The Chesapeake Bay Foundation is asking Congress to authorize funding for wastewater treatment plant upgrades throughout the Chesapeake Bay watershed. Find out more about how these upgrades will reduce water pollution—and how you can help secure funding.
Why are there so few crabs in the Bay? One reason is the scarcity of underwater grasses, which provide critical habitat for blue crabs, as well as for juvenile rockfish, speckled trout, and a host of other marine and freshwater species. A marked increase in the acreage of underwater grasses--and a rebound in the crab population--depends on clear water, which can only be achieved through drastic reductions in nutrient (nitrogen and phosphorus) pollution. Chesapeake Bay Foundation scientists believe the installation of nutrient removal technology at wastewater treatment plants represents a cost-efficient leap toward fixing the Bay’s nutrient problem.
“Upgrading sewage treatment plants in the watershed to the best available technology would remove 44 million pounds of nitrogen from the Bay each year,” says CBF Vice President Michael Hirshfield. “That figure represents about 40 percent of the total nitrogen reductions called for by the new Bay Agreement. Nowhere else can we get such bang for the buck.”
The problem: Too much “flow”
There are 288 major wastewater treatment plants in the Bay watershed with flows over half a million gallons per day. Reducing the total load of nitrogen that flows from the plants—even as the plants serve a growing watershed population—is a challenge that has plagued Bay managers for years.
Fortunately, technology has emerged that allows wastewater treatment facilities to reduce total nitrogen discharges to an annual average of 3 milligrams per liter or less. But only 70 plants in the Bay watershed have been upgraded to remove nitrogen at all, and most of those remove total nitrogen down to a concentration of 8 milligrams per liter.
“Three milligrams per liter is the target set by New York and Connecticut for many plants discharging into the Long Island Sound, which also is polluted by excess nitrogen,” says Hirshfield. “Certainly we should set a similarly high standard for the Chesapeake Bay.”
The solution: Nutrient removal technology
Capital improvements to all 288 wastewater treatment plants will cost somewhere in the $1.2 billion range. (Fortunately, nitrogen removal frequently reduces existing operating and maintenance costs, which could offset capital expenses.)
“The price tag is not daunting when shared by all six watershed states, the District of Columbia, and Congress,” says Hirshfield. “And the payoffs would be enormous. For local communities: much-needed upgrades to their sewage treatment plants. For the Bay: fewer algae blooms, clearer water, more underwater grasses, and more crabs and fish.”
How you can help:
CBF is promoting federal legislation to fund nutrient removal technology upgrades for the watershed’s 288 sewage treatment plants.
Posted: 6-19-2001
