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)
        

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.

Continue reading "Another tiff brews over Constellation ash landfill" »

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Feeling the heat from farmers and environmentalists alike, the O'Malley administration has put on hold new rules on how and when farmers can fertilizer their fields.

The Maryland Department of Agriculture had planned to publish new "nutrient management" regulations on Dec. 2, but has now postponed them in order to meet with critics, including municipal officials.

"We were contacted by stakeholders on all sides (ag, enviros, locals) and asked to discuss a little more the draft regulations," MDA spokeswoman Julianne Oberg said in an email. "We're affording that opportunity, and will be resubmitting soon."

The new rules, aimed at reducing nutrient pollution of Chesapeake Bay, have been stirring furor since they were first floated last summer. Farmers complained about proposed limitations on putting animal manure in their fields in fall and winter, and about another provision essentially requiring fencing livestock out of streams. Municipal and county officials, meanwhile, objected to another provision barring the spreading of sewage sludge on fields in winter, which they said would require costly storage facilities.

Environmentalists joined the critics a few weeks ago, charging that agriculture officials had watered the rules down unacceptably in an attempt to mollify other critics.

Continue reading "New farm nutrient rules pulled back" »

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Gearing up for another push in Annapolis to get legislation subsidizing offshore wind development, environmental and labor groups are staging public forums over the next few weeks to tout the economic and health benefits of building the giant electricity-generating turbines off Ocean City.

There's an offshore wind "town hall" planned in Baltimore Wednesday (Nov. 30) from 7 - 8:30 p.m. in the fellowship room at St. Mark's Lutheran Church. 1900 St. Paul St.  Details here. Other forums are planned in Salisbury Dec. 5 and in Rosedale in Baltimore County on Dec. 13.

Despite backing from greens, unions and some businesses, Gov. Martin O'Malley's bid earlier this year to help offshore wind developers failed to win General Assembly approval.  Lawmakers balked at the potential cost to ratepayers of an administration bill that would have required utilities to sign long-term deals to buy power from the projects.

The administration has been working since spring with legislative committees studying the issue and appears leaning toward trying again in January with a different approach - this time geared towards requiring state electricity suppliers to get a certain share of their power from offshore wind projects.  Supporters are touting the jobs the projects will support, the relatively pollution-free nature of wind-generated electricity and the potential for stable (if higher) power prices in a potentially volatile future.

For more info, go here or contact Keith Harrington at keith@chesapeakeclimate.org

(Wind turbines off the Dutch coast, 2007. Reuters photo)

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 12:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

The task force Gov. Martin O'Malley formed to revive his failed attempt to curb septic systems in Maryland has come up with something far more sweeping - a "roadmap" to future growth in the state that attempts to rein in the metastasis of sprawl into the countryside.

Whether the panel's new "tiered" approach to development will win over the builders, farmers and local pols who blocked O'Malley's septic restrictions remains to be seen. Likewise for whether it will work, even if it becomes law.

The 28-member panel, meeting Tuesday in Annapolis, sidestepped O'Malley's contentious proposal to ban large new housing projects on septic and voted instead to recommend putting all state land into one of four growth "tiers," with varying degrees of incentives or hurdles for new septic-dependent development in each. 

The impetus for change comes as the state struggles to meet its federally set targets for reducing the nutrient pollution fouling the Chesapeake Bay.  Per household, officials say, septic systems release far more nitrogen into ground water and nearby streams than do properly functioning wastewater treatment plants.

Continue reading "Septic task force produces "roadmap" for MD growth" »

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Three environmental groups and a group of residents have gone to court in an attempt to block Frederick County from rezoning nearly 200 properties to allow for greater development.

Friends of Frederick County, Audubon Society of Central Maryland, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation and 29 county residents filed a lawsuit in Frederick County Circuit Court on Tuesday charging the county's rezoning move is illegal, would harm the environment and raise taxes to pay for the schools, roads and other infrastructure the additional development will need.

The county commissioners elected last year had vowed during the campaign to revisit comprehensive plan and zoning changes made in 2010 by the previous board of county commissioners.  Their predecessors had rezoned about 700 properties, according to Gazette.Net, shifting them from commercial or residential to agricultural or resource conservation zoning in order to scale back development and protect environmentally sensitive lands.  The newly elected board, contending those property owners had been deprived of their rights, invited applications this year for new zoning.

The groups contend the county is acting unawfully in selectively rezoning 193 properties whose owers have applied for a change - some of them unaffected by last year's down-zoning. If all the changes requested are granted, the environmental groups contend it would allow for 17,000 new homes.  Even before this move, planners now project the county of 243,000 people to grow by 20,000 households and roughly 80,000 people over the next two decades.

"No consideration is being given to adverse effects of such increased development on the environment or on public facilities," Janice Wiles, executive director of Friends of Frederick County, said in a statement.  She predicted taxes would have to be raised to cover the costs of building or expanding schools, roads and other facilities.

Jon Mueller, the bay foundation's vice president for litigation, called the rezoning an "illegal short cut to allow potentially substantial new sprawl development."  He warned that it would lead to increased runoff pollution of local waters.

County officials vowed to go ahead, according to the Frederick News-Post, while stressing they had yet to decide anything.  The county planning commission is set to begin hearing the zoning requests tonight.

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 8:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

The oyster die-off this year in the Chesapeake Bay may have been limited to its northern reaches, but it's had  a severe impact on at least one waterman who worked there.

Capt. Barry Sweitzer has laid off his crew and put his 106-year-old skipjack, the Hilda M. Willing, up for sale after managing to find just a couple dozen live oysters in his first day of dredging for them, the Washington Post reports.

The state Department of Natural Resources reported last week that 74 to 79 percent of the oysters had died in two areas north of the Bay Bridge.  Record-high fresh-water flows from heavy spring rains killed most of them, state officials said, with another fresh-water influx from Hurricane Irene and Tropical Storm Lee probably adding to the mortality.

Only about 2 percent of Maryland's commercial oyster harvest comes from those areas, according to DNR.  But for an estimated 30 watermen who worked those bars, the loss is a major blow to their livelihood. Oyster bars down the bay apparently didn't suffer similar die-offs, but many northern bay watermen probably can't make enough money oystering to cover the added costs of taking their boats down there and either making long commutes or staying far from home while they work those distant bars.

It's a sad end for Sweitzer, 50, who acquired the skipjack from his father and dredged for oysters two days a week.  Let's hope it's not the end of the line for the Hilda M. Willing.  Built in 1905, it's one of a handful of survivors from the hundreds of skipjacks that worked the bay in the heyday of sail-powered dredging around the beginning of the 20th century.  Sweitzer told the Post he hopes to sell the vessel to another commercial waterman who'll take it down the bay to harvest oysters there. 

(Skipjacks dredge the Choptank River for oysters at dawn in 1988.  Baltimore Sun photo by Jed Kirschbaum)

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 8:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

The Chesapeake Bay's 'dead zone' has set another record - reappearing this fall after Tropical Storm Lee washed millions of tons of nutrients and sediment into the estuary. 

State officials and scientists with the University of Maryland say the expanse of oxygen-starved water in the bay, which had virtually disappeared by the end of August, re-formed in September and was still growing in late October. 

"It's surprising we're seeing it this late," said Tom Parham, director of tidewater ecosystem assessment for the state Department of Natural Resources. 

The dead zone reached record size earlier in the summer, spreading to cover 40 percent of the bay from the mouth of the Patapsco River practically to the Virginia line. At the time, scientists blamed that on an unprecedented influx of fresh-water into the bay in spring.  With it came an extra-heavy load of fertlizer, sewage and other pollutants, which feed massive algae blooms and ultimately consume the oxygen in the water that fish need to breathe.

The winds of Hurricane Irene in late August stirred up the bay, breaking up the dead zone by reintroducing dissolved oxygen into deeper waters. Scientists and others breathed a sigh of rellief after the rough summer.

But the torrential rains of Tropical Storm Lee in early September flooded the bay with more water-fouling nutrients, in addition to millions of tons of sediment that turned the water brown.  Scientists predicted the influx could revive the dead zone, and by the end of September, water monitors were detecting its reformation.

When scientists went out again to check in late October, oxygen-starved water covered the bottom in the deep waters down the middle of the bay.  The 'dead zone' stretched from the Bay Bridge south to the mouth of the Patuxent River, according to marine ecologist Diane Stoecker of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science. About 10 percent of the bay was plagued with extremely low oxygen levels, DNR's Parham estimates, when by this time of year the zone normally covers no more than 2 percent.

"It's probably the worst we've seen in October," said Bruce D. Michael, DNR's director of resource assessment.  To see the October extent of the 'dead zone,' go here.

Continue reading "Bay 'dead zone' sets new record in fall" »

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Fisheries regulators meeting in Boston have decided to increase protection for menhaden, a small silvery fish that's widely regarded as ''the most important fish in the sea''' because it's a key food source for birds and other fish in the Chesapeake Bay and elsewhere along the Atlantic coast.

Before a crowd of onlookers, many of them concerned recreational fishermen, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission voted overwhelmingly to set new population threshold and harvest targets for menhaden, effectively reducing the catch for now by about 37 percent, starting next year, according to my colleague, Candus Thomson, who's there reporting for The Baltimore Sun. The commission, which oversees all in-shore fishing along the coast, represents all the states from Maine to Florida. 

Biologists, conservationists and recreational fishing groups had pressed the commission to act, pointing to signs menhaden are in trouble. They've noted, for instance, that menhaden are a shrinking source of food for Chesapeake striped bass, going from 70 percent to about 8 percent of their diet.  Most stripers, or rockfish as they're known locally, are infected with a bacterial disease which scientists have said could be aggravated by not getting enough to eat.

There was pushback, though, from commercial fishermen, who catch menhaden for crab and lobster bait, and from Omega Protein, based in Reedville, VA., which harvests the fish on a grand scale for processing into animal feed and heart-healthy diet supplements.  The Omega Protein Corp.'s fishing fleet hauls in 80 percent of all menhaden caught along the coast, making the port of Reedville, Va., the second busiest for fish landings in the United States.

The harvest reduction agreed to was short of the 45 percent cutback some anglers wanted, but still steeper than what Omega's spokesman had indicated the company could live with.  The company's supporters had urged the commision to leave harvest limits alone, for the sake of its 300 employees. Other commercial fishermen also had argued they have no other bait they could use.  The commission vote was 14 to 3, with Maryland in the majority.  Virginia, New Jersey and the Potomac River Fisheries Commission opposed major changes.

The decision heartened conservationists, though, and Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley, who issued a statement saying the commission's move helps ensure "a sustainable future" for menhaden and all the fish and wildlife that depend on them for food.

Jay Odell of the Nature Conservancy called it "a great day" for menhaden and for all the other species and people who depend on them remaining abundant.  He stressed that the harvest cutback agreed to is "not a permanent throttle on fishing, but an investment in the future." If, as expected, the population rebounds, the size of the catch will come back as well, he said.

“We’ve learned from other fisheries, such as striped bass and crab, that easing harvest pressures can dramatically replenish a stock," said Bill Goldsborough, senior fishieries scientist for the Chesapeake Bay Foundation and a member of the fisheries commission. "This decision will spur menhaden abundance and begin the rebuilding process.” 

(Menhaden caught in Chesapeake Bay. 2011 Baltimore Sun photo by Barbara Haddock Taylor) 

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 3:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Chesapeake Bay, News
        

State biologists have found "concentrated pockets" of dead oysters in the upper Chesapeake Bay, which they attribute to record-high flows of fresh water into the estuary this year. But according to the Department of Natural Resources, the die-off appears so far to be limited to two areas north of the Bay Bridge, which together account for just 2 percent of Maryland's overall oyster harvest.

Watermen have reported finding relatively few live oysters north of the Bay Bridge since the harvest season began Oct. 1, less than a month after Tropical Storm Lee flooded the upper bay with fresh water and sediment.

DNR reported preliminary findings today from the upper bay of its annual fall survey of oyster bars, which show 79 percent mortality on four bars north of Rock Hall and 74 percent mortality on six bars between the Patapsco and Magothy rivers.  Mike Naylor, DNR's chief of shellfish programs, said that from the barnacles and other fouling organisms found inside their gaping shells, it appeared many of the dead oysters had died before the storm, probably as a result of the record high fresh-water flows from March to May.  For more, read my story in The Baltimore Sun here.

(2008 Baltimore Sun photo by Doug Kapustin)

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 9:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

As pressure mounts on local governments to tackle polluted storm-water washing off their streets and parking lots, politicians are grappling with how to pay for it.

Anne Arundel County Council member Chris Trumbauer - whose day job is as the Riverkeeper for the West and Rhode rivers - has decided to make another run at financing the needed pollution controls through a fee levied on all property owners.

Trumbauer introduced a bill Monday night that would tack a $35 annual fee on every homeowner's property tax bill ($25 for condo and townhome owners) to pay for reducing storm-water runoff.  Nonresidential properties would be assessed a fee based on the amount of pavement and rootfops they have.

The fees would go into a dedicated fund that can only be spent on storm-water controls, and could not be raided or diverted, according to Trumbauer.  They'd be spent on retrofitting storm drains, replacing pavement with porous pavers and creating rain and roof gardens, among other things.

"This bill is a much-needed investment in Anne Arundel County,” Trumbauer said in a statement announcing the bill. “The money from this dedicated fund will go directly back into our communities, creating local jobs and cleaning up our waterways."  The bill, 79-11, is due for a public hearing Dec. 5.

Nearly one-third of the nitrogen pollution getting into the Chesapeake Bay from Anne Arundel County is estimated to come from urban and suburban storm-water runoff washing fertilizer, pet waste and other organic debris into local streams and coves. 

Continue reading "Storm-water fee proposed in Arundel" »

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 9:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

State biologists are investigating watermen's reports of a major die-off of oysters in the upper Chesapeake Bay that may have been caused by Tropical Storm Lee, a spokesman said today.

"They’re out there on the bars checking to see if the reports are true, and what’s the cause," said Josh Davidsburg with the Maryland Department of Natural Resources. He said officials hoped to have information later this week.

The Annapolis Capital reported Sunday that watermen who've been working in the South River and other local Western Shore waters say their oyster tongs and dredges are coming up full of empty shells.

The early September storm dumped nearly 29 trillion gallons of rain on the mid-Atlantic region, by one estimate, flooding the upper Bay with fresh water and flushing an estimated 4 million tons of sediment into it from the Susquehanna River alone.   The dirt and debris turned the water a chocolate brown, and the surge of fresh water from rivers lowered salinity levels to near zero for weeks after the storm.   Oysters don't grow or reproduce well in water with low salinity, and can even die if trapped in fresh water for extended periods of time.

UPDATE:Davidsburg called back to say DNR biologists are in the midst of checking the upper bay as part of an annual survey of 400 oyster bars in state waters. While not willing to describe the extent or severity of the mortality yet, Davidsburg said, "Preliminary reports show that it's a salinity event."

Larry Simns, president of the Maryland Watermen's Association, said his members say 95 to 100 percent of the oysters are dead along the western Shore as far south as the Bay Bridge.   The Chester River, Eastern Bay and other areas along the Eastern Shore were not hit as badly.  Oysters can only survive about 10 days in fresh water, Simns said.

Oysters farther down the bay appear not to have been greatly affected, if at all.  At the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum Oyster Fest in St. Michaels on Saturday, Southern Maryland oyster grower Jon Farrington of Johnny Oyster Seed Co.  told me that salinity levels had dropped alarmingly in the lower Patuxent River after Hurricane Irene in late August, which produced locally intense rainfall.  But the freshet did not last, and his oysters survived, he said.  I noticed that many of the oysters served on the half-shell at the fest came from the Choptank Oyster Co., which raises them in floats near Cambridge. (CORRECTION: Those were being served at one tent - museum spokeswoman Tracey Munson reports the bulk of the oysters served at the fest were wild-caught by members of the Talbot County Watermen's Association. Apologies to them.)

A Deal Island waterman who works Tangier Sound told me there appeared to be a good supply of oysters there, but he was worried about added fishing pressure on them because watermen from up the bay are coming down to harvest there.

(Oysters in tongs; 2008 Baltimore Sun photo by Barbara Haddock Taylor)

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 9:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Chesapeake Bay, News
        

After years of back and forth, Maryland regulators have finally turned thumbs down on a highway in Charles County that environmentalists feared would devastate Mattowman Creek, one of the Chesapeake Bay's most productive nurseries for migratory fish.

The state Department of the Environment notified Charles officials by letter on Tuesday that it had decided to deny a wetlands permit to build the Cross County Connector, a four-lane highway that county officials have long sought to improve east-west traffic. The project as proposed called for filling in more than seven acres of fresh-water wetlands, disturbing more than 2,000 feet of stream and clearing nearly 74 acres of forest. 

Environmentalists argued that the Mattawoman, which flows into the Potomac River, was too valuable ecologically and already suffering degradation from development occurring in its watershed.  Two years ago, American Rivers named Mattawoman its fourth most endangered US waterway because of the threats it feared from the highway and the development it would encourage in areas of the creek watershed now relatively untouched.

Their concerns were echoed by state and federal environmental agencies,  Last year the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service weighed in urging regulators to deny the permit and require more study of alternative routes or ways to reduce the highway's impact.  Extremely popular with anglers, the creek is a prime spawning area for shad, blueback herring and striped bass.

The county originally sought state approval in 2004, but MDE repeatedly extended its review of the project and kept requesting more information of the county.  The issue apparently came to a head recently, when the Charles commissioners voted last month not to spend any more money on the project, including on studies of its potential environmental impact.  The MDE letter details four areas where state regulators contend the county never provided requested information or studies.

In addition, state planning Secretary Richard E. Hall wrote Candice Quinn Kelly, the president of the Charles board of commissioners, to say the road project did not square with the state's Smart Growth policies because it would have facilitated development in areas not designated for growth. He pointed out that 215 homes had already been built on nearly 1,300 acres of land outside growth zones.

Continue reading "State blocks controversial Charles Co highway" »

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The decision by St. Mary's College in southern Maryland to house some of its students on a docked cruise ship has prompted the state to close that area of the St. Mary's River to shellfish harvesting.

The move announced today puts off limits a portion of an oyster bar on the bottom of the river that is commercially harvested by local watermen. The Maryland Department of the Environment's release notes that a larger portion of the Seminary bar is already closed to harvesting because it's been declared an oyster sanctuary.

The college moved 250 students to a rented cruise ship, the Sea Voyager, while working to remove mold from their dormitories.  School officials have told state regulators they plan to collect wastewater in a holding tank onboard the rented 268-foot ship and periodically pump it to a wastewater treatment plant.  But MDE said it's closing nearby waters to shellfish harvesting because of the potential health risk from any spill or accidental discharge from the vessel.

The closure took effect Tuesday and will remain in effect until the cruise ship departs, according to MDE.

(Sea Voyager docked in St. Mary's River.  Washington Post photo)

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 10:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Chesapeake Bay, News
        

Republican (Correction: and Democratic) lawmakers in Washington questioned federally ordered Chesapeake Bay pollution reductions on Thursday, even as scientists in Maryland were reporting signs the long-running cleanup effort has been making progress after all.

The House Agriculture Subcommittee on Conservation, Energy and Forestry grilled an Environmental Protection Agency official, complaining about the costs of meeting the agency's bay restoration targets and questioning the accuracy of its computer model for setting them.

"We are in the midst of a process that could cost individual states like Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania more than 10 billion dollars per state," Rep. Glenn Thompson, R-Pa., said, according to a report in Agri-Pulse. "What's most problematic is that no one can say with certainty whether the cost is worth the effort, as we still do not have a cost-benefit analysis of this process."

Shawn Garvin, EPA's mid-Atlantic regional administrator, told lawmakers the agency hope to have by 2013 an analysis of the costs and benefits of pollution reductions undertaken by the states to comply with the Total Maximum Daily Load, commonly called a "pollution diet," the agency has set for the bay.  And he said the agency is working to refine its computer model and plans a full reevaluation of cleanup targets and methods by 2017, midway to the 2025 deadline for having all restoration measures in place.

Meanwhile, scientists at Johns Hopkins University and the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science said that after taking a new look at 60 years' worth of water monitoring data, they've found that the "dead zone" that forms each year in the bay has actually been shrinking in late summer since the late 1980s, tracking declines in nitrogen levels measured in the Susquehanna River, the bay's largest tributary.

As I reported today in The Baltimore Sun, the researchers said that they were encouraged by the finding. In an ecosystem as large (64,000 square miles) and complex as the bay is, it's been hard to find clear evidence whether it's getting better or worse amid weather-driven annual variations.  The scientists said their new analysis shows that pollution reductions made to date have improved water quality some, though still far from enough to declare the bay restored to health.

(Sandy Point State Park. 2009 Baltimore Sun photo by Jed Kirschbaum)

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 10:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)
        

Under assault from conservatives and the business community, the Environmental Protection Agency is showing its "flexibility" these days on a variety of regulatory fronts.  Could they  portend slower or delayed cleanups of polluted waters in Baltimore harbor and the Chesapeake Bay?

Case in point: EPA has been pressing for years to get cities to fix chronic sewer overflows that routinely foul rivers and streams with raw human waste whenever it rains.  Baltimore, one of the early targets of the federal crackdown, is still working through a 9-year-old consent decree requiring $1 billion worth of repairs to clogged and leaky sewer lines. The job is far from done, either in the city or in neighboring Baltimore County - remember the 100 million gallons of diluted but unreated sewage washed into the Patapsco River after Hurricane Irene?

The agency released new guidance last week at a U.S. Conference of Mayors meeting in Washington instructing regulators to show some "flexibility" in setting compliance schedules and allow for "innovative solutions" to pollution problems.

Cash-strapped local officials who've been pressing EPA for relief welcomed the move, including Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, who is co-chair of the mayors group's water council.  In a statement issued by the mayors' group, Rawlings-Blake said: "While we share the goal of clean water, mayors must also safeguard the fiscal health of their cities. EPA is demonstrating that they are serious about moving forward in a true partnership with mayors across the country."

It's understandable Rawlings-Blake would be among those cheering EPA's new-found sensitivity to cities' fiscal straits.  In addition to the ongoing sewer overflow work, the city is waiting for a new storm-water permit that's likely to require major reductions in polluted runoff from streets and parkings.  And the city also faces marching orders in the next few years to curtail trash flowing into the harbor and to clean up sources of unsafe bacteria levels that make the harbor unsafe in places for human contact, including kayaking, rowing and swimming. 

The costs of fixing those problems could run to tens of millions of dollars, which the city plainly doesn't have.  Rawlings-Blake has been urged to raise revenue by imposing a storm-water fee on all property owners, but in the current anti-tax climate has yet to propose one.  Baltimore County also is under a similar order from EPA issued in 2005 to fix chronic overflows in its aging sewer lines as well.

Continue reading "EPA going "flexible" on clean water?" »

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 9:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

After prolonged and "drastic" declines, Atlantic river herring - which have been fished for centuries - are now being eyed for federal protection as endangered species.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Admnistration announced today that it willl review the status of river herring - alewives and blueback herring - which have been classified as "species of concern" since 2006.  NOAA's move comes in response to a petition filed in August by the Natural Resources Defense Council calling for the government to determine whether they should be classified as endangered or threatened.

Alewives and blueback herring both roam coastal waters from Canada to North Carolina, while blueback herring range as far south as Florida.  The two fish are found in the Chesapeake Bay and swim up its rivers to spawn.  But whether from overfishing, dams blocking access to their upriver spawning grounds or some other cause, their numbers have slid downward over the past several decades.

River herring, as they're collectively known, have been fished for 350 years, mainly in inshore waters. But the fishery shifted offshore in the 1960s, as foreign fishing fleets went after them off the Mid-Atlantic coast. They're also a bycatch taken accidentally in fishing for other species, including menhaden (also in decline, about which I wrote earlier this week in The Baltimore Sun).

The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, which regulates inshore fishing, has been conducting a stock assessment of river herring for the past three years, looking at the condition of fish that spawn in more than 50 rivers along the coast.  NOAA has a year to determine whether river herring should be listed.

For more information, go here and here.

(Blueback herring in Broadway Branch, tributary of the Choptank River, 2001 Baltimore Sun photo by Jerry Jackson)

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 4:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

Film maker Josh Fox will be on hand this evening (11/1) at the Enoch Pratt Free Library downtown for a free screening of his controversial documentary "Gasland" chronicling problems with "fracking," the widely used drilling technique for extracting natural gas.

The film, which came out in 2010, was nominated for an Oscar and won an Emmy and several other awards. The oil and gas industry contends the movie contains errors and distortions, assertions which Fox rebuts.

It will air at 6 p.m. in the 3rd floor Wheeler (no relation) auditorium at the library, 400 Cathedral Street.  Afterwards, there'll be a discussion led by Fox.  The event is sponsored by Baltimore Green Works.  For more information, go here.

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 9:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge, this region's premier preserve of woods, wetlands, bald eagles and other critters, is growing by another 825 acres, Sen. Benjamin L. Cardin announced today.

For $1.4 million, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has bought a tract of land along the Nanticoke River owned by Tideland Ltd. The service said the land is prime habitat for eagles and migratory waterfowl, including black ducks, blue winged-teal and wood ducks, and possibly habitat for the recovering Delmarva fox squirrel. A southern portion along the Nanticoke helps preserve views for the Capt. John Smith Chesapeake National Historic Trail.

The refuge, south of Cambridge in Dorchester County, covers more than 27,000 acres, including a third of Maryland’s tidal wetlands and some of the most ecologically important areas of our state, Cardin noted.

(Osprey nesting at Blackwater, 2009 Baltimore Sun photo by Karl Merton Ferron)

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 10:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
        

With Halloween just around the corner, the Washington-based green group Environment America is sponsoring a spooky-themed cleanup of the Anacostia River on Saturday (Oct. 29), as well as a teach-in of sorts on the woes afflicting the Chesapeake Bay.

Volunteers will be picking up trash in Bladensburg Waterfront Park, 4601 Annapolis Road in Bladensburg, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Folks are encouraged to dress up in costumes, though also to wear clothes and boots they don't mind getting grungy.

Not one to miss a chance to talk policy, Environment America plans to use the event to tout "10 scary problems" plaguing the bay.  Among them:

- Chickens outnumber people 1,000 to 1 on Maryland's Eastern Shore, the group says, and poultry growers on the Delmarva Peninsula generate upwards of 1 billion pounds of manure annually;

- The "dead zone" that forms each summer in the bay, where fish and shellfish can't get enough oxygen in the water, stretched from Baltimore Harbor to the Potomac River, covering a third of the bay;

- The state has lost more than 75 percent of its wetlands

And so on.  Not sure whether they're scary, or just depressing.  The event's co-sponsored by the American Public Health Association, which is holding its annual meeting in DC over the weekend.

(Flotsam on the water at Bladensburg Waterfront Park, summer 2011)

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 8:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Chesapeake Bay, Events, Volunteer
        

Maryland is moving ahead with plans to impose controversial new limits on how and when farmers can fertilize their fields. 

The proposed changes to the state's "nutrient management" regulations, submitted Thursday to a legislative committee for review, are meant to reduce polluted runoff from farms as part of Maryland's effort to restore the Chesapeake Bay.  But they've stirred intense opposition as they were being drafted from farmers and from local officials as well, because they not only limit the application of animal manure to farm fields but also of sewage sludge. 

Opponents have complained the move by the Maryland Department of Agriculture is unwarranted and costly, potentially requiring Anne Arundel County, for instance, to spend upwards of $30 million to store its sewage sludge over the winter. 

UPDATE: "The consensus from most folks I have spoken with agree that these new guidelines will hasten the demise of Maryland Agriculture to about 10 years down the road," emailed state Sen. Barry Glassman, a Republican representing Harford County who's heard from a lot of farmers in his area concerned about being required to fence livestock away from streams.  Glassman works for Constellation Energy but raises sheep as a hobby.

But state agriculture officials say the rules are based on research indicating more needs to be done to curtail farm pollution.

“As science evolves and we learn more about how to better manage farms, it’s appropriate to change policies," Agriculture Secretary Earl F. "Buddy"  Hance said in a press release announcing the move.

Continue reading "State moves to limit farm fertilizer, sewage sludge" »

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 8:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

Is the O'Malley administration backing away from the 2020 deadline it set for Maryland to complete its share of the regional Chesapeake Bay cleanup effort?

On Tuesday, members of the governor's Task Force on Sustainable Growth and Wastewater Disposal suggested delaying the cleanup deadline - dropping back to the 2025 target previously agreed to by the other five states engaged in bay restoration. The members making those suggestions just happened to be O'Malley cabinet secretaries.

John R. Griffin, secretary of natural resources, presented recommendations from a committee of the task force, including one urging a gradual tripling of the $30 annual "flush fee" every Maryland homeowner pays now to help restore the bay.

Gov. Martin O'Malley called it a "stretch goal" in 2009 when he committed Maryland to reaching the state's pollution-reduction goals five years earlier than the other states involved in the bay restoration effort. He said it was to "maintain our own sense of urgency" about the cleanup, which has dragged on for more than 25 years and repeatedly missed other goals.

Without more funds, the state won't be able to take all the actions needed by 2020 to reduce nutrient and sediment pollution, officials have said.  But Griffin said state and local officials could use more time to raise the funds and get programs and projects in place to fulfill the state's obligations under the baywide "pollution diet" set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Continue reading "MD backing away from Bay cleanup deadline?" »

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 6:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

Maryland is often accused by business groups of going overboard on environmental regulation.

But according to a new study, the state actually lags behind its neighbors and the federal government in a couple key categories - the size of the fines it can levy for pollution violations, and the fees it charges businesses and local governments for seeing that they don't foul the Chesapeake Bay or local waterways.

The Center for Progressive Reform, a pro-regulation think tank based in Washington, argues in a report released today (10/21) that Maryland lawmakers have handcuffed the state's environmental regulators by not authorizing them to impose stiffer penalties on polluters.

The group also contends the state could do a better job protecting the state's waters - and paradoxically, reduce regulatory delays - by charging higher fees for permits to discharge wastes and storm runoff into streams and rivers.

The report was to be presented at a daylong forum at the University of Maryland Law School on how to hold Maryland and other Chesapeake Bay states accountable for their obligations to restore the degraded estuary.

Rena Steinzor, a UM law professor and the center's president, argues that with state and federal budgets squeezed, it's unrealistic to expect much more money can be directed at the cleanup effort in the near term.

"There aren't federal mega-bucks coming for the Bay," she said in an interview. But she added that "we can't sit by twiddling our thumbs" and let the restoration effort stall. "In times like these," she concluded, "the most effective approach is to use deterrence via enforcement."

Continue reading "Study finds MD lags in polluter penalties, permit fees" »

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 5:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
        

Good news this week about the Chesapeake Bay's most treasured finfish is offset by some troubling news about one of the estuary's signature birds.

Maryland natural resources officials reported their annual survey tallied the fourth highest number of young striped bass, or rockfish, in state waters in nearly six decades.

It was heartenng news about the bay's most prized fish for recreational anglers and commercial fishermen alike, after  several years of below-average counts of juvenile rockfish.  As my colleague Candus Thomson reported, the upper bay is the spawning ground and nursery for three-quarters of the striped bass that roam all along the East Coast.

There's been growing concern over their status lately.  Besides sub-par spawning four out of the last five years, the overall striped bass population is down 25 percent, and up to 60 percent of adult striped bass in the bay are afflicted with a deadly disease, mycobacteriosis. The  Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission is weighing whether to curtail catches of them - a vote is set when the panel meets in early November.

Virginia saw similarly good reproduction of striped bass in their rivers feeding into the lower Chesapeake.

There's worrisome news out of Virginia, though, about ospreys, one of the birds that preys on fish inthe bay.  A biologist at William & Mary College reports a dramatic decline in survival among osprey chicks.  Bryan D. Watts, director of the college's Center for Conservation Biology, said in an op-ed published in the Richmond Times-Dispatch that "nine of every 10 eggs hatched, but only four of every 10 chicks survived to fledge. Chicks were hatching, but they were starving in the nest."

The Virginia biologists think the problem may be a shortage of menhaden, a forage fish humans don't eat but that is food for many other fish, including striped bass, and birds of prey like ospreys and bald eagles.  Where menhaden once made up 70 percent of young ospreys diet, it's declined to less than 27 percent, Watts reports.

Concerned by recent finding that menhaden have been overfished for 32 of the last 54 years, the Atlantic States fisheries panel is also weighing whether to curtail catches of them.  They're taken as bait by commercial fishermen and crabbers, but the bulk are caught by a Virginia-based fishing fleet and processed as animal feed and for their heart-healthy oil.  A decision on menhaden's fate also is slated in early November - the biologists suggest what's decided could affect more than just commercial fishermen.

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 6:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

Maryland's lawmakers are in Annapolis this week to redraw congressional district boundaries, but Republicans are using the occasion to drum up resistance to Gov. Martin O'Malley's environmental agenda.

Sen. E.J. Pipkin, who represents the upper Eastern Shore, and more than a dozen GOP delegates from rural (or once-rural) parts of the state have introduced 10 different bills aiming to counter the O'Malley administration's push to clean up the Chesapeake Bay, to limit new development on septic systems and to use state funds more effectively in fighting rural sprawl. 

Pipkin was expected to decry what he and other GOP lawmakers are calling O'Malley's "war on rural Maryland" at a tea party rally today in Annapolis that was ostensibly called to protest the governor's redistricting plan. 

Some bills target the "watershed implementation plans" each town and county must draw up for carrying out its share of the bay cleanup effort.  One measure would require each plan's costs to be estimated, and would cap the overall cost at $14.7 billion through 2017 - the pricetag the state estimated when it submitted its overall plan late last year.  Another bill would free local officials from having to carry out any cleanup actions required under the bay "pollution diet"  unless funding is provided by the state or federal governments.

Continue reading "Rural lawmakers push back against Bay cleanup, sprawl curbs" »

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The Maryland League of Conservation Voters gave Gov. Martin O'Malley a B+ today for his environmental record over the past three years, a slight decline from the record-high A- grade it gave him shortly after he moved into the State House.

The slippage represents activists' unhappiness over O'Malley's backing and signing a bill this year to boost incentives for generating electricity by burning trash. Under the measure, "waste-to-energy" plants get top-tier status and lucrative incentives under Maryland's program meant to promote renewable energy developement.  Green groups complained that encouraging more trash burning would pollute the state's air while undermining prospects for developing other renewable energy sources, notably solar and offshore wind projects.

The group also downgraded O'Malley on water quality, reflecting its concern that he has yet to push for an increase in the "flush fee" to finish upgrading the state's largest sewage treatment plants.

The league did give O'Malley top marks for funding land preservation, pushing through climate-change legislation, for drafting the most aggressive Chesapeake Bay cleanup plan of any of the bay-watershed states, and for restricting wild oyster harvests while encouraging watermen to move into aquaculture.

It also credited him with pushing to develop offshore wind energy and for seeking to ban large-scale new development on septic tanks.  Both measures failed to pass this year, though O'Malley hopes to revive them.

Continue reading "O'Malley's green grade slips a little" »

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 10:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
        

A little housekeeping announcement: The hearing this evening in Annapolis on whether to cut back the catch of menhaden in the Chesapeake Bay and elsewhere along the Atlantic coast has been moved to a new location.

The session, scheduled to run from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m., has been moved to Calvary United Methodist Church, 301 Rowe Boulevard. Plans had been to hold it in Department of Natural Resources headquarters, but I'm guessing the prospect of a big crowd prompted officials to seek larger meeting space.

With the Atlantic menhaden stock at a record low level after being overfished 32 of the last 54 years, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission is weighing whether to clamp down. A decision may be made in November. The commission voted in August to seek public comment on a range of options, from doing nothing to cutting the catch by up to 45 percent.

Unless you're a fisherman, menhaden may not be on your radar. They're not on anybody's dinner table, but the oily fish is a prime food for striped bass, or rockfish, which is a favorite among anglers and restaurant patrons alike.  They also serve another vital ecological role in the bay, as filter feeders. 

Its lack of table appeal notwithstanding, the little fish have been heavily harvested over the years to provide feed for farm animals and farmed fish, and their oil's extracted and sold as a heart-healthy food supplement.

Cutting the menhaden catch is opposed by Virginia, home to the last large-scale commercial menhaden fishing fleet on the East Coast. Omega Protein's vessels operate out of Reedville, which almost entirely on the size of its menhaden catch has the second highest commercial fish landings of any port in the United States.

But cutting menhaden catches also could hurt Maryland's commercial fishermen, as it's caught for bait to  catch other fish and especially blue crabs.  The state's watermen aren't happy about the prospect of yet another restriction on their livelihood - ergo the likelihood of a big turnout tonight.

(AP file photo)

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A new poll says 62 percent of Marylanders favor putting huge wind turbines off Ocean City and would be willing to pay as much as $2 per month on their electric bills for it. 

The poll done by Gonzales Research and Marketing Strategies of Arnold was paid for by environmental groups which favor offshore wind development in Maryland. It was released the day before the opening of an offshore wind industry conference in Baltimore, at which Gov. Martin O'Malley is expected to reiterate his support.

With backing from environmentalists, labor and some clean-energy businesses, O'Malley attemped to spur offshore wind development by pushing a bill that would require the state's utilities to sign long-term contracts to buy the electricity generated by turbines placed a dozen miles or so off the coast. But lawmakers tabled the legislation for more study amid questions about how much ratepayers would have to pay.

O'Malley is expected to renew his push for offshore wind in the General Assembly next year. Supporters say the poll shows he has public backing.

"These poll results couldn’t be more clear," said Mike Tidwell, head of Chesapeake Climate Action Network, one of the groups that paid for the poll " Maryland voters want the General Assembly to bring offshore wind power to the state. Marylanders understand that the benefits of offshore wind are more than worth a modest initial investment."

According to the pollsters, 62 percent of those who responded to the survey agreed that they would be willing to pay $2 more a month on their electric bill to have a greater percentage of their power from "clean, local" wind turbines rather than from coal, oil and gas.

The support was statewide, with 55 percent backing it on the Eastern Shore in in Southern Maryland, 62 percent in Baltimore's suburbs, 67 percent in the DC 'burbs and 75 percent in Baltimore city.  Pollsters said paying up to $2 more for wind-generated electricity also won favor from 75 percent of African-Americans surveyed.

UPDATE: A second poll released today, done for the developer of a new offshore wind transmission grid, finds even stronger public support for putting turbines off the coast - especially if it means the new industry would bring jobs to Maryland.

The survey, done by Frederick Poll for the Atlantic Wind Connection, finds 77 percent of those questioned favor developing wind power off the Maryland coast  Sixty-eight percent - including 51 percent of the Republicans surveyed - agreed with the statement that they want elected officials to push offshore wind, even if it initially costs more.  Seventy-four percent want offshore wind transmission built, even if it also costs more.

(Wind turbines off the UK coast, Getty Images)

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 11:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
        

In a boost to efforts to restore the Chesapeake Bay's crab population, Virginia's fisheries regulators have banned wintertime dredging for the crustaceans for the fourth straight year.

The Virginia Marine Resources Commission voted 9 to 0 on Sept. 23 to renew the winter dredging ban, declaring that while the bay's crab stock has rebounded dramatically in the past few years, "more work remains to be done to bring the population back to healthy, sustainable levels."

Prompted by warnings from scientists that the bay's crab population was perilously low, Maryland and Virginia clamped down on commercial crabbing in 2008, attempting to replenish the stock by reducing harvest of female crabs.   Regulators shortened the harvest season and imposed other catch restrictions, including Virginia's ban on its winter dredge fishery, which targets primarily pregnant females. 

A new scientific assessment found that while crab numbers have recovered significantly since the restrictions, they are still below sustainable levels.  The population had been more depleted than previously believed, researchers concluded. 

(Maryland Dept Natural Resources biologists conduct dredge survey of Patuxent River to assess population.  Baltimore Sun photo by Candus Thomson)

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The University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science has a new weapon in the fight to slow the spread of invasive species - a $2.7 million floating laboratory to test methods for purging unwanted marine hitchhikers from the ballast water of oceangoing ships.

The 155-foot converted barge was trotted out Tuesday for a dedication ceremony in the Inner Harbor.  Rep. Elijah E. Cummings, D-Md., was on hand for the event.  He called the more than 150 invasive species reported to date in the Chesapeake Bay a "significant threat" to native fish and plants.

The barge, part of the university's Maritime Environmental Research Center, is one of three such facilities around the country that can test the effectiveness of ballast treatments, such as ultraviolet light, chlorine and oxygen removers.  It can be towed from port to port to conduct testing in different seasons and water conditions.

(Photo courtesy University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science)

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 8:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Chesapeake Bay, News
        

Just when it seemed storm-spawned sewer overflows were done, another one happened over the weekend.

Baltimore County's Department of Public Works reported more than 500,000 gallons of untreated sewage spilled out Saturday morning near the Patapsco pumping station in Baltimore Highlands. The overflow occurred on a 40-foot stretch of force main that had recently been replaced because it ruptured during or right after Hurricane Irene blew through the area.

A leak was detected last Wednesday in the replacement 54-inch diameter pipe, which had been put in on September 1. Utility crews excavated the pipe and discovered a joint failure. Sewage overflowed while repairs were under way to fix the joint.

Health officials have extended the water-contact warning they issued after the original overflow, cautioning against swimming, wading or touching the Patapsco downriver of the spill. County officials estimated 85 million gallons of diluted but raw sewage spilled into the Patapsco during the original pipe rupture, which took nearly a week to fix. Another 13.6 million gallons spilled into the river when power went out.

The public beach in the Hammerman area of Gunpowder State Park remains closed to recreation because of Irene-related spills, and water-contact warnings are still in effect on nine other county waterways. 

In all,  Baltimore County reported more than 100 million gallons of diluted but raw sewage overflowed into Baltimore area rivers and streams during and after the storm, according to data logged by the Maryland Department of the Environment.    Many localities reported overflows, though none as large.  Second highest was Prince George's County, which reported about 20 million gallons overflowed in all.

(Worker walks by broken sewer pipe off Annapolis Road near Patapsco River, Sept. 2. Baltimore Sun Photo by Kenneth K. Lam)

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 10:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)
        

Saturday (Sept. 17) brings the 26th annual International Coastal Cleanup, a worldwide event organized by the Ocean Conservancy, when volunteers haul trash and debris from streams and beaches.

Maryland has its share of pickups planned, and there'll be no shortage of debris this time, what with the winds and flooding we've had the past few weeks. The state's shoreline could use a good housecleaning. 

Fort Smallwood Park in Pasadena and Stony Run in Baltimore are among the local cleanups on tap. To find a site near you and sign up, go here.

(Volunteer picks up trash on shore at Middle Branch Park. 2010 Baltimore Sun photo by Kim Hairston)

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Battered by Hurricane Irene, one of two small “floating wetlands” placed in the Inner Harbor a year ago to soak up pollution is being retired – to be replaced before long, supporters hope, by an even larger, though sturdier manmade island.

Laurie Schwartz, executive director of the Waterfront Partnership, a nonprofit promoting the Inner Harbor, said the dozen rectangular trays of marsh grass and flowers tied up by Baltimore’s World Trade Center are to be removed today (Friday, Sept. 16). They were showing wear and tear, she said, after a year of exposure to the elements – particularly the hurricane’s howling winds nearly three weeks ago.

“They stayed somewhat intact,’’ she said during the storm, but inspection afterward found the nylon ropes tethering them in place were frayed and some of the frames pulling apart.

The installation of the wetlands – seen in August 2010 photo above - was a largely symbolic first step in an ambitious campaign by the partnership to make Baltimore’s degraded harbor swimmable and fishable by the end of the decade.

Assembled by volunteers with the Living Classrooms Foundation, the wetlands were made out of wood, mesh and cast-off plastic drink bottles fished out of the harbor. The partnership and other sponsors of the project wanted to test whether the 200-square-foot array would remove any pollution and infuse the water with more oxygen for fish and crabs to breathe. They also hoped it would provide some food and shelter for fish and other aquatic creatures in a harbor that had lost all its natural marshland as the city developed over the centuries. 

Chris Streb, an engineer with Biohabitats, a local ecological restoration firm that’s helped with the project, said he believed the wetlands “worked great” and were never meant to be permanent.   

Continue reading "Storm "retires" floating harbor wetland" »

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 8:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)
Categories: Chesapeake Bay, News, Urban Issues
        

The deluge that's fouled the Chesapeake Bay with mud, debris and pollution could pose a severe test for the efficacy of state and federal efforts to restore the ailing estuary.

As I reported in The Baltimore Sun, scientists are warning that the floodwaters that poured through Conowingo Dam's spillgates last week during Tropical Storm Lee may devastate underwater grasses and oyster reefs, both of which help filter the water and provide important habitat for fish and crabs.

Their fears are based on history: the bay's grasses largely vanished, and its health plummeted, after another tropical storm, Agnes, produced record flooding in 1972. (Bill Dennison of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science argues that Agnes alone didn't push the bay into a downward spiral, that its impact was magnified by a series of unusually wet years that followed.) 

Continue reading "Storm that fouled Bay tests restoration efforts" »

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 10:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: Chesapeake Bay
        

Maryland's Department of Natural Resources announced today it's moving to suspend the fishing privileges of 60 recreational anglers for fishing and crabbing violations.

Among the infractions alleged: taking fish during closed seasons, taking fish during spawning seasons, taking fish in closed areas, exceeding daily catch limits and possession of female crabs. Violators can be suspended from one month to a full year, but the accused have a right to request a hearing before an administrative law judge.

DNR Secretary John R. Griffin called the violations a breech of the public's trust and said he hoped the suspensions serve as a warning to would-be violators.

The crackdown on sports anglers comes after DNR got lawmakers to approve stiffer penalties and suspensions for recreational fishing violations as well as commercial infractions.

(Undersized rockfish caught - and thrown back, 2005 Baltimore Sun photo)

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 9:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

The Susquehanna River flooding has subsided since Friday, but the raging waters washed tons of mud and debris into the Chesapeake Bay.

Pictured here is a stretch of shoreline on the Magothy River in northern Anne Arundel County. The debris washes up on shore, much of it. But the mud settles on the bottom as it drifts down.

Here's a link to a satellite image of the bay, where you can see the Susquehanna quite clearly and the caramel-colored plume its created in the upper bay. (It's a huge image, so scroll right and down to find the river and the bay.) 

(Photo: Magothy River, by Amelia Koch, Chesapeake Bay Foundation)

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 6:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: Chesapeake Bay
        

Hurricane Irene may have paradoxically breathed a little life back into the Chesapeake Bay, but the deluge that's caused flash flooding around Baltimore and forced evacuations along the Susquehanna River could well snuff out whatever spark of vitality the earlier storm brought to the ailing estuary.

That's the prediction of a pair of scientists I canvassed, who'd previously suggested that there was a silver lining to the havoc wrought on Maryland two weeks ago by Hurricane Irene. That storm's winds, which toppled trees and power lines across the state, roiled the bay's water and broke up its massive dead zone, they said, giving fish, crabs and shellfish a fresh infusion of life-sustaining dissolved oxygen at the end of what has been an extremely trying summer. 

But the five-day downpour brought to us this week from the Gulf of Mexico by the remnants of Tropical Storm Lee is nothing but bad news for the bay, the experts say.

The Susquehanna, source of half of all the fresh water entering the bay, is rising to a level not seen since Tropical Storm Agnes in 1972, with projections that it will be pouring over the Conowingo Dam at more than 600,000 cubic feet per second when the flood peaks early Saturday morning. (UPDATE: The rising river may be cresting a day earlier and somewhat lower than previously predicted, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, but its flow was still projected to peak today at 777,000 cubic feet per second.)

That's well short of the 1.1 million cfs that raged over the dam during Agnes, wiping out grass beds and smothering oysters and clams down the bay.  (UPDATE 09-12: Flow peaked Friday Sept. 9 at 778,000 cubic feet per second, third highest recorded, according to US Geological Survey data. The second heaviest flow reached 909,000 cfs in January 1996.)But it'll be more than enough flow to scour out the nutrient-laden sediment that's piled up behind the dam for the past four decades, according to Bruce Michael, director of resource assessment for the Maryland Department of Natural Resources.

"Scouring of sediments/nutrients trapped behind the Conowingo Dam occurs when river flows exceed 390,000 to 400,000 cfs," Michael emailed me, "so this event will result in a significant amount of sediments and nutrients being transported from behind the dam and deposited in the upper Bay."

Continue reading "Noah's Bay - flooding adds to Chesapeake's woes" »

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 9:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
        

Baltimore's "trash mill" is gone - for good, or ill?

The distinctive floating litter collector has been towed from the Harris Creek storm-drain outfall in Canton, where it has kept tons of refuse out of the Inner Harbor - when it wasn't broken.

Celeste Amato, spokeswoman for the city's Department of Public Works, said it was broken and was taken away to be checked over by a consultant, who'll see what it needs to be fixed. Amato wrote in an email that "it cannot be repaired in place and was removed pending a decision on how to move forward."

Its removal upset John Kellett, who built the device evoking one of the historic water mills that once lined Baltimore's streams. Like those mills, it used a waterwheel to turn a conveyor belt, which lifted floating trash into a dumpster at the back of the shed housing the device.  Solar and wind power or water currents were supposed to turn the wheel.

But the innovative facility, which cost the city $375,000, has had a troubled three-year life. It was originally placed where the Jones Falls empties into the Inner Harbor, then moved to Canton after being deemed not large enough to handle all the debris that pours out of the falls after a storm. At the Harris Creek outfall, it captured upwards of five tons of plastic, paper and foam cups, plates, boxes and bottles every month. Its novel design and appearance also earned it support from residents who wanted to see the harbor and their neighborhoods free of unsightly and unsanitary litter. 

Continue reading "Trash mill trashed?" »

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 11:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)
        

Hundreds of scientists, activists and government officials from around the world have gathered in Baltimore's Inner Harbor to compare notes on cleaning up the planet's troubled coastal waters.

From the Cheapeake Bay to the Seto Inland Sea in Japan, near-shore waters suffer similar insults - too many nutrients from sewage, fertilizer and air pollution, overfishing and habitat degradation.

What's quickly apparent from sitting in for a short while this morning on the four-day global summit is that progress in the uphill battle of restoring stressed and degraded ecosystems depends on one's perspective.

This 9th international conference on Environmental Management for Enclosed Coastal Seas (EMECS) has drawn a sizable contingent from Japan, and several speakers have touched on the devastation wrought earlier this year by the massive earthquake and tsunami that struck the island nation's northeastern coast.

Many conference participants got an up-close look at a much less disruptive natural calamity oer the weekend because they arrived in Baltimore just before Hurricane Irene reached here. Indeed, several sessions planned Sunday morning were postponed in anticipation of the storm.

The Inner Harbor got off light this time, compared with the flooding brought by Tropical Storm Isabel in 2003.  Indeed, at the conclusion of a talk outlining the challenges of managing coastal seas, Dr. Motoyuki Suzuki, chairman of Japan's Central Environmental Council, flashed up before-and-after photos of the Inner Harbor taken from the Baltimore Marriott Waterfront Hotel, where the summit is meeting. The images showed that the storm had not harmed any of the structures along the waterfront, prompting the speaker to say, "Beautiful!"

But the photo taken after the storm had passed showed a swath of caramel-colored water streaming out from Pier 6 by the concert pavilion - where the Jones Falls empties into the harbor.  Evidently the storm washed signfiicant amounts of dirt, harmful bacteria and probably other pollutants down storm drains into the falls and ultimately the Inner Harbor.

It's storm-water runoff like that - every time it rains, even lightly - that's one of the biggest hurdles to making the harbor fit for human contact.  Not the harm wrought by a a tsunami or a truly destructive hurricane, to be sure, but beneath the surface not exactly beautiful, either.

The conference, hosted by the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science and the Maryland Department of the Environment, meets here through Wednesday.

(2006 Baltimore Sun photo by Robert Hamilton)

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 2:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
        

Buoyed by the success of its inaugural class, the Chesapeake Conservation Corps is growing.

The environmental career and leadership training program created last year by the General Assembly has selected 21 young adults for its second class - up from 16 last year, the Chesapeake Bay Trust announced today.

The trust oversees the program, under which volunteers work on a variety of environnmental initiaitives, including energy-efficiency campaigns, tree planting, stream cleanup and job training. Volunteers are assigned to nonprofit groups and government agencies.

"In today's challenging economic times, it is important that we invest in our young people and provide them with the skills and training necessary for jobs that create a smarter, greener future for Maryland," Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller, the corps' chief legislative sponsor, said in a statement. The program is underwritten by the state and the Bay Trust, with additional support from Constellation Energy.

Four of last year's initial class of 16 corps members, pictured above, wound up being hired by the groups they worked with over the past year - which organizers see as a sign of the program's strength. Of this year's group, four will work in Baltimore city, five in Anne Arundel County and one in Howard County.

Applications were solicited from young people ages 18 to 25. Corps members receive a stipend and have the opportunity to gain environmental careeer certificates from Maryland's community colleges. For more info, go here.

(2010 Baltimore Sun photo by Amy Davis)

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 1:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
        

The O'Malley administration has decided to give unhappy local officials more time to review the state's "smart growth" plan after tweaking it in response to criticism.

The state Department of Planning announced it's releasing a revised draft of "PlanMaryland" on Sept. 7, then providing an additional 60 days for public comment on the changes.

Since a draft was released in April, the first-ever state growth plan has drawn fire from local officials who've complained the state is trying to usurp their traditional prerogative to decide where development is to go in their communities.

O'Malley administration officials say the plan is meant to strengthen to-date ineffective efforts to curb suburban sprawl and conserve forests and farmland. A statewide growth plan was called for under a 1974 land use law, but never drafted until now.

State officials say the plan is only meant to improve coordination between state and local governments on growth, and that local officials would still be free allow development anywhere in their communities.  State funding for roads, schools and other infrastructure would be limited to growth areas designated in the plan, however. Local politicians have complained that is tantamount to dictating to them, and that they shouldn't be forced to comply with a "one-size-fits-all" definition of what constitutes smart growth.

"Achieving complete agreement on the process may be difficult, but there seems to be broad accord on the objectives of PlanMaryland," state Planning Secretary Richard E. Hall said in a statement. 

Comments will be taken through Nov. 7. To review the current draft of the plan, go to Plan.Maryland.gov.

(2006 Baltimore Sun file photo of development in Howard County)

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 8:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)
        

Globe-trotting TV naturalist Jeff Corwin, who's trekked rainforests and deserts in search of exotic wildlife, is turning his attention to the Chesapeake Bay.

Corwin, the Emmy-winning Animal Planet star, kayaked Monday on New York's Lake Otsego, headwaters of the Susquehanna River, as part of a multimedia educational and entertainment initiative known as Expedition Chesapeake.  It's the first of a series of paddles he's expected to make all the way from the river's beginning in Cooperstown NY to Havre de Grace, where it meets the bay.

"This is going to be an incredible journey and it starts right here, in Cooperstown and on this beautiful lake," Corwin said in a prepared statement. "The Chesapeake Bay watershed is home to a staggering 17 million people and we want to educate and inspire those citizens to better understand and appreciate this incredible treasure."

Launched by the Whitaker Center, a science and arts museum in Harrisburg, Pa., Expedition Chesapeake plans to spread the word about the nation's largest estuary by producing an IMAX film, a made-for-TV documentary series, a traveling science exhibit and a set of "online learning experiences" designed to engage students throughout the 64,000-square-mile watershed that's spread across six states, including nearly all of Maryland.

The outreach effort couldn't come at a better time, as federally directed efforts to restore the bay's water quality are running into resistance, particularly in upstream states like Pennsylvania and New York, where officials and their constituents are questioning why they should shoulder any additional burden for the cleanup of an estuary far from them. 

(Jeff Corwin wearing a black-headed python at the opening of the National Aquarium's Australia exhibit. 2005  Baltimore Sun file photo by John Makely)

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

Back in June, Tim reported on the frustrations of budding aquaculture entrepreneurs about the bloated approval process. He mentioned the state review process would soon be consolidated under DNR. On Monday, Maryland announced that watermen can now file a single, joint state-federal application with the Maryland Department of Natural Resources. Read more here.

Posted by Kim Walker at 11:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Chesapeake Bay
        

Tim's still on vacation, but here's a little update to keep you going until he comes back:

Baltimore's National Aquarium said it released three endangered Ridley Sea Turtles into the Chesapeake Bay on Friday. The stranded turtles, Oceana, Prancer and Vixen, were among 12 rescued this winter from Cape Cod, Mass., and brought to Baltimore to be treated for hypothermia, also known as "cold stunning," the aquarium said in a news release.

On Friday, they were released at Point Lookout State Park in Scotland, Md., into the bay where they can feed on jellies and invertebrates, the aquarium said. One turtle, Oceana (pictured), was outfitted with a satellite transmitter, and you can follow Oceana's movements at http://www.aqua.org/trackoceana.html.

Photo courtesy of the National Aquarium

Posted by Kim Walker at 4:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Chesapeake Bay
        

With Congress home recovering from last week's debt-ceiling donnybrook, Rep. John Sarbanes says he's expecting a bruising fight over federal environmental programs in the fall when lawmakers return to Washington. If the GOP succeeds, he warns, it could undermine the progress recently made toward restoring the Chesapeake Bay.

Speaking this week in his Towson district office, the Baltimore area Democrat said the Republican majority in the House has embarked on a "systematic assault on the environment" by moving to cut funding for the Environmental Protection Agency and other programs, such as national parks and wildlife refuges.

"As this larger debate about cutting our debt and deficit is happening, they are sort of piling on behind that as much as they can," Sarbanes said, with measures aimed at blocking new regulations or even rolling back existing environmental protections. Given the public's understandable fixation now with jobs and the economy, he said that "it's going to be very very difficult" to hold the line.

Republicans - with some Democratic allies - attempted earlier this year to block EPA from spending any funds in the current budget on a variety of controversial regulatory activities, including curbing climate-warming greenhouse gases and enforcing the agency's "pollution diet" for the Chesapeake. Though the House approved the spending curbs, the Senate refused to go along.

Now GOP members are making another run at EPA, proposing to reduce its funding significantly in the next year while also tacking a bevy of "riders" on the appropriations bill that would prohibit the agency from doing anything on climate, mountaintop coal mining and other moves by the agency that are opposed by various industries.

Rep. Bob Goodlatte, a Virginia Republican, is pushing proposals to block EPA's Chesapeake cleanup plan, which set a "total maximum daily load" of pollution for the bay and requires Maryland and the other five states in the watershed to reduce nutrients and sediment to meet that cap. Officials in Virginia and New York have complained about the costs of complying, while other states have resisted EPA's pressure on them to mandate reductions from farmers and local communities. Farm and development groups have sued to block EPA's plan.

GOP members and some Democrats contend that EPA has overstepped its authority and is pushing costly regulations that could hurt industry and kill jobs.  EPA and its supporters, though, argue that the rules are mandated by law or court settlements and are meant to enhance the public's protection from air and water pollution.

Continue reading "Sarbanes: GOP tide threatens Bay cleanup" »

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 8:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson defended Friday her agency’s plan for reducing pollution in the Chesapeake Bay and said it remains a priority of the Obama administration despite shrinking budgets and pushback from affected industries and states.

Meeting with reporters before addressing a national ecosystem restoration conference in Baltimore, Jackson said her staff has been talking with New York officials who’ve been questioning the costs and science behind wastewater treatment upgrades they’re being required to make. They’ve been threatening to sue to challenge EPA’s bay pollution “diet,” as farm and development groups already have.

Jackson said her agency is trying to work with New York officials, and she noted that all six bay watershed states appear on track to meet their short-term cleanup goals for the end of this year. But she warned against letting up on the restoration effort just because money is tight.

“You know, the truth is It takes resources and time and effort and will to continually work hard on reducing pollution into the bay,” she said. Reductions have to be made from farmland and from urban and suburban lands as well, she said, “and it’s going to take continued effort.

“What we have to do is rely on the best science and be fair,” she concluded, “and not put in place a process that might make everyone happy, but that we know will result in us not meeting our goals.”

Jackson said the Obama administration will push for continued high levels of federal funding for the bay restoration effort, but she acknowledged that her agency and others face pressure from Congress to reduce their budgets. House members are attempting as well to block the agency from spending funds to enforce various regulations, including its Chesapeake cleanup plan.

She said if resources shrink too much, government may be forced to pick and choose which watersheds it works to clean up, though she stressed that the Chesapeake would remain a priority no matter what.  EPA and the bay states have vowed to put enough pollution controls in place by 2025 to restore the bay's water quality.

“The call for a clean Chesapeake doesn’t come from Lisa Jackson or from the EPA,” she said. “it comes from the people who love it and who are angry that it’s taken so long and that they’ve waited so long and haven’t seen progress” in cleaning it up.

To those industry and other critics who contend EPA is killing jobs by pushing costly regulations, she countered, “These are regulations designed to do some really important things like keep our air and water clean and provide certainty,” she said. “It’s unrealistic we should ask the American people to pay the price of pollution to get jobs.”

(EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson meets with Baltimore youths at Middle Branch Park during announcement of federal "urban waters" initiative in June.  Baltimore Sun photo by Joe Soriero)

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 4:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
        

Energy industry representatives and skeptics sparred Thursday over taxing natural gas drilling in western Maryland and the state's plan to take up to three years to study the environmental impacts of the hydraulic fracturing drilling technique, the Associated Press reports.

At the first meeting of an advisory committee Gov. Martin O'Malley appointed to study the risks and benefits of "fracking" for gas in Marcellus shale in Garrett and Allegany counties, Drew Cobbs, executive director of the Maryland Petroleum Council, pressed to expedite the study and adoption of any new regulations to cover drilling.

The panel met at Rocky Gap State Park. Cobbs said the industry would consider funding an environmental baseline study in return for an accelerated timeline, according to the AP.

Del. Heather Mizeur, D-Montgomery, who failed this year to get the General Assembly to restrict Marcellus drilling, proposed an extraction tax of up to 10 percent.  Industry representatives warned would discourage potentially lucrative drilling in western Maryland.

To read more go here.

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 7:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

After years of debate, East Coast states may finally be moving to curb the commercial harvest of menhaden, a silvery little fish that helps filter the Chesapeake Bay's waters - and whose population scientists say has been overfished most of the last 50 years.

My colleague Candus Thomson, the Sun's outdoors writer, reports in her blog Outdoors Girl that the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission voted overwhelmingly last night to ask for public comment on a range of options for managing the vital menhaden stock - from making no changes in current harvest cap to reducing the catch by 45 percent from 2010 levels.

Though not a popular table fish, the small oily menhaden is a primary food for striped bass and other fish. It is prized commercially for its oil. A company called Omega Protein Corp. targets the fish in the Virginia portion of the bay, where they are ground up at a plant in Reedville, Va., and used to make diet supplements, pet food and cosmetics. They're also used as bait for blue crabs and lobsters.

Menhaden have been overfished in 32 of the last 54 years, according to biologists, and the stock is at its lowest point in recorded history. Some worry that decline could be having ripple effects on other fish like striped bass, or rockfish, that feed on them. 

The vote among Atlantic states fisheries commissioners last night on whether to consider curtailing the menhaden catch was 15 to 1, with Virginia's representative the lone dissenter, Thomson reports.

(School of menhaden in Virginia waters, 2004. AP photo)

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

The oxygen-starved 'dead zone' in the Chesapeake Bay, which covered a record third of Maryland's portion of the estuary in June, has grown still more, according to state scientists.

Samples taken by the state Department of Natural Resources in early June found that 33 percent of Maryland's bay waters had little or no dissolved oxygen, which crabs, fish and oysters need to breathe. That's the most recorded for that time in the summer since regular measurements began in 1985, DNR says.

The dead zone shrank slightly over the next several weeks, but samples taken in late July found poor oxygen levels in 39 percent of the state's bay waters - another record, according to DNR.

Scientists had predicted worse-than-average oxygen levels in bay waters this summer, based on high spring flows of fresh water into the bay. The US Geological Survey reported that fresh-water flows from the Susquehanna River by late spring had already matched what pours from the bay's largest tributary in an average year.

The extra-heavy flow flushed more nutrients into the bay from farms, sewage plants and urban and suburban land, fueling massive algae "blooms" that suck the oxygen out of the water when they die and decay. Low oxygen levels stress and can even suffocate fish and shellfish.

For more on the dead zone and other bay conditions, check DNR's Eyes on the Bay.  And listen here to a report on the dead zone by WYPR's Joel McCord.

(Algae bloom on Middle River near Essex. 2008 Baltimore Sun photo by Glenn Fawcett)

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 9:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)
        

The University of Maryland announced today it's launching a new environmental research center that will bring together economists, ecologists, engineers and other disciplines to tackle complex environmental issues like water availability, sustainable food production and large-scale restoration of degraded ecosystems like the Chesapeake Bay.

The National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center, known as SeSynC, is underwritten by a $27.5 million, five-year grant from the National Science Foundation, the largest NSF award ever for the university.

Environmental experts are increasingly recognizing that science alone isn't enough to deal with knotty issues like climate change, ocean degradation and the like.  The center's leadership says its research will draw on social as well as natural science to seek solutions. And they vow to produce what they termed "actionable science," engaging the public as well as scientists.

"The enormity of today's environmental problems requires a new approach to how we conduct research," said Margaret Palmer, a University of Maryland entomologist and environmental scientist who will serve as the executive director of the new center.

To be located in Annapolis, the center will draw additional support from the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, which has three laboratories around the state, and from Resources for the Future, a Washington policy think tank.

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 12:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
        

Some environmental groups are panning the debt reduction deal struck by Democratic and Republican leaders in Washington.

Friends of the Earth called for members of Congress to reject the plan to cut nearly $1 trillion in federal spending now, with another $1.5 trillion in debt reduction to be worked out later. Friends President Erich Pica contended that if only cuts were made, they would undermine enforcement of environmental laws, among other federal functions.

"It is likely to mean more people drinking poisoned water and breathing polluted air, and a slower transition to a clean energy economy," Pica said.

The Wilderness Society also warned that the deal would slash spending on conservation and environmental programs.

Others said environmental spending doesn't seem to take a major hit right away in the deal, but could in the second round of debt reductions.

Gov. Martin O'Malley, for instance, said he worried that environmental protections would suffer without a more "balanced" approach of raising revenues as well as cutting spending.

Speaking to reporters after addressing a national environmental conference in downtown Baltimore, O'Malley said of the deal: "It could undermine the progress that we are working towards not only in the jobs recovery but also in the restoration of the Chesapeake Bay.

"Cuts sound great," he added. "Members of Congress, some of them like to pound their chests, look into the camera and say ‘cuts, cuts, cuts,’ But there are certain things that we can only do together, and protecting the environment, protecting our nation’s borders, protecting our homeland security, these are things we have a federal government to accomplish."

(Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. speaks to press in Capitol. AFP/Getty photo

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 6:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)
        

How would you like to spend a chunk of your summer bicycling around the Chesapeake Bay watershed, covering 1,300 miles in about three weeks? Sound like fun, or a hot, exhausting grind? Maybe a bit of both at times.

Thats what a pair of Chesapeake Bay Foundation employees are doing. Beth McGee and John Rodenhausen set out Saturday from just north Annapolis, pedaling through Baltimore on their first day (Story in Baltimore Sun on Sunday).

They're headed north to Cooperstown, N.Y., where the Susquehanna River begins as little more than a trickle. Then they'll head southwest back through Pennsylvania, passing through Williamsport MD on their way into West Virginia. They'll angle southeast from Charlottesville to Richmond and on to Hampton Roads, then across the mouth of the bay and up the Eastern Shore, crossing over into Delaware briefly before returning to Annapolis.

McGee, a senior scientist with CBF, and Rodenhausen, who runs CBF's educational program for adults, are making the ride to raise money and awareness for the Annapolis-based environmental group. They're also doing it for charities with which they have a personal connection - the Johns Hopkins pediatric oncology unit and the American Diabetes Association. Bambeco, a Baltimore-based retailer of "green" home decor, has pledged to donate a portion of its sales and otherwise support the ride.

The two are keeping a blog of their travels. From the entries so far, seems they're off to a good, if steamy, start. To follow along, go here.

(Beth McGee and John Rodenhausen pause in Baltimore on their ride around the bay. Baltimore Sun photo by Colby Ware)

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 5:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

An Anne Arundel County judge has ruled an environmental group may view records on farmers’ compliance with a state pollution law, but only after key information has been deleted.

Circuit Court Judge William C. Mulford II ordered the Maryland Department of Agriculture to redact any information identifying individual farmers from documents it is releasing concerning “nutrient management plans,” which spell out how much animal manure or chemical fertilizer is being spread on fields to grow crops.

The Assateague Coastkeeper had filed a Public Information Act request last year seeking a variety of records on Worcester County farms, including their compliance with a 1997 law requiring them to have and follow plans for limiting how much fertilizer they use so it won’t pollute the Chesapeake Bay.

The Maryland Farm Bureau went to court to block the state from releasing the information, which it argued was confidential under the law. In a July 14 order, Judge Mulford declared that the state may disclose if farmers are complying, but must redact any information that might be in the plan, including the farm’s size and what it grows.

Jane Barrett, director of the University of Maryland environmental law clinic, which represents the Worcester group, said she was still studying the order and had not decided whether to appeal.

Posted by Kim Walker at 6:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Chesapeake Bay
        

Poultry industry groups are rejecting criticism in a new report that says modern chicken production practices are degrading the Chesapeake Bay and other waters around the country.

The National Chicken Council and U.S. Poultry & Egg Association released a statement saying the criticism of the industry in the Pew Environment Group's report, "Big Chicken," is "terribly misplaced" and reflects the group's bias against the poultry industry.

The Delmarva Poultry Industries Inc. issued a statement saying the report "contains little new information and shows that Pew is not aware of the many positive steps taken by Delmarva’s chicken community in the last decade or longer."

The Delmarva poultry industry's share of bay pollution is a fraction of what the report says, according to the DPI statement.  It cites a Maryland report saying chicken manure is responsible for just 6 percent of the nitrogen getting into state waters and contends, based on another report, that urban and suburban runoff are bigger sources of the nutrients causing the bay's dead zone.

To see the statements in full, go here and here.

Meanwhile, on a related front, an industry consultant has reiterated its attack on the Environmental Protection Agency's computer analysis used to impose a baywide "pollution diet" requiring reductions in nutrient and sediment releases to water from farms and other lands within the six-state watershed.

Limno Tech, in a report commissioned by the Agricultural Nutrient Policy Council, says there are big  differences between how computer models used by EPA and the U.S. Department of Agriculture assess land use and the number and effectiveness of conservation practices adopted by farmers.

The American Farm Bureau Federation, which filed a suit joined by other ag groups to overturn EPA's bay pollution diet, publicized the consultant's critique.  Federation President Bob Stallman said, “It is clear to us that the EPA’s TMDL water regulations are based on flawed information.” 

To see the report, go here.

The Chesapeake Bay Foundation issued its own statement countering that "technical differences" between the two government cmputer models were being used to fight needed cleanup of the bay.  "While agriculture has made some progress reducing polluted runoff, it is still falling short of the mark, and conservation efforts need to increase substantially," said CBF senior scientist Beth McGee, if the states and federal government are to meet their latest 2025 deadline for doing everything that's needed to restore the bay's water quality.

(2007 Baltimore Sun photo by Doug Kapustin)

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 10:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

A new report says the industrialization of poultry farming over the last several decades is a major source of pollution fouling the Chesapeake Bay and other waterways around the country.

"Big Chicken," released Wednesday by the Pew Environment Group highlights how poultry production has increased and become more concentrated, taking an environmental toll.  And despite heavy government subsidies to farmers to reduce runoff of animal manure from their fields, the report argues tighter limits are needed - including a cap on the density of birds being raised in places like the Delmarva Peninsula.

Nationwide, the number of broiler chickens raised annually has soared 1,400 percent in less than 60 years, the report says, while the number of farms raising birds has dropped by 98 percent in the same time. The growth in production is driven by rising consumer demand for what the group says has become the most popular meat in the United States. The average American today eats 84 pounds of chicken a year, the report notes, more than twice what each consumed in 1970.

But the increase - and increased density of growing operations - has had environmental impacts. Farms raising 605,000 birds a year - twice what they did 25 years ago - are producing millions of tons of manure, which overwhelm the ability of limited local croplands to absorb all the fertilizer, the report's authors say. Growers in Maryland and Delaware alone, they note, produce enough waste to fill the U.S. Capitol dome nearly once a week.

"Industrial production means industrial levels of pollution," says Karen Steuer, Pew's director of government relations.

Continue reading "Report tallies "Big Chicken" toll on Bay" »

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 12:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)
        

Who says stream cleanups can only be done in spring and fall? The Jones Falls is due for a little tidying Saturday (July 16), organized by Baltimore Youth Environmental Response and the city's Office of Sustainability.

Volunteers are to meet at 1 p.m. at 1813 Falls Road, just outside Baltimore Bicycle Works. Bags, gloves and refreshments will be provided. And around 2:30 p.m., they'll wrap the cleanup to discuss future goals and activities for the youth-led environmental group. You can RSVP and learn more about RSVP on Facebook.

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 8:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

Hundreds of people flocked to the Maryland Department of the Environment yesterday, but not for the usual reasons.

Instead of applying for permits or responding to pollution violation notices, they were there for a more upbeat reason - to promote and learn about new ways to control pollution washing off city and suburban streets and parking lots.

More than 360 people registered for the department's first-ever "Clean Water Innovations Trade Show." Three dozen exhibitors were on hand to tout everything from green roofs and floating wetlands to the latest in storm-drain retrofits.

State Environment Secretary Robert M. Summers said the expo grew out of a forum on sustainability held by Gov. Martin O'Malley earlier this year. The state is applying new storm-water pollution control regulations on all new construction and redevelopment, and is beginning to require better controls in existing communities as well.

Summers asserted in remarks to the assembled vendors, local officials and others that the state is a leader in sustainable growth, in less-polluting development techniques and the green economy. But he also acknowledged "a lot of challenges going forward," including regulatory and technical hurdles.

The latter point was seconded by Erik Dalski of Highview Creations, which has installed green roofs in New York and Boston and is branching into Maryland and the Washington area now. One of the company's more interesting projects in these parts is a green roof planned for a new barn near Annapolis.

Dalski said there seems to be "a lot of red tape" here governing green infrastructure, and local officials he's met with still seem hesitant to try new things like green roofs.

Summers suggested such red-tape complaints ought to ease under a recent initiative announced by O'Malley to streamline regulations and "fast-track" permitting.

(Barry Chenkin, founder of Aquabarrel, discusses his products at Clean Water Innovations Trade Show at MDE headquarters. Photo by Jay Apperson, MDE's Office of Communications)

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 11:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
        

While the news out of Washington is dominated by the political stalemate over the debt limit, the Republican-led House has been busy trying to limit federal environmental regulations.

The House voted 239 to 184 Wednesday to bar the Environmental Protection Agency from imposing water-quality standards over a state's objections. The measure also would prohibit the federal agency from objecting to pollution discharge permits issued by a state.

The "Clean Water Cooperative Federalism Act" was prompted by backlash to EPA imposing nutrient-pollution standards in Florida and limiting mountaintop coal mining in Appalachia, but it drew support from others chafing over federal mandates.

Maryland's two Republican House members, Reps. Roscoe Bartlett and Andy Harris, voted with the majority. The state's five Democrats opposed it, and Rep. John Sarbanes warned that if the House-passed bill became law, it could undermine prospects for cleaning up the Chesapeake Bay.

According to a Sarbanes aide, the bill would take away EPA's ability to object if a state sets water-quality standards that federal regulators do not believe are protective enough of human health or fish and other aquatic life. So if one of the six states in the Bay watershed set a water-quality standard that EPA feared would undermine the "pollution diet" it recently set for restoring the Bay, the agency would be powerless to force the state to revise it.

Likewise, stripping EPA of permit oversight would take away the federal government's leverage to see that states don't sacrifice clean water for favored industries, the aide said. EPA has on several occasions objected to what it believed were lax permits approved by Bay region states, and the agency has said it would use that permit override power if states didn't stick to the bay diet, bureaucratically known as a "total maximum daily load."

The bill stands little chance of passing the Democrat-controlled Senate, and EPA officials have indicated they'd advise the President to veto it if it did get through.

Continue reading "GOP-run House targeting environmental rules" »

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 10:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
        

When we talk about old-growth and virgin forests, we often think of the massive redwoods and sequoias out West. The eastern United States was heavily logged in the 19th and early 20th centuries, so that the trees we see in this part of the country today are relative youngsters - decades rather than centuries old.

But not everywhere. Remnants remain of the forests that practically blanketed the East when European settlers arrived. Some are on steep slopes, in deep ravines or other remote, hard-to-reach places. Others are relatively easy to get to.

One's right here in Maryland - about 40 majestic acres of largely untouched eastern hemlocks and white pines at Swallow Falls State Park, near Oakland in Garrett County.

Joan Maloof, a biology professor at Salisbury University, has made a career of studying trees and forests. She's passionate about old growth and is working now to develop a network for protecting them. She's written a first-person guide to some of these overlooked pockets of biodiversity and wonder.

Among the Ancients, Adventures in the Eastern Old-Growth Forests takes the reader to one stand in each state east of the Mississippi River. Maloof recounts their history and the people who've fought to preserve them, and she details their current condition. Some are pristine, others threatened and abused. Maloof reflects in her chapters on the values of forests.

"Imagine an organism that can live three times longer than the longest-lived human," she concludes in her chapter on Swallow Falls. "We need to recognize that in trees, and honor it."

She gets personal as well, describing how the old woods touch her and shape her own outlook on life. Her visit to Cook Forest State Park in southwest Pennsylvania, for instance, makes her imagine she's one of the seven dwarves in the cartoon classic "Snow White."

She writes: "...the chipmunks were scampering along beside me, the birds were chirping and hopping on the trail in front of me, and patches of moss were glowing green from teh slender beams of light that made their way through the canopy far overhead. I felt almost as if I had been drugged. I was so filled with joy I had a cheek-splitting grin on my face."

If you'd like to meet the author, Maloof will give a reading at the Barnes & Noble at 1819 Reisterstown Road in Pikesville on Wednesday (July 13) at 7 pm.  To hear her now, tune in here to listen to an interview public radio's Marc Steiner did with her recently.  And you can read more of Joan Maloof's insights and observations on her blog here.

(Cover photograph courtesy Ruka Press)

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 9:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
        

The task force Gov. Martin O'Malley set up to study the septic system curbs he couldn't get through the General Assembly this year held its first meeting in Annapolis today, and it quickly became clear that even another five months may not be enough time to sort out this controversial issue.

There were no fireworks, everyone was cordial during the two-hour opening session, which was devoted largely to briefings from state officials. But several task force members representing farmers and rural communities made it plain they were leery of any state action to restrict development using septic systems.

State Sen. David R. Brinkley, R-Frederick, said he thought the 28-member group ought to keep landowners' property rights in mind as it contemplates recommending any new limits on development beyond the reach of public sewers. He noted that the O'Malley administration also is weighing new restrictions on farmers' use of chemical and animal fertilizer to help clean up the Chesapeake Bay, and called it "another perceived assault on rural or agricultural Maryland."

Patricia Langenfelder, president of the Maryland Farm Bureau, said farmers are worried that curbs on the use of septic systems could devalue their land. Most are not looking to sell their fields and pasture for development, she added, but rely on the development value of the land as collateral for financing their farming operations.

Others urged the panel to look at other growth-related issues, including the looming shortfall of funding to upgrade sewage treatment plants and the need for more tax breaks or other incentives to get farmers to preserve their land.

There are 426,000 septic systems in Maryland now - including nearly one-fourth of all homes - which officials estimate are producing 8 percent of the nitrogen that's getting into area streams and polluting the bay. Each household on a septic system produces up to 10 times as much nitrogen as one connected by sewer to a wastewater treatment plant.

The governor had pushed for legislation that would bar major new developments on septic systems and would have required more costly but less polluting advanced septic systems for smaller housing developments. But farmers, developers and rural officials raised an outcry, and legislative leaders tabled the bill for more study.

Continue reading "Task force wades into septic, growth morass" »

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 12:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

Scientists are predicting that this summer's oxygen-starved "dead zone" in the Chesapeake Bay will be unusually bad - fueled by a wet spring that washed a heavy dose of nitrogen into the bay from the Susquehanna River and other tributaries.

Donald Scavia, a University of Michigan aquatic ecologist, who makes annual forecasts of "dead zone" sizes in the Chesapeake and Gulf of Mexico, thinks the amount of bay water with little dissolved oxygen in it will be the largest since 2003 and the sixth largest ever recorded.  See the UMich forecast here.

Nitrogen - from sewage plants, fertilizer washing off land and vehicle and power plant pollution falling out of the sky - is one of the key drivers of the bay's hypoxia, or low-oxygen condition. The amount getting into the bay has increased significantly since the 1950s, Scavia says, and this year's estimated load is the highest in more than a decade. Not surprising, since river gauges measured unusually strong spring flows down the Susquehanna - the single biggest water source for the bay.

Scavia's prediction tracks with the preliminary forecasts of bay scientists, who a few weeks ago foresaw a "moderately large" volume of water with no oxygen in it at all from spring into mid-July. If conditions don't change, they predicted this summer's dead zone could be the fourth largest in the past 26 years.

(Note that the Michigan and Maryland scientists are measuring slightly different things. Scavia tracks "hypoxic" water, which still has a little oxygen in it but not enough for fish and shellfish to do well, while the Maryland-based group has focused so far only on the truly "dead zone," anoxic water with no oxygen at all in it for crabs and other critters to breathe. Eco-Check, the Maryland-federal scientific partnership, has yet to issue its prediction for the broader hypoxic zone in the bay.)

Variations aside, the general forecast is tor a rough summer for striped bass, blue crabs and oysters, points out Beth McGee, senior scientist with the Chesapeake Bay Foundation.  When oxygen levels in the water drop, fish and shellfish become stressed.

Some might wonder why the bay's dead zone can still be so bad given the billions of dollars spent on cleanup - this past fall, for instance, Maryland farmers planted a record number of acres in "cover crops" to soak up excess nitrogen in their fields that would otherwise wash into the bay in spring.  McGee points out such efforts take years to influence water quality; much of the nitrogen from farm fields gets into the bay via ground water, she notes, and can take a decade or more to seep out into surface streams.

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 7:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)
        

A new study confirms what bird-lovers have long believed - that horseshoe crabs are key to the health of imperiled shorebirds that drop by Delaware Bay every spring.

The research, published in the online journal of the Ecological Society of America, finds the eggs produced by female horseshoe crabs during their spawning season provide essential nourishment for red knots, which stop over on the shores of Delaware Bay during their annual migration to nesting grounds in the Arctic.

The chance a red knot will gain significant weight during its Delaware Bay stopover depends on how many horseshoe crab eggs it consumes, according to the study, which was led by scientists with the U.S. Geological Survey. Birds that don't gain enough weight before heading on toward the Arctic have a lower chance of surviving the year.

But the study also found that the birds' survival is closely tied to snow conditions when the birds get to their Arctic breeding grounds. In fact, the depth of the snow when the birds reached the end of their migration apparently mattered more than the birds' weight when they left Delaware Bay - a surprising finding, according to Conor McGowan, chief author of the study.

Researchers had expected that the less snow on the ground, the better the birds would fare, but the data showed exactly the opposite. McGowan said scientists don't have a ready explanation yet for the unexpected relationship.

The study comes amid debate over whether Maryland and other mid-Atlantic states are doing enough to rebuild the mid-Atlantic's horseshoe crab population so it can supply more eggs for the red knots, whose numbers have plummeted over the last 15 years. Conservationists want to see harvests banned altogether, but fisheries managers have defended the current limits, saying the crabs are recovering while the birds' fate depends on more than just the eggs.

Continue reading "Study: Horseshoe crabs key to shorebird survival" »

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 2:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

An animal-rights group wants Maryland's new environmental education requirement to include lessons on the ills of animal agriculture and meat consumption. 

Seizing on the decision last week by the state Board of Education to make "environmental literacy" a graduation requirement for all new high school students, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals wrote to the board president urging that there be lessons on the harm done  by animal agriculture and the benefits of going vegan.

According to Tracy Reiman, PETA executive vice president, the production of meat and eggs is a major culprit in causing global climate change as well as degrading the Chesapeake Bay. She said her group would be happy to furnish school officials lesson material.

"Waste and run-off from chicken, egg, and turkey factory farms in the region have played a major role in turning vast areas of the bay into "dead zones," she wrote. She also said a University of Chicago study had found that cutting meat, dairy and eggs out of one's diet does far more to combat climate change than buying a hybrid vehicle.

(Photo: Milking parlor, Kent County farm. 2008 Baltimore Sun photo by Lloyd Fox)

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 8:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
        

Environmental activists and former and present elected officials staged a "plunge-in" today of the Anacostia River in Washington's Maryland suburbs to highlight the failures of government at all levels to clean up the Chesapeake Bay region's degraded waterways.

Several donned white "haz-mat" coveralls before wading in to emphasize the polluted nature of the Anacostia, a tributary of the Potomac River that flows from Prince George's County through the District of Columbia.  Vernon Archer, mayor of Riverdale Park just downriver, waded into the water in a business suit.

Like the Patapsco and Back rivers in the Baltimore area, the Anacostia is fouled with trash, sewage and polluted runoff, and its bottom sediments are contaminated with toxic wastes.

The waders at Bladensburg Waterfront Park - and one impulsive soul who did a cannonball into the river - risked infection and illness, as bacteria levels in the Anacostia there often exceed safe levels, especially after it rains.

Speakers pointed out that the federal Clean Water Act, which became law in 1972, called for all American waterways to be fishable and swimmable by July 1, 1983.

Former state Sen. Gerald Winegrad of Annapolis called it "a national disgrace" that the Anacostia, which flows through the nationl's capital, is not even close to being safe for water-contact recreation.

"We've come a long way in cleaning it up," said Jim Foster, president of the Anacostia Watershed Society.  But, he added, "we still have a long way to go."  A plan for restoring the Anacostia adopted last year calls for it to be cleaned up by 2032, but Foster indicated he didn't want to wait that long.  Although the Anacostia and Baltimore's Patapsco have both been chosen by the Obama administration as "pilot" rivers for a new federal effort to restore urban waters, the initiative promises no infusion of new funding.  "One month's rent in Iraq or Afghanistan," Foster said, referring to the costs of the two wars, "would clean up this entire watershed."

The event was conceived by Howard Ernst, an Annapolis political scientist and author of two books critical of Chesapeake Bay restoration efforts to date.  Others attending included state Sen. Paul Pinsky, a Prince George's Democrat, and David Harrington, a former Prince George's senator and former mayor of Bladensburg. 

The event was staged in Bladensburg to emphasize activists' concerns that Prince George's County is not moving aggressively enough to curb polluted runoff from new development.   The county council is considering legislation to meet new state standards for controlling runoff -  capturing the first 1/2 inch of rain - but activists point out that neighboring Montgomery County mandates that new and redevelopment projects soak up twice as much rainfall.

Among the participants was Dottie Yunger, the Anacostia Riverkeeper, who said her dog normally accompanies her on outings.  But before wading in, she said, "there's no way I would let my dog swim in this river." 

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 1:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
        

Maryland's two US senators have written a top Obama administration official expressing their frustration over federal delays in approving new oyster farming ventures in the state's portion of the Chesapeake Bay.

Sens. Barbara A. Mikulski and Ben Cardin, both Democrats, wrote Jane Lubchenco, undersecretary of commerce who directs the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, complaining that her agency is endangering the state's fledgling aquaculture industry by taking so long to review permits needed by the new oyster farms.

As I reported last week, only a handfull of the new oyster-growing enterprises that have applied in the past year to lease areas in the bay and its rivers have received final approval. State officials say some are held up by objections from waterfront property owners or from watermen, but many are awaiting approval of permits from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

The Corps consults with NOAA, and the federal oceans and fisheries agency has raised questions about the impacts of oyster farming operations on endangered sturgeon and sea turtles. NOAA and Corps officials both told me they were on verge of working everything out and should be issuing more permits soon.

"NOAA's role in this process is necessary, and one that we fully support," the senators wrote in a letter last wek to Lubchenco. But they added that the amount of time NOAA officials have taken is "unreasonable."

"This work began well over a year ago, with promises that issues were being worked out time and again," they wrote. "Time is up." Saying the permit delays are putting new jobs in jeopardy and stalling economic opportunities in coastal communities, they called on NOAA to wrap up its review "immediately" and give the Corps its final feedback "without further delays."

(Jay Robinson, director of the Watermen's Trust, with a pile of oyster shells he plans to use to raise oysters in Fishing Bay south of Cambridge.  Batimore Sun photo by Jed Kirschbaum)

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 7:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
        

Maryland's ocean and Chesapeake Bay beaches ranked 16th cleanest for swimming and wading in the latest nationwide survey by the Natural Resources Defense Council. Delaware's Rehoboth and Dewey beaches, though, earned "superstar" ratings for the quality of their water and their monitoring.

Overall, seven percent of the water samples taken last year at the state's 70 coastal beaches exceeded health standards for bacteria that could make bathers sick, the national environmental group reported in "Testing the Waters," its 21st annual report on beach water quality.

Tolchester Beach Estates in Kent County was the worst, with 43 percent of samples registering unsafe bacteria levels, followed by Elk Neck State Park in Cecil County (26 percent) and the YMCA's Camp Tockwogh, a youth camp in Kent County.

The NRDC rated Ocean City's beach in the top tier of water quality, with just 3 percent of the weekly water samples there showing high bacteria counts. But NRDC noted that its "superstar" beaches like Rehoboth and Dewey had tallied zero bacteria exceedences in the past three years.

In the Baltimore area, unsafe bacteria levels were detected in 7 percent of the samples taken at Anne Arundel County beaches, and in just 2 percent of tests done at Baltimore County's beaches - though one beach there, in the Hammerman area of Gunpowder State Park, had swimming advisories in effect for 24 days.

The 7 percent of high bacteria measurements at Maryland's beaches last year represented an increase over 2009, the NRDC reports, when just 3 percent of samples exceeded daily maximum bacteria standards.

Maryland's beaches generally rated a little cleaner than the national average, according to the NRDC report, which found that 8 percent of samples exceeded health standards.

But beach closings and swim warnings nationwide shot up last year, the NRDC said, to its second highest level in the 21 years the group has been collecting beach water quality data. It said there were a variety of reasons for the increase, including heavy rains in Hawaii, the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and unknown sources of contamination along the California coast.

While the offshore drilling rig blowout forced beach closures in the Gulf, the main sources of contamination nationwide are storm-water runoff and weather-related sewage overflows, the NRDC says. It urged the federal government and states to do more to curb runoff, including requiring the use of porous pavement and installation of rain gardens and green roofs to soak up rainfall, rather than letting it wash pollutants into nearby streams.

"We still have a lot to do to clean up America’s beaches," said David Beckman, the NRDC's director of water programs. "A day at the beach doesn’t have to mean getting skin rash or dysentery as a souvenir of your vacation."

To see the entire report and a state-by-state breakdown, go here.

(Ocean City, Baltimore Sun photo by Gene Sweeney Jr.)

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 10:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (10)
        

Five endangered Kemp's ridley sea turtles nursed back to health by the National Aquarium are being returned to the wild on Sunday.

The rarest and smallest of all sea turtles, the five were found stranded last winter along Cape Cod suffering from cold stunning, not unlike hypothermia. They were shipped to Baltimore by the New England Aquarium, where they've spent the past six months rehabilitating in the local aquarium's marine animal rescue program.

At 11 a.m. on Sunday, the aquarium staff plan to release the turtles at Point Lookout State Park in southern Maryland, where the Potomac River meets the Chesapeake Bay. Kemp's ridley sea turtles are known to feed on jellyfish and other aquatic life in the bay during the summer. The public is invited to be on hand to observe the release. Directions are here.

If you can't make it, some of the turtles will be fitted with small satellite transmitters so their movements can be tracked. The aquarium plans to plot the animals' locations on a map on its website, which you can see here.

(Rescued sea turtle being examined, Dec. 2010.  National Aquarium photo)

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 6:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

A batch of top Obama administration officials are coming to Baltimore Friday to announce a new "urban waters" initiative. Nice to see they're getting out of Washington and maybe recognizing that the Patapsco River, rated the sickest waterway in the Chesapeake Bay watershed, is every bit in need of help as the DC area's Anacostia River.

Middle Branch Park in South Baltimore is to be the setting for the late-morning announcement. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa P. Jackson and Interior Secretary Ken Salazar are among the officials scheduled to be there, as are the White Houses's environmental and domestic policy advisers and high-level agriculture and housing officials.

The media advisory put out by EPA gives no details, other than to call it a "new initiative to restore and revitalize waterways in cities across the nation." EPA has been pushing something called the "Urban Waters Movement," aimed at helping communities - especially underserved ones - to improve and benefit from their waterways. 

Under that program, EPA has offered "partnerships" with local governments and community groups, but it seems a little short on money to finance improvements or even the promise of greater regulatory attention to spur cleanup. At least there's no prominent mention on EPA's website of those two traditional federal tools for driving environmental restoration.

Though unsure whether this promises real or mostly symbolic support, local environmental and community activists say privately they're pleased to get top-level Obama administration officials here and to have Baltimore included in a nationwide effort that until now has showered most of its attention in this region on the Anacostia.

Not that DC's "other river" (besides the Potomac) doesn't need help, but EPA played an active role there that it has yet to demonstrate in the Baltimore harbor watershed, w hich some scientists have rated the most degraded spot overall in the entire Chesapeake watershed.  The agency, for instance, was involved in the development of an ambitiious restoration plan for the Anacostia and has pushed through a mandatory trash cleanup plan and tighter requirements on the District and its suburbs to reduce polluted runoff via storm water. 

By comparison, it's been Baltimore's Waterfront Partnership, a coalition of business and civic groups, taking the lead in drafting a restoration plan for the harbor.  And local activists, with some help and encouragement from city and state, provided the spark for getting pollution diets ordered for the harbor to reduce the trash and sewage fouling it.

President Obama directed his administration to take the lead in jump-starting the lagging Chesapeake Bay restoration effort, but that apparently hasn't extended to to the tributaries of the bay - at least not yet. EPA has been more cheerleader than player or even coach in the fledgling harbor restoration effort.

It will be interesting to see if this announcement is the beginning of a new, more active role in reclaiming Baltimore's troubled waters. With housing and domestic policy officials due for the event here, perhaps the administration will somehow coordinate better its economic and community development programs to help green and revitalize urban and older suburban neighborhoods - which many local activists see as key to any effort to halt the torrent of trash and storm water pollution fouling our urban waters.

(Trash floats in the water off Middle Branch Park.  2010 Baltimore Sun photo by Kim Hairston)

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 11:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
        

Maryland public school students will need to know their green to graduate under a new policy adopted today by the state board of education.

State officials and environmental activists called the vote "historic" and said Maryland has become the first state in the nation to require environmental literacy to graduate from high school. Under the rule, public schools will be required to work lessons about conservation, smart growth and the health of our natural world into their core subjects like science and social studies.

The requirement applies to students entering high school this fall.  Local school systems will be able to shape those lessons to be relevant to their communities, but all will have to meet standards set by the state. School systems will have to report to the state every five years on what they're doing to meet the requirements.

Gov. Martin O'Malley issued a statement calling the board's action "a defining moment for education in Maryland," while environmental advocates were even more effusive. Don Baugh, head of the No Child Left Inside Coalition promoting federal environmental literacy legislation, called it a "momentous day."

Environmentalists had initially howled over draft guidelines adopted by the state board last fall, complaining they would let school systems get by without doing anything - essentially claiming they were teaching environmental literacy simply by offering existing math and science courses. But state School Superintendent Nancy Grasmick and board members reassured activists they really meant to strengthen environmental education, and advocates say the final rules seem to make that clear.

The new environmental instruction should not require any additional funding or staff, according to the governor. But by adopting the requirement Maryland may be in better position to receive federal funding for green literacy, under national No Child Left Inside legislation to be reintroduced in Congress. The bill's chief sponsor is Rep. John Sarbanes, a Maryland Democrat.

(Students at Baltimore's Digital Harbor high school test water in Inner Harbor. 2008 Baltimore Sun photo by Ann Torkvist)

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 4:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (17)
        

Continuing his push to limit development on septic systems, Gov. Martin O'Malley named a 28-member task force to study the environmental and health impacts of on-site sewage disposal.

The task force is to be headed by Del. Maggie McIntosh, chair of the House Environmental Matters Committee. McIntosh, a Baltimore city Democrat, tabled the governor's push for septic limits during this year's legislative session and called for more study of the issue. The panel's vice chair is Jon Laria, a Baltimore development lawyer who is head of the state growth commission.

A press release from the governor's office calls the task force broad-based, with representatives of business, agriculture, science, environmental advocacy and government. A quick scan of its members, though, suggests the panel is stacked at least modestly in favor of the governor's position that septic-based development needs to be limited.

O'Malley contends curbs on septic-based growth are needed to help clean up the Chesapeake Bay and to curb suburban sprawl. 

"This effort is not about stopping growth" O'Malley said in a statement. "It is about stemming the tide of major housing developments built on septic systems to generate clean water and protect our environment and public health."

State planners project that septic-based development will account for 26 percent of all the new households built in the state over the next 25 years, but produce 76 percent of all the new nitrogen pollution getting into ground water and streams feeding into the bay. Critics also say building with septics aggravates suburban sprawl, fragmenting farmland and forests and increasing the costs to government of providing roads, schools and other services.

Developers, farmers and some local officials, though, complained that the legislation supported by the governor would stunt growth in rural and some suburban areas of the state. The bill O'Malley backed would have barred septic systems for any "major" subdvisions with more than five homes, and would have required more costly and less polluting septic systems be used on individual homes or smaller developments.

Continue reading "Panel named to study septic pollution" »

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 11:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: Chesapeake Bay, News
        

Looking for some colorful and environmentally friendly plants for your garden or lawn? Now there's a handy online guide to native plants in the Chesapeake Bay region.

With the Native Plant Center, you can search for native plants by name, type, sun exposure, soil texture and moisture - even look for native plants that match the characteristics of popular non-native plants.  The site also features a "geo-locator" so you can identify what plants are suited to your particular location.

Replacing portions of your lawn with native plants suited to local conditions helps local water quality and the bay by reducing the need for fertilizers and pesticides, which can wash into nearby storm drains and streams when it rains. They also cut down on the need for watering.

The online uses the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's native plant database, which is associated with its print publication, Native Plants for Wildlife Habitat and Conservation Landscaping: Chesapeake Bay Watershed.  Other partners in the online portal are the Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay and Image Matters, a software consulting firm based in Leesburg, VA.  

(Photo: Asclepias tuberosa, or butterflyweed.  U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service) 

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 3:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)
        

Schools almost out for the year, but some Baltimore city students have a truly memorable experience on the Chesapeake Bay to look back on - again and again, through the pictures they took.

Last month, National Geographic held its first all-girls photo camp on Smith Island, in partnership with the Chesapeake Bay Foundation.  Twelve seventh-graders from the Baltimore Leadership School for Young Women and four high schoolers from the Refugee Youth Project spent four days on the island learning about its culture and environment, and capturing it in photographs and words. 

Their chief mentor for the camp was veteran Bay photographer Dave Harp, who's documented in pictures the effects of rising sea level and erosion on traditional Bay fishing communities like Smith Island. 

The photos shown here were all taken by Victoria Dailey, a 7th grader at the leadership school. 

(Full disclosure: my daughter teaches at the leadership school, and forwarded the pictures to me, along with a few of the girls' written comments on what was plainly an eye-opening experience. NatGeo's mission is to get people to care about the planet, and these girls came to care about an exotic place that isn't that far away.)

"Smith Island is so different from my home," wrote Julia Bainum, a 6th grader at the leadership school.  "Every morning I love to get up and watch the sun rise.  The light is so beautiful on the water and I could take thousands of pictures of it."  She also reveled in "island time," a respite from the rush of urban life.

"Being on this island with a camera changed me," Julia went on.  "I notice the beauty more."

Tila Neupane, of the Refugee Youth Project, noted she took her first boat ride to Smith, which she called "a silent place."

"It is a beautiful place where neighbors are nice and respectful," she wrote. "At my home it is very crowded and lots of cars and roads, lots of noise and people walking on the street. Some people there are nice, but some aren't." 

Finally, 6th grader Andrea Morgan wrote that she learned about the importance of pictures.

"I thought photography was just a picture," she said, but the true definition is more about telling a story."  After her "amazing experience" on Smith Island, Andrea wrote that she wants to be a photographer when she grows up.

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 6:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)
Categories: Chesapeake Bay
        

Some people just won't give up - and the Chesapeake Bay is the better for it.  Sunday brings the annual Patuxent River wade-in, begun 24 years ago by former state Sen. Bernie Fowler. Fowler, who spent decades as a Calvert County commissioner and then state senator, recalls standing chest-deep in the Patuxent as a young man in the 1950s and being able to see his feet on the river bottom while netting blue crabs.

In 1988, amid growing concern about the river's decline from nutrient and sediment pollution, he waded in again to see how far he could get before losing sight of his white sneakers. He only reached about 10 inches deep that time. He's made an annual pilgrimage into the river since then, in what's become a signature rite of the Chesapeake - and a testament to his persistence in the protracted struggle to restore the bay.

The wade-in attracts bay lovers and politicians galore.  Last year he was reportedly joined by more than 100 people. Once held at Broome's Island where Bernie used to crab, the wade-in's been moved to Jefferson Patterson Park, 10515 Mackall Road in St. Leonard. It starts at 1 p.m., and it's a great event, full of cameraderie and encouragement by Bernie and others to keep up the decades-long fight to restore the Patuxent and the Bay.

For those who can't make it, there's a way to wade in vicariously - by guessing how deep he'll get. The state Department of Planning is sponsoring a "guess-the-depth" contest. Last year, 21 people guessed everywhere from 20 inches to 41.5 inches. I was one of the more pessimistic, as I recall - it looks like I guessed 21.2 inches. Only one person, a John from Harford County, came within an inch of Bernie's actual depth - 34.5 inches.

Feel free to try your hand again this year. There's no prize for winning, just the bragging rights for knowing how clear the Patuxent is this year.  For more info, go here.

Meanwhile, it's not clear when Bernie will be able to see his sneakers in shoulder-deep water again. He's gotten up to 44.5 inches in 1997, but the water's gotten murkier since then. Last year's depth was an encouraging rebound - coming amid a renewed push to restore the bay.  We'll see if it's clearer still this year, even as there's been pushback lately against some of the new cleanup initiatives. Bernie sure would be relieved to know after all this time that his beloved Patuxent is clearly headed in the right direction.

(PHOTO: Bernie Fowler, right, wades into Patuxent with friends. 1992 Baltimore Sun.  CHART: Depths at which Bernie lost sight of his sneakers, by year.)

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 6:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

Want to beat the heat and still do something worthwhile? Why not join several dozen expected volunteers and pluck trash from Armistead Creek and Herring Run on Saturday (6/11)?

Blue Water Baltimore, the local watershed group, is teaming up to clean the stream banks with volunteers and employees of United by Blue, a Philadelphia organic cotton T-shirt and maker.

If you've never heard of United by Blue, the startup has an unusual creed - it pledges to remove one pound of trash from the world's oceans and waterways for every product it sells.  Apparently it's more than just a sales gimmick to get the green-oriented consumer.

"We’ve done over 35 cleanups in the past year, and removed about 18,000 pounds of trash all up and down the East Coast and some on the West Coast," said Mike Cangi, who's listed on the company website as "director of cleanups."  The firm's founder is identified as "chief trash collector." 

Cangi's looking to make room for sales growth by picking up 100,000 pounds of refuse in the coming year, and expecting to get several pounds picked up in the Baltimore swing.  As this was the same creek watershed where miscreants recently stuffed a bolt of some kind of fabric down a manhole and triggered a nearly million-gallon sewage overflow, they should have no trouble. The photo above is from a 2008 spring cleanup (why the volunteer is wearing a jacket).

The cleanup is from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., and for those who really get into this kind of thing, there'll even be waders provided. Meet at 1200 Armistead Way. For more, or to register, go here.

(Baltimore Sun photo by Kim Hairston)

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 7:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

An experiment in making "bio-fuel" is slated to get under way this summer at Baltimore's Back River wastewater treatment plant.

The city's Board of Estimates approved Wednesday a $255,000 contract with a small Maryland company to grow algae at the plant and convert it to fuel. The project is underwritten with federal economic stimulus funds the city receved last year.

Under the one-year agreement, Hytek Bio LLC of Dayton will install "bioreactors" to cultivate algae, using the nutrients in the treatment plant's wastewater as food.

"The water's still fairly high in nitrogen and phosphorus, and it's low in dissolved oxygen, which is not good in the (Chesapeake Bay)," said Bob Mroz, Hytek president and CEO. "The algae will consume the balance of the nitrogen and phosphorus and put oxygen back in the water."

In another kind of virtuous circle, the algae's growth will be boosted by feeding it carbon dioxide. The source - the flue gas given off by the generator that's burning methane from the sewage to help power the treatment plant.

City officials are looking to see the algae harvested and converted to biofuel, which might be burned one day in city boilers or used to run city vehicles. Mroz, a retired federal official, says this one-year project is a "small-scale demonstration of the technology." But he's bullish on the prospects for making fuel, oil, cosmetics and even "bioplastics" from the algae while capturing climate-warming greenhouse gases and helping reduce nutrient pollution of the bay.

The biomass-to-biofuel pilot is one of more than 18 initiatives the city's Department of General Services has launched with federal aid to see about reducing the municipal government's energy bills through greater efficiency and conversion to alternative fuels. 

(Sludge digester domes at Baltlimore's Back River treatment plant.  Photo special to the Sun by Colby Ware)

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 6:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
        

Homeowners, if you've ever thought about ditching your messy, polluting gasoline-powered lawnmower, here's your chance: Swap it for a cleaner, deeply discounted new battery-powered job.

On Saturday (6/11), consumers can turn in their old gas-powered mowers for a marked-down rechargeable Black & Decker mower.  Buyers get 31 percent off the $379 sticker price for an 18-inch, 36-volt model and 33 percent off the $429 ticket for one with a 19-inch blade and a removable battery.

The swap will take place from noon to 4 p.m. at Cardinal Shehan School, 5407 Loch Raven Boulevard. But don't procrastinate - only 200 mowers will be on hand to sell.

Why go to the trouble? Because more than 17 million gallons of gas get spilled each year nationwide refueling lawn and garden equipment. Some of that winds up in the nearest water way, and some gets into the air, adding to our region's choking summer smog.  Even the gas that gets in the tank pollutes: a single 3.5-horsepower gas mower emits as much smog-forming exhaust as a new car driven 340 miles.

And if you let the mulching mower mulch and leave off bagging the grass clippings, you can have a healthy lawn without needing to fertilize as much - another help for stressed local streams and the Chesapeake Bay. That's why the city of Baltimore and the local watershed group Blue Water Baltimore have teamed up to co-sponsor B&D's mower swap. For more, go here.

(Old mowers being turned in for new electric ones. 2010 Baltimore Sun photo by Kim Hairston)

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 8:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
        

 
Wildlife and conservation advocates are pressing Maryland and Virginia to halt all commercial harvest of horseshoe crabs, whose eggs sustain a dwindling population of red knot shorebirds when they stop over in Delaware Bay on their long spring migration from South America to the Arctic. 

Bird-lovers and environmentalists have called on the federal government to protect the red knot by placing it on the endangered species list. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service may begin that process as early as this fall, but it may take years to achieve. 

Meanwhile, advocates warn that measures taken by Maryland and Virginia to restrict the harvest of horseshoe crabs are not enough, given the alarming decline of red knots in recent years. My colleague, Sun outdoors writer Candus Thomson, provided a thorough update on the issue earlier this week.

Maryland has curbed taking female horseshoes, and put all of them off limits until June 7 each year during spawning season, when they crawl out of the surf onto sandy beaches to lay eggs and have them fertilized by male crabs. The eggs, rich in fat, are a major source of food for migrating shorebirds.

In the 1980s, as many as 100,000 red knots stopped off every spring to rest and refuel along the Delaware Bay. By 2001, estimates put the number down to 45,000 birds, and just five years ago the count only tallied 15,000.  Conservationists have been pressing the federal government since 2006 to put the bird on the endangered species list, but only got a commitment to act on it and 250 other candidate species after filing suit.

Ten commercial entities have Maryland permits to catch up to 170,653 horseshoe crabs for bait, Thomson reports, and one company has a "scientific permit" to collect up to 150,000 horseshoes so their blood can be drawn for use in producing a medicine. It's not clear how many of those crabs, though released afterward, survive the ordeal.

Maryland officials defend the current harvest as sustainable and down from what it was 15 to 20 years ago. But others point out that the state's catch still exceeds the entire mid-Atlantic haul during much of the 1980s.

The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, which has overall responsibility for regulating inshore fisheries, is reviewing its coastwide management plan. A meeting is planned June 24 in Annapolis.

(Video by Candus Thomson; Horseshoe crabs on Cape May NJ shore by Baltimore Sun's Jerry Jackson) 

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 1:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
        

Gov. Martin O'Malley signed into law today legislation that limits both the content and the application of fertilizer for urban and suburban lawns, a measure supporters say should help rescue the Chesapeake Bay from the nutrient pollution fouling its water.

Touted by proponents as the most comprehensive regulation of lawn care in the Bay region, if not the nation, the law bars phosphorus in any fertilizer except those meant to boost growth of new or repaired lawns. It also limits nitrogen content.

The measure further restricts when and where homeowners and lawn-care outfits can apply fertilizer - specifying, for instance, that none is to be sprayed or spread within 10 to 15 feet of water, depending on how it's applied.

The law bars any local fertilizer bans or regulations, and would appear to invalidate the restrictions in force since 2009 in Annapolis, the only municipality or county to enact any. But proponents say the application limits in the statewide law essentially mirror the Annapolis ones, except for that city's requirement that merchants selling fertilizer post a sign urging customers not to overapply it.

Under the state law, lawns are not to be fertilized before March 1 or after Nov. 15, though lawn-care outfits get a couple more weeks in the fall than do-it-yourselfers. The paid applicators can keep working to Dec. 1, as long as they're using spraying liquid "fast-release" plant food. (CORRECTION: Mark Schlossberg of the Maryland Association of Green Industries says it comes in granular and liquid form.)

Lawn-care professionals also get latitude to continue applying "natural organic" or "organic" fertilizer containing phosphorus, though beginning in 2013 the amount of that plant nutrient would also be limited and couldn't be applied at all to lawns where tests show the soil already has plenty of phosphorus.

But people paid to apply fertilizer would be required to undergo training and obtain certification from the Maryland Department of Agriculture, much as pest-control workers are now.

State officials predict that the law should reduce the overall amount of phosphorus getting into Maryland's portion of the bay by 3 percent. They say they don't have a handle yet on how much nitrogen might be kept out of the water. But it's estimated that 14 percent of the nitrogen and 8 percent of the phosphorus polluting the bay comes from urban and suburban land, much of it fertilizer washed off by rain.

Though the law would make a relatively small dent in the bay's overall pollution problem, it's an important one, if only politically. Agriculture Secretary Earl F. "Buddy" Hance noted that Maryland's farmers have been under increasing regulation over the years, and this measure addresses a source of water problems largely ignored until now. The state has 1.1 million acres in turfgrass, he pointed out, nearly as much land as farmers use for growing crops.

"This is an opportunity for homeowners to do their share," said Del. James Hubbard, a Prince George's County Democrat who introduced HB573 on behalf of the Chesapeake Bay Commission. The commission, representing lawmakers from Maryland, Pennsylvania and Virginia, pushed the states to adopt lawn fertilizer limits this year. Virginia enacted curbs on phosphorus, and legislation is now being drafted in Pennsylvania.

Continue reading "Lawn fertilizer limits become law" »

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 6:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
        

With study after study showing that Maryland's Smart Growth laws and policies have been ineffective at curbing sprawl, the O'Malley administration has a new-old remedy: a state development plan.

PlanMaryland, it's called. Drafted by the state Department of Planning, the 188-page document is meant to fulfill a 40-year-old law never acted upon that calls for the creation of a state growth plan.

It was released last month, and state planners are holding a series of "open-house" style forums this spring and summer to get public reaction. The next one is Thursday May 19, from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. at Long Reach High School in Columbia, 6101 Old Dobbin Lane.

With upwards of 5.8 million people living on the state's 6.2 million acres, the population is projected to grow nearly 15 percent over the next 20 years, adding another 900,000 residents.

PlanMaryland doesn't propose any radical changes in direction - it calls for concentrating growth in towns, cities and "rural centers," whatever those are, where infrastructure already exists or is planned. It also calls for preserving environmentally sensitive and rural lands. Its third primary goal is more amorphous - "sustainability", defined as ensuring quality of life while preserving those natural and cultural resources that distinguish Maryland as a place.

The plan proposes a collaborative new planning effort for state and local governments to designate the places where they believe growth should occur and where land should be shielded from development. And it proposes tweaking state policies and funding formulas to better focus government spending on highways, schools and other infrastructure on those areas designated for growth.

Continue reading "Smart Growth redux: State airing new development plan" »

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 10:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

The controversy over hydraulic fracturing to tap natural gas can be highly technical and contentious. Some students at New York University put this catchy music video together to highlight the concerns that have been raised about "fracking," as it's commonly known.

 Of course, it's just one side, and there's debate over how "new" fracking is, much less how big a threat. Check out the comments posted with the video. I happen to agree with the observation it sounds like something from the HBO series "Flight of the Conchords." More seriously, feel free to go here to get the admittedly less musical point of view from Chief Oil & Gas, one of the companies drilling in Pennsylvania and seeking approval to drill here in Maryland.

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 2:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
        

The rush to tap natural gas reserves in Pennsylvania prompted the environmental group American Rivers today to name the Susquehanna River the most endangered water way in the country.  One of the nation's longest rivers, The Susquehanna supplies drinking water to six million people. It's also the chief tributary of the Chesapeake Bay.

The designation comes as national environmental groups press for a crackdown on the gas drilling technique known as hydraulic fracturing, which involves pumping millions of gallons of water laced with chemicals and other substances deep into the ground to extract methane from layers of rock.

American Rivers points to the rash of spills, leaks and contaminated drinking-water wells in Pennsylania that have been linked to fracking, which is being used to get at gas locked in vast Marcellus shale deposits underlying much of Pennsylvania, New York, West Virginia and western Maryland.

The group is calling for Pennsylvania, New York, and the Susquehanna River Basin Commission need to impose a "complete moratorium" on water withdrawals and "fracking" until there are comprehensive regulations in place to safeguard drinking water and the environment.

"The potential for future environmental and public health catastrophes along the Susquehanna will only increase, considering the number of new wells projected and the amount of toxic wastewater produced," the group says in a release.

New York already has temporarily halted fracturing to study the issue. Maryland has had a de facto moratorium for more than a year now, holding up permits sought by a pair of companies to drill exploratory wells in Garrett County near the Pennsylvania border.  A bill that would have placed a two-year moratorium in drilling in Maryland while more study is done died, but state officials say they don't intend to issue permits unless and until they're sure adequate safeguards are in place - a process that could take close to two years anyway. 

In a related development, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection today announced it has levied more than $1 million in fines against Chesapeake Energy, one of the companies drilling for gas there, for contaminating wells in one county and for a fire in February at one of its wells.

Continue reading "Fracking endangers Susquehanna, group says" »

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 1:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)