Revised Model Data Raises Concerns with TMDL Standards and WIP Requirements Earlier this month, the state’s Chesapeake Bay TMDL Stakeholders Advisory Group (“SAG”) considered the effect of EPA’s revised model data on Virginia’s ability to effectively implement Phase II of the state’s Watershed Implementation Plan. While the revised data decreased Virginia’s basin-wide reduction target for [...]

This month, the Chesapeake Bay Executive Council met in Richmond to discuss, among things, progress being made on efforts to clean up the Chesapeake Bay. Data released that same day indicates that Virginia is on target to meet interim cleanup goals set in 2009.

Image via Wikipedia Phase II of Virginia’s Watershed Implementation Plan: Where are we now, where are we heading, and how do we get there? Work on Virginia’s Watershed Implementation Plan (“WIP”), specifically, the required implementation of Phase II, has begun…sort of.

We greatly appreciate Larry Land‘s contribution to our Virginia Environmental Law blog as our guest author today. He is director of policy development for the Virginia Association of Counties. He has lobbied on environmental issues for more than 20 years.

Last December, EPA and the Commonwealth of Virginia reached agreement on the state’s proposed Watershed Implementation Plan (WIP). In evaluating the WIP, EPA found that the WIP met nutrient and sediment allocations for each basin in the final TMDL. EPA also accepted that Virginia was committed to implementing aggressive WWTP upgrades, a more accountable urban [...]

And it may be a foreshadowing of more to come. Earlier this year, Virginia Attorney General Kenneth T. Cuccinelli, II, filed a suit against the EPA calling into question certain data upon which some global warming regulations were based. At a press conference yesterday, two Virginia legislators, state senator Ryan T. McDougle (R-Hanover), and delegate [...]