THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, July 7, 1995 TAG: 9507070356
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY SCOTT HARPER, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 86 lines
Three Virginia environmental groups have petitioned the federal government to launch an anti-pollution program that would curb ``nitrogen rain'' from damaging the Chesapeake Bay.
The rain, loaded with nitrogen oxides, falls like acid rain, and comes from some of the same fuel-burning sources - car and truck emissions, power plants and heavy industry.
But airborne nitrogen oxide can spur too much algae growth in the Bay, which in turn gobbles up life-sustaining oxygen in shallows and leads to fish kills and poor water quality.
``The Chesapeake Bay is under a continuing pollution threat from airborne nitrogen, and little is being done to protect this great resource,'' said Conway Moy, secretary of the King George Environmental Association, one of three petitioners from Northern Virginia. The other two petitioners are Pride of King George Inc. and Citizens for Government Accountability.
The groups want the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to craft a regional strategy to limit emissions in numerous states, including Virginia, to levels ``sufficient to permit a long-term, balanced natural ecosystem,'' according to their June 28 petition.
Such a program would place unprecedented emission controls on businesses and industry in the Bay watershed, and would likely cost millions, if not billions, of dollars in new technologies, officials and scientists estimate.
While the petition is technically a request for action from EPA Administrator Carol Browner, it also represents the first step toward a possible lawsuit, said environmental attorney David S. Bailey.
``We'd go to court if we're not satisfied,'' said Bailey, a former senior scientist and attorney for the Environmental Defense Fund, a national environmental group.
The EPA declined to comment on the petition. But the agency has charted airborne nitrogen since at least 1988, when the Environmental Defense Fund first published a report showing how at least 25 percent of nitrogen pollution in the Bay is delivered by rain, fog and air pollution. The remainder comes from sewage discharge, excess fertilizer and other runoff.
While more recent studies suggest that airborne nitrogen pollution is continuing at its 1988 pace, if not getting worse, environmentalists are aiming to force the federal government to address this lingering problem.
Nitrogen by itself is an essential nutrient for plant growth. Farmers and gardeners use it in fertilizers. But in excess, or when emitted from fuel-stoked engines and burners, nitrogen and nitrogen oxides become a problem.
When the governors of Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania signed the Chesapeake Bay Agreements in 1987, a central goal was reducing nutrient pollution by 40 percent by the year 2000. That included phosphorus and nitrogen.
While phosphorus has declined sharply since then, due mostly to phosphate bans for detergents sold in Virginia and Maryland, nitrogen levels have stayed about the same, according to state officials and studies.
And some scientists and officials wonder if that goal will be realized without a more aggressive strategy toward nitrogen rain.
Virginia environmentalists have tried to persuade state officials for years to attach stricter nitrogen controls on air-pollution permits for new power plants and industries.
But the state Air Pollution Control Board has balked at each attempt, pointing out that there simply is no law or regulation requiring such action.
One veteran board member, Tim Barrow of Virginia Beach, said instituting such limits would represent ``a quantum leap'' beyond what federal or state law dictates to industries. ``It'd be difficult for us to require one or two new facilities to quadruple their costs for pollution control,'' Barrow said. ``I just have a hard time seeing that happen any time soon.''
Bailey said he sent a draft copy of his petition 10 weeks ago to the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality, which oversees state environmental regulations. He has not received a reply. ILLUSTRATION: Graphic
Research by SCOTT HARPER
graphic by ROBERT D. VOROS/Staff
NITROGEN RAIN ON THE BAY
Three environmental groups from Virginia are petitioning the EPA to
curb nitrogen rain in Chesapeake Bay.
SOURCE: Environmental Defense Fund, World Resources Institute
[For complete graphic, please see microfilm]
KEYWORDS: AIR POLLUTION WATER POLLUTION CHESAPEAKE
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