An Environmental Protection Agency spokesman now says federal regulators will indeed hold Maryland and other Chesapeake Bay states accountable if they fail to achieve the interim cleanup goals they announced in May.

On Tuesday, when the agency outlined what it might do if states don't do what's needed to restore the bay, Shawn Garvin, EPA's Mid-Atlantic regional administrator, said federal officials would not apply sanctions retroactively to the "milestones" that state officials had pledged last spring to achieve by 2011.

The agency sent states and the District of Columbia a letter outlining eight different possible sanctions if they don't fulfill their bay restoration obligations, including blocking needed permits for new or existing businesses or municipal sewage treatment plants.

Environmental activists took Garvin's remark - made in a telephone press conference -- to mean that EPA would only begin threatening sanctions sometime in the future, but did not intend to hold states accountable for reaching their current two-year goals. As I reported in the Baltimore Sun on Wednesday, they questioned the agency's resolve to change the 26-year cleanup's troubled history of missed goals and blown deadlines.

After that story appeared, EPA spokesman David Sternberg called and emailed to say that Garvin only meant that federal officials would not pass judgment now on whether the state's goals themselves are adequate to make cleanup progress.

The letter EPA sent actually spells out, Sternberg said, that "the jurisdictions are now accountable for meeting the two-year milestones, which includes those that they have committed to achieve by 2011."

So activists, who were listening in on the telephone call EPA officials held with journalists, may have unfairly blistered the agency in this case for giving the states another free pass.

Chesapeake Bay Foundation president William Baker said yesterday he's skeptical - not for what it says it'll do - but based on the agency's repeated unwilingness to challenge states for issuing permits that he believes let industries and sewage plants pollute rivers and the bay.

EPA officials counter that the past doesn't dictate the future, and they're ready and willing to confront states now for shortcomings - though they hope they won't have to.

As they say, time will tell. But at least now we know the clock is already ticking.

(EPA photo)

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 5:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

Senior Chesapeake Bay scientists and former policymakers joined with environmental activists Wednesday to call for bold and "drastic" measures to restore the ailing estuary, including mandatory controls on runoff from farms and existing urban and suburban areas.

In what one former lawmaker called a "gathering of eagles" at the State House in Annapolis, one speaker after another from Maryland and Virginia, recalled their struggles to clean up the bay over the decades. With many of them graying, they warned that there was little time left to act before it would no longer be possible to recover the natural bounty they remembered the bay had had in their youth.

Voicing their frustration with states' half-measures, they urged Washington to take charge and enact 24 "critical steps" that they said would have to be taken to have a chance of success. And they decried the pushback they said was coming from national farm and development lobbies against legislation pending in Congress that would give the federal government greater authority to force states to do what's needed, or face mandatory sanctions.

William Dennison, a scientist at the University of Maryland environmental laboratory near Cambridge, said the bay is at what he called ecological and societal "tipping points." A few rivers in the bay are showing signs of recovery, he said, with water quality and underwater grasses improving. Other areas, though, are getting worse.

The problem, Dennison said, is that the bay as a whole is choking on a glut of nutrients from sewage, farm and lawn fertilizer and air pollution. Noting that he'd overeaten a bit himself during the holidays, the scientists said the Chesapeake needs to be put on a strict nutrient diet. "We need Weight Watchers for the bay," he said.

Rom Lipcius from the Virginia Institute of Marine Science said he's seen evidence that blue crabs and oysters can recover if big enough changes are made in how they're managed. "We have to have bold, sweeping changes, drastic changes," he added, and interstate cooperation. Without it, he concluded, he doesn't hold much hope for restoring the bay.

Their main hope for such change now seems to reside in Washington, not state capitals. Tayloe Murphy, a former Virginia natural resources secretary and longtime legislator, said recent moves by the Obama administration and in Congress mark what he hopes will be "a new beginning" for restoring the bay. But he said change is needed not just in water pollution laws and regulations, but in land use and people's attitudes, to preserve and restore the natural and cultural heritage of the bay.

"When I drive around the Northern Neck (of Virginia), what do I see? ... I see cigarette boats and jet skis. I don't see oyster boats and crab pots." Land owners and municipalities in pursuing their own benefits and pleasures have been allowed to degrade a resource that belongs to everyone, Murphy said. That, too, must change, he concluded.

Wayne Gilchrest, former congressman from the Eastern Shore, chimed in, saying that individuals' constitutional rights to private property do not give them the right to pollute what belongs to everyone. He said he worried that public ignorance about the bay has led to indifference about its fate, and even contempt for the natural bounty that it once had - and still has, to a degree. To clean up the bay, he said, people's minds need to be cleaned, too.

William Eichbaum, who was Maryland's chief environmental regulator when the bay cleanup began 26 years ago, recalled that he thought the Chesapeake would begin to recover in a decade or so, given the dramatic actions that launched the restoration effort then, including pioneering controls on waterfront development.

"We've thrown more money at the Chesapeake Bay than probably at any other restoration area in the world," he said, and the bay has had more scientific study and arguably even more political leadership than other troubled waters. Yet there's not been enough progress, he said, and in some areas the bay is actually worse off than it was decades ago.

"We have to make harder decisions than we did a decade or maybe two decades ago," he said.

With Chuck Fox, senior bay advisor for the Environmental Protection Agency, sitting quietly in the back of the room taking notes, Joseph Tydings, another former Maryland lawmaker, said the Obama administration offers the best hope of making those tough decisions.

Tydings said he believes Gov. Martin O'Malley is sincerely trying to restore the bay, and he likened him to former Gov. Harry Hughes, who launched the restoration effort. But Tydings said O'Malley is hamstrung by the same "special interests" that have thwarted or watered down cleanup measures in Annapolis for years.

"Governor O'Malley can only do so much," Tydings said. "We need help from the EPA...," he added, because time is running out for the bay."

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 8:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
        

As the first decade of the new millenium draws to a close, here's our look back at some of the biggest stories in Baltimore and beyond about the environment and green living. Feel free to remind us of those we overlooked.

FIRE DOWN BELOW: A freight train carrying hazardous chemicals derails and catches fire in a century-old rail tunnel beneath Howard Street in July 2001, triggering a water main break and power outage that paralyzes downtown for days, sending thousands of workers home and canceling Orioles games. Though hydrochloric acid leaked from one car, there were no explosions or releases of more toxic chemicals, and no one was seriously hurt. The city and CSX Transportation blame each other for the disaster, which reveals not only the fragility of our infrastructure but the risks of routine transportation of hazardous materials through heavily populated areas. (Baltimore Sun photo by Kenneth K. Lam)

SNAKEHEADS! Dubbed "Frankenfish" for its reputed ability to breathe air and "walk" short distances out of water, the northern snakehead turns up in June 2002 in a Crofton pond. State poisons the pond in what proves to be a vain attempt to eradicate this highly invasive import from Asia. More are caught two years later in a Wheaton pond and then in the Potomac River. They are just the most sensational of a rogues' gallery of troublemaking exotics found during the decade, including emerald ash borers, mitten crabs and most recently Didymo, freshwater algae discovered in western Maryland that can blanket stream bottoms with slimy grayish mats. (Baltimore Sun photo by Amy Davis)

BAY BLUES: Far short of the goals they'd set to clean up the bay, states and the federal government agree in June 2000 to new goals for reducing pollution fouling the water and for restoring the estuary's fish and grasses, this time by 2010. By late 2007, though, officials acknowledge they're not even going to come close, as polluted runoff from farms and development remains largely uncontrolled. States pledge to accelerate restoration work and hold themselves more accountable, but set 2025 as their new cleanup target date. President Obama in May 2009 declares bay a national treasure and orders federal agencies to take lead in lagging cleanup effort. Blue crabs, meanwhile, suffer perilous decline through decade and prompt severe catch restrictions, leading to a federal disaster declaration for bay's crabbing industry. Crabs begin to rebound as decade ends, though catch curbs remain. Virginia and Maryland eye Asian oysters after diseases and pollution devastate native bivalves; but scientific concerns about another non-native introduction kill the idea. (Baltimore Sun photo by Glenn Fawcett)

CHANGING CLIMATE: UN-backed scientific panel that's been studying earth's climate since 1980s reports in 2001 that there's new and stronger evidence that planet is warming and most of it stems from human activities such as burning fossil fuels. In 2007, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issues even stronger update, finding warming "unequivocal" and humans "very likely" the main cause. Bush administration opts for more study. Maryland joins other states in adopting own goals for reducing planet-warming greenhouse gases and participates in regional "cap and trade" curbs on power plant emissions. Obama pledges US action, but UN-backed talks in Denmark in December 2009 fail to agree on new global compact.

NOT-SO-SMART GROWTH:Development continues to sprawl through Maryland's countryside, gobbling up farms and woodlands despite nationally acclaimed Smart Growth laws enacted in late 1990s. Nearly three quarters of land on which new homes were built fell outside designated growth areas. Small towns on Eastern Shore and elsewhere are torn by debates over growth, as developers propose annexing farmland to build thousands of new homes. Gov. Martin O'Malley vows to overhaul Smart Growth, but pushes through only modest legislative reforms by decade's end. (Baltimore Sun photo by David Hobby) 

GWYNNS FALLS TRAIL: In 2008, the city completes a decade-long, $15 million effort to open 15-mile trail, which winds through 30 neighborhoods and some 2,000 acres of green space. Bikers respond in May when more than 1,000 people, a record number, commute in the region on Bike to Work Day, using the trail and dozens of bike lanes added to city streets.

GREEN IS IN, SORT OF: Growing consumer interest in environmentally friendly products and services prompts business world to respond. Spikes in gas prices spur sales of hybrid vehicles and Energy Star appliances, while corporations tout their sustainability and plans to shrink carbon footprints. Some air travelers pay extra to plant trees to soak up all the carbon their flights burn. In Maryland, businesses eagerly self-identify on government's "green registry." Recession seems to have cooled but not killed off green ardor, with emphasis now on money-saving and efficiency.

LOCAVORES: The movement to buy local, and largely organic, food took off as people’s interest in where and how their meat and vegetables were produced. There are now more than 90 farmers’ markets in the state, more than 100 community gardens in the city and countless area residents going straight to the farm. (Baltimore Sun photo by Amy Davis) 

BUILD IT GREEN: Even before local governments begin requiring developers to adhere to new green building standards in public and private buildings, the state sees its first housing community, hotel, library, school and shopping center achieve LEED status, or Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, developed by the nonprofit U.S. Green Building Council. In Baltimore alone, at least 20 buildings now have green roofs.  

WYE OAK: Severe thunderstorm in June 2002 destroys 460-year-old Wye Oak, Talbot County tree once identified as the largest white oak in the nation. Seen at left in 1962, it stood 96 feet tall with a trunk more than 31 feet around. Once felled, its massive bulk was carved into a desk for the governor's office, court gavels, benches and other ceremonial articles. Scientists succeeded in cloning it before it toppled, however, so its impressive girth may once again tower over the landscape. (Baltimore Sun photo circa 1962 by Aubrey Bodine) 

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 6:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
        

The Environmental Protection Agency has finally laid out what it may do if Maryland and other Chesapeake Bay states fail to do what they should to clean up the ailing estuary.

In a letter to the six states in the bay watershed and the District of Columbia, EPA's regional administrator said the agency could object to permits for new or expanded discharges into the bay and rivers, demand greater pollution reductions from existing industries and sewage treatment plants or take away some federal grants, among other things.

Not surprisingly, it's generating a mixture of reactions, from a Republican lawmaker suggesting it's unconstitutional to environmentalists saying they're weak or empty threats. You can read more about them here in a story I wrote today in The Baltlimore Sun.

Other reactions that didn't make the story:

"The chances of EPA's financial guillotine coming down are extremely slim," said Ann Swanson, executive director of the Chesapeake Bay Commission. Maryland, for instance, got all of $4.8 million last year in the kinds of grants that EPA could withhold or "redirect" if the state ducks its cleanup responsibilities.

Still, Swanson said, the threat of federal intervention in states issuing permits for new or expanded businesses and sewage plants is a sobering threat. "No one like to get their autonomy - and ability to serve their people uniquely - removed."

Tommy Landers of Environment Maryland emailed that he doesn't share EPA's confidence that states will meet their obligations and federal sanctions won't ever be needed. "That’s why these “consequences” are paramount in this process — empty threats won’t do anything to help the bay," he wrote.

While many of the proposed sanctions "could send the right signal to the states that the EPA means business," he added that he's disappointed that the agency seems to have retreated on restricting or prohibiting any new or expanded discharges if a state falls short.

"In September they proposed that option, and it’s a good one. But now they’re only talking about 'net improvement offsets,'" Landers said.

Gerald Winegrad, former Annapolis state senator and outspoken bay advocate, wrote that a group of 38 scientists, activists and former politicians he's assembled (more on them later) believes that EPA should start using the threat of sanctions now, with the two-year "milestones" that the states set last May for achieving by 2011. EPA's regional chief said he wouldn't apply them "retroactively."

"The politics of postponement must end now," Winegrad wrote in an email.

Still, the major question is what it will take for EPA to actually threaten or impose its rarely used powers. EPA's letter was vague on that score, beyond spelling out a timeline stretching out over four months in which the agency and state would spar back and forth over an alleged failing. EPA's regional chief, Shawn Garvin, insisted that such "flexiblity" was prudent, so that the punishment could fit the crime.

The bay commission's Swanson approves of that, saying she doesn't believe a state should be smacked for coming up short if it's really trying, particularly in today's lean fiscal climate.

"It wouldn't surprise me if the states' efforts are falling short of their current goals," she said. And the place where the strain will be felt the greatest, she added, is in growing areas of the bay region and those where farming still dominates.

EPA's announcement yesterday wasn't all threat - the agency did offer to provide $11.2 million in additional funds to help states tighten up their enforcement and regulatory oversight of polluters. That's likely to be welcome, but well short of the help from Washington that states are looking for. With their states' budgets imploding, Maryland and Virginia governors, for instance, wrote the White House recently to ask for $365 million more for the bay in next year's federal budget.

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 9:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

After, 25 years, Hart-Miller Island is no longer accepting dredge material from the Harbor and Chesapeake Bay channels.

Part of the Baltimore County island was made into a wildlife sanctuary and recreational area after being built up with the sludge scooped from the water's bottom to accommodate large cargo ships. And now that material won't be going there anymore, the job can be completed, according to the Maryland Port Administration.

The port has put some 100 million cubic yards of material there since 1984 and stopped Dec. 22. In that time, 1,100 acreas of park and rec space has been created near the Back and Middle Rivers.

“While controversial at the outset, this facility that has been critical to the prosperity of the Port of Baltimore is now an asset to the community,” said James J. White, the port's executive director, in a statement. 

The port now turns its attention to Masonville, where dredge material to create land for a storage area for automobiles -- the port is one of the East Coast's largest handlers of imported and exported cars and trucks.

That's creates green of another kind for the state. However, the port has already cleaned up an area in Masonville and built an eco-center for the public's use. Port officials say that the land used for that project was once a dumping ground for debris from the great 1904 fire in Baltimore.

Back at Hart-Miller, the island is divided into an 800-acre north cell and a 300-acre south cell.   The south cell stopped accepting dredged material in 1990 and is now being managed as a wildlife habitat. There are more than 200 different birds and other animals there. For humans, there is also boating, fishing, camping and swimming. In 2010, the north cell will get its treatment.

For more information on Hart-Miller Island, go to marylandports.com and click on safe passage.

Baltimore Sun file photo of Hart-Miller Island/Jerry Jackson  

Posted by Meredith Cohn at 7:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Chesapeake Bay
        

By now you've probably all seen a list or ten of top 10 news stories of the past year or decade. Well, here's our green-tinted take on '09. We'll look back through the rest of the decade tomorrow. Let us know what you think - what did we miss?

CLIMATE CHANGE: House of Representatives narrowly passes bill in late June to reduce US greenhouse gas emissions 17 percent reduction by 2020 and more than 80 percent by mid-century. Environmental Protection Agency moves to regulate climate-warming pollution under Clean Air Act if legislative effort falters. Maryland, meanwhile, collects more than $90 million from power plants buying carbon dioxide credits under multi-state “cap and trade” curbs. UN climate talks in Copenhagen end in disarray, with a last-minute, nonbinding accord that puts major issues off until next year. (Photo at left of climate campaigner's sign at summit's end/AFP/Getty)

CHESAPEAKE BAY: President Obama issues executive order in May asserting federal leadership of underachieving Chesapeake Bay restoration effort; EPA draws bead on farm, urban runoff. Sen. Benjamin Cardin, Rep. Elijah Cummings and others introduce legislation to funnel more money into cleanup, hold it to stricter deadlines. Blue crabs show signs of rebounding under strict catch controls, while states scrap plans to put Asian oysters in bay and vow to try harder to replenish native bivalves. Maryland lawmakers mandate less-polluting septic systems on new homes built near the water. (Baltimore Sun photo by Doug Kapustin)

OBAMA: President Obama begins reversing Bush administration environmental policies almost as soon as he’s sworn in. He directs the EPA in late January to reconsider a bid by California and 13 other states, including Maryland, to set strict auto emission and fuel efficiency standards. Obama’s EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson also pledges to review regulation of coal ash in wake of disastrous impoundment break in Tennessee in December 2008, but puts off decision until 2010.  

RENEWABLE ENERGY: Wind, solar sprout with state, federal government incentives. Industrial-scale wind projects approved in western Maryland, proposed off Ocean City; solar projects unveiled on college campuses on the Eastern Shore and in Frederick County. O’Malley administration contracts to buy renewable energy for state buildings & university campuses. Solar panels go atop governor’s mansion in Annapolis, but home solar and wind run into friction elsewhere in Baltimore city and some suburbs.

GREEN BUILDING GROWS: New green building standards take effect in July in Baltimore for all sizable projects and rehabs, as city joins a growing number of urban areas requiring more energy-efficient and environmentally friendly construction. Green public, private schools open in southern Maryland, Montgomery County. At left St. Mary's County school superintendent checks sedum growing on roof of Evergreen Elementary School. (Baltimore Sun photo by Kim Hairston)

RECYCLING EXPANDS: Baltimore city begins weekly curbside recycling pickup in July, reducing trash collection to once a week. The amount of material recycled has grown by more than 50 percent since the 1+1 program began. Suburban counties, meanwhile, continue to expand recycling efforts despite drops in revenue, saying it saves on landfill space, trash disposal costs.

FOOD GOES LOCAL: Locally grown food gets a big boost as city and state push for more farmers’ markets, helping fuel a nationwide increase in outlets by more than 25 percent since 2004. The city now has around a dozen markets and the state has more than 90, up from about 78 the year before. Urban agriculture takes root in the city itself, with installation of three “hoop” greenhouses in Clifton Park (at right) to raise vegetables, flowers for sale.  (Baltimore Sun photo by Lloyd Fox)

GREEN STIMULUS: The $787 billion economic stimulus package Congress passed in February includes $40 billion for renewable energy, consumer rebates for buying efficient appliances and weatherization for government buildings and homes, among other things. In Maryland, nearly $120 million in low-interest loans and grants are handed out to upgrade water and wastewater systems and improve storm water pollution controls around the state. The $3 billion “cash for clunkers” does little to reduce auto pollution but does boost auto sales, at least temporarily.

GREEN EVENTS: In October, the Baltimore Running Festival went ultra-green, and became one of the largest recycling events in the city’s history along with Artscape. Officials collected water bottles, composted food, planted trees and handed out shirt made from recyclable material.

$150M GAS LEAK: A Baltimore County jury orders Exxon Mobil in March to pay $150 million to 90 families neighboring a Jacksonville service station, finding the giant oil corporation liable for contaminating wells and hurting property values when 26,000 gallons of gasoline leaked into ground water in 2006. The company appealed in October.

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 8:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: News
        

The head of the Environmental Protection Agency will take the helm of the Chesapeake Bay restoration effort next week when state, local and federal leaders huddle in the Washington area for a hurriedly scheduled stock-taking of their bid to jump-start the lagging cleanup campaign.

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson is expected to be voted chairwoman of the multi-state bay program's "executive council" when it meets Tuesday, replacing outgoing Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine.  Council members - including the governors of Maryland, Pennsylvania and Virginia, the mayor of the District of Columbia and the EPA chief - guide the bay cleanup.

Kaine, a Democrat, has been chairman since November 2008. The leadership post normally is rotated among governors and the EPA chief at annual gatherings of the council, but bay leaders held an extra meeting in May to lay out plans for accelerating the Chesapeake cleanup. Kaine retained the chairmanship at that meeting at Mount Vernon (seen below), but his four-year term as Virginia governor ends next month, four months before the next scheduled council meeting in May 2010.

Jackson's assumption of the chairwoman's gavel now carries extra import, as she is leading the Obama administration's move to assert greater federal management over the bay cleanup. The president issued an executive order last May directing federal agencies to take the lead in the restoration, which has repeatedly missed targets and deadlines over the past 26 years.

In addition, the EPA is drawing up an elaborate pollution "diet" for the Chesapeake, which it will complete by the end of next year and then impose on states and localities. The "diet," required under court-ordered consent decrees, will mandate reductions in pollutant discharges from businesses, sewage plants and developments throughout the six states that drain into the bay.

An EPA source said there were no particular issues to decide at next week's meeting, beyond a review of the general direction of the bay restoration effort. "There’s all these big moving parts out there," the source said, mentioning the federal agency plans, the pollution diet and new bay legislation pending in Congress that would direct more federal funds to the effort but also mandate cleanup deadlines and penalties for failure to reach them.

Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley, who served as council chairman from 2007 to 2008, is expected to be there, the EPA source said.

(File photos: Lisa Jackson, Getty Images; Tim Kaine, Michael Land, Chesapeake Bay Program)

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 6:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
        

After indulging over the holidays, I found a lighter recipe from our database that you can feel a little better about eating.

Peppers Stuffed with Quinoa, Corn and Feta Cheese
Yield: Serves 4
Ingredients:
1/2 teaspoon sea salt, plus more to taste

1 cup quinoa, rinsed well several times

3 tablespoons olive oil (divided use)

1 bunch of scallions, including 2 inches of the greens, thinly sliced into rounds

2 jalapeno chiles, finely diced, seeded if desired

1 garlic clove, finely chopped

1 teaspoon ground cumin

2 cups, more or less, fresh or frozen corn kernels (from 3 ears of corn)

1 bunch spinach, leaves only, or 1/2 pound spinach leaves

1/2 cup chopped cilantro

1/4 pound feta cheese, cut into small cubes

freshly ground pepper

2 large red onions, thinly sliced into rounds

1/2 cup white wine (can be riesling)

4 yellow and/or orange bell peppers

Bring 2 cups of water to a boil. Add the 1/2 teaspoon salt, then the quinoa. Give it a stir, then cover and simmer over low heat until the grains are tender and reveal their spiraled germ, about 15 minutes.

Warm half the oil in a wide skillet. Add the scallions and chiles, cook over medium heat for about 2 minutes, then add the garlic, cumin, corn and spinach, along with 2 tablespoons water. When the spinach is wilted, add the cilantro, quinoa and feta. Toss everything together, taste for salt, and season with pepper. Heat a tablespoon of oil in another wide skillet. When hot, add the onions and saute, stirring frequently, until they start to color around the edges, after several minutes. Pour in the wine and deglaze the pan, giving the onions a stir as you do so. Season with salt and pepper and distribute in a baking dish or two large enough to hold the peppers.

Slice the peppers in half lengthwise without removing the tops or stems, then cut out the membranes and seeds. Simmer them in salted water until tender to the touch of a knife but not overly soft, 4 to 5 minutes, and remove. Fill them with the quinoa and set them in the baking dish or dishes.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Drizzle the rest of the oil over the peppers and bake the peppers until heated through, 20 to 30 minutes, then switch the heat to broil and brown the tops. Serve hot, warm or at room temperature.

Per serving: 520 calories, 17 grams protein, 20 grams fat, 6 grams saturated fat, 73 grams carbohydrate, 10 grams fiber, 25 milligrams cholesterol, 665 milligrams sodium
From "Vegetarian Suppers From Deborah Madison's Kitchen," by Deborah Madison

Do you have a go-to vegetarian soup recipe? Share it with us in the comments for a chance to win a green or vegetarian book.

Posted by Kim Walker at 7:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Food
        

The state Department of Natural Resources offers a host of events for adventurers, and those who are bored over winter vacation. Here are a few to consider:

--Mountain Reflections: Every day until January 1, 2010, 6 to 9:30 p.m.; $7 per car, $15 per van, $50 per tour bus. Rocky Gap State Park, 12500 Pleasant Valley Road, Flintstone (Allegany County). Mountain Reflections is a premiere seasonal light show that features over 60 animated and stationary colorful lit displays. This is truly a delightful experience for all ages. Proceeds from the show benefit the American Red Cross. For information, call 240-215-7576.

--Bad Bad Plants: January 2 from 1 to 2 p.m.; $2 per person. Patapsco Valley State Park, Halethorpe (Baltimore County). Ever thrown a dead plant outside thinking it would do no harm? Come find out if it does.  Wear sturdy shoes and bring water for a stroll to discover invasive species. This program is recommended for ages 5-11. We will meet at the picnic tables at Lost Lake. For information or to sign-up, call 410-461-5005.

--Owl Prowl: January 2 from 8 to 10 p.m.; $2 per person. Patapsco Valley State Park, Halethorpe (Baltimore County). Take a hike to listen for owls, followed by a program with owls from Scales & Tales. Wear sturdy shoes and bring water. Meet at the visitor’s center. This program is recommended for ages 7 and up.  For information or to sign-up in advance, call 410-461-5005.

--Eagle Watch: January 9 from 3 to 5 p.m.; $5 per person. Pokomoke River State Park, Pocomoke City (Worcester County). Catch a glimpse of the majestic bald eagle along the banks of the wild and scenic Pocomoke River. Join a naturalist for a short walk and explore the wonderful world of the bald eagle. For information or to sign-up, call 410-632-2566.

--Star Gazing: January 9 from 8 to 10 p.m.; free, but donations are welcome. Soldier’s Delight N.E.A., Owings Mills (Baltimore County). Join the Westminster Astronomy Club as they see Orion take on all challengers: the bull, the whale and the twins. Who will win? Rain or Shine. For information or to sign-up, call 410-549-3026.

Baltimore Sun file photo of Potapsco Valley State Park

Posted by Meredith Cohn at 7:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Events
        

Chicken farming's impact on the Chesapeake Bay has been in the news lately.  For another take on the issue, National Public Radio just did a two-part report on how the bay is being polluted by farms as well as by nearly 17 million people living in the bay watershed.

In the first piece, aired Wednesday, Eastern Shore farmer Carole Morison (shown above, in 2007) explains that she quit raising chickens last year because she believed she was polluting the bay.  As a counterpoint, New York dairy farmer Bob Aman says he and other farmers are doing what they can to prevent pollution. He contends there's as much pollution coming from lawns and detergents. In the second part aired today,  You can listen to it here or read it here.

In the second piece, broadcast today, correspondent Elizabeth Shogren examines how the "byproducts of urban life" - lawn fertilizer, dishwasher detergents, motor vehicle exhaust and septic and sewage systems - also dump nitrogen and phosphorus into the bay.  Those nutrients stimulate massive algae blooms that wind up creating a vast dead zone on the bay bottom every summer.  You can read that story here.    

(Baltimore Sun photos: Carole Morrison 2007 by Lloyd Fox; Thanksgiving traffic 2009 by Karl Merton Ferron)

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 2:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

The Baltimore City Department of Public Works is asking residents to chip in and help clear snow from storm drains and fire hydrants.

Clogged drains mean flooding. And blocked hydrants can mean big trouble for fire fighters and those they work to protect.

This is good advice for residents around the snowy state, not just those in the city -- especially ahead of the rain expected on Friday.

There are some 33,000 drains in the city alone, and workers can't clear them all themselves. In Baltimore, call 311 to report drains clogged with debris.

Baltimore Sun file photo of workers clearing a drain during a past storm/Kim Hairston

Posted by Meredith Cohn at 7:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: News
        

I wrote a story today about how some people are trying to mind the earth a little more this Christmas by taking steps to reduce waste.

They are doing things like making gifts or buying local, recycling the tree, using LED lights, sending e-cards instead of paper and giving to charity instead of gift giving.

Little steps can mean a lot. An extra five million tons of waste is generated each Christmas and most of it is wrapping paper, according to the Clean Air Council -- which I read on the Nature Conservancy's blog about making the holidays a little greener.

The blog offers these tips, including: giving non-matieral gifts such as concert tickets, organizing a media swap of cds and movies, giving to charity instead of gift giving, ditching the wrapping paper or using Sunday comics (from The Sun!), send e-cards, eat seasonal produce instead of cookies and choose LED Christmas lights.

So, other ideas for reducing holiday waste -- or reducing waste the rest of the year?

Los Angeles Times photo of wrapping from scraps

Posted by Meredith Cohn at 2:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Tips
        

The New York Times has a story about a guy who started a Christmas tree rental business in Los Angeles. Apparently, this is a place this could work because Californians are eco-conscious but in L.A. they do NOT want to drive through traffic with a tree strapped to the roof of the car.

The guy who started the business, the Living Christmas Co., is no lover of the holiday, but hated seeing all those trees discarded after Christmas. For $50-$185 he'll bring you one and come get it two weeks later -- still alive for use elsewhere. You can even have your tree tagged so you can get the same one next year.

To be especially green and good, his delivery truck runs on biodiesel. He also has disabled adults care for the trees and he picks up donations for Goodwill and wrapping paper for recycling. He sells eco-friendly ornaments, too.

Someone want to start this business here?

Posted by Meredith Cohn at 9:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: News
        

 Do dogs take a bigger bite out of the Earth than gas-guzzling sport utility vehicles? That's the contention of a pair of academics in New Zealand, who figure that a medium-sized dog has twice the eco-footprint of a Toyota Land Cruiser.

In Time to Eat the Dog, the real guide to sustainable living, Robert and Brenda Vale calculate that it takes roughly 2.1 acres to produce all the meat and grains consumed by a typical medium-sized pet pooch in a year, compared with about an acre needed to produce the energy burned in the SUV. 

The pair, architects who specialize in sustainable living at Victoria University in Wellington, don't just pick on dogs, but go after all pets as another form of conspicuous consumption that's taking a toll on the planet. They suggest those who care about living sustainably but just can't live without a pet consider sharing one with others.  Or, they add, get pets that serve a dual purpose, of companionship and food, like say, hens.

Hmm, our two Corgis better watch out.

For more on this, go here and here.

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 8:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)
Categories: Books, Going Green, News
        

That pile of stuff making a figurative stink on an Eastern Shore chicken farm?  The one environmental groups said was polluting a Chesapeake Bay tributary?  It's treated sewage sludge from Ocean City, not poultry manure.

That's the latest from the Maryland Department of the Environment.  Department spokesman Jay Apperson emailed Tuesday that an inspection has confirmed what Perdue Farms and an Ocean City town official both have been saying - that the Assateague Coastkeeper and Waterkeeper Alliance misidentified the light-colored mound they saw from the air on the Hudson farm near Berlin.

The two groups threatened last week to sue Alan Hudson and Perdue Farms, accusing them of allowing polluted runoff from the farm to contaminate a drainage ditch that ultimately feeds into the Pocomoke River.  The keepers released an aerial photograph (seen above) showing a large pile of something between a storage shed and a drainage ditch, with water draining from the pile to the ditch.  Perdue got dragged into it because Hudson raises birds under contract with the Salisbury-based company.

Farm runoff is clearly a major source of nutrient pollution fouling the Chesapeake Bay, according to government and independent scientists.  Some environmentalists have long argued that farms dealing in chicken manure need to be regulated more tightly to limit polluted runoff, that the loose, largely voluntary controls employed to date have not worked.  But the picture has grown a bit murky, at least with this particular farm.

Perdue, the owner of the chickens raised on the Hudson farm and the third largest poultry producer in the United States, is demanding an apology from the two environmental groups.

"We recommend the Waterkeepers check their facts before they make allegations that can damage reputations," Perdue spokesman Luis Luna wrote in an email. "The right thing for them to do at this point is issue a retraction and an apology."

Assateague Coastkeeper Kathy Phillips, though, is unapologetic.  "It's not about the pile," she said. "It's about what's coming off the farm. It's about what's polluting the water." 

MDE spokesman Apperson says the state is still investigating water quality conditions at the farm.  Treated sludge, known bureaucratically as "Class A biosolid," is heat-pasteurized to kill bacteria, and is generally considered safe enough to sell over the counter as fertilizer in any home store.  But even so, it shouldn't be getitng into the water, he added.

Could the treated sludge be the source of bacteria readings in the ditch, or could they be coming from something or someplace else?  Phillips insists that the Waterkeepers sampled the ditch as near the farm as possible without trespassing, and the bacteria readings were sky-high, indicative of relatively untreated animal - or human - waste.

Some are suggesting the environmentallists were wrong even about that - that the high bacteria counts could have come from wild animal droppings.  Certainly waterfowl and other animal droppings can foul a cove or pond.  Others think that unlikely in this case.

Meanwhile, Perdue is playing public-relations chicken with the Waterkeepers.  The poultry industry  has long chafed at allegations that farms, especially chicken farms, are polluting the bay, and has resisted government efforts to hold it accountable for the manure generated by its birds on farms run by contract growers.  Now, in accusing the Waterkeepers of jumping to conclusions about the nature of the pile, Perdue is implying they're wrong about a lot more. 

The mistaken identification of the pile is perhaps understandable.  At certain times of the year, the sights and smells of poultry manure being piled and spread on farm fields on the Eastern Shore are hard to miss.  But poultry litter - the mixture of manure and wood shavings cleaned out of chicken houses - is generally darker than the light-colored mound seen in the photos. 

This is the second miscue in recent weeks by the Waterkeepers, who in another report repeated without checking erroneous information that there had been multiple water pollution violations at the University of Maryland's Horn Point environmental laboratory.  (As did I, in reporting on the keepers' broader complaints about lax oversight of industries and sewage plants).

In that case, as in this one, the errors were played down by the Waterkeepers as minor glitches in otherwise compelling arguments for cracking down on polluters.  What gets lost in the kerfluffle over the pile of stuff on the Eastern Shore farm, they say, is that the water there is funky. 

That may be so, but in order to get it cleaned up, the source or sources of contamination must be clearly identified.  It seems that it'll take an investigation by the state - or possibly even a lawsuit - to find out if the Waterkeepers are right in their claim that this farm is an example of the larger problem of poorly regulated farm runoff fouling the Chesapeake Bay.  If manure - even human sewage sludge - is found to be washing off the farm, they'll be vindicated, of course.  If not, then some farmers and poultry industry representatives are sure to portray this as more evidence, if they needed it, that they're being persecuted.  With much at stake, the case of the misidentified manure pile clouds the issue for now. 

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 7:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
        

Already looking for stuff to do over winter break? The Maryland Science Center is hosting an IMAX Film Festival for nine weeks beginning Jan. 5. And they have outdoor adventure in mind.

The films center on grand canyons and raging volcanoes and frozen tundras (and a few less eco-conscious places.) Here's the rundown:

--"Grand Canyon:" Discovery & Adventure An exploration of man's fragile kinship with the canyon, from the mysterious Anasazi people who inhabited it more than 4000 years ago to John Wesley Powell's famous 1869 expedition on the raging Colorado River.

--"Shackleton's Antarctic Adventure:" The story of Sir Ernest Shackleton's now-legendary expedition is a larger-than-life testament to heroism and human endurance. Featuring footage from two expeditions to the Antarctic, audiences retrace the journey of Shackleton and his crew who were trapped on the continent for almost two years after their ship was destroyed.

--"Ring of Fire:" Featuring spectacular volcanic eruptions including Mount St. Helens, Navidad in Chile, Sakurajima in Japan and Mount Merapi in Indonesia, Ring of Fire uses extensive aerial photography and computer animation to explore the immense natural force of the great circle of volcanoes that rings the Pacific Ocean.

--"Tropical Rainforest:" The story of the 400 million-year evolution of tropical rain forests, the film includes close-up scenes of both small and large creatures high in the forest canopy to give viewers a better appreciation of the importance of tropical rain forests and the threats facing their existence.

--"Mystic India:" The true tale of child yogi Neeklanth's 8000 mile, 7-year journey through 18th century India, his survival in the face of roaring rivers, ferocious animals and the Himalayan winter and the importance faith, friendship and fearlessness.

--"Super Speedway:" Follow Michael Andretti and the Newman/Haas racing team as they test a newly fabricated race car and drive it in hot pursuit of the championship in the PPG CART World Series.

--"Roar: Lions of Kalahari:" When a young lion tries to dethrone the lion king, the elder lion wages the battle of his life to defend his home and offspring in this documentary set in a watering hole teeming with wildlife in Botswana.

Tickets are $8 a film and are separate from regular Maryland Science Center admission. If you buy five tickets, it's $25. All films will be shown every day. For more information, click here or call  410-685-5225.

Photo is from "Tropical Rainforest."

Posted by Meredith Cohn at 5:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Events
        

Baltimore City's Department of Public Works is asking that until further notice everyone put their trash and recycling in front of their houses because there will not be any alley collections

The heavy snowfall has created unsafe conditions in the alleys for the drivers.

Residents should listen to radio and television for updates or call 311 for more information.

Baltimore Sun snowstorm photo/Karl Merton Ferron

Posted by Meredith Cohn at 4:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: News
        

We need your help. We're working on a story about people who are going green at the holidays -- everything from recycling wrapping paper or not using paper at all to replanting or mulching their tree to sending e-cards instead of paper ones to buying local for presents.

I'm sure there are a lot of other ways to green the holidays, too.

If you'd like to offer up yourself or your greenie family member or friend for this article, please email me today or tomorrow at meredith.cohn@baltsun.com, or post here and I can contact you.

Thanks and Happy Holidays!

Baltimore Sun file photo of a tree going into the chipper/Kim Hairston

Posted by Meredith Cohn at 10:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Going Green
        

This soup from our recipe database looks perfect for the winter season. Do you have a go-to vegetarian soup recipe? Share it with us in the comments for a chance to win a green or vegetarian book.

Velvet Lentil Chestnut Soup

Yield: (Serves 8)

Ingredients:

2 large onions, chopped

 2 large garlic cloves, chopped

olive oil

2 cups lentils

10 cups vegetable broth

3 teaspoons dried thyme

2 dry bay leaves

salt and pepper to taste

2 cups cooked whole chestnuts (canned or in a jar, available in most specialty stores)

1 tablespoon honey, or more if desired 1

 tablespoon creme fraiche or good-quality yogurt (Fage, available in most grocery stores)

Peel and chop the onions and garlic. In a large heavy-bottomed saucepan, heat up enough olive oil to amply coat the bottom of the pan, and cook the onions and garlic on medium heat until translucent, for about 10 minutes. Add the lentils, vegetable broth, herbs and a bit of salt and pepper. Bring to a boil, and let simmer gently for 30 minutes.

Add the chestnuts, and cook for another 10 minutes. Try a spoonful to see if the lentils and chestnuts are cooked to your taste, and correct the seasoning. Add 1 tablespoon honey and taste again, adding more if you like. Remove bay leaves.

Transfer the soup in batches to a food processor, being careful not to fill more than 1/3 full to avoid leakage, and mix it, being careful not to mix too thoroughly because chunks are particularly desirable in this soup.

Return the soup to the pot, add the creme fraiche or yogurt, and stir over low heat until nicely blended. (Alternatively, you can add less or no creme fraiche at this point, then add a dollop to each steaming bowl as you serve, or, if people are serving themselves, leave a bowl of creme fraiche or yogurt next to the soup tureen so guests can add as desired.)

Serve while hot.

PER SERVING: 389 calories, 20 grams protein, 5 grams fat, 1 gram saturated fat, 68 grams carbohydrate, 20 grams fiber, 1 milligram cholesterol, 1,182 milligrams sodium

Courtesy of Jennifer Crutcher Wilkinson

Baltimore Sun file photo by Amy Davis

Posted by Kim Walker at 6:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: Food
        

I was thinking about the poor plants, soil, water and pet paws that suffer during snow storms because people dump tons of salt, kitty litter, fertilizer and other unfriendly products on the ground to keep from slipping and sliding.

So, I went looking for some alternatives. And if you have other ideas, please share.

I found a blog on the Mother Nature Network that identified a bunch of greener commercial ice melt-type stuff: Safe Paw Ice Melter, Keep It Green, Earth Friendly Products Ice Melt and Ice Clear De-Icer.

Some use forms of salt and fertilizer but in smaller amounts mixed in with other stuff. The blog also said some advised using beet juice or molasses, but they seem to need to be mixed with salt.

Fellow B'More Green blogger Tim Wheeler says wood chips and sand in moderation are better than the kitty litter and salt.

On the snow shovel side, those blowers belch all kind of yucky stuff. Here's an alternative that supposedly works like it's got some power: The Sno Wovel. It looks like it's part bicycle and part shovel.

Or, we can all just stay inside and drink hot cocoa!

Picture of Sno Wovel and ice melt products courtesy of the companies

Posted by Meredith Cohn at 2:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (11)
Categories: Products
        

Gov. Martin O'Malley says Maryland may have to wait until its economy recovers before the state can afford to pump more money into cleaning up the Chesapeake Bay. But this is "an ideal time," he says, for the Obama administration to pony up the funds needed to upgrade the massive Blue Plains sewage treatment plant that handles the waste of the nation's capital.

Speaking today to the editorial board at The Baltimore Sun, O'Malley said with the state's budget still crippled by the recession and unemployment high, his administration is focused on "jobs, jobs, jobs" for the forseeable future, and the state's resources for ramping up bay restoration are limited until the economy turns around.

"If we could get out of this downward slide and start seeing some steady predictable growth, there will be more dollars to do that environmental work,'' he said.

In the meantime, he recalled that he and Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine recently appealed to the White House for $365 million in additional federal funds, at least 50 percent more than what Washington spends now on the bay restoration.  Upgrading the Blue Plains treatment plant alone is estimated to cost more than $3 billion over the next decade, officials have said.

"I think this would be an ideal time for the federal government to invest in Blue Plains," he added. "It is 15 percent of the nitrogen discharge into the bay.  It is the largest sole source of pollution into the bay, and every member of the federal government, from Pentagon brass to the members of Congress flush their toilet into Blue Plains.  And that is not something that Virginia or D.C. or Maryland can clean up.  I think it is a uniquely federal opportunity to actually put their money where their mouth is on the Chesapeake Bay."

O'Malley also said that without more money to help them, requiring Maryland farmers to do more to limit polluted runoff from their fields and poultry flocks could drive them out of business or out of state.

The governor said that despite financial constraints, he believed the state is making progress on restoring the bay, pointing particularly to adoption of more stringent regulations on controlling storm-water runoff from development, as well as beginning to mandate costly retrofits of storm drains in existing cities and suburbs, starting with Montgomery County.

Reducing polluted runoff from farmland and from cities and suburbs are among the most difficult and costly problems for achieving restoration of the bay.  O'Malley said officials still have work to do to build public consensus and awareness around all that needs to be done to bring the bay back. 

(Gov. O'Malley, with Natural Resources Secretary John Griffin, announcing oyster restoration and aquaculture inititative earlier this month.  Baltimore Sun photo by Kim Hairston)

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 1:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
        

Warning that "we are running short on time," President Obama huddled with China's premier in Copenhagen in a bid to iron out differences holding up a new world treaty to deal with the threat of climate change.

The president dove into negotiations after addressing the United Nations climate summit on its final day of meetings, warning that the world's will to deal with climate change "hangs in the balance."

News reports indicate that UN climate talks there are going to the wire with agreement on a new treaty still in doubt.  To see video clips of Obama's speech, go here.  A key sticking point in the waning hours of the two-week summit remains China's resistance to being held accountable for slowing its growth in planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions, according to news reports.

Environmental activists, though, are directing much of their frustration at the United States. Mike Tidwell, the Takoma Park climate activist who is blogging from Copenhagen, faults Obama for not pledging the US to do more than it has already.

"Unfortunately, there was nothing really clear or new about his speech," Tidwell writes. "The President stuck to the previous U.S. weak commitment of a 4 percent reduction in carbon emissions below 1990 levels. This commitment practically assures climate collapse worldwide in coming years. He also simply repeated Hillary Clinton's Thursday pledge that the US would "help secure" $100 billion per year by 2020 for poor nations coping with global warming." 

The next few hours could be key to whether an agreement is reached, or negotiators table virtually all major issues until their next scheduled meeting next year in Mexico City. 

To read the rest of Tidwell's blog, go here.  And for the latest developments from Copenhagen, check out "CopenBlog," a roundup of news about the climate summit by the Society of Environmental Journalist (of which I happen to be a board member).

(Obama: AP Photo; Tidwell, by permission)

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 12:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
        

Remember Edmonston? That's the little blue-collar town in the inner suburbs of Washington doing an extreme "green" makeover of its main drag to cut down on polluted rain water washing off the pavement into the Anacostia River.

Well, Edmonston's home to some green businesses, too, it seems.  And they're having a green gift fair this month, with a special show of reclaimed and recycled craftwork on Saturday. (Dec. 19)

Community Forklift, which bills itself as a 40,000-square foot "thrift store for home improvement," takes renovation lefotvers and gently used building materials, while providing donors with a tax deduction.  Then it sells the the materials at prices up to 90 percent below what they go for at retail outlets.  (Not unlike The Loading Dock, Baltimore's longtime center for recycling building materials.)  It's been joined in a large warehouse there by businesses selling reconditioned appliances, sustainable lumber, green home and garden products, and solar technology, among others.

This Saturday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. (weather permitting), there'll be a clutch of artisans there, including a woodworker and toymaker, jewelry makers, a stained-glass artisan and a photographer who uses scrap wood to frame her work.  There'll also be Christmas ornaments made by volunteers from salvaged hardware on display and for sale (maybe even like the granite tree ornaments pictured above, as seen on the company's Web site?)

For directions and more info, go here.

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 10:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Buy local, Events, Going Green, Shopping
        

A new University of Maryland study show that if residents improve their home heating efficiency, the state would benefit economically and environmentally in a big way.

The report was commissioned by the Maryland Department of the Environment and conducted by the university's Center for Integrative Environmental Research and others. It projects that state assistance in buying energy-efficient natural gas furnaces and water heaters and in upgrading insulation would produce:

-80,000 new jobs over 10 years;

-$11 billion in economic activity over 10 years;

-a 9 percent reduction in carbon emissions over 10 years;

-savings for homeowners of up to $400 in the first year.

“You might call this ‘cash-for-clunkers’ home-style,” said Matthias Ruth, the principal investigator and CIER director, in a statement.

“Trading in your clunker of a furnace or heater can make good economic and environmental sense for everyone concerned. We’re missing some big opportunities to lower home heating bills, improve the Maryland economy and reduce carbon emissions.”

State environmental officials asked for the report to help them decide how to spend expected revenue from its participation in the regional cap-and-trade program (pollution emitters buy permits). 

In the report, researchers concluded:

-An average single-family household could save $400-$500 in natural gas bills the first year by investing approximately $3,000 in a package of cost-effective energy efficiency measures: wall insulation, duct sealing, furnaces, water heaters, and pipe wrap;

-Spending extra to purchase more energy-efficient natural gas furnaces and water heaters pays for itself in fuel savings; the cost of home improvements are more than offset by energy savings;

-State incentives to encourage homeowners to purchase the most energy-efficient furnaces and water heaters and to make recommended home efficiency improvements would have positive economic effects, including the creation of more than 80,000 jobs, especially in the construction field, and nearly $11 billion in economic activity;

-Reducing natural gas consumption would help Maryland meet its 2020 greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets, cutting residential emissions by more than 10 million tons over the next decade, or about 9 percent;

-Home insulation should be avoided or accompanied by energy-efficient ventilation measures in parts of the state (mostly in Western Maryland) with high radon concentrations, where tightly sealing a house may increase effective exposure to the gas;

-Findings apply to smaller, older Maryland homes; fewer benefits are realized in newer, larger homes.

“Given the overall positive impacts of enticing efficiency of natural gas use by households, there is an important role to be played by the State,” said Andy Blohm, a Maryland researcher for CIER, in a statement. “We have already seen notable leadership by Maryland in promoting energy efficiency and greenhouse gas reductions.  Our study clearly shows both the economic and environmental wisdom of that leadership.”

Posted by Meredith Cohn at 8:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)
Categories: Going Green
        

A confrontation that's been brewing for a long time seems about to take place. A pair of environmental groups are threatening to sue an Eastern Shore chicken grower and Perdue Farms, the giant poultry corporation for which the farmer raises his birds.

Assateague Coastkeeper and Waterkeeper Alliance have filed a formal notice of intent to take legal action against Hudson Farms in Berlin and Perdue Farms Inc. for alleged violations of the Clean Water Act. The two groups, part of an international coalition of watershed watchdogs headed by environmental lawyer Robert F. Kennedy Jr., contend that manure from the farm is washing into a drainage ditch that ultimately drains into the Pocomoke River, a tributary of the Chesapeake Bay.

Kathy Phillips, the Assateague Coastkeeper, said she and alliance staff saw what appeared to be a large pile of chicken "litter" by a drainage ditch as they examined aerial photographs taken in an October flight over the lower Shore looking for potential pollution problems on large chicken farms. "Litter" is a mixture of poultry manure with wood shavings, used in chicken houses to help collect and compost the animal waste.  (A picture of the pile supplied by the Waterkeepers is shown above, as is an overview of the farm below.)

"When we began .. to look at them more closely, we saw there was this one trench from the bottom of the pile out to an open ditch," Phillips recalled.  The groups followed up by sampling water from the ditch downstream from the farm, and lab results showed elevated levels of e.coli and fecal coliform bacteria, of nitrogen and phosphorus, arsenic and ammonia.  The bacteria are an indicator of animal (or possibly human) waste, while nitrogen and phosphorus are the nutrients scientists say are primarily responsible for the "dead zones" forming in the bay every summer.

A water sample Dec. 9 from the ditch came back with a fecal coliform count of 280,000, according to Scott Edwards, director of advocacy for the Waterkeeper Alliance.  He called that "off the charts for pollution."

Alan and Kristin Hudson, named by the keepers as the owners of the farm where they saw the pile, did not return a phone call seeking comment.  Perdue spokesman Luis Luna issued a statement saying the pile photographed by the environmentalists was not manure at all and dismissing the groups' press release as "full of errors and misstatements."

Perdue's statement disputed the environmental groups' characterization of the Hudson's 80,000-bird facility as a "factory farm."  "Perdue owns no factory farms," it said.  "Families that raise poultry for Perdue are independent farmers."

Luna also wrote that the Hudsons had informed Perdue they hadn't removed any poultry litter from their houses for the past 20 weeks - since before the groups first spotted that pile.

Asked what the pile is, Luna said he didn't know. "But it isn't poultry litter," he added.

If the pile isn't chicken manure, countered Phillips, "then what is it that it's so hot?"   The groups sampled the ditch about 700 yards down from the farm, she said, and the pollution levels measured in the water "are saying that there's something in there that's very close to a chicken farm."

This isn't the first action the waterkeepers have taken regarding farm runoff of fertilizer and animal manure, which scientists  say remains a major source of the nutrient pollution fouling the bay.  Waterkeeper groups went to court and won a partial victory in seeking public release of "nutrient management plans" every farm in Maryland is required to have, and they challenged the adequacy of regulations proposed by the state Department of the Environment covering medium- and large-scale chicken farms.  The state ultimately rejected the waterkeeper challenge and adopted its rules.

Meanwhile, though, more than half of the state's chicken farmers were prompted by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to subject themselves to more stringent federal regulation as "concentrated animal feeding operations," something most had fervently wished to avoid.  Since receiving hundreds of notices of intent to seek permits, the state environment department is working to ensure that all of them submit the required documentation, said spokeswoman Dawn Stoltzfus.  She  confirmed that Hudson Farms had applied for a permit, and said state inspectors would be looking into the allegations made by the waterkeepers.  To see the farms that have filed for pollution permits, go here.

The waterkeepers' Edwards said the exposed manure piles like the one they claim they photographed on the Hudson farm are "not atypical."  But he added, "This isnt' an all-out assault on farmers on the Shore - that isn't our intent and has never been our intent."  Rather he said, "we will go after polluters" - and, he added, after the poultry companies that own the birds but don't claim any responsibility for the manure they produce.

"This farm has a big sign outside of it saying this is a Perdue contract grower," Edwards said.  Perdue dictates pretty much every aspect of this farm operation ... Perdue reaps all the rewards and profits and tries to leave the farmer to dispose of this big mountain of manure as he can."

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 7:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (9)
        

Ever think of giving someone a camel for Christmas? In the spirit of being more green, consider for a moment that perhaps you and yours don’t really need anymore “stuff” this holiday season. Oxfam America offers charitable holiday gifts that do good – and they don’t come wrapped in soon-to-be trashed paper, boxes, and bows.

A nonprofit organization committed to creating lasting solutions to poverty, hunger, and injustice, Oxfam America supports its mission by offering donors the option to purchase a can of worms ($18), school supplies ($25), a water pump ($135), or to plant an entire forest ($500) – all in effort to fight local and global poverty.

Though they are considered one of the world’s leading humanitarian organizations, Oxfam America is the only organization that refuses US government funds. They rely on people like you to invest in their community-based work.

To read more about Oxfam America Unwrapped and the multitude of gifts available, visit their web site. Get your order in today, and it will arrive in time for Christmas (and no, there won’t be a camel on your doorstep – a card with a photo is what you can expect to receive).

Images courtesy of Oxfam America

Posted by Christy Zuccarini at 9:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
        

I just saw a mention in OnEarth, a magazine produced by the Natural Resources Defense Council about a open-source database under construction now that will let shoppers find the products that are the most environmental based on their entire lifecycle -- including the materials used, transportation required, disposability, etc.

It's called Earthster, and it's being put together by Gregory Norris, a Harvard lecturer who co-wrote an opinion piece in the New York Times recently about the importance of looking at the whole lifecycle of a product for its environmental and social implications. That is, the importance to consumers, who want to know if one green product is more green than another, and to the manufacturers themselves, who can learn about money-saving and customer-enticing processes.

In the times article, he talks about the stainless steel bottle, which is much more harmful to produce than the plastic bottle because of the fossil fuels, emissions, metals, toxic risks, etc. Only if you use it 50 times then the climate impacts are much better than a plastic bottle used once.

No sure when the database will be up and running, but the NRDC says Walmart is a big funder and will be among the first retailers to roll out the system. So, stay tuned. The labelling may get really specific and really useful.

Posted by Meredith Cohn at 7:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Going Green
        

Mike Tidwell, head of the Maryland-based Chesapeake Climate Action Network, is in Copenhagen with thousands of other environmentalists pressing world leaders to agree to reduce greenhouse gases. The views expressed here are his - feel free to share yours.

First of all, imagine this: the people of Copenhagen, Denmark, generate one-sixth of the greenhouse gas pollution  per capita as people living in Washington, D.C. One sixth! That’s the first thing you notice when you come to Copenhagen, as I have, for the international climate talks. I’m here to represent my Maryland nonprofit, the Chesapeake Climate Action Network. I’m also here to see the future.

Denmark as a nation gets nearly 25 percent of its electricity from wind farms. The city of Copenhagen itself is full of bicycles. They’re everywhere. And the subway system is world class. I saw a guy on the subway Sunday in Copenhagen carrying a Christmas tree. On the train. People do everything here, go everywhere, without cars! And Danes, at the same time, are consistently ranked in surveys as some of the happiest people on Earth.  Radically low-carbon and happy people.

So I’m seeing the clean-energy future in practice this week. Too bad the world’s top leaders – from 192 nations – can’t seem to agree on a treaty format that makes that same future possible for the rest of us. Things are not going well here.

One big problem is that the richer countries won’t agree to supply a modest $10 billion per year to poorer nations to help develop clean energy there as part of the treaty. Heck, America spends that much every year in tax-payer subsidies to coal and oil companies! I say we end those subsidies to make way for clean-energy wind farms in places like Africa and South America.

But beyond this, the biggest problem at the Copenhagen treaty talks is simply a number: 350. World leaders can’t seem to agree on that number:  350 parts per million of carbon in the atmosphere .  That’s the only level of climate pollution that’s safe for human civilization, according leading climate scientists like Dr. James Hansen at NASA.

But given the weak pledges of pollution cuts so far from America and many other nations, a team of MIT scientists here in Copenhagen has calculated that if the treaty talks ended today, the world would be committed to a scenario by 2100 of 770 parts per million carbon in the atmosphere!!!

We’ve got to do better. Obama’s negotiating team must pledge much more than the modest four percent cut (below 1990 levels) of carbon emissions by 2020 in America. To help the world get to the 350 carbon level by 2100, America needs to cut its emissions as high as high as six or seven times that much. We can’t do it? Denmark , today, is proof we can.

Frankly, a bad climate treaty, one that locks us into a ghastly 770 ppm carbon by 2100, is worse than no treaty at all. One thing is certain: No matter what happens here, we’re going to have much more work to do pushing Obama and the US Congress back home in 2010.

But I’m not discouraged, no matter what happens here. That’s because I’ve visited the future. I know it’s possible. I’ve been to Copenhagen.

Sincerely,

Mike Tidwell

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 8:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
        

Feeling a little overwhelmed by the season? Maybe you need a little outdoor time. This from the folks at the National Wildlife Federation.

They say nature is a great antidote for all the craziness of this time of year. It can "lower the stress level, revive the spirits, and add to the enchantment of the season." They've launched a "Be Out There" campaign that encourages:

-Outdoor tree-trimming. They say adopt a tree in your yard or neighborhood. Then, find out what kind it is and visit it at least once every season, decorate it with things birds like to eat. Take a look at ideas at www.greenhour.org/birdcafe.
 
-Scavenger Hunts. Make up a list for the kids of natural objects to find in the yard or neighborhood including pinecones, acorns and different shape leaves. The first to find everything win.
 
-Decorating with Mother Nature. Use the items the kids find to create holiday centerpieces, wreaths or other holiday décor.
 
-Christmas bird counting. Learn about the birds and help scientists monitor their health and well-being. Find out about this at www.audubon.org/Bird/cbc. 

-Making an elf house. This is for Santa’s elves. You'll need a clean paper ½ gallon milk or juice carton, a brown grocery bag, glue, a paint brush, paper plate or bowl for holding glue, scissors,
natural objects like pinecones, acorns, pine needles, moss, leaves, bark.
 
Directions: Wash and dry the carton, inside and out. Cut the brown bag and wrap the carton in it tightly. Use glue to hold the paper to the carton. Let it dry. Make a door for the elves, windows, a chimney, singles or window boxes. Now head outside for all your construction and decorating needs collecting things on the ground. Glue them onto the house. Secure it in a nearby tree. Check your elf house for notes from Santa, and leave notes for him in return which the elves can deliver.
 
Click here for more ideas for things to do outside for the holidays.

Baltimore Sun file photo/Perry Thorsvik

Posted by Meredith Cohn at 7:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: Tips
        

Why not get a head start on out with the old before the New Year begins? Perhaps someone in your orbit is wishing for a new laptop this holiday season? If so, gather all of those soon-to-be unwanted electronics and set them aside for Whole Foods in Mt. Washington.

On Saturday, Jan. 9 from 10 a.m.-3 p.m., Esquire Environmental Services, which offers certified and safe personal computer recycling, will be stationed in the parking lot behind the Starbucks (next to the Whole Foods) to collect any of the following:

•Desktop computers
•Keyboards and mice
•Laptop computers
•Mainframe computer systems, CRTs, and monitors
•Modems and telephone boards
•Hard drives, floppy disks, and CD ROMs
•Phones, fax machines, and telecommunications hardware
•Printers
•Computer boards, CPUs, and memory chips
•Circuit boards
•Connecting wires and cables

Whole Foods in Mount Washington is located at 1330 Smith Avenue. Visit their website for more information and make this post-holiday season as green as it can be.

Image courtesy of Southernpixel

Posted by Christy Zuccarini at 2:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Events, Going Green
        

It turns out those big concrete barriers put up along busy highways to shield neighboring residents from the roar of traffic also reduce how much air pollution they get from the passing vehicles. 

That's what a new government study found, anyway.  Researchers with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency  released harmless "tracer" gases along highways to track how they were dispersed through the air - and by extension, indicate what happens to harmful pollutants such as carbon monoxide, soot and benzene that are emitted by cars and trucks going by.

The researchers found that in addition to blocking out sights and sounds of traffic, the barriers apparently channel air flow - and many of the pollutants - up and away from nearby residential areas. 

"We also found that the barriers tend to trap pollutants in the area of the roadway itself, especially at night in low wind-speed conditions," said Dennis Finn, a NOAA meteorologist from Idaho, and lead author of the study, published in the journal Atmospheric Environment.

That ought to be an added relief to residents sleeping in homes shielded from highways by those barriers - though if you're on the highway you may not want to breathe too deeply or stay long if you find you have to stop your car on the shoulder in one of those concrete sound-barrier canyons.

(1998 Baltimore Sun photo by Lloyd Fox of sound barrier being built on I-695 near US 40)

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 11:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)
        

My husband Doug, a frequent commuter from Baltimore to Washington, just snapped a photo of the new bike parking in Union Station. It's got lockers, repair and other stuff in there, too.

The Washington Post story from this summer says it cost $4 million to build and secures 150 bikes inside and 20 outside. It costs bikers $1 a day from 7 a.m.-7 p.m. or $100 a year.

We've talked a lot about bike safety and bike security. What are the chances of getting something like this at Penn Station or downtown? Would you use it? Would you pay for it?

Photo by Doug Beizer

Posted by Meredith Cohn at 7:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Going Green
        

Toyota is jumping into the plug-in market with a version of its popular Prius in 2011, according to a story the New York Times.

The story says Toyota had been hesitant to join GM, which plans to make 60,000 plug-in Volts available in 2010. Ford, Volksvagon and Nisson also have cars coming.

Toyota's hesitation has been the low number of miles on a charge, lack of charging stations, cost and the rotten economy. But, the car maker can't stand still, in case this is the Next Big Green Thing.

No idea what the car would cost, but the hybrid Prius starts at $22,400.

The Times reports that the new Prius would make it 14.5 miles on a charge before the gas-electric hybird systems kicks in. That would get the car 134 miles per gallon. It would charge in 100 minutes. The company also plans an all-electric version of the car for "urban commuters" in 2012 that would run on lithium-ion batteries.

So, would you buy one? I drive like 4 miles round trip for work, plus some driving for interviews, so it seems like I'd be a target audience. But I have no driveway and couldn't charge one. How about you?

Associated Press photo of the plug-in hybrid Prius

Posted by Meredith Cohn at 2:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)
Categories: News
        

A Maryland federal court ruling last week put a severe crimp in an industrial-scale wind project in West Virginia. Could it do the same for smaller projects planned in western Maryland?

U.S. District Court Judge Roger W. Titus found it "a virtual certainty" that the 122-turbine Beech Ridge facility being built along 23 miles of mountain ridges in Greenbrier County, W.Va., would violate the federal Endangered Species Act by killing Indiana bats.  Construction is already under way on the $300 million, 186-megawatt project being developed by Invenergy, a Chicago-based company said to be one of the five largest wind developers in the country.

The little brown bats spend their summers eating insects in forests and migrate in fall to hibernate through the winter in caves. Found in 20 eastern states, including West Virginia and Maryland, they have continued to decline in number despite their longstanding legally protected status, the judge pointed out.  After a protracted and losing battle in West Virginia to affect the wind project, opponents turned to the federal court.

After a trial in October, Judge Titus last week found that although no Indiana bats were reported within five miles of the project, there was evidence that there were caves where they hibernate within 10 miles.  He concluded after reviewing testimony from biologists on both sides that "like death and taxes, there is a virtual certainty that Indiana bats will be harmed, wounded or killed" by the massive, slowly spinning turbines, either by colliding with them or by air pressure changes as the blades rotate, which can damage bats' lungs and eardrums, impairing their ability to fly and navigate.

The judge declared that 40 turbines now under construction can be completed, but no more could go up until the developer obtains an "incidental take" permit from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.  Such permits allow projects to kill endangered species, but to get them applicants must agree to take steps to minimize and mitigate the  harm their activities will do to the protected animals.

"The development of wind energy can and should be encouraged," Titus concluded, "but wind turbines must be good neighbors."  To read the full 76-page opinion, go here.

Invenergy issued a statement after the Dec. 8 ruling saying it would seek such a permit, according to The New York Times.  In the meantime the judge said the turbines already up could only be operated in winter, when the bats are likely to be hibernating.

Could the ruling prompt wind opponents to raise similar objections about projects planned in Garrett and Allegany counties?  They've already gained state approval under a streamlined regulatory process that lawmakers approved two years ago at the behest of wind developers, which limits state review of environmental and safety issues around such projects.

A map included in the judge's opinion - from the draft recovery plan for the Indiana bat prepared by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service - shows the endangered bats have been found in summer and winter in Garrett and Washington counties, in Carroll County in summer and in Allegany County in winter.  (Page 8 in the opinion, here)

Frank Maisano, a lobbyist for wind developers, thinks the ruling could pose "major problems" for other projects. He predicted last week in an email that getting the needed permits from the fish and wildlife service could take one to three years and cost several million dollars.

"With at least four projects expected to begin construction next spring, this decision could have a chilling impact on getting new projects moving to meet the incredible demand for clean energy,"  Maisano wrote.  Two of those are proposed on Backbone Mountain near Oakland in Garrett County.  Constellation Energy  recently announced plans to take over development of one, while the other would be built by Synergics of Annapolis.

Opponents no doubt hope the ruling slows the rush to harness the wind.  They have long argued that industrial-scale wind facilities, especially on Allegheny mountain ridges, pose significant threats to bats and birds, both with the spinning of their massive blades and in the destruction of forest habitat for turbines and transmission lines.  They also argue that wind turbines are a poor bet for clean energy, compared with nuclear power, because they rely on a variable and even intermittent power source - the wind.  A 2007 study by the National Research Council  called for further studies of the environmental and human impacts of wind facilities.

Will opponents, who've been effectively neutralized by Maryland's streamlined review of projects under 70 megawatts, turn now to federal courts?  That may depend on the facts surrounding each project, and whether any federally protected species have been reported in similar proximity.  Or will developers find it prudent to hold up and apply for permits now, in a bid to head off litigation and possible legal roadblocks in mid-construction? 

(2008 Baltimore Sun photo by John Makely, of another West Virginia wind facility)

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 8:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)
        

Baltimore finished in the bottom third in an environmental group's ranking of the 100 biggest US cities' tap water.

The city came in 69th in a drinking-water comparison by the Environmental Working Group -- ahead of places like Pittsburg and Houston but behind New York and Philadelphia, not to mention well behind Boston and Fairfax County, VA.

The Washington-based environmental group said Baltimore's water contained 24 different contaminants, according to city sampling reported to the EPA.  Fifteen of them showed up in testing at least once at levels that exceed various government health standards, the group said. Three exceeded federal safe drinking-water limits in at least one test from 2004 through 2008, according to the group. Two of the three are byproducts of the city's use of chlorine to disinfect water, but one - ntirites - could stem from fertilizer runoff, leaking septic tanks or natural conditions, the group says.

A single elevated test doesn't necessarily put a system out of compliance with EPA's limits, which apply to average levels found in testing throughout a year. But the Environmental Working Group expressed concern that more than 300 different contaminants are found in public drinking water systems, and pointed out that health guidelines have not been set for some of them. To read the group's report, go here.

A Baltimore city spokeswoman, Celeste Amato, said officials responsible for the local water system, which serves 1.6 million people in the metropolitan area, were surprised by the low rating.

"We just seem to be ranked very low given the high quality of our raw water supply, let alone our treated water,'' said Amato. The city draws its water from three reservoirs in Baltimore and Carroll counties - Loch Raven, Liberty and Prettyboy -- with an emergency backup supply from the Susquehanna River.  The city tests its water more often than required, Amato noted, but she declined to discuss the specifics in the environmental group's report until city engineers could finish studying it.

The city's water has done better in previous comparisons. It ranked a much better 19th in a matchup done last year by SustainLane, for instance. As required by EPA, the city does post an annual report on its drinking water quality. You can read the latest one for 2008 here.

(2008 Baltimore Sun photo by Chiaki Kawajiri)

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 6:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (8)
        

 Back in August, we told you that the state was receiving stimulus money to develop their own "Cash for Appliances" program. Details hadn't been worked out until now.

According to the folks at Consuming Interests, the program will begin in March. What appliances qualify for rebates?

• $300 for Energy Star electric heat pump water heaters

• $25 for qualifying washers and refrigerators and $50 for clothes washers (which could be combined with $50 rebates from BGE)

So, will these rebates entice you to buy a new water heater, washer or refrigerator?

Can't decide? Energy Star's web site offers a "Refrigerator Retirement" calculator to determine how much you would save if you switch.

Speaking of shopping, the Associated Press is reporting that solar panels are coming to retail stores such as Lowe's soon. The story warns that even if you are handy, the process isn't easy. A lot of paperwork comes along with installing panels. They are being sold now in California. There is no time frame yet when it will expand to other markets.

Baltimore Sun file photo

Posted by Kim Walker at 9:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Going Green, Shopping
        

Just a reminder from the folks at One Less Car, which advocates for bike and pedestrian friendliness, about the City Council meeting tonight at 5 p.m. There are some bike-type issue on the agenda.  

Presented will be the following eight bike related bills:

Required Parking for Bicycles - 09-0429
FOR the purpose of requiring certain new or expanded structures, premises, and uses to provide bicycle parking that meets certain standards; requiring certain employers to provide their employees with bicycle parking that meets certain standards; defining and redefining certain terms; imposing certain penalties; providing for a special effective date; and generally relating to required parking spaces for bicycles.

Transit and Traffic - Bike Lanes  09-0430
FOR the purpose of allowing the creation of bike lanes; defining certain terms; prohibiting parking or standing in bike lanes; requiring bike-safe grates in bike lanes; imposing certain penalties; and generally relating to bike lanes on City streets.

City Streets - Bike-Safe Grates 09-0431
FOR the purpose of requiring that all City street paving and repaving contracts require that drainage grates be installed in a bike-safe alignment; requiring anyone undertaking a street paving project to install drainage grates in a bike-safe alignment; and generally relating to bike-safe grates on City streets.

Parking, Standing, and Stopping of Vehicles - Obstructing Alleys 09-0432
FOR the purpose of clarifying the law relating to obstructing the free passage of traffic with a vehicle; providing a certain exception for parking in alleys; and generally relating to parking, standing, or stopping that obstructs traffic.

Street and Transportation Projects - Complete Streets 09-0433
FOR the purpose of directing the Departments of Transportation and Planning to apply "Complete Streets" principals to the planning, design, and construction of all new City transportation improvement projects; providing certain exceptions; requiring annual reports on the implementation of "Complete Streets" principals; and generally relating to transportation improvement projects.

Informational Hearing - Baltimore Police Department - Police and Cyclists 09-0175R
FOR the purpose of inviting the Baltimore Police Commissioner to report to the City Council on the Police Department's procedures for responding to incidents involving cyclists and the Department's general approach to the bicycling community.

The Cyclists' Bill of Rights 09-0176R
FOR the purpose of reaffirming support for efforts to improve conditions for cyclists and encouraging more widespread awareness of the "Cyclists' Bill of Rights".

BMore Streets for People 09-0177R
FOR the purpose of calling upon the Department of Transportation to develop and conduct BMore Streets for People, the special and periodic closing of City arteries to vehicular traffic for the purpose of welcoming jogging, biking, skateboarding and other people-engaging activities in temporary closed-roadbed havens; and calling upon the collaborative commitments of the Departments of Transportation (DOT), Health, Police (BPD), General Services and the Offices of Promotion and the Arts (BOPA) and Sustainability to engage in formal fashion among themselves, and with co-sponsoring organizations and neighborhoods, to plan and implement regular BMore Streets for People events throughout the City with venues as approved by proposed "host" communities.

Baltimore Sun file photo of Bike to Work Day/Lloyd Fox

Posted by Meredith Cohn at 11:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: News
        

Fellow Sun writer Candy Thomson wrote a story today about how mountain bikers who have been using and maintaining off-road trails at Loch Raven Reservoir for years but are now getting tickets for riding there.

The reservoir grounds have become training grounds for some of the elite riders, Candy writes. And some enthusiasts just like to go out after work with their bikes and some high-powered lights.

But the state has hired six rangers to give out warnings and $100 tickets under a 10-year-old policy requiring riders to stay on fire roads.

The new effort is because bikers are causing erosion and runoff and making water treatment more expensive. That's the facilities' main purpose: water treatment for 1.8 million people. The place was never really meant to be a park, city officials say, and the habitat is getting crushed.

A City Council meeting on the subject is expected early next year. Lawmakers and riders are hoping for a compromise. 

So, has anyone gotten a ticket? Anyone ride there? Hike or fish there? What do you think of this environment/money vs. recreation battle?

UPDATE: The city Department of Public Works, which manages the reservoir, put out a release today that says rumors that mountain bikers will be banned from the property are "unfounded." And the only ones who have gotten tickets are three riders who were riding after dark even though the area is only open from sunrise to sunset, and they knew about the rule.

Officials are in the process of marking the 50 miles of trails and educating riders so they stop chopping their way through the areas that act as buffers for the water. They also refer everyone to the plan for mountain bikers, which lays out the rules.

Posted by Meredith Cohn at 10:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)
Categories: News
        

It turns out that one of the Maryland facilities cited by a coalition of environmental groups as an example of lax water pollution enforcement was an example of something else – poor record-keeping on the part of government, and poor judgment on the part of this reporter.

As I reported today in The Baltimore Sun, a series of violations shown in a federal data base at the University of Maryland’s Horn Point environmental laboratory apparently were the result of a computer glitch, rather than actual violations of the lab’s water discharge permit. The lab was required by the Maryland Department of the Environment to test and file reports every three months on the water quality of its discharge into the Choptank River, and did so, according to the state.

But the data base maintained by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency was set up to log monthly reports, because that’s the usual frequency required in water pollution discharge permits. So every month a report was not filed, the data base apparently tallied that as a violation. The lab’s permit was not for industrial waste or sewage, but for water that had been used in its shellfish and fish hatcheries With one minor exception in 2001, it never reported any actual violations of the water quality limits the state had set for its discharge, according to the state.

Readers of Monday’s Sun story about the environmental groups’ complaint that the state is not adequately policing water pollution didn’t get that information, and they should have. I mentioned the Horn Point lab in the story as one of the examples given by the Waterkeepers Chesapeake of Maryland of a facility that had reported repeated permit violations, yet had not been inspected by the state.

Donald F. Boesch, president of the UM’s Center for Environmental Science, which runs the labs, was understandably upset to read that his institution, was mentioned in the Waterkeepers' report as a serial polluter, and even more so that it got reported that way in the Sun.  He asked the Department of the Environment to verify that the 80 violations mentioned in the report were erroneous - which the agency did on Wednesday.

The Waterkeepers hadn’t contacted the lab to verify the information before issuing their 58-page report. The Horn Point lab was just one of dozens of facilities listed in their report, the Waterkeepers say, and they relied on a government data base set up to inform residents about how facilities in their communites are complying with pollution regulations.

Now, in light of the new information, they say the data base glitch is an example of a different problem – the failure of the state to ensure that the information it reports to EPA is correct and correctly disseminated to the public.  MDE says the error isn't its fault, that the data base is maintained by the federal government.

Whatever the case, it’s an example of a different kind of breakdown – my failure to contact the lab before the original story to get its side of the issue. It’s standard reporting practice to do that, which I normally follow. In this case, for whatever reason, I didn’t.  That led to readers not getting the whole story - and indeed, an incorrect impression - regarding the issue with this particular facility.  For that error of omission and of judgment, I apologize to the university and to readers. 

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 9:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
        

Environmentalist who recently asked the feds to make the state do a better job keeping the Chesapeake Bay clean may not think officials are doing such a bang up job on water pollution in general. But the Maryland Department of Agriculture says it's working on its end to keep extra pesticides from the water.

It's collected 49,000, or 21.6 tons, of empty pesticide containers from 125 participants for recycling this year in an effort to keep harmful chemicals out of the bay.

The agency offers free collection of empties from farmers, golf courses, government agencies and commercial applicators after they're done applying pesticides. The program is paid for with revenue collected from licensing and certification fees and through pesticide product registration fees.

We're not in the season, but the state also has been collecting since 1993 empty pesticide plastic containers from the public from at least seven locations around Maryland from June through September.  Thirteen pesticide dealer sites participate in the program.

Those containers that are collected are chipped, processed and remanufactured into new pesticide containers by a contractor.  Over the years, the program has collected 616,000 empty pesticide containers weighing nearly 260 tons for recycling.

So, next year, don't forget to recycle.

Baltimore Sun file photo of the Chesapeake Bay/Doug Kapustin

Posted by Meredith Cohn at 7:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Chesapeake Bay
        

Maryland's top environmental official is defending the state's enforcement of pollution laws, while calling activists' complaints a distraction from the struggle to restore the Chesapeake Bay.

Shari T. Wilson, secretary of the environment, has written a letter to The Baltimore Sun in response to a petition filed by the Waterkeepers Chesapeake of Maryland asking the federal government to crack down on the state's handling of water pollution permits covering businesses, farms and development.  I wrote a story about the petition, which you can read here, and a followup from the Environmental Protection Agency saying it would review the river watchdogs' complaints.

In the letter, published in the online edition, Wilson says enforcement is one of her top priorities, and she says the state environment department increased its citations of polluters by 34 percent in fiscal 2008, and "secured" two of the highest fines ever imposed for environmental violations.  All, she adds, without any additional inspectors or resources.

The department has had to trim $27 million, or about a third of its budget, because of the recession-driven drop in tax revenues, she explains, but has "restructured and prioritized" to focus on those cases and issues of greatest impact to public health and the environment.

Sounds like MDE is doing more with less.  But buried within that 34 percent overall jump in enforcement in 2008, it appears that there was a drop both in inspections and enforcement actions taken by MDE's water management administration. According to the department's annual enforcement report to the General Assembly, the number of enforcement actions taken by that branch fell 19 percent, from 930 in fiscal 2007 to 752 the following year. (See page 97)

And in the water pollution discharge permit program, the focus of the Waterkeepers' concerns, the situation is just the reverse of the department's overall enforcement increase.  There was a drop of nearly 34 percent in citations of sewage plants, businesses and others holding permits to discharge into the state's rivers, lakes and the Chesapeake Bay. (See page 105.)

While water enforcement activity tailed off, it appears there was a big jump in the amount of penalties collected and in "compliance assistance," where state inspectors tell polluters to clean up their act but don't cite or fine them.  Officials argue that often is a way to get quicker results than getting bogged down in a legal struggle, and the polluter's money goes into cleanup rather than into the state treasury. 

There's a tension here: no-fault enforcement may get quicker cleanup, but critics contend that without stiff penalties, polluters may figure they can profit by delaying compliance until they're caught.  The state apparently contends hitting the really big polluters hard is deterrent enough. The question is: what's the right balance, considering that it's generally better to prevent pollution in the first place than to try to clean it up once the damage has already been done?

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 10:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)
        

Maybe you missed Holiday Heap last Saturday and are still on the lookout for handmade gifts this holiday season? Below are a couple of lovingly crafted items from local artists. Check out the Broken Plate Pendant Company's 'Little Houses Pendant', made from recycled broken plates. Or Randitan's 'License Plate Belt Buckle', made from vintage license plates. Enjoy!

Hollywood 60's Revival Sleep Mask by For Vagabonds, Little Houses Broken Plate Pendant by The Broken Plate, License Plate Buckle by randitan.

Christmas Advent Santa Calendar by Align With Design, Custom Apron by City Sparrow, Robot Ray Cuff Links by Alluring Robot.

Chain Pattern Napkins by Radica, LA Floral Knitting Bag by Pistol Stitched, Night of the Living Dead Ghoul Girl Wall Hanging by Morbid Decor.

Posted by Christy Zuccarini at 10:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

Today's Baltimore Sun offers a trifecta of local news items that should warm the hearts of environmentalists, though maybe not everyone else (or even all environmentalists, for that matter):

- The state's moving to buy enough wind and solar energy to provide 23 percent of the power used to light state government offices and university campuses;

- The state's ordering 18 'clean diesel' buses to ferry commuters along the controversial Intercounty Connector highway when the first leg opens next year, and

- A new inn and marketplace under construction in East Baltimore is aiming to to be a "platinum-level" green building, with geothermal heating, aerated concrete walls and, naturally, a 'green' roof to soak up rainfall and reduce polluted runoff.

There's a common thread in all three stories - the role of the government in promoting environmentally friendly businesses and products.  Even the inn, which is being built by the owners of the city's popular Black Olive restaurant, is being helped with a low-interest loan from the state energy administration.

Environmentalists and the O'Malley administration view such moves as investments in a cleaner, healthier community which also should yield dividends in terms of providing needed jobs in emerging green energy, transportation and building technologies.

But the state's expenditures on such initiatives trouble fiscal conservatives like state Senate minority leader Allan Kittleman from Howard County.  He's not anti-environment, he says, but thinks government should be more concerned with stretching scarce taxpayer dollars, especially while so many Marylanders are unemployed and the government is slashing programs, services and jobs to cope with plummeting revenues.

The Sun's business columnist, Jay Hancock, blogs today that while he's inclined to support the state's big buy of "clean" energy, he wants to know what it's costing us.  "The deals may be worth doing even if the price is a lot more than slightly higher," he concludes. "But taxpayers need to see the numbers."

What's your view?  Are you okay with the government using your tax dollars to promote the development of environmentally friendly buses, energy and buildings, even if it costs a little more up front?  Or do you think government should be pinching pennies, especially in hard times, and spend no more than absolutely necessary - even if that means the energy, buses and buildings pollute more? 

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 8:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
        

Here's the latest from Gov. Martin O’Malley and the state Department of Natural Resources: Celebrate the holiday season by going green: 
  
• Use low energy lights and timers.  The officials say LED lights use 90 percent less energy than conventional lights and can save up to $50 in energy bills.  Using timers on holiday lights so they aren't on during the day can also cut the power bill.  
 
• Buy local. Buying gifts and food at local businesses helps support the local owners, the local economy and the environment. There's less packing, shipping and carbon emissions. There's a buy local challenge you can read about here. You can read about main street shopping here.

• Travel wisely. Taking fewer things will save gas and save on luggage fees, the officials say. Driving conservatively, and avoiding congestion, can increase your fuel efficiency by 33 percent. Make sure to pump up your tires as well. Or even better, take public transportation or carpool to the mall.
 
• Cut a tree, plant a tree. This is self explanatory. But the state wants you to register that new tree at www.trees.maryland.gov. You can also give the Gift of Trees through the Tree-Mendous Maryland program at www.shopdnr.com. 

• Reduce holiday waste. The DNR people say the Medical University of South Carolina reports that waste increases 25 percent during the holidays. 
 
• Use less packaging. Reuse wrapping paper or find creative ways to decorate with old magazines,  decorations from nature or reusable fabric.
 
• Recycle trees. The officials say each year 10 million Christmas trees go to landfills even though most local governments have tree recycling programs. 
 
• Paper or plastic? TNeither. Use reusable utensils, plates, napkins and tablecloths. And only run the dishwasher when it's full.
 
For more information on Maryland's green efforts, go to www.green.maryland.gov.

Associated Press photo of the White House Christmas tree illuminated with LED lights

Posted by Meredith Cohn at 7:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Tips
        

In the holiday spirit of sharing, here's a guest post from Frank Roylance, the Baltimore Sun's weather and science maven:

'Tis the season for grappling with those big white blocks of featherweight polystyrene that kept your new computer or flat-screen TV safe from harm on Santa’s sleigh. Huge volumes of the ubiquitous packing material will get stuffed into trash bags and garbage cans en route to their eternal rest in landfills where, by one government estimate, they take up one-third of the total volume of buried waste. All that plastic foam comes from petroleum, and it never really goes away.

But a pair of young entrepreneurs from Vermont say they’ve invented a “green” alternative (pictured at right)made from agricultural waste and mushrooms. After their product has done its job, they say, you could put it in your garden and watch it break down and enrich the soil.

Eben Bayer and Gavin McIntyre are the founders of EcovativeDesign, a New York company that manufactures a hard foam-like packaging material they call EcoCradle, which they say could eventually replace polystyrene - the generic name for foam packing material commonly (but mistakenly) called Styrofoam - which is actually a proprietary Dow Chemical Co. insulating product.

Polystyrene, Bayer said, is “a high-energy product used for a few weeks, then you throw it in the landfill.” There, “it stays pretty much indefinitely. The stuff never goes away. It gets smaller, and finds its way into plants and animals, even into our own bloodstream.”

As an undergraduate at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in upstate New York, Bayer, now 24, was assigned a project: Find a green alternative to polystyrene. He began thinking about fungi, like mushrooms, which live in the soil and help to break down organic material even as their roots help to bind the soil together. Bayer (at left in picture) and McIntyre (at right) eventually focused on a mushroom called mycelium, and began experimenting.

“Mushroom roots are the glue that holds the soil together,” Bayer said. “We took that concept and spent the last three years … and adopted that into a process which used the same phenomenon to transform agricultural waste into a white material that looks and feels a lot like polystyrene but requires 10 times less energy” to manufacture. The agricultural waste consists of cotton seed and buckwheat seed husks. They grind it up and mix it into a slurry with water and mycelium root cells they have isolated and cloned for use in their manufacturing process. Poured into a form, the liquid suspension is held in the dark, at room temperature, for five days.

“There are no big, expensive presses,” Bayer said. The mushroom root cells simply begin to grow, and soon entangle the seed husks and hold it all together in the prescribed shape. The final product emerges damp, so it’s dried in a low temperature oven. It is white, with the ag waste still visible in the material. (“A distinctive appearance that speaks to its roots,” the company’s Web site says.) It is a bit denser than polystyrene, “but typically we ship items that require higher density, like tables,” he said.

The cost? “We can be price competitive with polystyrene today,” Bayer said. “We’re usually within 10 percent of costs with the customers we’ve worked with so far.”

Like wood, the Eco-Cradle holds up indefinitely, Bayer said. But when exposed to water and microbes, it breaks down. When it comes time to get rid of the stuff, customers can do what they do now. “The beauty of it is, if you do just as you’ve always done” and send it to the landfill, “you’re actually sending something valuable for the environment.” Even in an oxygen-poor environment deep in the landfill, the Eco-Cradle will still decompose. But “we’d prefer people put it in their compost or garden,” Bayer said.

The young company has plenty of ambition. “We have four development projects close to shipping,” he said. Customers include a Fortune 500 company and several companies in upstate New York. Ecovative Design also plans to commercialize its Greensulate product, a rigid board used for building insulation in place of a Dow Styrofoam product. The company employs just nine people, working from a 10,000-square-foot plant in Green Island, N.Y. that gets its electric power from a hydroelectric station.

Bayer and McIntyre hope to have another manufacturing facility running in the Midwest in 2011, “where our current customer base is, and also a source of great agricultural material. In the long term we want to do this globally.” For more: http://www.ecovativedesign.com/

(Photos by permission EcovativeDesign)

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 9:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)
Categories: Going Green, Products
        

Get out those yellow containers and fill 'em up. Mayor Sheila Dixon and Baltimore Public Works are sponsoring a contest called the RecycleMORE Community Tonnage Competition.

Communities can register from Wednesday to Dec. 28 for a chance to win an appreciate day block party. Recycling will be tracked from January 1 to March 31 and winnders will be announced during the Mayor's Spring Cleanup Day, on April 17.

To register, call Tonya Simmons, the Bureau of Solid Waste's recycling coordinator, at 410-396-4511. Completed registrations forms can be faxed or emailed to 410-545-6117 or tonya.simmons@baltimorecity.gov.

And while we're on the Cleaner, Greener topic, the city is also offering communities the chance to compete for RecycleMORE 1+1 Program Partner Grants. For more information on these, call Hope Williams, at the Cleaner Greener Baltimore Initiative, at 443-984-3961 or hope.williams@baltimorecity.gov.

Baltimore Sun file photo

Posted by Meredith Cohn at 7:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Contests
        

Brushing aside questions raised about some of the scientific evidence, the Environmental Protection Agency's chief announced a short while ago that her agency has finalized its determination that greenhouse gases endanger people's health and need to be regulated.

Administrator Lisa P. Jackson said the finding clears the way for EPA to move forward on regulating the tailpipe carbon dioxide emissions of new cars, and with another rule requiring industry to begin controlling greenhouse gases from major new plants or expansions.

Jackson said she saw no reason to delay today's announcement, despite questions raised about the actions of some climate scientists in the wake of the unauthorized release of thousands of emails from a British climate research center. 

"There is nothing in the hacked emails that undermines the science upon which this decision is based," she said, adding that the scientists and data released from the University of East Anglia's climate research center was just one of many sources of scientific evidence, all concluding in finding a human climate impact.  The agency also reviewed and responded to nearly 400,000 public comments and questions about its proposed endangerment finding, she said.

For an EPA press release and sound bites from Jackson's announcement, go here.

(AP Photo)

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 2:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)
        

The Environmental Protection Agency is reportedly poised to announce a move to regulate climate-warming pollution as talks get under way today in Denmark aimed at reaching a new international agreement to limit the threat of climate change.

The Associated Press and other national media report that EPA has concluded that "greenhouse gases" are endangering people's health and must be regulated. EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson has scheduled "a significant climate announcement" at 1 p.m. today.

The so-called endangerment finding is needed before the EPA can regulate carbon dioxide and five other greenhouse gases released from power plants, factories and motor vehicles under the federal Clean Air Act. A Supreme Court ruling two years ago upheld EPA's legal authority to treat carbon dioxide as a pollutant.

The EPA announcement comes as a United Nations conference on climate change convenes in Copenhagen, with delegates from 192 nations trying to forge a new global agreement to limit greenhouse gases and help nations most likely to be affected by climate change. The outcome of the negotiations is far from certain. 

President Obama, who originally planned to drop in on the talks on Wednesday, now is scheduled to join them near their conclusion on Dec. 18.  He has pledged that the United States will reduce its greenhouse-gas emissions 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020. That's identical to the interim reduction called for in climate legislation passed by the House earlier this year, and about half of what the US would have been required to do under the earlier climate treaty negotiated in 1997 in Kyoto, Japan, but which the US never ratified.  Climate legislation is stalled in the Senate again, as debate there drags on over health care reform.

Business groups have expressed concern about the impact on small businesses of any EPA move to regulate carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases like other air pollutants.  The Obama administration has said it would prefer for Congress to approve a "cap and trade" system instead, under which businesses would have to pay for permits to release climate-warming emissions, giving them an incentive to reduce but the flexibility in how and how quickly they do it.

The legislation in Congress also has critics on the left and right, with some environmental groups arguing the cap-and-trade scheme won't reduce greenhouse gas emissions deep or fast enough, while conservatives contend it will harm the U.S. economy and cost jobs as the nation struggles to pull itself out of a deep recession.   The Congressional Budget Office has said the House plan would have "only a small effect in the long run" on overall employment, but would trigger a significant upheaval in jobs as the economy shifts to rely on alternatives to fossil-fuel energy.

Public opinion polls in this country, meanwhile, indicate Americans worries about climate change are weakening, as is support for "cap and trade" legislation.  You can see a selection of poll results here.

(HO/AFP/Getty Images photo of Greenpeace activists deploying a banner in Copenhagen harbor)

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 11:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Climate change, News
        

Environmental groups have accused the Maryland Department of the Environment of going easy on water polluters and are calling on the federal government to take action.

As reported today (Dec. 7) in The Baltimore Sun, the Waterkeepers Chesapeake of Maryland, a dozen watershed watchdog groups, say they intend to petition the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to make the state environmental agency tighten up its oversight of industries and sewage plants - and if the state fails to respond, the groups want EPA to take over the job.

It's a shot across the bow of the O'Malley administration, which prides itself on its green-ness and has been praised by other environmental groups, such as the Chesapeake Bay Foundation. 

But the Waterkeepers - part of the international Waterkeeper Alliance founded by environmental lawyer and activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. - contends the state's regulatory failures are longstanding and span Democratic and Republican administrations.  They contend the state Department of the Environment is permitting harmful pollution of the state's waterways and the Chesapeake Bay by not keeping closer watch on industries and sewage plants - and by not penalizing them enough when found out of compliance.

Complaints range from allowing polluters to operate on expired permits (or none at all in some cases) to not requiring stringent enough pollution controls to failing to inspect and fine polluters when found to be violating their permits. 

Just one of a series of examples cited in the 58-page petition:  Cambridge Iron and Metal Co., an East Baltimore scrapyard (pictured above), has not been inspected since April 2005, even though inspectors found oil leaking into storm drains there earlier that year; and the company had only corrected two of eight violations when re-checked a month later, according to MDE's records.

While many of those alleged violations may well be for sloppy record-keeping (so-called "paper" violations), others detailed in the report allegedly led to acid mine drainage in western Maryland streams and discharges of oil, bay-fouling nutrients and other pollutants into waterways in the rest of the state.

State officials said late last week they were still studying the Waterkeepers' report and could not respond in detail.  However, they rejected the Waterkeepers' claims that their enforcement is weak, though they acknowledged that they inspected only 10 percent of more than 13,000 businesses and sewage plants with wastewater discharge permits in the past year. 

The state's budget problems have limited funds and staff to do more, officials say, but they say they're still able to safeguard water quality by focusing on the biggest or most serious polluters.  Indeed, they contend that they took 34 percent more enforcement actions in the past year, contrary to the Waterkeepers' contention that such actions dropped off by nearly a quarter.

Waterkeepers acknowledge that the state's environmental efforts could use more funds, but they contend that's at least partly the state's own fault.  It hasn't raised fees for water pollution permits in 15 or 20 years, the groups say, and the fines it levies on violators are a fraction of what it's legally entitled to impose.

What do you think?  Is the state keeping close enough tabs on water pollution in Maryland?

(Photo: Waterkeepers Chesapeake)

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 10:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
        

We're not really slated to get much more than an inch of snow, and may not see a single flake, but Baltimore Public Works says it's a good time to ask for some help with winter-weather chores. The officials would like you to clear snow and ice from around fire hydrants and from around your area storm drains.

If the drains get clogged, intersections, and your basement, could flood as snow melts, they said.

They also want everyone to pay attention to the radio and TV for updates on trash and recycling pickup. You can also call 311 in the city if you have a question. If it's dangerous outside, the truck drivers won't be out. And, really, we shouldn't be either.

Baltimore Sun file photo of folks clearing snow from near a storm drain/Kim Hairston

Posted by Meredith Cohn at 5:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Tips
        

Gov. O'Malley and his family plan to cut their own locally grown Christmas tree this Saturday and the First Family is urging others to buy local this season. 

The state Department of Agriculture says the 2007 Census of Agriculture shows there are 200 tree growing farms in Maryland and 168 harvested 77,801 trees valued at $2.4 million. Those local farmers put that money back into the local economy four times, the state officials say.

They're also claiming this is the eco-friendly choice. They say growing Christmas trees stabilizes soil, protects water supplies and provides wildlife habitat, as well as creates "scenic green belts." They absorb carbon dioxide and give off oxygen. They also contain no petroleum products like artificial trees can. A tree 3" in diameter can reduce atmospheric carbon by 23 pounds and intercept 102 gallons of storm water runoff per year, state ag folks say.

I know some people think cutting down all these trees isn't so environmental. The trees can also produce waste when people chuck them out into the street after the holidays with their bells and whistles still attached. (I'll try and hunt down some ways to recycle them.) 

So, cutting your own tree a family tradition? Anyone have thoughts on local trees? Are fake trees, reused every year really so bad? And while we're on the subject of Christmas, what about all the electricity that's used to light up 34th Street?

Baltimore Sun file photo/Andre F. Chung  

Posted by Meredith Cohn at 7:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)
Categories: Buy local
        

In a move aimed at restoring the Chesapeake Bay's depleted oyster population, Gov. Martin O'Malley will announce this morning a major expansion of the state's existing patchwork of oyster sanctuaries, according to sources, setting aside large stretches of rivers to protect the water-filtering shellfish from commercial harvest. 

The governor also is expected to spell out moves intended to boost the state's fledgling oyster aquaculture industry, the source say, identifying new areas around the bay open for leasing by those who want to try growing their own bivalves in floats, as pictured above, or on the bottom.

O'Malley's press office has put out an advisory that he is scheduled to "make an important announcement regarding the health and future of the Chesapeake Bay" this morning at the Annapolis Maritime Museum, on a tributary of the Severn River. Officials declined to provide details, but individuals briefed on the plan said the focus of the announcement is on overhauling the state's historic approach to managing oysters, shifting away from subsidizing the traditional wild fishery in favor of promoting private aquaculture.

A legislative advisory commission recommended those moves last year as the best bet for replenishing the bay's oysters, decimated to just 1 or 2 percent of their historic levels by decades of overfishing, habitat loss and disease.  The panel called for "targeted eoclogical restoration," closing entire rivers or major portions to wild harvest while working to rebuild silted-over oyster reefs and populate them with new bivalves reared in state-run hatcheries.

Earlier this year, Department of Natural Resources officials reported to the advisory commission that they were planning to set aside the entire Severn River as a sanctuary, as well as a large oyster bar in the lower Choptank River and Hoopers Strait in Dorchester County.  A source briefed on the latest plans said the number of sanctuaries to be announced has grown beyond those three, including another in St. Mary's County.

The sanctuaries would significantly reduce the areas open to commercial oyster harvest. State officials have been working to encourage Maryland's watermen to try their hand at growing oysters on leased plots rather than roaming the bay to catch whatever they can find.  Toward that end, the legislature this year approved an overhaul of the state's laws on private leasing of the bay to encourage more aquaculture, and the governor is expected to announce that new areas are open for private growers.

The bay's native oysters have been badly depleted by a pair of parasitic diseases, plus silting over of most of the reefs which they once populated.  Efforts to restore them to date have proven fruitless, and officials studied introducing a disease-resistant Asian oyster before deciding earlier this year that the ecological risks of such a move outweighed the potential benefits.  Scientists have said a revived oyster population could play a major role in restoring the bay, as the bivalves filter sediment and other pollutants from the water and provide habitat for fish and other aquatic creatures.  Experts estimate that the bay's oysters were once so abundant they could filter the bay's water in a few days - while the current number would take a year or more.

Baltimore Sun photos: oyster floats by Glenn Fawcett 2008; watermen by Doug Kapustin 2006

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 8:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)
        

Environmental activists and concerned citizens told federal officials last night that the Obama administration needs to beef up its draft strategy for jump-starting the Chesapeake Bay restoration, and put ''more heat'' on underperforming state governments to get tough on pollution, especially from farming and development.

"We need more beef, more specifics, more performance and more federal heat,'' Fred Tutman, the Patuxent Riverkeeper, said during a public forum at the National Aquarium in Baltimore.

More than 50 turned out for the second of seven listening sessions federal officials are holding in Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Washington.  Most of the dozen or so who spoke up echoed Tutman's worry that the federal government is underplaying its hand in getting the lagging bay restoration on track.  The strategy, ordered up by President Obama, lays out a series of steps federal agencies propose taking to improve water quality, conserve "treasured places," protect and restore wildlife and habitat and adapt to the effects of climate change.

Eliza Smith Steinmeier, the Baltimore Harbor Waterkeeper , said she and other watershed watchdogs were worried that the federal strategy unveiled last month retreats from the position staked out earlier by the Environmental Protection Agency that it intended to expand and toughen its oversight of chicken farms and developed land to reduce polluted runoff - the bay's biggest water-quality woe.  The strategy now says EPA plans to draft new rules, but would only impose them if states fail to take adequate steps on their own to control farm and storm-water pollution.

"If the states were doing such a good job already," asked Gerald Winegrad, a former state senator from Annapolis, "what are we doing here?" Noting that the states and federal government failed to meet cleanup goals set in 1987 and have acknowledged they're not going to meet them by next year's self-imposed deadline, either, he added, "It's really essential we grab the bull by the horns and change the status quo.  It isn't working."

Winegrad spearheaded a public appeal last year by 20 bay scientists and former policy makers to substitute more government regulation and enforcement for the largely voluntary collaborative bay cleanup approach that has been the rule between states and federal government the past 26 years.  Last night, speaking on behalf of the group, he said the federal strategy was a step in the right direction, but lacked detail and strong enough measures.

Terry Cummings of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation likewise complained that the plan lacked specifics on the time frames by which cleanup steps must be taken and was largely silent on pledges of additional federal funding to help.  Of greatest concern, though, was the strategy's silence on what the federal government would do if states fail to act or achieve promised restoration goals.  The Annapolis-based environmental group has sued the federal government for not taking a stronger role in the cleanup effort to date.

J. Charles Fox, the EPA's senior bay advisor, acknowledged the concerns and said federal laws now limit his and other federal agencies' reach -- in dealing, for instance, with development patterns that contribute to the bay's decline.  He said federal officials hope to compel the states to take the needed steps through a baywide pollution "diet'' the EPA is drawing up now, which would impose strict limits on new and existing discharges of pollutants to improve the bay's many degraded rivers and streams.

EPA also intends to lay out by the end of this month, Fox said, what consequences states could face if they fail to achieve their cleanup goals.   He didn't elaborate, but has said before that penalties could include loss of federal funds or strict limits on new growth.

The sentiments are likely to be different at the next public forum on the federal bay strategy tonight in Salisbury, the de facto capital of the Eastern Shore's poultry industry.   Farmers have been just as vehement against more government regulation - particularly from the federal government - as environmental activists have been in calling for it.  For a list of forum dates and locations, go here.

Federal officials have said they intend to take public comments into account before finalizing their strategy next May.  Members of the public can submit comments through Jan. 9.  To learn more, go here.

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 6:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
        

The Winners of NRDC's 1st Annual Growing Green Awards from The Compound on Vimeo.

Do you know someone who is working to promote sustainable food systems? Someone who has made innovative and praiseworthy efforts to advance ecologically integrated farming practices, climate stewardship, water stewardship, farmland preservation, and social responsibility from farm to fork?

If so, consider nominating them for the Natural Resources Defense Council’s Growing Green Award, which honors leaders in the sustainable food movement. Winners will be selected in each of four categories, including Food Producer, Business Leader, Thought Leader and our new category, Water Steward. A $10,000 cash prize will be awarded to the winner of the Food Producer category and all winners will be widely celebrated through NRDC’s networks and outreach to media.

Deadline for submissions is Friday, December 11th. Visit their web site to submit your nomination.

Posted by Christy Zuccarini at 3:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

Brace yourselves for one of the greatest craft shows of the holiday season! This Saturday, December 5th, from 10am – 5pm Charm City Craft Mafia will host its annual Holiday Heap at St. John’s Church (2640 St. Paul Street).

If you’re in the market for handmade gifts, let it be known that after three years in existence, Holiday Heap has become a veritable Mecca for local DIY enthusiasts. More than 40 crafters from Baltimore and beyond will be there, along with snacks and drinks from Red Emma’s.

Among the selection of paper crafts, ceramics, clothing, jewelry, and glassware, you’ll find a healthy handful of local crafters who use sustainable methods and materials. Like, for example, Annika Bloomberg, whose accessories line Anschtecka is handmade primarily from found and salvaged fibers and small objects, using processes that leave "nearly no waste" (see photo above).

Other green-minded crafters at the show include Sweet Pepita, Biggs and Featherbelle, Red Prairie Press, and Primitive Earth Soap Company.

To read more about Holiday Heap, including profiles of each vendor, visit the Charm City Craft Mafia blog.

Images courtesy of Annika Bloomberg and the Charm City Craft Mafia

Posted by Christy Zuccarini at 1:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
        

The Supreme Court wades into the issue of waterfront property rights today, as it hears arguments over whether Florida's efforts to protect oceanfront property and infrastructure from storm damage by renourishing the beach with sand was nothing more than an unconstitutional "land grab" to turn private beaches into a public one.

Some Gulf Coast beachfront property owners in Destin, Fla., challenged the state's right to declare the newly created strip of dry sand along the water's edge public property, arguing that state law has always defined private land as extending to the water's edge at high tide.  But the state, and the Florida supreme court, declared that property owners' rights were not infringed by the state's creation of new dry land where once it had been periodically under water.

The case could be another lightning rod for debate about property rights, not unlike the Kelo decision in Connecticut several years ago that narrowly upheld government condemning land for private redevelopment.  Conservative groups and home builders have submitted arguments in support of the beachfront property owners, while 26 states, including Maryland, have sided with Florida.

The case is Stop the Beach Renourishment v. Florida Department of Environmental Protection.  You can read news accounts of the issues involved here and here.  Or go here if you want to really dive in and read the legal briefs.

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 9:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: News
        

Baltimore's Patterson Park ranks among America's best city parks in a new listing by Forbes.com

While legendary urban oases like New York's Central Park, San Francisco's Golden Gate Park and Chicago's Grant Park lead the list of 12, our own Patterson Park is cited as an example of of "more modest neighborhood parks" that are "lesser-known gems."

Though not as grand as some urban "mega-parks," Patterson offers a "nice balance between beauty and usability," says Peter Harnik, director of the Center for City Park Excellence at the Trust for Public Land in Washington.

Forbes notes that the east Baltimore park is "steeped in history," with its distinctive pagoda (seen above), but also "full of present-day pleasures" such as skating, pavilions and playgrounds that link the surrounding neighborhoods to the place. The Forbes accolates are no surprise to the Friends of Patterson Park, who call it the "best backyard in Baltimore."

What do you think?  Is Patterson truly one of the nation's best urban parks?  It's certainly one of my favorites in the Baltimore area.  What are your top outdoor oases in the city and surrounding suburbs, and why?

(2007 Baltimore Sun photo by Jed Kirschbaum)

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 12:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Parks
        

In her latest book, I’m Dreaming of a Green Christmas, writer, chef, activist, and all-around green living expert Anna Getty presents pages upon pages of creative ways to make the holidays as eco-friendly as possible without forfeiting our favorite traditions.

Among the book’s selection of simple green projects are nature-inspired garlands, salt dough ornaments, recycled cashmere pillows, and tea box gift tags, to name a few. And many of these crafts and recipes are accessible enough to be shared with children. Getty explains, “If we incorporate our children into these new traditions of crafting with what we already have, making gifts and not buying gifts, we help our children become greener and more conscientious about respecting the planet.”

More to the point, I’m Dreaming of a Green Christmas isn’t just a book for the holidays. If you are in fact a green novice, Getty’s book is an uncomplicated entry into recycling, reducing one’s carbon footprint, and ultimately saving money in the process.

Getty advises readers to “Start with easy doable steps. If you are not recycling, start recycling, if you still use stores plastic bags switch to paper (many paper bags are now made from recycled paper) or better yet bring your own cloth bags. Do one or two things and let them become a part of you rather then too many at once and then give up. In terms of the holidays, ditch the store bought wrapping paper. Most store-bought wrapping paper uses virgin paper stock and toxic dyes or ink. Go for recycled wrapping paper or reuse paper (just be careful when you open gifts so you can save it to rewrap). Or find alternative ways of wrapping like using old maps or music sheets, or pages out of magazines or old newspapers and books.”

I’m Dreaming of a Green Christmas is available on Amazon for $16.47.

Image courtesy of Anna Getty

Posted by Christy Zuccarini at 10:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
        

Have you ever been hiking or biking on the C&O Canal Towpath and come across a lockhouse? Ever wanted to go inside? And sleep there?  

According to this Associated Press story, the C&O Canal National Historical Park has renovated three of the lockhouses and will rent them out for the night. I sounds like it will be one step above camping -- only because there's electricy. Water comes from a pump outside from April to November. And no indoor bathroom, but there's a porto-potty.

The Lockhouses are #49 near Clear Spring in Washington County, #22 at Pennyfield Lock near Potomac in Montgomery County and #6 near Brookmont, close to Washington.

The story say park officials said they decided to turn the lockhouses into lodging because of the "extraordinary interpretive experience" the visits would provide and because it would offer places to stay where there are few. 

Park officials haven't decided what to charge yet.

For more information, go to the C&O Canal Trust Web site, www.canaltrust.org. 

Baltimore Sun file photo of C&O Canal Towpath/Elizabeth Malby

Posted by Meredith Cohn at 7:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Parks