The Sage Report - What Will it Cost to Clean Up the Bay

What will it cost to clean up the Chesapeake Bay and more importantly, will it work?

Most people have now heard that the Chesapeake Bay TMDL is the law of the land in six States and DC. Many new laws, policies, regulations and initiatives are being developed and are all memorialized in the State Watershed Implementation Plans or WIPS.

The Sage Policy Group has evaluated the WIP in Maryland and has issued a very informative report. The highlights:

1. It will cost $11 billion between 2012 and 2017 for Maryland alone (conservatively).
2. The cost does not include broader impacts to the State economy, including the loss of 65,000 jobs in Maryland and the associated $2.8 billion in lost wages.
3. The target score for the Bay is 70 (with 100 being a pre-colonization Bay condition). In 2010 the score was 31, better than the 2008 score of 28 (the worst Bay score in the early 1980s and was 23).
4. New development will be responsible for 70.6% of the costs, New emissions rules will account for 26.7% of the cost and changes to agricultural rules and policies will account for 2.5% of the cost.

It is clear that the Chesapeake Bay TMDL will bring significant costs and may not come close to achieving the goals of cleaning up the Bay. It is imperative that we set the goals and then let the free market system address the issue in order to reduce costs.

We can clean up the Bay and we can do it a lot cheaper than what is being proposed.

Transportation Trust Fund

The TTF Task Force submitted its report to the Governor and General Assembly on the 31st. The report provided over 90 different revenue options to be considered to fully fund the shortfall in revenue needed to address all projects identified in the current Capital Transportation Plan.