Efforts so far should keep 3.6 million pounds of nitrogen and 620,000 pounds of phosphorus out of the rivers annually. The Gilmore administration provided the tools necessary to get the job done. Still, the state will fall short of the full cleanup goal for rivers. Also, because many agricultural nutrients reach rivers through slow-moving groundwater, it may take years for the full effect of efforts taken so far to be felt in the Bay. Nonetheless, officials were cheered at the level of nutrient control actions taken, mainly by private land owners, in the four years since the strategy was adopted.
Actions taken so far are likely to be only the beginning of nutrient control efforts.
The Bay Program by the end of next year is supposed to set new nutrient reduction goals aimed at cleaning up the Chesapeake by the end of the decade. The goals could require reductions equal to, or surpassing, nutrient reductions made in the past decade. In the meantime, all of the Bay states still have to finish attaining the old nutrient reduction goals, which were set in 1987 and were supposed to be reached by the end of this year. The Bay Program's computer models indicate that the Bay states will miss their Baywide goals for nitrogen and phosphorus, and will fall short of the nitrogen goal in all major basins. The Baywide nitrogen goal isn't expected to be met until a number of wastewater treatment plant upgrades are completed, which isn't expected until 2003.