By Lyn Widmyer

I consider myself an environmentalist with one major exception: brown marmorated stink bugs. I don’t care about the circle of life and ecological balance when it comes to these marauders. I say kill them all.

I am like the Terminator when it comes to brown stink bugs. The difference is I am armed with a vacuum cleaner instead of a machine gun. I am merciless in finding those stink bugs and believe me they are everywhere. Globs of them hide in folds of draperies and under bedding. Wielding my trusty vacuum cleaner hose attachments, I easily send hundreds at a time to their final resting place: a Kenmore 5050 vacuum bag.

The other night I found the first useful side of stink bugs. I was at a fundraiser, sitting with people I did not know and conversation lagged. In a sudden burst of inspiration, I asked, “How about those stink bugs?” Everyone had an opinion and everyone started talking. Stink bugs brought us together.

I hope a much larger, more significant environmental challenge facing Jefferson County will also bring us together. On May 12, 2009, President Barack Obama signed an executive order recognizing the Chesapeake Bay as a national treasure and ordering a renewed effort to protect the Bay. All of Jefferson County lies within the Chesapeake Bay watershed, as do seven other West Virginia counties. In June Governor Manchin signed into law SB 715, the Chesapeake Bay Restoration Initiative. This new law directs the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) to begin developing plans for managing West Virginia’s nutrient pollution contribution to the Bay.

The Chesapeake Bay Initiative legislation includes some pretty interesting programs, including a nutrient credit trading program. Nitrogen and phosphorus are considered the leading cause of degradation of streams and rivers in the watershed. The trading program would allow an increase in nutrient loads at one location only if the nutrient loads somewhere else are reduced.

I would like to offer more detailed information about the concept but I am still trying to figure it out myself. I am also trying to figure out the term TMDL, or “total maximum daily load.” TMDL standards will have a huge effect on local planning, land use and economic development. They will control the amount and types of pollutants that can be discharged by watershed. The federal government has established state wide TMDL standards and now the West Virginia EPA must work with local governments to distribute loadings by watershed.

I will have to do a lot of reading to understand nutrient trading programs, TMDL, nutrient balance and reserve ratios. This is a small price to pay if it means protecting the quality of our streams and rivers.

For the sake of our environment, we residents of Jefferson County have to be as interested and conversant about TMDL as we are about stink bugs.