The Buzzards Bay Coalition (BBC) and the Westport Fishermen’s Association (WFA) intend to sue the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for the agency’s failure to approve a plan to protect the Westport River from nitrogen.

On Thursday, the two announced their 60-day notice of intent to sue both EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt and Acting Regional Administrator Deborah Szaro under the federal Clean Water Act “for their failure of perform their nondiscretionary duty to approve or disapprove the Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) for the Westport Rivers Estuary within the statutorily-mandated time period.” The maximum daily load is a Clean Water Act-required cleanup plan designed to reduce nitrogen pollution and restore water quality.

“Government inaction is literally choking the life out of the Westport Rivers,”: said Mark Rasmussen, president of the Buzzards Bay Coalition.

“The EPA has been on notice that the Westport Rivers are in trouble for 15 years now, and the situation has gotten worse every year. It’s time to get moving with nitrogen cleanup action in Westport, and we’re not going to just stand by and watch government agencies stall that work any longer.”

“The Westport Fishermen's Association has been watching the can being kicked down the road on this issue for too long and have been advocating the implementation of measures to begin to turn the effects of this problem around,” said Westport Fishermen’s Association President Jack Reynolds. “The evidence of the ongoing degradation of the resources that we all value is very clear.”-

For some time, Mr. Reynolds and others have been sounding the alarm about collapsing marshes, algae blooms and other nitrogen-related issues that plague the river

On February 10, the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection submitted its total notrogen plan to EPA Region 1 for review and approval. EPA’s 30-day review period expired on March 12, with no action from EPA.

The Westport Rivers were first added to Massachusetts’ “Dirty Waters” list (a.k.a. the Clean Water Act List) in 2002, targeting them for the development of nitrogen cleanup plans called TMDLs. It then took 15 years for the MassDEP to develop and finally submit that TMDL to EPA for approval.

For the past 25 years, the Buzzards Bay Commission has been documenting the steady decline of water quality in the Westport Rivers through its Baywatchers monitoring program. Last month, the BBC and WFA released a report entitled “Salt Marsh Loss in the Westport Rivers,” (see separate story) which documents the dramatic rate of accelerating salt marsh loss in the rivers. The combined factors of nitrogen pollution and sea level rise are the drivers of this decline, the commission says.

The study found that the salt marsh islands of the rivers will disappear in an average of 33 years without swift action such as implementing nitrogen reduction strategies, particularly with regard to residential septic systems. The full report can be found a savebuzzardsbay.org

Once approved, the Westport Rivers TMDL will set a course for action by defining exactly how much nitrogen must be removed from the rivers to restore water clarity, eelgrass beds and healthy marine life. In Westport, the plan calls for 71% of the needed nitrogen reduction to come from improvements to onsite septic systems. This plan resulted from a lengthy development process that included two public meetings in Westport over the past year, during which attendees overwhelmingly expressed support for taking action. On Cape Cod, where many TMDLs are in place, the Buzzards Bay Coalition says it has seen towns benefit from increased access to grant funds, wastewater planning assistance and financing for improvements.

The BBC and WFA are represented in this matter by Mark Chertok of the law firm of Sive, Paget and Riesel, P.C. in New York, NY.