Pennsylvania officials admit their state is behind in curbing Chesapeake pollution

Pennsylvania officials on Tuesday conceded to Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan and other state leaders in the Chesapeake Bay watershed that the commonwealth has not done its part to reduce pollution washing into waterways. Patrick McDonnell, Pennsylvania’s secretary of environmental protection, said that will change as a target to restore Chesapeake ecosystems by 2025 approaches.“We are committed and developing a plan that gets us to 2025,” he told the Chesapeake Executive Council, a group that oversees the federal Chesapeake Bay Program, at a meeting in Fells Point.“We are clearly behind,” he said. “But we’ve taken that as an opportunity to double down.”The promise came a week after Hogan publicly criticized Pennsylvania and New York for sending a deluge of debris and pollution down the Susquehanna River during recent flooding.