Maryland's sovereign authority to 

 regulate the appropriation of Potomac 

 water within its boundaries." I must 

 add that competing interests also in- 

 clude the fish and resources as part 

 of that system. To support this as- 

 surance, Maryland legislative ap- 

 proval is a necessary prerequisite 

 to any withdrawal of water. A study 

 as part of this allocation agreement 

 is underway to determine what water 

 can flow into the lower Potomac. The 

 results of this study will, of 

 course, be taken into consideration 

 in any agreement that is finalized 

 between the signatories. The third 

 form of quantitative problems asso- 

 ciated with urbanization on fresh- 

 water inflow is interbasin transfers. 

 Although this is not a significant 

 problem in Maryland, there are two 

 instances where the potential for 

 interbasin transfer exists and anoth- 

 er one is under consideration. In 

 other areas of the country, this may 

 be of a greater concern. 



The other problem associated 

 with the inflow of fresh water and 

 man's use of it is the quality of the 

 water flowing into the estaury. 

 There are many problems associated 

 with water quality, but the majority 

 of the problems stem from urbaniza- 

 tion and agriculture. There is a 

 great deal of work going on now to 

 determine what is the exact quantity 

 of agricultural activity that really 

 adds to the problem of water quality 

 as associated with the flowing 

 waters . 



The primary concern with urban- 

 ization is the sediment loading re- 

 sulting from development. Another 

 aspect is nutrient enrichment. Nutri- 

 ent enrichment resulting from the 

 discharge from municipal sewage 



treatment plants is an example. It 

 is interesting to note that in a 

 qualitative sense, the withdrawal of 

 water for municipal and industrial 

 uses can also create a quality prob- 

 lem at the other end of the pipe in 

 terms of the discharge from indus- 

 tries by adding pollutants and other 

 toxic substances and nutrient enrich- 

 ment from sewage treatment plants. 

 Additionally, the whole concept of 

 land use change from a vegetated to a 

 paved area increases the surface wa- 

 ter run-off which may in fact lead to 

 increased sediment load. The conse- 

 quences of these kinds of problems 

 can be broken into three basic 

 groups. Natural consequences include 

 the fluctuations in the salt wedge 

 within the estuary, the altered us- 

 ability of the water for aquatic re- 

 sources, the volume of water, the 

 seasonal timing of inflow, and the 

 changes in sediment loading as it 

 relates to the spawning of anadromous 

 fish and resident fish. Another con- 

 sequence related to the social-poli- 

 tical arena are decisions related 

 to the competition between human 

 resources and indigenous resources; 

 these all must be resolved in order 

 to maintain a healthy environment. 

 Lastly, we have jurisdictional con- 

 sequences. These relate to the 

 willingness of an upstream user to 

 pay for the problem he is creating 

 downstream out of his jurisdication. 

 The Maryland coastal zone program 

 goals related to freshwater inflow 

 can be summarized as follows: to 

 maintain or enhance the quality of 

 estuarine water and to ensure an 

 adequate supply of water for the 

 indigenous aquatic resources. The 

 on-going research in the Chesapeake 

 Bay, some of which will be present- 

 ed over the next few days, is de- 

 signed to provide necessary infor- 

 mation to make this goal a reality. 



64 



