March 15, 2012 โ Since taking office, Gov. Bob McDonnell's administration has looked at the Chesapeake Bay cleanup program, as led by the federal government, with a critical and uncomfortable eye.
Officials have questioned the accuracy of computer models that drive many decisions. And they have criticized the timing of adding new requirements to cut pollution that could cost billions of dollars in the middle of an economic recession and budget crisis.
Now comes an unusually blunt letter from McDonnell's secretary of natural resources, Doug Domenech, that calls out the clubbiness of the cleanup program, which mostly involves like-minded environmentalists, scientists and government officials.
In his letter last month to the regional director of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Domenech said the program's Citizens Advisory Committee took "inappropriate action" in "lobbying" for stricter catch limits on menhaden, an important fish species in the Bay.
"It is Virginia's opinion that the CAC does not, or at least should not, have the independent authority as a body to lobby other organizations," Domenech wrote to Shawn Garvin, the EPA's regional head.
Domenech also took aim at the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, a leading advocacy group. One of its top managers in Hampton Roads, who serves on the CAC, had urged fellow members to read foundation literature on menhaden before sending a letter in favor of new restrictions.
"At the very least," Domenech wrote, "it creates the appearance the CAC was being used by a separate organization to advance the position of that organization."
Read the full article at the Virginian-Pilot.