Guest Blog: Sassafras Riverkeeper Zack Kelleher
Earlier this month, Governor Moore announced a historic agreement between the Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE), Constellation Energy, Waterkeepers Chesapeake, and Lower Susquehanna Riverkeeper Association for the 50-year operating license for the Conowingo Dam. This settlement of $341 million is a major win for water quality on the Sassafras, Bayside Creeks, and the entire upper Chesapeake Bay. Not only will this funding go toward improving water quality, but there is also funding for supplementary benefits like a freshwater mussel hatchery, invasive species management, and dredging/debris removal. Waterkeepers Chesapeake and Lower Susquehanna Riverkeeper Association will also maintain oversight capability for the duration of the 50-year license. Waterkeepers Chesapeake represents 16 Waterkeepers in the Chesapeake region, including ShoreRivers, so we will all have a seat at the table for this oversight.
ShoreRivers’ position has been accountability across the board. This pollution isn’t being generated by the dam, but as a private company profiting off of a public resource, Constellation Energy (formerly Exelon) is legally required to contribute meaningfully toward protecting and restoring water quality in order to continue operating. This new settlement agreement succeeds at meeting this requirement. Now that Constellation has agreed to address this issue at the dam, it ramps up pressure on dams further up the Susquehanna, as well as Pennsylvania and New York, where this pollution originates from, to contribute meaningfully in their own way and address the problem at the source.
ShoreRivers has been involved with this issue for close to a decade in various capacities. After years of working with legislators at the state and federal level, hosting community meetings, and outreach across the Eastern Shore, ShoreRivers, Waterkeepers Chesapeake, and Lower Susquehanna Riverkeeper Association, represented by Earthjustice, challenged the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s (FERC’s) 50-year dam license in June 2021. In December of 2022, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit vacated FERC’s licensing of the Conowingo Dam and ordered negotiations to restart. This was a monumental win that opened the door for the reconsideration of the water quality certification, which included confidential mediation with MDE, Waterkeepers Chesapeake, Lower Susquehanna Riverkeeper and Constellation that produced this new settlement. Since the pollution coming down the Susquehanna through the dam is a Bay-wide issue, it made sense for Waterkeepers Chesapeake, as the regional entity, to represent ShoreRivers during the mediation process.
This successful settlement is a testament to the passion and efforts shown by our Eastern Shore communities over the past several years. The Eastern Shore has been on the front lines of everything that flows through Conowingo, including trash, debris, industrial chemicals, sediment, and more. Water quality and ecosystem health in the Sassafras is particularly impacted negatively, as well as throughout the upper Bay. Once the dam reached its carrying capacity and was regularly releasing excess pollution every time the floodgates were opened, it became one of the greatest threats to Bay water quality and threatened to undo decades of work to improve water quality. This is why it was of the utmost importance to fight for a meaningful settlement that protected these water quality improvements and ensured transparency and oversight for the next 50 years that this license will be valid for.
This truly was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to stand up for water quality in the Chesapeake, and we applaud all of the work that our partner organizations, lawyers, and community members did to make this goal a reality. Our community members submitted thousands of comments, called state and congressional leaders, attended town hall meetings, and more to show how important this issue is to all of us, and how passionate we all are about clean water. This successful settlement truly could not have happened without you.
There is still a lot of work left to be done to protect water quality on the Sassafras, Bayside Creeks, and upper Chesapeake Bay, but it is important to recognize the significance of this victory and use it as inspiration for the continued fight for accountability across the board.
EN 
ES