The Chesapeake Bay as a whole should only have 187.4 million pounds of nitrogen and 12.5 million pounds of phosphorus flowing into it each year, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has determined.
In 2009, the pollution loads were 247.5 million pounds of nitrogen and 16.62 million pounds of phosphorus.
The pollution limits are part of the baywide "total maximum daily load" or "pollution diet" being drafted by the federal government and the states.
If pollution is reduced enough, the bay could become healthy enough to be removed from the list of the nation's "impaired" waters.
Nitrogen and phosphorus are nutrients that flow into the bay from sources such as sewage plants, septic systems, urban stormwater, fertilizer and animal waste.
The nutrients fuel the growth of algae blooms, which rob life-sustaining oxygen from the water, creating the bay's infamous "dead zone."
The states around the bay are working on plans to comply with the new limits.
The plans will lay out how the pollution reductions will be made, such as through upgrading sewage plants, limiting new development, modernizing stormwater controls or getting farmers to adopt more bay-friendly practices.
