A group of state and federal leaders pledged today to more to clean up the Chesapeake Bay.
The leaders, including Virginia Gov. Timothy M. Kaine, Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley and federal Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa P. Jackson, met today at Mount Vernon in Fairfax County.
The group agreed to clean up the bay no later than 2025. They also announced interim, two-year goals for reducing levels of nitrogen and phosphorus, key pollutants harming the bay.
"We believe we are embarking on a different level of bay restoration commitment," Kaine said. He is chairman of the group, the Chesapeake Executive Council.
Jackson said President Barack Obama signed an executive order today that will "strengthen the federal focus on bay restoration."
Among other things, the order requires a reduction in water pollution flowing from federal lands, Jackson said.
Nitrogen and phosphorus, which come from sewage-treatment-plant discharges, farm fertilizers and other sources, fuel the growth of algae that foul the bay and its tributaries, including the James River.
The federal government and bay states agreed in 1983 to clean the waterway, but they missed a 2000 deadline. The EPA and the states then pledged to clean the bay by 2010. Last year, everyone agreed that wouldn't happen, either.
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