A draft tributary strategy to reduce nutrient pollution in the Potomac River by focusing on volunteer efforts is being presented at six public meetings in Virginia in late September and early October. Unlike the previous three Democratic governors, Republican George Allen is determined to advance the plan without additional regulatory controls. It's hard work getting people to work together.
Critics say the plan is unrealistic and naive.
The draft plan focuses on ways to reduce the amount of nutrient pollution that runs off farms, roads and cities after rainstorms, or flows out of sewer pipes into the Shenandoah and Potomac rivers. About 1.9 million people live in Virginia's part of the Potomac River basin, which includes the populous Washington suburbs. A pact Virginia signed with Maryland and Pennsylvania requires the bay states to reduce two nutrients, nitrogen and phosphorus, by 40 percent in the Chesapeake as well as its major tributaries by the year 2000. During the past 10 years, a mixture of regulatory and voluntary measures aimed at farmers, local governments and homeowners has reduced the flow of nitrogen from Virginia into the Potomac by 6.5 percent and phosphorus by 25.6 percent. Subsequent plans for the Rappahannock, York and James rivers are due out later.