The Maryland Public Policy Institute will host the panel discussion: A Better Way to Restore the Chesapeake Bay, a policy forum on the most sensible policies for addressing Chesapeake Bay pollution and the health of the Bay.

Maryland officials expect to spend over $14 billion in the next decade to meet EPA pollution mitigation targets for the Chesapeake Bay by 2025. Yet Maryland has pointedly ignored a single, enormous source of the pollutants—the massive amount of water-scoured sediment and trapped nitrogen and phosphorus behind the Susquehanna River’s Conowingo Dam. Periodic discharges from the dam, such as the one following Tropical Storm Lee in 2011, spill enormous amounts of sediment and nutrients into the Bay, dwarfing the most optimistic cleanup targets that have been set for the watershed.

What should Maryland do to reduce Chesapeake Bay pollution, and is current policy too much or too little?

Panelists:

Robert M. Summers, Ph.D.
Secretary, Maryland Department of the Environment

Jim Simpson
Economist and author of the forthcoming Maryland Public Policy Institute report, "A Better Way to Restore the Chesapeake Bay"

David Schnare
Senior Fellow, Energy and the Environment
Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy

Moderator:

Christian Krahforst, Ph.D.
Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow, Center for Environment & Society
Washington College

When: October 28, 2014

Time:  Reception - 6 pm
          Forum - 7 pm

Where: Washington College - Hynson Lounge
            300 Washington Ave.
            Chestertown, MD 21620