The President’s fiscal 2013 budget unveiled this week would increase spending on the restoration of the Chesapeake Bay.
Under the spending plan the Environmental Protection Agency would see a $15 million increase in funding to assist watershed states in carrying out their plans to cut nutrients and sediments from farms, urban runoff and wastewater by 2025.
But the budget would also reduce the EPA’s Clean Water State Revolving Fund…that provides assistance to states and localities in their efforts to cut pollution from runoff and sewage treatment plants.
In addition, there would be a reduction in the Department of
Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service that also helps farms cut agricultural runoff.
Doug Siglin with the Chesapeake Bay Foundation told the Salisbury Daily Times that he welcomed the additional funding but was concerned about the cuts to – what he called – critical components of state plans to achieve pollution limits.
