U.S. EPA will propose stricter rules to limit pollution from development and concentrated animal feeding operations in the Chesapeake Bay watershed, Administrator Lisa Jackson said yesterday.

The proposed national rule will be aimed at curbing pollution from newly developed and redeveloped sites, Jackson announced at a Chesapeake Bay restoration conference in Washington.

The agency also will consider more stringent requirements for Chesapeake Bay states, such as expanding stormwater regulations to apply to new, fast-growing localities and imposing additional permitting rules on large paved areas like shopping mall parking lots. The bay-specific rules also could include mandates to retain more stormwater on-site, EPA said.

The agency said it intends to finalize the rule by November 2012.

Jackson said EPA also will craft a rule to designate more animal farms as concentrated animal feeding operations, or CAFOs. The rule would bring more agricultural operations under the umbrella of federal pollution laws and would toughen regulation of land application of manure.

The rule would address some national issues, EPA said, by streamlining the process of designating a farm a CAFO and strengthening regulation of manure that is transported off-site.

Jackson said the agency will propose the CAFOs rule in 2012 and finalize it by 2013, but that EPA would prefer that watershed states regulate their own animal-feeding operations.

"Our new rulemaking will seek to strengthen CAFO requirements to improve manure management and reduce nutrient-loading," Jackson said. "But we will not implement them if states, on their own, have adopted programs that will effectively do the same thing."

While farms in the watershed have made progress in reducing their pollution, agriculture remains the largest contributor of nutrient and sediment pollution, with more than half of that from manure.

Stormwater from farms, cities and suburbs is the only growing source of pollution in the bay watershed.

Jackson's announcement comes on the heels of a new federal action plan to clean up the bay, which remains degraded after 25 years of state and federal cleanup efforts (E&ENews PM, Sept. 10).

EPA in September pledged to hold states accountable for the cleanup, subjecting those that fail to meet cleanup milestones to a menu of consequences that could include denying development permits or withholding federal money.