Virginia Secretary of Natural Resources Tayloe Murphy says much more money is needed to protect the state's air and water. MSN

State natural resources chief Tayloe Murphy stands near his downtown Richmond office. The Westmoreland lawyer and former legislator has helped guide environmental policies for decades. MSN

With year left in term, Virginia secretary of natural resources says money is tight, yet much remains to be done

By RUSTY DENNEN

Date published: 1/11/2005

When lawmakers put conservation on par with hot-button issues such as transportation and education, Virginia will begin to turn the corner on cleaning up its air, rivers and the Chesapeake Bay.

Until then, says W. Tayloe Murphy Jr., the state's point man on the environment, the money needed for those tasks--and its critical support in the General Assembly--will come up short.

"That's the question: Is protecting the [bay] and our living resources a less-pressing priority than education, transportation, Medicaid, public safety? My position is--it is not," Murphy said last week during an interview at his Richmond office. It's a crunch time: The General Assembly session opens tomorrow and Murphy is entering the final year of his term as Gov. Mark Warner's secretary of natural resources.

Murphy has come to that conclusion honestly. He served 18 years in the legislature, as chairman of the Chesapeake Bay Commission, and knows the strain on the state budget.

The commitment to a cleaner environment, he says, has to include a steady and reliable source of dollars to address the bay's most pressing problem--nutrient pollution.

Nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus, mainly from sewage-treatment plants and farmers' fields, cause algae to grow over vast areas of the bay and tidal rivers during the summer. The algae block sunlight to plants and suck oxygen from the water when they die, creating "dead zones" inhospitable to fish, oysters and crabs.

It's estimated that it will take about $150 million a year to upgrade treatment plants and reduce farm runoff to meet 2010 EPA guidelines.

"If you took the money from the general fund would it really severely impact other areas of state government? I don't think it would," Murphy said.

The lawyer and author of the state's Water Quality Improvement Act said it could be linked to sales-tax proceeds.

The Chesapeake Bay Foundation is pushing another proposal that would create a "flush tax" similar to one that just went into effect in Maryland.

The Virginia Clean Streams bill would collect $52 a year from homeowners and $1,200 annually from industries to provide grants to localities and farmers. It would raise about $160 million.

Murphy said he's not opposed to that approach.

Date published: 1/11/2005