In recent years, environmental groups have contended that the requirement has gone largely ignored, sparking roughly two dozen suits over TMDLs across the nation. A similar suit over the TMDLs in Pennsylvania was settled earlier this year. After being sued, the EPA signed an agreement with Pennsylva-nia committing the state to step up water monitoring efforts and to write about 600 TMDLs over the next decade. The EPA also agreed to help fund some of the work. The groups filing the Maryland suit, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, the Sierra Club and the American Littoral Society, also say that the vast majority of the state's waters have not been adequately monitored to determine whether they meet water quality standards.
Nutrient pollution causes terrible problems for the Bay.
Pfiesteria, for example, is one symptom. The EPA must use every tool at its disposal to significantly reduce nutrient pollution and to reduce the threat of pfiesteria in the Bay. Earlier this year, Maryland officials said they needed to write about 300 TMDLs for polluted waterways it had identified, and said it would take years to finish the job. At the same time, TMDLs can be complex, expensive and labor intensive to develop. Still, the EPA in recent years has increasingly embraced TMDLs as a tool to promote watershed planning, and has been developing new guidelines for states writing TMDLs, replacing earlier, vague instructions.