Chesapeake Bay clean-up expected to impact local budgets and planning

By Sean Tubbs

Charlottesville Tomorrow

Friday, October  8, 2010

NOTE:

An in-depth story on the Chesapeake Bay TMDL appeared on Charlottesville Tomorrow’s website on October 6, 2010 [

full story

].  Subsequently, a briefing on this topic was provided to the Albemarle Board of Supervisors which is described below.  The combined story appears in the print edition of today’s

Daily Progress

.

Listen using player above or download the podcast:

Download 20101006-BOS-Middleton

Leslie Middleton

The executive director of the

Rivanna River Basin Commission

has briefed the

Albemarle County Board of Supervisors

on the details of a plan to limit pollution that enters the Chesapeake Bay. While localized plans to meet the Environmental Protection Agency’s targets are not due until next November, Leslie Middleton said her agency is already working on them.

“Our task is to try to make sense of how [the Chesapeake Bay TMDL] will play out at the local level,” Middleton told the Board of Supervisors on Wednesday. “We have used [a pilot project] as a way to get early information to our local governments so we’re ahead of the curve.”

Supervisors offered little comments during Wednesday’s presentation, but Dennis Rooker said he was skeptical that the 2025 targets could be met.

“I question whether the standards that will be imposed ultimately are capable of being achieved,” Rooker said. He urged Middleton and others to clearly explain to the public why the clean-up is necessary.

Middleton said she would make that case further when supervisors hold a work session on the TMDL on November 3, 2010.