RICHMOND, Va. —
People in the Richmond area got a chance Wednesday to comment on Virginia’s latest plan for cleaning the Chesapeake Bay. But local actions are so unclear, some speakers said, there’s not a lot to react to.

“What needs to happen is, steps need to be taken,” said Margaret “Peggy” Sanner, senior attorney for the Virginia office of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, an environmental group. “We need to march.”

Six bay states are working with the federal government to clean the bay. The effort could cost Virginians more than $15 billion, according to state estimates.

Sanner and others praised state and local governments for pushing ahead with the cleanup plan. But they said they expected to know more by now about what will happen on the local level.

Sanner’s group called for Virginia’s bay plan to require localities to commit by July 2013 to specific cleanup measures.

John Zeugner, president of the Friends of Bryan Park, said, “The sooner we get the programs up and running, the better off we will be.”

Sanner and Zeugner spoke during the meeting and elaborated in interviews afterward.

State and regional officials explained the revised cleanup plan, unveiled in March, during the afternoon meeting at Virginia Commonwealth University.

This revised plan was expected to contain details about what local governments will be doing to clean the bay.

But the federal timetable for submitting the plan did not allow for the time-consuming local approvals needed for costly cleanup measures, said James Davis-Martin, Chesapeake Bay program manager for the state Department of Conservation and Recreation.

Many localities are already taking actions such as improving their sewage-treatment plants, Davis-Martin said. But, he said, they need to do more.

About 70 people attended Wednesday’s meeting. About a dozen spoke. People can continue to comment on the cleanup plan through May 31 by emailing vabaytmdl@dcr.virginia.gov.

The plan aims to reduce pollution that runs off land during rains, washes off farm fields or runs out of sewage plants, among other sources.

Measures in the plan include enticing farmers to reduce pollution voluntarily in exchange for protection from new mandatory rules.

The plan also calls for expanding a program in which polluters that clean up more than they are required can sell credits to sites that are having trouble reducing pollution.

The plan is flexible “so we can adjust the program as we assess progress,” said Anthony Moore, deputy Virginia secretary of natural resources, in an email before the meeting.

Local cost estimates are murky. Officials in Richmond and Chesterfield, Hanover and Henrico counties said they have no overall estimates.

The deadline for installing cleanup measures is 2025. Sixty percent of the measures, such as fencing cattle out of streams, are to be in place by 2017.

The cleanup has been under way since the mid-1980s. States have cut some pollution but not enough.