Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, August 22, 1995 TAG: 9508220069
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C3 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Medium
The plan will be based on the Allen administration's philosophy of environmental progress through economic growth.
``If you're a command-and-control-type thinker, you might not like this document,'' said Deputy Secretary of Natural Resources Tom Hopkins. ``But if you want to clean up the bay, you're going to like it.''
Hopkins said the proposal will encourage cities and towns to remove harmful nitrogen from wastewater and continue efforts to control polluted runoff.
``This is not going to be a prescriptive document,'' he said. ``It's not going to recommend massive regulations, I can assure you that.''
The 120-page document proposes giving cities and towns the option of forgoing expensive sewage system upgrades by devoting money to help control agricultural pollution instead.
The concept, called nutrient trading, is attractive to the administration because of its potential to reduce cleanup costs.
``If you're a city and you don't want to spend $20 million to upgrade your sewage treatment, why don't you give $5 million to the farmers, where it's more cost effective?'' Hopkins asked.
But Patty Jackson, a board member of the Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay, a state- and federal-supported advocacy group, said nutrient trading might create problems if sections of streams near sewage treatment plants are sacrificed in the interest of saving money.
``You have to be very careful how it's interpreted so you don't write off parts of the stream,'' she said. ``We're still trying to get fishable and swimmable waters everywhere.''
The proposals will be presented at six public hearings beginning next month.
Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania agreed in 1992 to carry their cleanup into the bay's major tributaries. The effort is expected to help the states reach their goal of reducing nutrient pollution in the main stem of the bay by 40 percent by the year 2000.
Nutrients reach the bay in the form of fertilizers, animal wastes and inadequately treated sewage.
State figures show Virginia has cut phosphorus by more than 25 percent and nitrogen by about 7 percent since 1987, when the cleanup began.
by CNB