Algae by the Bay; Nutrients From Sewage Plants, Farmland Blamed for Rise in Chesapeake Pollution

EPA has found similar problems in the Bay. The report says Chesapeake overenrichment results from huge and growing volumes of phosphorus from urban treatment plants and nitrogen washing off rural land, particularly along Pennsylvania's Susquehanna River, which provides half the bay's fresh water.

Whether the solutions can be similar is another matter. The Potomac is but one arm of the Chesapeake; the bulk of its problems were localized, attributable to a few Washington-area sewage treatment plants. The mammoth Chesapeake has many more urban runoff sources and a separate issue of nutrient-rich runoff from rural basins that Potomac managers did not have to address.

And while nutrient enrichment is clearly established by EPA as the pressing general problem in the bay, research also pinpointed large areas of life-threatening toxic metal contamination near Baltimore and Norfolk that will require separate cleanup strategies.

Brown believes the solutions are not so complicated and expensive as to drive the government into torpor.

With the study in hand, he said, "we know where the nutrients, toxins and sediments are coming from. Three states are now committed to doing something about it."

Brown said the fact that the federal government is cutting its support of sewage treatment plant construction, with plans to pay perhaps half of future costs rather than three-fourths, simply means the states will shoulder more of the burden.