B'more Green has moved to a new home on the web.

We've switched to a more reliable blog platform, and that's meant having to get a new address, or url. Nothing else has changed, really.  We'll still be sharing plenty of news and analysis there about the environment, the Chesapeake Bay and green living. 

The new address is: http://www.baltimoresun.com/features/green/blog/  Be sure to update your "favorites" links. 

And for RSS subscribers who like to stay on top of B'more Green, you need to sign up here to keep getting the latest posts sent to you: http://www.baltimoresun.com/features/green/blog/rss2.0.xml 

So don't be a stranger - come on over and check out the new digs!

(Baltimore Sun file photo)

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 6:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
        

If you think of open, undisturbed land as a precious jewel, you might like this idea.  Conservationists have put together what they call the "String of Pearls" project honoring landowners in the Cheapeake Bay watershed who've permanently preserved their property from development. 

The idea behind the effort, which was begun in 2009, is to foster the creation of corridors of untouched land and water where wildlife can flourish.  Lands protected in perpetuity are the "pearls," which supporters hope will eventually be strung together to provide wildlife with corridors in which they can safely roam, as they're wont to do.

Last year, six preserved tracts in Anne Arundel County were celebrated. This year, the project and the Eastern Shore Land Conservancy are recognizing five Shore landowners for their acts of preservation.  Three of them are in Talbot County and two in Caroline County, where my family first lived when we moved to Maryland more than 25 years ago. The photo above is of Robins Creek Preserve, more than 200 acres bordering the Choptank River and Robins Creek, set aside in 1999 for wildlife habitat.

To see photos and read about all the lands in the project thus far, go here.  The "pearls" are fairly scattered now, but proponents aim to hold at least one ceremony a year honoring more conservation-minded stewards of the land.  Perhaps in time enough tracts will be perserved that those pearls will be strung together in a solid necklace of protection. 

This year's ceremony, free and open to the public, is at 2 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 8, in the Bradley Room of the Talbot County courthouse in Easton.

(Photo of Robins Creek Preserve courtesy String of Pearls Project)

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 7:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

Can the Atlantic coast's menhaden population be restored without hurting Chesapeake Bay commercial fishermen?

That remains to be seen, as the video above makes clear. It was produced by students in the environmental law class at University of Maryland law school.  Yup, that law school - the one in the crosshairs for the Clean Water Act lawsuit filed by its environmental law clinic against an Eastern Shore farm couple and the Perdue poultry company. The clinic's catching hell for not representing the farm couple as well as - or instead of - the Waterkeeper Alliance, the client for whom it filed the suit.

On this issue, the students' video does a good job of presenting both sides - the argument for conserving, and the concern about how a catch reduction could hurt Bay fishermen and crabbers. Of course, the class video project is an academic exercise, so you would expect the students to examine all sides in a dispute. In the real world in which the clinic operates, lawyers represent one client at a time, and can't ethically work both sides of a case.

Thanks to Joey Kroart for sharing. 

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 9:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

Fruits are healthy to eat, experts agree, but new research by a consumer group shows some fruit juices - a staple in children's diets - contain toxic arsenic or lead.

There are no federal limits now on either contaminant in fruit juices.  But according to Consumer Reports, about 10 percent of the juices it sampled from five different brands had total arsenic levels exceeding federal drinking-water standards.

One in four samples checked also had lead levels higher than the Food and Drug Administration's limit for bottled water of 5 parts per billion.

While the FDA has dismissed previous reports of arsenic in apple juice by saying the contaminant was a harmless organic form of the chemical, Consumer Reports says most of the arsenic it found was inorganic arsenic, a known carcinogen.

Consumers Union, the advocacy arm of Consumer Reports, is calling on the FDA to set arsenic and lead limits for apple and grape juices, which are frequently consumed by children.

It's not clear how the contaminants got into the fruit juices, but environmental activists point out that one source may be coal-burning power plants which emit arsenic and other toxic pollutants into the air.  They contend this is another reason for the Obama administration to move forward with new power-plant pollution regulations drafted by the Environmental Protection Agency. 

Some power companies and their supporters in Congress oppose the rules, contending the costs of compliance will be too high, forcing the shutdown of some power plants and jeopardizing electrical reliability.  Others point to the health benefits and say the fears of brownouts are overstated, noting that some power companies such as Baltimore-based Constellation Energy support the rule because they have already upgraded their plants' pollution controls to reduce toxic emissions.

For a list of brands tested and results, go here.

(Above: Student sipping apple juice at Mt. Washington Elementary School. 2005 Baltimore Sun photo by Kenrick Brinson)

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 10:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

Digging back through emails piled up in my inbox, I want to share some "good news" - this recent announcement of the winners of the 10th annual "Rethink Recycling" contest sponsored by the Maryland Department of the Environment. 

The grand prize this year went to Amber Robinson from Digital Harbor High School in Baltimore for her portrait of Lady Gaga, made from soda bottle caps, utensils, and compact discs.  Pictured above with her work, she won an iPad 2, one of several prizes donated by sponsoring businesses and institutions.

Twenty-nine different high schools across the state displayed 65 entries in the contest, which challenges Maryland students to use recycled materials in creating sculptures. 

Environment Secretary Robert M. Summers praised the students and teachers for doing their part to promote recycling by "turning everyday trash into beautiful works of art."

"If not for the creativity and energy of these students, the materials used to make these sculptures would have ended up as trash that pollutes our air, land and water," he said.  According to MDE, current recycling efforts have reduced waste going into landfills and to incinerators by 40 percent.

Other winners in various contest categories included:

Crystal Blackwood, South Carroll High School, Carroll County, for building a towering giraffe  from records, compact discs, PVC pipe, and cardboard.

Margaret McGill, C. Milton Wright High School, Harford County, for creating an anglerfish out of compact discs, nails, and light bulbs.

Olivia Borum, South Carroll High School, Carroll County, for designing a miniature dress made of reused puzzle pieces and buttons.

Lauren Johnson, Smithsburg High School, Washington County, for crafting a great blue heron from chicken wire and zip ties.

To see more photos of the prize-winning recycled art, go here.

I'll be thinking of the sculptures crafted by these creative high schoolers every time I haul my recycling bin to the curb!

(Photo Amber Robinson and grand-prize winning Gaga sculpture, courtesy MD Dept of the Environment)

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 9:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

A new dust-up is brewing over the coal-ash landfill on Hawkins Point in South Baltimore.

Nearby residents, who waged a vain fight to keep power plant waste out of the landfill, now are girding to oppose a proposal to expand it.

Constellation Energy recently began dumping ash there from its three local coal-burning plants, Brandon Shores, H.A. Wagner and C.P. Crane. Meanwhile, the company has applied to the Maryland Department of the Environment for a permit to operate the disposal site and to expand it, bulldozing an acre of wetlands in the process.

The 65-acre site on Fort Armistead Road had been owned by Millenium Inorganic Chemicals, but Constellation bought it about the time MDE approved depositing coal ash there.  Now the energy company wants to expand the landfill on the tract from 28 acres to 32 acres and raise the height by up to 50 feet (from 220 feet above mean sea level to 270 feet, or 156 feet above ground level.)

Some environmentalists and Anne Arundel County Executive John R. Leopold have already weighed in against the expansion.  Leopold, who's maintained a ban on ash disposal in Arundel since an earlier Constellation dump contaminated Gambrills residents' wells, wrote a letter urging the state to deny the permits for the expansion.  The ash contains toxic residues, some of them carcinogenic.

"We weren't crazy about this - we fought it," Mary M. Rosso, a longtime activist from Glen Burnie, said of the landfill.  Now the expansion proposal "just drives me crazy," she added.

She and other residents have dueled with Constellation before over ash disposal and have long complained about air and water pollution from other facilities in the nearby industrial areas of South Baltimore.  This time, she said, she and others are particularly upset about the prospect of losing an acre of noontidal wetlands.

But Andrew Galli of Clean Water Action said he's still reviewing the company's application. He said he and others had worked to tighten safeguards against ground and surface water pollution at the landfill when the state first permitted ash to be disposed of there.

Constellation sought state approval to dispose of its coal ash at the Hawkins Point landfill, so it could stop trucking its waste to a landfill near Richmond, Va. and to a coal mine reclamation site in western Maryland.  State rules require ash diposal sites to have liners preventing ground water contamination and other controls to capture potentially contaminated runoff. 

Constellation spokesman Kevin Thornton said the company has said all along that it wants to expand the landfill, to increase its capacity and to improve the efficiency of the waste site's operations. The site's being designed to take 7 million tons of ash - enough to hold all the waste from those three plants for 25 years or more. For more details, go here.

Thornton said the three coal plants are generating about 120,000 tons of ash a year - less than normal, he noted, as the poor economy has reduced demand for their power.

"The less the plants run, the less ash generated," Thornton said.

The expansion also would help accommodate an added environmental safeguard, according to Thornton. A heavy-duty plastic liner is to be put in under each of the landfill's six waste "cells" as an added safeguard to keep contaminants from seeping into the ground water.

Jay Apperson, spokesman for the Department of the Environment, said it's his understanding no extra space is needed to install the liner. State regulators are still reviewing the project and will schedule a public hearing if they make a prelimilnary decision to approve it.  If the wetland destruction is approved as part of it, Apperson said, the company would be required to restore two acres for the acre lost.

Rosso said Constellation officials at an informational meeting in early November talked about reforesting some land in Essex as mitigation for the wetlands destruction. She questioned how that would benefit her area, where there aren't many wetlands left now.

"The state should have more sense than to let them have that extra footprint," Rosso said. "We always get dumped on."

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 6:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)