40 Years of Chesapeake Bay Restoration: Where We Failed and How to Change Course
For more than half a century, the Chesapeake Bay and many of its tributaries have suffered from poor water quality. Compelled by an executive order and litigation, in 2010, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued the Chesapeake Bay total maximum daily load (Bay TMDL) to reduce pollution discharges and thereby restore Bay water quality; unfortunately, the Bay TMDL will fail to meet its 2025 objective.
89 FR 47468
SIP Approval: Kentucky (revisions to geographical boundary description and attainment status designation for the Henderson-Webster 2010 primary sulfur dioxide nonattainment area).
89 FR 47481
SIP Proposal: Georgia (regional haze).
89 FR 47474
SIP Proposal: District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia (revisions to motor vehicle emissions budgets and onroad and nonroad mobile emissions for volatile organic compounds and nitrogen oxides for years 2025 and 2030).
89 FR 47504
SIP Proposal: Nebraska (miscellaneous changes).
89 FR 47178
United States v. PSF, Inc., No. 3:24-cv-00112 (D. Alaska May 24, 2024). Under a proposed consent decree, settling CWA defendants that allegedly violated the conditions and limitations of their NPDES permits at their facilities in Valdez and King Cove, Alaska, must perform injunctive relief and pay $750,000 in civil penalties.
89 FR 47178
United States v. TPC Group LLC, No. 24-00187 (E.D. Tex. May 21, 2024). Under a proposed consent decree, a settling CAA defendant must pay $12.1 million in civil penalties and spend approximately $80 million to improve its risk management program and improve safety at its petrochemical manufacturing facilities in Port Neches and Houston, Texas, in connection with a November 2019 explosion at the Neches facility and failure to take corrective action at the Houston facility.
89 FR 47398
SIP Proposal: Arizona (partial approval and partial disapproval of revisions related to regional haze).