DIRECTOR'S CORNER
Progress toward healthier Virginia streams and a cleaner Chesapeake Bay
Three Virginia towns recently took steps to improve their wastewater and sewage treatment plants, and the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality commends the town and plant officials for their proactive measures. These efforts represent significant steps toward reducing nutrient pollution in the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries.
Stronger actions are being developed that will apply to dozens of treatment plants, but officials in Purcellville in Loudoun County and Warrenton in Fauquier County, and the operators of their sewage treatment plants are taking the lead now to reduce the amount of nutrients entering our waters through new permit requirements.
Both towns have recognized the need to improve water quality in the Bay and rivers and are following the requirements that DEQ expects to be included in new regulations that Virginia will complete later this year.
The regulations will establish new water quality standards for the Chesapeake Bay and its tidal rivers, and implement more stringent limits on nitrogen and phosphorus. Nitrogen and phosphorus are types of nutrients discharged by sewage treatment plants and other facilities that harm water quality. Three separate regulations will set stricter standards to protect water quality, establish technology-based standards for reducing nutrients and limit the total amount of nutrients allowed in each river basin.
These permit limits are not required now, but they are expected when Virginia’s water quality management plan regulation is adopted in late 2005. This means the towns have agreed to modernize their sewage treatment plants and to follow limits in their permits that reduce the amount of nitrogen and phosphorus entering the water before the regulations require it.
DEQ also recently awarded the town of Onancock a $45,000 grant from the state Water Quality Improvement Fund. The grant will assist in nutrient reduction efforts at the town’s wastewater treatment plant. Onancock, in Accomack County on the Eastern Shore, is the first grant recipient from the fund for 2005.
The grant will cover 90 percent of the costs for a design study to examine different treatment options and also for the development of a plan to reduce nutrient pollution through more efficient operation at Onancock’s existing wastewater treatment plant.
More than 45 wastewater treatment plant owners and operators have applied for grants from the fund. The number of grant applications is encouraging and reflects the continued commitment and partnership between the state and local governments to reduce the amount of pollutants entering the Bay and its tributaries.
Effective, proactive efforts like these, combined with DEQ’s water quality monitoring and improvement work, will help ensure Virginia’s success in reducing nutrient pollution. Improving the health of the Bay and its tributaries is one of the most significant challenges facing Virginia, and these efforts underscore our commitment to a cleaner, healthier environment.