THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, May 1, 1996 TAG: 9605010399
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY TODD SHIELDS, WASHINGTON POST
LENGTH: Medium: 87 lines
Industries in the Midwest are a leading source of the airborne pollutants fouling the Chesapeake Bay, according to a new study that could lead to debate over who pays to clean up smokestacks hundreds of miles from the estuary.
Midwestern utility and coal companies are reacting skeptically to the findings by Robin L. Dennis, a federal scientist who undertook what he calls the first detailed analysis of the Bay's airshed, the expanded region that produces most of the airborne pollutants reaching the bay.
Dennis' work concentrated on nitrogen, one of two major pollutants affecting the bay. It causes harmful algae blooms and oxygen-poor ``dead spots'' that harm marine life.
Most of the Bay's nitrogen comes from sources on land within the Bay's watershed, such as sewage effluent and chemical runoff from fields and suburban development. Air pollution that falls across the Bay's six-state watershed and on the Bay's surface contributes 20 percent to 35 percent of the total nitrogen, scientists estimate.
Dennis' work indicates that most of that airborne portion is beyond the Bay region's immediate control. His findings could increase pressure on Midwestern states to reduce their emissions, several environmentalists said.
Ohio officials said any such pressure would be premature and called for more research.
``We ought to let the science tell us whether or not this is a problem before we advise control strategies,'' said Patricia Madigan, a spokeswoman for the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency.
Dennis' study comes as scientists investigate the link between air pollution and the Bay's problems, a connection little examined before the 1990s.
Their findings are leading regulators to look beyond traditional means of controlling water pollution, such as cleaning up sewage effluent and reducing runoff.
Increasingly, officials are concluding that the Chesapeake Bay would benefit from reductions in air pollution, including nitrogen that shoots out of smokestacks and drifts 400 miles or more on prevailing winds that blow east across the Midwest.
``There's a growing interest in seeing whether those states should look at the impacts (of their emissions) on eastern water bodies,'' said Bill Matuszeski, director of the federal Environmental Protection Agency's Chesapeake Bay Program, which coordinates state and federal cleanup efforts.
But, Matuszeski said, strong moves to rein in distant pollution for the Bay's sake probably are a decade or more away. Politicians need time to respond to what is a new issue, and scientific understanding needs to be sharpened, he said. Control plans and cost estimates have yet to be developed.
The Ozone Transport Commission, a group of East Coast states trying to lessen the region's air pollution, is looking at the Midwest's contribution to the problem. Officials from several states will urge the commission next month to add nitrogen's effect on estuaries to its list of concerns, said Joseph Belanger, an environmental official in Connecticut.
Including estuaries as a concern could bring changes at the margins of policy, Belanger said. For instance, controls thought to be too expensive for smog alone could become worthwhile when the added benefits to estuaries are considered. Or, since the Bay and other waters absorb nitrogen year-round, 12-month controls might supplant the warm-weather steps taken to limit smog.
Some officials also would like to bring the water issue before the Ozone Transport Assessment Group, a 37-state body examining ozone problems throughout the United States east of the Mississippi River, Matuszeski said.
Studies such as Dennis' are an essential component of the emerging strategies, said John Bachmann, an associate director for science and policy at the federal EPA.
Dennis' research builds upon models used earlier to track the causes of acid rain, a problem in the Northeast that scientists ascribed partly to sulfur emissions from the Midwest and Appalachia. After debate lasting more than a decade, the federal government in 1990 required stricter sulfur controls in those regions. ILLUSTRATION: VP Graphic
1. Nitrogen is released from power plants and industrial plants
in the Midwest.
2. Nitrogen drifts 400 miles or more on prevailing winds that
blow east across the Midwest.
3. Nitrogen gathers in the atmosphere above the Chesapeake Bay
and eventually falls as rain, fog or airborne deposits.
KEYWORDS: STUDY CHESAPEAKE BAY POLLUTION ENVIRONMENT by CNB