Report: How Pollution Limits Encourage Jobs in the Chesapeake Bay Region

Debunking the “Job Killer” Myth – How Pollution Limits Encourage Jobs in the Chesapeake Bay Region, December 2011, Chesapeake Bay Foundation.

  • “The Chesapeake Bay is a national treasure, home to a dazzling spectrum of species and an engine for the region’s economy estimated to be worth more than $1 trillion dollars. But pollution continues to cause serious damage to the nation’s largest estuary, as shown by beach closures, fish consumption advisories, harmful algal blooms, and other afflictions. In December 2010, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released new pollution limits for the Chesapeake Bay to accelerate its cleanup and the recovery of jobs which rely on clean water. The Chesapeake Bay “Total Maximum Daily Load,” or TMDL, requires watershed states to reduce pollution flowing into the estuary by 25 percent by 2025 and pushes the states to follow through with clean-up promises they made in 2010, based on previous plans called Tributary Strategies, which were released in 2004 and 2005…Overall, the number of environmental clean-up and monitoring jobs in Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia has surged 43 percent over the last two decades, from 98,000 jobs in 1990 to 140,000 jobs in 2009, with a significant portion of this growth coming from required sewage and water system improvement projects.”
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