EPA officials are cracking down on sates that do not help to reduce Bay pollution, according to the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

With a goal to reduce pollution by 60%, the EPA will impose severe punishments on the six states that contribute the Bay. These punishments could include withholding federal grants.

This is an important issue for Virginia homeowners because the risk of losing federal grants could impair progress in the Commonwealth.

"States that contribute pollution to the Chesapeake Bay must have controls in place by 2017 to reduce that pollution 60 percent, federal officials say.

That is one of a list of cleanup requirements the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency sent the six bay states, including Virginia, in a letter yesterday.

The letter 'is about establishing a new era of federal leadership for the Chesapeake Bay, one that is marked by new accountability,' said J. Charles Fox, President Barack Obama's senior adviser to the EPA for bay issues.

The bay states agreed in May to put controls in place by 2025 that will clean the bay. Yesterday's letter sets a tough interim requirement.
The letter also makes clear that the bay states must not only reduce nitrogen and other pollutants below various limits but keep them there as populations grow.

The requirement could mean, for example, that if a new sewage-treatment plant is built, pollution from the plant must be offset by pollution cuts elsewhere, perhaps by putting grassy buffers along streams.

The letter did not spell out the specifics of that program. The fine detail on how Virginia and other states must reduce pollution will come in a plan to be developed by late 2011."

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