Bay Cleanup Threatened By Nutrients Flowing Past Conowingo Dam: Study

"After 87 years, the ability of the 14-mile-long reservoir behind the Conowingo Dam to trap sediment and nutrients coming down the Susquehanna River has largely ceased, threatening the region’s ability to meet Bay cleanup goals, a multi-year study concludes.

Offsetting that impact may require millions of pounds of additional nutrient reductions beyond what was anticipated when the Bay cleanup plan was released in 2010, according to the Lower Susquehanna River Watershed Assessment report, the final version of which was released Thursday.

The $1.4 million study, led by the Army Corps of Engineers and the Maryland Department of the Environment, comes at a time when the state-federal Bay Program partnership has embarked on a multi-year effort to assess and update cleanup goals by the end of next year — a task made harder by the Conowingo situation."
        
Karl Blankenship and Timothy B. Wheeler report for the Bay Journal March 11, 2016.