Chesapeake Bay Foundation Fighting Back Against Agri-Business In Court
ANNAPOLIS, Md. (WJZ) -- Just as new federal rules to clean the Chesapeake are going into effect, legal challenges are threatening to derail a key component of the plan.
Alex DeMetrick reports big time agri-business is taking on the bay, and bay supporters are fighting back.
There was a time the Chesapeake Bay Foundation protested and brought lawsuits against the Environmental Protection Agency. But last year the agency set limits on pollution entering the bay, and is now being sued by big agriculture.
The Bay Foundation is coming to the EPA's defense.
"We seek to stop the agriculture industries who want to derail bay restoration. Their motive is profit. Our motive is clean water," said Will Baker, President of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation.
Agri-business is challenging EPA authority to regulate farm runoff, the science backing up those regulations and having not enough public imput before imposing the new rules.
The Bay Foundation calls the arguments weak.
"We do think we have good responses to the claims they've raised," said Jon Mueller, CBF lawyer.
In the Bay watershed, fertilizer and animal waste get into streams. Both contain nitrogen and phosphorous, and make up 40 percent of the nutrient pollution that feeds algae blooms and dead zones in the Chesapeake Bay.
"It is among the hardest to contain, because a lot of the sources are not regulated under the Clean Water Act," said CBF scientist.
As opponents go, big agriculture is tough to beat.
"We're talking about the 800-pound gorilla. There's no doubt about it. The American Farm Bureau Federation and their partners they've brought along with them are very sophisticated entities," said Mueller.
Those entities will work hard to keep new rules controlling farm runoff off the books.
"If it's a fight they want, it is a fight they will get," said Baker.
And it won't be the first or last battle over the Chesapeake Bay.
The lawsuit pitting agri-business against the EPA and the Bay Foundation will be fought in federal court in Pennsylvania.
