ALBANY — A coalition of industry and municipal organizations this week is urging the EPA to scrap or dramatically revise its proposed set of mandates to clean the Chesapeake Bay, saying consequences of the plan for the Southern Tier will be fiscal disaster.
In a letter to EPA administrator Lisa Jackson, the group said the agency is demanding impossibly high pollution reductions from wastewater, agriculture, urban runoff and rural septic systems within New York’s portion of the Bay watershed.
But for all that costly effort, New York would get nothing in return.
“As a headwater state, it is unfair to expect New York to dedicate taxpayer dollars, staff, and other substantial municipal and state resources to reduce nutrient loading to the Bay when New York reaps no benefit from the Bay,” the letter states.
In order to comply with the new regulations, the region’s farms and municipalities would have to implement infrastructure upgrades, source controls, stormwater capture, erosion and sediment controls, sampling and monitoring.
Estimated costs include:
· Up to $2 billion for municipalities required to retrofit stormwater systems;
· Between $250 million – $450 million for agriculture upgrades; and
· Up to $500 million for municipalities who will be required to reconstruct entire wastewater treatment plant facilities.
Despite the massive cost to farms and municipalities, there is no funding source to pay for the plan, which means all costs would come out-of-pocket or through dramatically increasing real property taxes. This would lead to the shuttering of countless farms and businesses in an area already suffering severe effects from recession.
Meamwhile, the group stressed to Jackson that water leaving New York is already clean, making this costly new regulation plan unnecessary.
Water quality data analysis from a United States Geological Survey monitoring station on the Susquehanna River, just past the New York border, proves that water leaving New York already meets nitrogen and phosphorus load regulations long established by the EPA.
“We urge the EPA to revise New York’s Chesapeake Bay TMDL allocation to a realistic and attainable standard that does not require the severe actions of drastic loss of farms, businesses and depopulation in order to move New York’s currently clean water to pristine quality water,” the letter said.
The group signees includes the leaders of New York Farm Bureau, the New York State Association of Counties, Business Council of New York State, New York State Conference of Mayors, Association of Towns of the State of New York, New York Corn and Soybean Growers Association and New York Association of Conservation Districts.
Source: New York Farm Bureau
