To resolve a citizen lawsuit, Pennsylvania recently signed an agreement with the EPA that will require it to monitor all its unassessed rivers, lakes and streams, and to do something it was legally required to do for the last two decades-write cleanup plans for polluted waters. Environmental groups are preparing to sue over the same issue in Maryland.
Similar action is considered possible in Virginia.
TMDL stands for Total Maximum Daily Load, which is an estimate of the maximum amount of pollution that a body of water can receive and still meet water quality standards. The original 1972 Clean Water Act required states to develop TMDLs for all impaired water bodies by 1979. If the states failed to do so, the EPA was supposed to withhold money from the offenders and write the TMDLs itself. Despite the law, environmental groups contend that TMDLs, for the most part, have never been developed. May has worked on TMDL suits for years, including both the Pennsylvania and Maryland cases.