THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, October 9, 1996 TAG: 9610090397
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY SCOTT HARPER, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 103 lines
Two years ago, Gov. George F. Allen championed a volunteer program that would help restore the Chesapeake Bay but not burden taxpayers.
Landowners from Pennsylvania to Maryland to Virginia, he said, should be encouraged through tax breaks and gentle persuasion to plant trees and grasses on the banks of inland streams, which feed the Bay with life-sustaining fresh water.
These manmade forests, Allen said in numerous speeches, would act as giant sponges, soaking up fertilizers and muddy floodwaters before they could wash into creeks and rivers and foul the Bay.
But now, Virginia is backing off the idea of setting any specific goals for the initiative, a shift that has confounded neighboring states and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which were prepared to set a Bay-wide goal of creating 2,000 miles of forest buffers by 2010, officials said.
``We were chugging along on the 2,000-mile goal, then all of a sudden we hear from Virginia that numerical goals are unacceptable,'' said Bill Matuszeski, director of the EPA's Chesapeake Bay office in Annapolis, Md. ``That word came down like a cold chill.''
The issue will come to a head Thursday when the governors of Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania, the mayor of Washington, D.C., and the head of the EPA hold their annual meeting on the Chesapeake Bay cleanup in Harrisburg, Pa.
Those who support setting a specific goal believe one is needed to add accountability to a program that otherwise could fade into obscurity. Opponents - most of whom are from Virginia - feel the program will work regardless, and that a numeric goal is just an arbitrary benchmark with little scientific backing.
``It's fine to promote and highlight these buffers, but let our farmers choose what's best for their farms and for our water quality,'' said Wilmer Stoneman, a spokesman for the Virginia Farm Bureau, which opposes a specific goal.
Matuszeski said he was told earlier this week that Allen was not closing the door on a 2,000-mile goal and was prepared ``to hear debate on the matter'' Thursday before making up his mind.
Julie Overy, an Allen spokeswoman, said Tuesday that the governor ``has always been and continues to be a big supporter of'' forests along waterways. She noted that discussions ``have changed slightly'' in recent months and that Allen still is not sure whether he'll back a specific goal.
The governor was traveling Tuesday and could not be reached for comment, Overy said.
Virginia's reluctance to set a tangible goal is adding fuel to a political fire over the Allen administration's environmental policies, which have been criticized as too soft on business, industry and agriculture.
Lt. Gov. Donald S. Beyer Jr., a probable Democratic candidate for governor next year, issued a statement Tuesday condemning the administration.
``This refusal could signal the administration's unwillingness to live up to Virginia's long-standing commitment to the Chesapeake Bay cleanup agreement,'' Beyer said. ``These goals are important, because you can't manage what you can't measure.''
The Bay's immense watershed, stretching from New York to the North Carolina border, encompasses 111,000 miles of streams and shorefront, 59,000 of which are buffered with trees and forest cover.
A panel that spent 18 months studying streamside forests found through aerial photographs that 52,000 miles lack some type of greenery. Most often, these areas are dominated by waterfront development, beaches, buildings or farms.
The panel, chaired by Virginia's state forester, James Garner, was commissioned in 1994 to devise a plan to protect and enhance these forest buffers.
Its final report does not recommend a numeric goal or a timetable, citing disagreement among its 31 members. The report instead calls on each state to ``accelerate'' reforestation efforts through incentives, many of which already exist.
``We have an over-arching goal . . . that focuses attention on this issue and, we think, will bring us some real gains,'' Garner said. ``We fulfilled our mission.''
Garner did not know where the notion of a 2,000-mile goal came from. He noted that there was some brief discussion of a 1,200-mile goal earlier this summer, which eventually was dropped.
Matuszeksi said that Pennsylvania suggested the 2,000-mile-by-2010 goal and that Maryland and the EPA concurred after some debate. Virginia, however, raised objections.
``The underlying fear was that this was going to force farmers into a regulatory program,'' Matuszeski said. ``They were worried that if we set numeric goals, and then didn't meet them, government would follow up with mandates. And they didn't want that.''
Since its inception, the tri-state Chesapeake Bay cleanup effort has set numeric goals for various projects - most notably, a proposed 40 percent reduction by the year 2000 in nutrients that enter the Bay.
Such specific goals, while admittedly imperfect, are the easiest and most tangible way to track progress, Matuszeski said.
``If you don't have goals, how do you stand up and tell the public that all their money is doing what you've said it's going to do?'' he asked. ``You have to have accountability.''
The tide turned against a specific goal this summer, when a draft proposal surfaced that included a 1,200-mile-by-2010 target, said Stoneman, of the Virginia Farm Bureau. ILLUSTRATION: FOREST BUFFER
GRAPHIC
KEN WRIGHT
The Virginian-Pilot
SOURCE: The Chesapeake Bay Program
KEYWORDS: CHESAPEAKE BAY ENVIRONMENT by CNB