EPA Names New Chesapeake Bay Adviser

Jeff Corbin, a former assistant secretary of natural resources in Virginia during the Kaine administration, was named to the post by EPA administrator Lisa Jackson in an announcement made public on Wednesday. He is currently a senior adviser to an EPA regional administrator.

In his new job, he will coordinate every aspect of the bay's cleanup, including working with the six states and District of Columbia within the 64,000-square-mile water-pollution-control project — the largest ever undertaken in the United States.

Corbin spent a decade with the Chesapeake Bay Foundation as a scientist and Virginia deputy director of the group, a leading advocate for the bay. He also worked as an environmental geologist and water quality specialist for the Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission.

Corbin's experience makes "him perfectly suited to helping us achieve goals to improve and protect our nation's estuary," Jackson said in a memo to EPA employees.

Bay Foundation President William C. Baker said Corbin "understands the science behind the behind the region's plans for restoration, is an eloquent spokesperson, and is a consummate and dedicated professional."

The restoration plan involves individual agreements with the states the District to sharply reduce the flow of pollutants and sediments that have choked the bay and crippled it environmentally. The goals are to be achieved by 2025.

The EPA is shepherding the restoration plan because of the lack of progress over the years by the individual states to protect or restore the bay.

Farm groups have filed a lawsuit to blunt the plan, which they contend is too far-reaching and based on faulty science.

Corbin succeeds Chuck Fox, who left the EPA in December to join a new ocean conservation group.