By Whitney Katchmark
Principal Water Resource Planner

At its Quarterly Commission Meeting on January 20, 2011, the Hampton Roads Planning District Commission adopted a resolution regarding the Chesapeake Bay TMDL. On December 29, 2010, the Environmental Protection Agency finalized a Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) for the Chesapeake Bay that requires local governments to significantly reduce nutrients and sediment loads to the watershed.

The member localities of the Hampton Roads Planning District Commission adopted this resolution to encourage the Commonwealth to provide leadership in achieving the goals of the TMDL by developing state programs to implement the most cost effective nutrient reductions and by committing the financial resources necessary to pay for the restoration of the water quality in the Chesapeake Bay. The resolution endorses the “Hampton Roads Statement of Legislative Principles Regarding the Implementation of the Chesapeake Bay TMDL”, which was approved by the Commission in December 2010.

The General Assembly has recently taken action on several of these issues including agricultural programs, alternative onsite sewage systems, chlorophyll-a study, expansion of the nutrient credit trading program, lawn fertilizer restrictions and water quality funding.