Clean Water for the Bay: Regional Decisions, Local Impacts

The regional compact to restore water quality in the Chesapeake Bay was signed by neighboring states and extended in 1992 to include headwater tributary counties In West Virginia.  Counties must improve stormwater management, upgrade wastewater treatment, and reduce the amount of nutrients – nitrogen and phosphorus – entering tributaries.  We examine reactions of stakeholders and state agencies in Jefferson County, WV to the compact requirements.  In particular, we look at farmer opposition since US EPA estimates 95 percent of farms must voluntarily achieve nutrient limits to reach compact goals by 2014.

Farmer opposition focuses on land management practices already in use throughout the county on operating farms.  Farmers claim these practices already limit runoff and nutrient use to levels below EPA requirements.  They claim the EPA focus should be on the land and nutrient use by other stakeholders and also on wastewater treatment including the reduction of the number of septic systems.  The WV Agriculture Department has supported the farmers, the EPA has opposed them, while the WV Department of Environmental Protection has attempted to mediate.  The paper describes and analyzes the levels of conflict, mis-information, and distrust that have developed between 2006 and the present.