed to reduce pollutants enough to remove the Bay from the
list of impaired waters by 2025, and to be 60 percent of the way to that goal
by 2017. In order to stay on track for meeting the 2017 and 2025 goals, the Bay
states committed to incremental two-year milestones, which establish implementation
rate targets for pollution-reducing practices and programs.
As in the past, Pennsylvania’s implementation rates are a
mixed bag, with great success in some areas such as sewage treatment but
lackluster performance in the agriculture and stormwater sectors, where Pennsylvania
has fallen farther and farther behind in meeting its milestones. As a result, EPA has downgraded the
agricultural sector to a “backstop action level,” the highest level of
scrutiny, indicating EPA believes its intervention is necessary to get
Pennsylvania back on track. The stormwater sector was previously given this
designation and still remains just one step better, at the “backstop level.”
Currently, in the hope of avoiding full implementation of
its backstop authority, EPA is calling on Pennsylvania to perform more
inspections and enforcement on farms to ensure they have the legally required
manure management, erosion and sedimentation, and conservation plans necessary
to protect water quality. EPA has also
recognized the need for better tracking, reporting and verification of best
management practices, which Pennsylvania claims is one reason for failing to
meet its implementation numbers.
Pennsylvania is expecting to achieve three quarters of its
nutrient and sediment reduction from the agricultural sector, which makes its implementation
shortfalls in that sector especially problematic for achieving its overall
pollution reduction commitments and the ultimate goal of restoring the Bay.
To make up for the shortfalls in pollution reductions from
agriculture and stormwater, EPA’s backstop options include expanding the
National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit coverage to
currently unregulated sources; conditioning or redirecting grants; and requiring
additional reductions from point sources like sewage treatment plants (which
already are doing more than their fair share).
The best option, of course, is for Pennsylvania to get back
on track to meet all of its milestones, and put the backstops on the back
burner.
Jennifer Quinn is central Pennsylvania outreach coordinator for PennFuture and is based in Harrisburg.
