Legislation Would Boost Federal Cleanup Funds

Lawmakers from around the Chesapeake Bay watershed yesterday proposed an additional influx of federal money -- perhaps $200 million or more per year -- to reduce the amount of pollution that washes off farm fields and leads to "dead zones" downstream in the bay.

Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) announced the plan, which would more than quadruple the roughly $60 million that the federal government spends on bay-related projects. At a news conference on Capitol Hill, Van Hollen said he had introduced a bill that would alter sections of the nearly $300 billion federal farm bill so that more money would be spent on cleanup projects in the six bay watershed states.

"We think that the way they are currently structured does not provide the bay with its fair share," Van Hollen said.

Environmentalists say farms are responsible for about 40 percent of the most damaging pollutants that flow into the bay. These include simple dirt, which can cloud the water and prevent underwater grasses from growing. Among the other pollutants are nitrogen and phosphorus, found in fertilizer and in barnyard manure, which feed unnatural blooms of algae that suck up the underwater oxygen needed by crabs, fish and other bay life.

At the news conference, environmentalists said the bill could prevent 50 million pounds of nitrogen pollution every year. That would be a major step toward the reduction of 110 million pounds needed to restore the bay to good health, they said.

Previous attempts to secure such a level of federal funding for the bay's cleanup have fallen short. But Van Hollen said yesterday that this bid would succeed because it has support among lawmakers across the watershed, which stretches west to West Virginia and north to New York. Reps. Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.) and Robert C. Scott (D-Va.) joined him at the news conference.