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

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

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

Thanks to Joey Kroart for sharing. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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" »

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

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" »

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 3:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
        

Under pressure from conservative lawmakers, state planners have agreed to delay their disputed blueprint for Maryland growth until after they get a little more feedback on it in Annapolis.

Planning Secretary Richard E. Hall confirmed a report in The Washington Times that he's agreed to hold off delivering PlanMaryland to Gov. Martin O'Malley until after he's met with the Senate Education, Health and Environmental Affairs Committee on Dec. 12.

Hall said his staff has been working for months to generate a third "full draft" of the statewide growth plan that incorporates or responds to the outpouring of comments and criticism of it from rural and suburban officials.  That's still on track, Hall indicated in an email, but added that a brief postponement to brief lawmakers one more time would be "fine."

Administration officials have said the document is merely the long-delayed fulfillment of a 1974 law calling for a state growth plan, so does not require legislative approval.  They've said it won't usurp local planning authority, just better coordinate state spending on roads and other infrastructure under Maryland's longstanding Smart Growth policies, which call for preserving open space by encouraging development in and around existing communities. 

Local officials contend, though, that PlanMaryland may effectively take away their traditional control over development decisions if the state does deny funding or permits for projects that don't mesh with the plan.  State Sen. E.J. Pipkin, a Republican representing the upper Eastern Shore who's accused O'Malley of waging "war" on rural Maryland, has said he'll introduce a bill that would require legislative approval of the plan - though administration officials have insisted they're not waiting for the General Assembly to act before putting the finishing touches on the plan.

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 11:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
        

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" »

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 9:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
        

While government regulations often get branded as "job killers" these days, a group of states - including Maryland - have gone to court to get the government to crank down on fine-particle air pollution, which they contend is a real killer.

Maryland Attorney General Doug Gansler has joined the top lawyers of  nine other states in asking the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals to force the Environmental Protection Agency to follow the recommendations of health experts, its staff and independent science advisors to tighten the legal limit on fine particulates in the air.  To read it, go here.

Fine particulates, more commonly called soot, are emitted by diesel engines, coal-fired power plants and other fuel-burning equipment. PM2.5, as fine particles are known, are so tiny they're 1/30th the width of a human hair. They've been linked in study after study with increased rates of breathing impairments, cardiovascular disease and premature death. 

Continue reading "MD joins legal push for tougher soot limits" »

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

The Obama administration has upped the ante on federal fuel economy standards, calling for cars and light trucks to get up to 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025.

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa P. Jackson joined Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood to announce the administration's proposal to set stronger fuel efficiency and greenhouse gas pollution standards for cars and light trucks made between 2017 and 2025.

Administration officials contend the higher mileage standards will reduce oil consumption by 4 billion barrels and cut 2 billion metric tons of greenhouse gas pollution over the lifetimes of the vehicles sold in those years.  But they said it also should save Americans $6,600 in fuel costs over the lifetime of a 2025 model year vehicle, or a net savigns of $4,400 after factoring in projected higher costs for more fuel-efficient vehicles.  For more, go here.

The announcement, which builds on the administration's earlier push to get the nation's vehicle fleet to 35.5 mpg by 2016, drew cheers from environmentalists and raspberries from auto dealers.

Sarah Bucci of Environment Maryland, for instance, predicted that in Maryland alone, the fuel-economy standards would save each family $365 on average, and nationally would create nearly 500,000 new jobs.

The National Auto Dealers Association, meanwhile, warned that the rule could add more than $3,200 to the cost of a new vehicle, which could depress sales and slow fleet turnover, thereby delaying the environmental gains forecast. The group also argued that the regulation would most discourage sales of the industry's most popular, if least fuel-efficient vehicles, such as SUVs and other trucks and vans.

Cars, SUVs, minivans, and pickup trucks account for nearly 60 percent of transportation-related petroleum use and greenhouse gas emissions, according to EPA.

(Traffic in Baltimore, 2010 Baltimore Sun photo by Amy Davis)

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 4:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

The Army, which has been on a green offensive lately, is putting fuel cells in as backup power supplies for three buildings at Aberdeen Proving Ground in Harford County.

The cells, which use hydrogen as a fuel, are more efficient than internal combustion engines and much quieter and cleaner, with little or no greenhouse gas emissions..

The three going in at APG's building operations command center, the snow removal center in the Edgewood area and the Test Center Range Control are among 24 fuel cells being installed at nine federal sites across the country.  A ribbon cutting ceremony is scheduled today at APG to mark the project.

The $2.5 million installation is a joint venture of the Army Corps of Engineers and the U.S. Department of Energy.  The Army Corps has been trying out wind, solar, geothermal, biogas, biofuel and waste-to-energy as part of a push by the Department of Defense to develop alternative energy sources to support military operations.

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 9:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

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)
        

Maryland and other Northeastern states have helped rather than hurt their economies with “cap-and-trade” regulation of their power plants’ carbon dioxide emissions, a new study finds.

In the past three years, the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative produced a combined economic gain for the 10 participating states of more than $1.6 billion, or about $33 for every person living in the region, according to a report by the economic consulting firm Analysis Group. The ripple effects of making power plants buy permits to release carbon dioxide also created a total of 16,000 jobs, the consultants estimate.

“The program’s working,” said Paul J. Hibbard, a lead author of the study, which tracked the impacts of the carbon auctions through the economy. The research was funded by four foundations.

Consumers across the region are expected to save nearly $1.3 billion on their energy bills over the next decade, the study projects, through government-subsidized investments in home weatherization, energy-efficient appliances and other measures that should reduce demand for power below what it otherwise would be.

Continue reading "Regional climate action pays off, study finds" »

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 10:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Air Pollution, Climate change, News
        

Raccoons, deer, cats, birds, turtles, even humans - all will make tracks under busy highways when they can, or must.

That's the upshot of a fun but practical new study from the Appalachian laboratory of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science.

Researchers spent more than two years capturing critters on infra-red cameras as they moved through 265 different road and highway culverts around the state. They tallied up 57 different species using the underground structures, many of them put in when the road was built merely to channel a stream from one side to the other.

“I was surprised at the sheer number of species using these culverts, from birds to reptiles to mammals,” study author Ed Gates said in a release. 

The critter caught most frequently by far on the cameras was the northern raccoon, followed by common house cats and then white-tailed deer.  But barn swallows, mallards and great blue heron were up there, too. So were humans, oddly or naturally enough.

The study was done for the State Highway Administration so they can figure out how to get more animals to use the culverts. It enables wildlife to move about in habitat increasingly carved up by pavement and avoid becoming roadkill - or worse, killing or maiming motorists.

I wrote about this effort a year ago in the Baltimore Sun.  You can read that story here.  And to see some more "wildlife candid camera," check out UMCES on Facebook.

(Photos courtesy University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science)

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 6:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: News
        

Seafood is getting increasing scrutiny these days, and it's not reassuring.

Researchers with the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future found that testing of imported seafood by the U S. Food and Drug Administration isn't good enough to say it's safe or to identify whether there are any health risks to consumers.  That's a big deal, because about 85 percent of seafood consumed in the United States comes from other countries.

Based on a review of government data, David Love and others at the center found that the FDA only tests about 2 percent of all seafood imported into the US.  The European Union, by comparison checks 50 percent; Japan 18 percent and Canada 15 percent.

One reason to test: farmed fish and shellfish, a growing share of all seafood, may contain residues of veterinary drugs. Those drugs, given to prevent and treat diseases in the fish, could be harmful to humans at high enough concentrations, or they could cause other unintended consequences, such as antibiotic resistance.

The study found that inspectors detected more drug residues in imported seafood the more they inspected. Drugs showed up more often in Asian farm-raised shrimp and prawns, catfish, crab, tilapia and Chilean salmon than in other seafood products,  according to researchers. Imports from Vietnam had the greatest number of veterinary drug violations among exporting countries, they noted.

The US and the other countries tested all have set limits on the acceptable levels of drug residues in seafood.  But the US, besides checking a smaller percentage of its seafood imports, also tests for fewer different drugs than the EU, Japan and Canada, researchers point out.

In the end, the researchers concluded that the amount of data publicly available from the FDA isn't sufficient to tell whether consumers face any health risks from eating imported seafood.  FDA records, for instance, don't show when fish pass inspection or whether the samples tested were chosen at random or targeted for some reason.

(2007 Baltimore Sun file photo)

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

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 officials and developers gathered Tuesday atop Maryland's highest mountain near Oakland to celebrate the recent completion of the state's second commercial wind power project, even as controversy continues about such ridgetop facilities' impacts on birds and bats. 

With 20 2.5-megawatt turbines strung along Backbone Mountain, the Roth Rock wind "farm" is expected to generate enough electricity to power all the homes in Garrett County, according to the Maryland Energy Administration.   It began operating in August, with Delmarva Power buying 80 percent of its output and the University System of Maryland and the state Department of General Services purchasing the rest.  The state's first wind farm owned by Constellation Energy, built nearby on the same mountain, began producing power last winter.

The Roth Rock project, developed by Synergics of Annapolis, has had a long and controversial history.  Its ridgetop siting was fought by conservationists worried that the turbines would kill migratory songbirds and bats, some of them already endangered.  At wind developers' behest, the General Assembly then limited state regulators review of wind projects' environmental impacts, prompting conservationists to cry foul. 

State environmental regulators did temporarily halt work on the project at one point last year over sediment and erosion problems at the construction site.  Synergics last year sold the project to Gestamp Wind North America, part of a European multinational corporation. 

Wind developers contend there are few birds and bats harmed by the towering turbines. But wildlife concerns about this wind project and others linger.  The American Bird Conservancy contends there have been sizable bird kills over the past eight years at wind projects in neighboring West Virginia. Nearly 500 were killed last month alone at one facility, the group said recenltly, not from being hit by the spinning turbine blades but from lights left on overnight at the facility's mountaintop electrical substation.  Lighting can be a fatal attraction for birds at night, advocates say, leading them to fly into the illuminated structure or to circle it in confusion until they drop from exhaustion.

Conservationists threatened last year to sue to stop the Roth Rock project over concerns its turbines would kill rare Indiana and Virginia big-eared bats.  The company denied its turbines posed a threat to bats, and no legal action was taken. Conservationists did sue Constellation over the impac ton bats of its turbines; federal court records indicate that case is on hold for now as the parties discuss a settlement.

(Roth Rock turbines, photo courtesy Frank Maisano)

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 11:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

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)
        

It appears the recent criminal fraud case brought against a Baltimore biodiesel business owner for allegedly peddling phony renewable fuel credits is not an isolated one.

Federal investigators raided another biodiesel firm in Lubbock, Texas, a couple weeks ago, the Avalanche-Journal reported.  In a story last week, the newspaper quoted from unsealed search-warrant affidavits that authorities contend the company, Absolute Fuel, sold $40 million worth of renewable fuel credits without producing the 36 million gallons of biodiesel they were supposed to represent. 

The owner has not been charged, but federal agents seized records and $4.5 million in cash and property, including a Gulfstream jet, luxury cars and jewelry, the paper reported.   Authorities identified another $5 million in real estate held by the business owner.

The Texas case echoes the wire fraud, money laundering and air pollution charges brought by the U.S attorney in Baltimore a month ago against Rodney R. Hailey, president of Clean Green Fuel.  Hailey, 33, of Perry Hall stands accused of generating "renewable identification numbers," as the fuel credits are known, for 21 million gallons of fuel his company never produced.  Hailey's firm made $9 million on the sale of RINs for nonexistent fuel, according to the charges, and spent much of it on a fleet of luxury cars and jewelry, plus a new home.

Agents seized the cars and froze Hailey's bank accounts, but a prosecutor said they'd only been able to account for about a third of the allegedly fraudulent proceeds. Authorites now are seeking to sell Hailey's home, the cars and other property.  He backed out at the last moment last month on a plea agreement and is now scheduled to be tried Dec. 19.

Shortly after that case broke, I reported in The Baltimore Sun that it appeared to be the beginning of a crackdown by federal officials on the lucrative - and until recently, loosely regulated - market in RINs.  Industry insiders said they'd grown increasingly concerned that lax federal oversight of trading in the credits encouraged scams.  An industry group even set up a link on its website for members to report suspicious activity.  It appears that the Texas firm came to authorties' attention through a tip from a suspicious broker. 

The Environmental Protection Agency did move last year to tighten its record-keeping and reporting requirements for the renewable credits. Some in the industry, however, still question whether the feds have done enough.

(Locked office of Clean Green Fuel and related business.  Baltimore Sun photo by Tim Wheeler)

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 1:24 PM | 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
        

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)
        

Maryland's effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 25 percent by the end of the decade shouldn't cost the state any jobs, and may actually trigger new "green" employment, a pair of new studies say.

The two reports by the University of Maryland Center for Integrative Environmental Research were commissioned by the state Department of the Environment, which is required under the 2009 Greenhouse Gas Reduction Act to produce a draft plan by the end of this year for how to curb climate-altering carbon dioxide and other gases.

The legislature, in approving the law nearly three years ago, ordered the administration to show through independent studies that the effort wouldn't hurt the reliability of the state's electricity supply or hurt manufacturing.  Since then, the economy has tanked, Congress balked at adopting any climate-change legislation, and federal regulatory efforts to deal with greenhouse gases have slowed under fire from those who contend they'll hurt an already slumping economy.

The two UM reports conclude that in Maryland, at least, the effort to cut back climate-harming emissions would improve the availability of power, if anything, and that there would be no significant harm done to manufacturing or to the economy in general.

"We've tried really hard to find all kinds of ways in which, especially during this downturn in the economy, we could take a serious look at this and say, 'Where can it hurt us?'" said Matthias Ruth, director of the UM center.  "And we couldn't find it."

Continue reading "UM study finds MD climate law no drag on economy" »

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 1:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
        

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)
        

The world's population has hit 7 billion, according to the United Nations, which coincidentally (or not) chose today, Halloween, as the date when that mark would be reached.

The number of humans inhabiting the Earth has more than doubled in the past 50 years, and though the rate of increase has slowed, we're still adding 1 billion people every 12 years.  I'm # 2,658,582,904, according to a nifty calculator published by the BBC.  Enter your birthdate and see what number you are.

But this milestone "is not about sheer numbers," says Geoff Dabelko, director of the Woodrow Wilson Center's Environmental Change & Security Program.  "Demographic trends will significatnly impact the planet's resouces and people's security.

"Growing populations stress dwindling natural resources supplies while high levels of consumption in both developed countries and emerging economies drive up carbon emissions and deplete the planet's resources," Dabelko adds.  "And neglected 'youth bulges' could bolster extremism in fragile states like Somalia and destabilize nascent democracies like Egypt."

For a primer on how we got to 7 billion, check out this brief video from the Population Reference Bureau.  If you want to delve deeper, I recommend the special year-long series by the National Geographic on the world's growing population and what it will mean.

To bring the discussion closer to home, it's worth pointing out that as of last year, an estimated 17.2 million people lived in the six-state Chesapeake Bay watershed, up from 16.9 million in 2008, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.  It's projected that number will hit 20 million by 2030.  For an analysis of how that growing human population works against restoring the bay, check out writer Tom Horton's 2008 report for the Abell Foundation.

(Photos: Top, Beach in China, 2007 AFP/Getty; Above, Commuters in Hanoi, 2011, Reuters)

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 9:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

Halloween's approaching so plan on hearing some scary stuff about "PlanMaryland," the state's blueprint for encouraging development in and around existing cities, towns and villages.

Some rural politicians are hopping mad about the 188-page tome, which state planners have been laboring over for three years. The planners say it's intended to carry out the state's longstanding Smart Growth policies, which aim to preserve Maryland's vanishing farmland and natural areas while also reducing pollution.  An added benefit, proponents say, is that more compact development should save taxpayers money, reducing expenditures on roads, utilities and other public services for ever-expanding suburbia. 

State officials have held dozens of meetings around the state to explain the plan and take public comments. They also tweaked it recently in a vain attempt to mollify critics, repeatedly saying that local officials would still be free to allow development wherever they choose, just the state will no longer provide funds to subsidize sprawl.  But criticis have decried it as part of a "war on rural Maryland" being waged by the O'Malley administration, choking off any prospects for economic development or growth outside of cities.  Some have called it communistic and part of an insidious move for global government under the United Nations.

As reported by Nicole Fuller in The Baltimore Sun, one of the hotbeds of hostility to the state growth plan is Carroll County, where predominantly conservative politicians have clashed with Democratic state executives over growth and transporation in years past.  Its commissioners have ponied up $10,000 to sponsor a forum in Pikesville on Monday afternoon to air criticisms of what they see as flawed premises of the plan, including concerns about the impacts of climate change and of suburban sprawl.

"We are on a mission to get at the truth about these underlying premises," Commissioner Richard Rothschild told me in a recent interview. "Do automobiles detract from our economy?" he asked.  "Do greenhouse gases threaten the safety and security of our state?"

Continue reading "State growth plan riles rural pols" »

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 9:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
        

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)
        

The second annual Clean Energy Summit blows into B'more today, rescheduled and relocated here after the earthquake in August damaged the Bethesda hotel where it was supposed to be held.  That 'quake may have been an omen.

There'll be a lot of talk at the Hilton Inner Harbor on Friday about solar and wind power, electric vehicles, biofuels, public policy and more.  There's lots happening on those fronts, but plenty of uncertainty and uproar, too. 

Construction is under way on Maryland's first utility-scale solar array in Emmitsburg, for instance, and the state was recently recognized as one of the top 10 states in promoting energy efficiency.  But in Washington, cost-cutting pressures cast a shadow over funding for clean energy, and there's even talk among at least some Republican lawmakers of cutting off tax incentives for virutally all forms of energy, including solar and wind, nuclear and even at least some breaks for oil and gas. 

Despite the federal policy turmoil, more and more businesses and homeowners are looking for clean energy, installing more efficient lighting and solar arrays, among other things.  To help stoke that interest, the summit winds up Saturday with a free consumer show.

From 9:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., the public has a chance to drive a Chevy Volt and learn more about solar hot water and photovoltaics, geothermal heating and cooling, the new generation of cleaner woodstoves and - perhaps most important of all - how to go about financing the upfront costs that can ultimately lead to lower utility bills.

For more info, go here.

(Wind turbines on Backbone Mountain near Oakland MD.  2010 Baltimore Sun photo by Kim Hairston)

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 12:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

Scientists have confirmed a fungus is causing deadly white-nosed syndrome in bats across much of North America, including western Maryland.

In an article today in the journal Nature, scientists with the U.S. Geological Survey and other researchers identified Geomyces destructans as the cause of the rapidly spreading syndrome, which has been blamed for severe declines in bat populations in the Northeast.

Researchers found that 100 percent of healthy little brown bats exposed to G. destructans while hibernating in captivity developed white-nosed syndrome.  They also demonstrated that the fungus spreads through contact between individual bats.

More than 200 bats with the characteristic white fungus were found hibernating in an Allegany County cave near Cumberland in 2010, along with several dead animals, according to the Maryland Department of Natural Resources.   Bats with suspected white-nose syndrome also have turned up in Garrett and Washington counties, according to the USGS. To see a map showing where the disease has been spotted, go here.

(Hibernating brown bat with white muzzle typical of white-nose syndrome.  USGS photo via Reuters)

Continue reading "Scientists tie fungus to deadly bat disease" »

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 1:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

Electric vehicle owners, you have some new places to plug in in downtown Baltimore. The city just made it easier to get around without worrying about running out of juice, unveiling nine new EV charging stations in municipal parking garages.

Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake arrived at a ribbon-cutting in the Baltimore Street garage near City Hall driving a candy-apple red Chevrolet Volt, which she rated "a nice ride."  With cameras trained on her, she plugged the charging cable into the car without a hitch.

Declaring that Baltimore aims to support the budding electric-vehicle industry, Rawlings-Blake said  the city plans to acquire 50 more charging stations in the coming year to make it even easier for commuters and residents to have EVs in the city without fear of running out of power.

The nine chargers, each capable of handling two vehicles simultaneously, were installed with a $134,000 grant from the Maryland Energy Administration. The city is providing the electricity for free - about $1.50 per 10-hour charge, according to Ted Atwood, director of General Services - but drivers still have to pay to park.

"The people most likely to use these would be commuters worried about running out of juice before they get home," said Tiffany James of the city parking authority.  But she noted that they also make it possible for residents who don't have off-street parking to own an EV. 

The chargers were made by Coulomb Technologies and are part of the ChargePoint Network.  EV owners can locate available charging stations in city garages and elsewhere by consulting the online network. A ChargePoint card is needed to plug in, but those without one can call a number listed on the station to get signed up and connected on the spot.

Atwood said city workers are test-driving a pair of Volts to see if it makes sense to add EVs to the municipal vehicle fleet. The city is looking for ways to trim its fuel bill, he said, which runs upwards of $15 million a year.

Following is a list of city garages with EV chargers:

Continue reading "EV chargers debut in B'more city garages" »

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 11:39 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" »

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 12:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

The Obama administration may have buckled under political pressure from tightening smog air pollution limits, but the Environmental Protection Agency is belatedly holding Baltimore accountable for meeting an old cap on harmful ozone levels.

The EPA announced recently that it had settled a lawsuit with the Sierra Club over the agency's failure to determine if six major metro areas with severe smog problems, including Baltimore, had met a pollution standard set in 1979. 

The agency agreed to determine if each has come into attainment with the old standard, which deemed it unhealthful if ozone levels in the air reached 125 parts per billion for one hour.  If any cities are not in compliance, they could be required to adopt new pollution control measures.

EPA has changed the ozone pollution standard twice since then, based on advice from health officials and scientists, and now considers 75 parts per billion ozone over an eight-hour period unhealthful to breathe.

The Sierra Club elected to sue EPA after realizing that the federal government never closed the loop with the old standard and determined whether all metro areas had come into attainment, as the law requires.

"That's a mandatory duty," said Robert Ukeiley, Sierra's lawyer in the case.  "EPA has to make that finding (but) EPA didn't make it."

So now EPA is pledging to determine whether Baltimore and the other metro areas - Houston-Galveston-Brazoria (TX), New York-Northern New Jersey-Long Island, Springfield (Western Massachusetts), Greater Connecticut, and Boston-Lawrence-Worcester (MA-NH) - have met the old 1-hour ozone standard. 

Continue reading "EPA belatedly enforcing old smog standard" »

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 12:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

With three waste-to-energy projects in various stages of planning now in Maryland,  environmentalists are taking aim at a new state law that sweetened the incentives for building such facilities.

The Environmental Integrity Project this week released a report asserting that waste-to-energy plants generate more pollution than coal-fired power plants.  Activists who joined EIP in releasing the report say they're going to try to convince lawmakers to repeal the law when the General Assembly meets in January.l

The report contends that Maryland's two largest existing waste-to-energy incinerators release more air pollution per hour of energy produced than do the state's four largest coal plants. Toxic mercury and lead, carbon monoxide, the pollutants that form smog and climate-warming greenhouse gases - the report says all are coming out of the incinerators stacks at a higher rate per kilowatt-hour of power generated than they are from coal plants.

With Gov. Martin O'Malley's backing, the General Assembly approved a measure this year that awards lucrative top-tier renewable energy credits to plants producing power by burning municipal solid waste.  Waste burners had been classififed as Tier 2 renewable energy sources before, and the law upgraded them to Tier 1, on par with wind and solar energy facilities.  The bill's passage surprised and angered environmentalists, who unsuccessfully petitioned O'Malley to veto it.

O'Malley administration officials contend that trash is a legitimate renewable energy source, and the state could use the help in meeting its ambitious goal of getting 20 percent of its power from renewable sources by 2022. Proponents of the plants say their facilities will meet or exceed all state pollution-control requirements.

Mike Tidwell, head of Chesapeake Climate Action Network, said activists hope to persuade O'Malley he's mistaken to back waste-to-energy, and they're angling to introduce a bill to repeal the new law.  And in the meantime, he said, "environmentalists intend to challenge the permits of every waste to energy plant in the pipeline until we defeat them."

The three projects in the offing include the new Energy Answers plant in the Curtis Bay section of Baltimore, a new incinerator in Frederick County and a proposed expansion of Harford County's resource-recovery facility. Energy Answers already has all - or nearly all - the permits it needs to start construction.

(Photo: Baltimore Refuse Energy Systems Co.(BRESCO) plant, 2009 Baltimore Sun photo by Gene Sweeney Jr.)

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 12:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Air Pollution, News
        

The pushback against environmental regulation grows, this time against new federal air pollution rules that would help Marylanders breathe easier, according to a state spokesman.

Attorneys general for 24 states (not including the Free State) plus the governor of Iowa have joined with the coal industry in asking the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to extend a Nov. 16 deadline for the Environmental Protection Agency to impose a rule requiring reductions in emissions of mercury and other toxic pollutants from coal-fired power plants.  EPA is bound to act by that date under the terms of a consent decree approved by the court.

In asking the court for a year's delay, the states point to an industry-financed study saying that the mercury regulation along with another EPA rule clamping down on cross-state air pollution would increase electricity costs, eliminate jobs and could lead to power shortages.

Similar efforts to delay or block the EPA's power plant rules are being made in Congress, as some power plant operators have warned they'll shut down their coal burners rather than comply because they say it would be too expensive to put on the needed pollution controls.

But according to Jay Apperson, spokesman for the Maryland Department of the Environment, almost all the coal-fired power plants in the state, including all the largest ones, will comply with the federal rule other states are objecting to.  They've already been required to reduce mercury emissions on par with the federal rule under the state's Healthy Air Act, adopted in 2006 and signed by the governor then, Republican Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.

Maryland's law is "ahead of the curve," points out Frank O'Donnell of Clean Air Watch.  The state's law required an 80 percent reduction in mercury emissions by 2010 and will ratchet up to requiring 90 percent reduction by 2013 - compared with a 91 percent curb by 2014 or 2015 under the federal rule. 

Indeed, the MDE spokesman says that the federal rule for mercury, as well as EPA's cross-state air pollution rule requiring reductions in smog-forming power plant emissions, "will begin to level the playing field" for Maryland power plants. 

That could be why Constellation Energy, which installed scrubbers on its Maryland coal plants to comply, supports the federal rule along with some other power companies, including Exelon, suitor to merge with Constellation. Critics of the EPA rule say those power companies that support it just don't have as many coal plants to upgrade.

Whatever the case, much of the mercury, smog and health-threatening fine-particle pollution in Maryland's air blows in here from out of state, Apperson notes.  Officials estimate that up to 70 percent of the ozone-forming emissions in Maryland's air, for instance, waft in from elsewhere.

Environmentalists have rallied to EPA's side, releasing a nationwide survey that found strong public support for the disputed air pollution rules.  Two-thirds, 67 percent, oppose any delay in the cross-state pollution rule, and 77 percent object to delaying the clampdown on toxic mercury, according to the poll. Nearly 90 percent of Democrats and even 58 percent of Republicans surveyed opposed congressional action to stop EPA from adopting the rules. 

(Pollution scrubber emits steam cloud at Constellation's Brandon Shores power plant south of Baltimore.  2010 Baltimore Sun photo by Kenneth K. Lam)

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 12:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

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)

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 12:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

Advocates of developing offshore wind power have come to Baltimore this week with optimism that they're creeping closer to putting the first turbines off the Atlantic coast, but worried that Washington could pull the plug on the fledgling industry just as it gets started.

Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley and Interior Secretary Ken Salazar are scheduled to open a three-day conference put on by the American Wind Energy Association.  For details on the affair, go here.

Chris Long, the association's manager of offshore policy, said several federal and state government actions have buoyed the industry and sent positive signals to investors. But liftoff still has not occurred, and there are signs some may be cooling on offshore's wind potential.

On the plus side, the gears of the federal bureaucracy are creaking forward.  In February, the Departments of Interior and Energy released a promised joint strategy for cutting the costs of offshore wind projects and speeding up their regulatory approval.

Then in March, Interior offered its first commercial lease of turbine sites off the Delaware coast, and in April approved a construction and operations plan for what could be the first offshore wind farm, the much-debated Cape Wind project off Nantucket's coast in Massachusetts.

Finally, last July, Interior's Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement released a mostly favorable draft environmental impact assessment for issuing offshore wind leases along the entire mid-Atlantic coast, including Maryland.

State actions also have encouraged the industry, such as O'Malley's so-far unsuccessful push to make utilities sign long-term power purchasing agreements with offsore wind developers.

But offshore wind is running into some resistance as well. The New York Power Authority voted recently to drop its plan to develop a 150-megawatt wind farm in the Great Lakes amid anxiety about the costs and the weak economy.  Estimates of how much ratepayers would need to pay to subsidize the project ranged from $60 million to $100 million a year.

Meanwhile, federal subsidies for any type of "clean" energy are drawing more critical scrutiny these days on the heels of the collapse of Solyndra, the California solar manufacturer that received more than $500 million in loan guarantees.

Continue reading "Offshore wind blows into town, with eye on DC" »

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 6:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

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)
        

Maryland's highest court has upheld the rights of environmental organizations and citizens in general to challenge government actions that they believe will harm the state's air, water or land.

In the first test of a two-year-old state law expanding citizens' standing to sue in environmental disputes, the Court of Appeals ruled, in a 5 to 2 decision, that the Patuxent Riverkeeper should have been allowed to pursue a lawsuit opposing a permit allowing a road to be built across a stream near the Washington Beltway.

Courts have granted citizens and groups broad rights to go to court to enforce environmental laws when they believe someone is polluting, but this case was about challenging prospective harm - preventing it before it occurs.  Maryland's General Assembly had passed legislation in 2009 broadening citizens' rights to sue over permit decisions, the product of a compromise between environmentalists and business interests, in which activists gave up some rights to challenge permits administratively.

But a Prince George's County Circuit Court judge tossed the riverkeeper's case, declaring that the watchdog organization had no legal standing to challenge the permit issued by the Maryland Department of the Environment, which allowed 3/4 acre of nontidal wetlands to be destroyed for a road serving Woodmore Towne Centre. 

The court said that the nutrient runoff and other pollution the riverkeeper contended would be caused by the wetland loss on Western Branch, a tributary of the Patuxent, was merely "conjectural or hypothetical," and the resident on whose behalf the group had sued was too far downstream - 8.5 miles - to be affected in any case.

But Judge Lynne A. Battaglia, writing for the majority, said the resident had "reasonable concern" that the development would harm the health of the Western Branch, and thus diminish his ability to use and enjoy the waters downstream, where he frequently paddled.  Scientific studies have shown stream degradation resulting from roads built over headwaters and wetlands, the majority noted.

Two appellate judges dissented, with Judge Glenn T. Harrell Jr. contending that the law only allows citizens to challenge permit decisions if they can show some particular harm to themselves personally, not just a general degradation of the environment.

Patuxent Riverkeeper Fred Tutman hailed the decision, saying in an email that "Marylanders need to know that if they want to challenge a state permit they no longer need to jump through (a) developer created gauntlet of harassment and inquisition into the nature of their presumed economic stakeholder interest and whether ... they can first prove they have been injured by a project or permit — all in advance of their fair day in court."

The ruling comes too late, however, to do anything about the wetland destruction challenged in this case. Tutman said the developer has already built the road over the stream.

To read the decision and dissent, go here.

(Patuxent Riverkeeper Fred Tutman prepares to launch, 2005. Baltimore Sun photo by Doug Kapustin)

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 9:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
        

In the unsurprising news category, the bottled water industry finds it "disappointing" that the O'Malley administration is trying to get state workers to drink tap water instead of its products.

The International Bottled Water Association released a statement late Wednesday reacting to news from late last week that the state's Green Purchasing Committee voted to stop buying bottled water for state buildings and facilities where tap water is available.   Bottled water would still be provided in places where tap water isn't available, and agencies could decide for themselves whether to have it stocked in vending machines on site.

The move came at the behest of environmental groups, who argued that the state could save money and show support to struggling public water systems by cutting back on bottled water purchases.  Maryland spent $200,000 on Deer Park water in fiscal 2010, according to one official.

In its statement, the association contends that eliminating workers' access to bottled water will increase consumption of unhealthful soft drinks or other calorie-containing beverages.  And it argues that the cutback is a slap at an industry that employs 2,260 people in the state and spends $92 million on wages and benefits.

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 9:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
        

Every week or so seems to bring news of another solar installation in Maryland. The latest is a big one, and it's in a place that hasn't seen that much sun power yet - Baltimore city.

Chimes International, which provides job training and other services for people with disabilities, has blanketed a chunk of its 12-acre campus in northwest Baltimore with 3,000 solar panels, said to be the largest in the city.  The system, which features an unusual mix of ground-mounted and three rooftop arrays, is capable of generating up to 670 kilowatts - enough, according to Chimes, to furnish 60 to 70 percent of the nonprofit's electricity.

Washington Gas Energy Service, based in Herndon, VA will own and operate the system, which was designed and built by BITHENERGY, a Baltimore-based energy services firm.  Chimes inked a 20-year contract to buy the sun-generated power.

As if that wasn't enough, the installation includes independent solar powered outdoor lighting and an electric-vehicle charging station.  It isn't the first green project Chimes has undertaken either - its executives say through they've been able to trim $80,000 a year in energy costs at their locations in Maryland, the mid-Atlantic and Israel by weatherizing buildings, installing energy-efficient lighting and appliances and instilling conservation practices among employees.

(Photo by Corey Culbreath for BITHENERGY courtesy of Chimes)

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 8:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

Constellation Energy announced today that it's begun work on a 16.1-megawatt solar power plant at Mount St. Mary's University in Emmitsburg that when finished will be Maryland's largest single generator of electricity from the sun - at least for now.

Earth movers recently began clearing and grading the site for the $60 million project, which is expected to be completed next year.

Constellation plans to place 220,000 thin-film photovoltaic panels on 100 acres it is leasing from the Catholic institution, capable of generating more than 22 million kilowatt-hours of electricity.  The facility will be owned and operated by the Baltimore-based energy company.

Burning coal to produce the same amount of energy would release 15,170 metric tons of climate-warming carbon dioxide - roughly equivalent to what 2,975 cars and trucks spew from their tailpipes annually, according to Environmental Protection Agency data.

The project was made possible by a 20-year power purchase agreement with the state and the University System of Maryland.  The state will be paying a fixed rate of 22.25 cents per kilowatt-hour, well above the current cost to generate power from burning fossil fuels.  But Kevin Lucas of the Maryland Energy Administration says that higher cost is offset by the marketable solar renewable energy credits the state also gets, which are now selling for about 17.5 cents/kwh.

The panels were made by First Solar, an Arizona-based company with manufacturing plants in Ohio, Germany and Malaysia.  The construction is expected to employ 75 people on average, and up to 150 at its peak, according to Constellation.  Once finished, the company says it will be run and maintained by two workers.

The Emmitsburg facility is one of four large-scale renewable energy projects being pushed by the O'Malley administration by offering long-term power purchasing agreements.  While the largest in the state for now, an even larger, 20-megawatt project is proposed by Easton-based Maryland Solar on 250 acres of farmland at a state prison complex in Hagerstown. 

Constellation plans to build a separate 1.3-megawatt solar array to generate power for Mount St. Mary's.

(Photo: Aerial view of solar plant construction site, by Something in the Sky for Constellation Energy) 

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 9:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (8)
        

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)

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 9:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

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)
        

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
        

Happy Park(ing) Day! For those not familiar with it, this is a day when artists, activists and creative business people transform curbside parking spaces into mini-parks and spaces for exhibiting art and socializing.

It was begun in 2005 in San Francisco by Rebar, an art and design studio there, but has gone global since. Last year, there were  more than 800 conversions in more than 180 cities in 30 countries on six continents. It's meant to get people thinking about "re-imagining the possibilities of the urban landscape," as Rebar's Matthew Passmore has been quoted.

Some Baltimore groups and businesses are getting in on the act. The Reservoir Hill Improvement Council is converting teachers' parking spaces at John Eager Howard Elementary School into a "composting kitchen," where students can learn how to build real and edible compost boxes. That's at 2100 Brookfield Ave. from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.

The city's landscape architecture and design firms seem to seizing the opportunity to strut their stuff - or just to engage in a little Friday whimsy. They include:

Ayers Saint Gross, which will unveil a temporary "sculptural shade structure" made almost entirely from plastic bottles collected from the harbor and around the city. It'll be in a pair of adjoining parking spaces at the corner of Broadway and Thames Street in Fells Point. It'll be up from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m.

EDSA, Inc., which plans an exhibit exploring how society might adapt to apocalyptic events like earthquakes and hurricanes. Its spot will be on Commerce Street just north of Pratt Street, across from the Baltimore World Trade Center.

Floura Teeter, which will convert three spaces in front of its downtown office at 306 W. Franklin Street into an "urban garden designed to showcase sustainable food preparation using local, seasonal ingredients." This will be Floura Teeter's third Park(ing) Day observance.

Mahan Rykiel Associates, which is making two parking spaces in Hampden on the Avenue (832-836 West 36th Street) into a "pop-up, outdoor, dog friendly café." That'll be from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

For more on Park(ing) Day, go here.

(Shannon Early blows bubbles into passing traffic while relaxing in Floura Teeter's greened parking spaces downtown. 2010 Baltimore Sun photo by Kenneth K. Lam.)

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

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)
        

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)
        

Solar power's catching on bigtime on campus.

The University of Maryland College Park has one of the largest solar arrays in the Baltimore-Washington region, with more than 2,600 photovoltaic panels on the roof of its Severn Building. 

It's expected to generate about 792 MWh of electricity in the first year.  That's enough to power 872 homes for one month, and avoids 408 tons of CO2 emissions that would come from burning fossil fuels to get the same amount of juice.

The array is owned by Washington Gas Energy Services, which spent $2 million on the facility installed by Standard Solar.  The project was underwritten in part with a $630,000 state grant, and the university contracted to buy the electricity.

It's one of 16 solar projects supported by the Maryland Energy Administration under its Project Sunburst grant program. Officials say nine of those have been completed so far, providing 5.2 megawatts' worth of solar generating capacity.

(Photo courtesy Maryland Energy Administration)

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 9:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Climate change, Going Green, News
        

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)
        

State officials announced today they will join with hunting groups to take a look at the feasibility of reintroducing elk in mountainous western Maryland after a three century absence.

The Department of Natural Resources is working with the Maryland Legislative Sportsmen’s Foundation and the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation to review the biological, social and economic feasibility of returning the species to land that hasn't seen any elk since the 1700s.

Elk once were found from New York to Georgia in the East, but were hunted out over a century ago. The animals have been restored in some spots, notably Tennessee, Kentucky in the Great Smoky Mountains.  Pennsylvania also has gradually conserved enough land to sustain a modest-sized herd, on which it allows limited hunting.

While the return of elk to Maryland could be a bonanza for hunting interests in the state, they're not universally welcomed. The animals tend to roam, causing crop damage and even more mayhem than a deer if hit by car or truck while crossing a road. And some worry about the potential for elk to contract and spread illnesses like wasting disease, which also affects deer.

So a key factor in the study, expected to take at least 12 months, will be gauging public opinion toward the move, particularly among farmers and other property owners whose land may attract herds of elk.

“Far Western Maryland offers ideal habitat for elk, but we all agree that citizens must be supportive,” David Allen, President and CEO of the Montana -based Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, said in a statement released by DNR. The Maryland sportsmen's foundation aims to hire a consultant to conduct polling, under the oversight of state officials.

“As with all of our ecological programs, science and informed public input will be our guide,” said Natural Resources Secretary John W. Griffin. “Consensus from our experts and all impacted stakeholders will be a prerequisite to this decision.”

Baltimore Sun file photo of bull elk in Yellowstone by Jerry Jackson

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 4:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)
Categories: News
        

More than 20 Washington-area environmental activists - including some from Maryland - were arrested outside the White House today as protests continued against building a 1,700-mile pipeline from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico to carry oil wrested from the tar sands of Alberta.

The arrests came on the third day of a series of protests planned through Sept. 3 urging the Obama administration to reject the $13 billion project. TransCanada Corp. is seeking US approval to complete the 36-inch Keystone XL pipeline, which it says will boost American energy security by linking Canadian crude oil with US refineries and sea lanes.

But activists contend the project will lead to oil spills, and that extracting oil from the tar sands will devastate vast forested Canadian habitat and greatly increase climate-warming carbon dioxide emissions. Protestors sported signs supporting development of more wind energy instead.

Mike Tidwell, head of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, was arrested Saturday along with about 60 others. Among the protest's leaders is Gus Speth, a Vermont Law School professor who ran the  United Nations Development Programme in the 1990s and was President Jimmy Carter's top environmental adviser.

(Photo courtesy Chesapeake Climate Action Network)

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 4:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)
        

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)
        

How convenient is it to go green? Ask Royal Farms, the Baltimore-based convenience store chain.

The comany's 5,000-square-foot store in Dover, PA is the first Royal Farms to earn LEED certification, the vanguard of a corporate pledge to certify all of their eligible stores under the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design program sponsored by the U.S. Green Building Council. Company officials celebrated the certification earlier this week.

From the outside, the Dover store, pictured above, doesn't appear any different than a traditional building.  Yet for what Royal Farms' consultant described as a "nominal" cost, the Dover store's designed and built to achieve 21 percent energy savings and use 42 percent less water, among other advantages. Any extra costs to go green were primarily for obtaining the LEED rating and should be easily made up by the operational savings, says Neal Fiorelli, managing partner of Lorax Partnerships of Columbia, the chain's consultant. 

Royal Farms says it has 20 stores that have applied for LEED certification, including a store on Charles Street in Baltimore expected to open later this year. Meanwhile, visitors to the Dover, PA store can pick up a brochure and maybe even get a quick tour to learn about its green features.

(Photo provided by Lorax Partnerships)  

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 9:00 AM | 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)
        

The "tempest in a tree pit" over the Baltimore Grand Prix continues.

A vocal critic of the tree-cutting for the three-day downtown event met with the race's CEO today, but says his demands were rebuffed. David Troy, a software entrepreneur who launched a petition drive against the tree removal, says he didn't got to court today to block any further tree removals, but says he's still weighing that option. UPDATE: Troy posted a "press alert" that he's filing a petition for an injunction this morning (8/5). 

Troy, whose online petition has collected more than 1,500 signers, said he asked to see the memorandum of understanding between the city and the race. He also wanted the Grand Prix to provide a legally binding guarantee that it will plant and care for the nearly 200 trees it has promised to put in downtown in return for the city's blessing to remove 50 from to accommodate grandstands for race spectators.

Jay Davidson, chief executive officer for the racing organization, refused both requests, Troy said. Davidson did not respond to an email inquiring about his meeting with Troy.  UPDATE: Davidson confirmed that he would not provide the $1 million letter of credit Troy asked for.  He said the race is already paying for the trees, and has pledged to pay for an additional 5,000 saplings at a nursery to be used within the city.

"They just weren't able to offer any assurance one way or another," Troy said by telephone, adding that he was "just really disappointed" by the refusals. Although race officials had signed the agreement with the city on tree cutting and planting earlier this week, city officials refuse to release it until it has been reviewed by city attorneys and signed by the mayor.

Davidson had estimated yesterday that the tree planting would cost the race about $100,000. He pointed out that the Grand Prix already has posted a $750,000 performance bond guaranteeing to reimburse the city for its expenses in accommodating the Labor Day weekend event, which promoters hope will draw up to 100,000 spectators.

But Troy said he had no confidence that that bond would be enough to pay for the tree plantings along with all the other financial obligations the race would have should it be a bust and go bankrupt.

He also said he was shocked to see as he bicycled to the racing headquarters today another five trees had been removed by the Convention Center. Someone had carved the inititals BGP into one stump, he said, providing a photograph seen here.

Troy had vowed to file a lawsuit in Baltimore Circuit Court today seeking an injunction to block further tree removal, but after the meeting he said he had not done so yet and intended to consult his lawyer.

Continue reading "Grand Prix tree tempest rages on" »

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 5:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (9)
        

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)
        

Update: Full story can be found here. 

A city official is defending allowing the Baltimore Grand Prix to cut down trees along the Inner Harbor race course, saying organizers have agreed to replace those trees nearly four times over, more than tripling the downtown's tree canopy in the process.

Beth Strommen, director of Baltimore's Office of Sustainability says she negotiated a deal with organizers of the Labor Day weekend street race, in which they got to cut down fewer than half the trees they originally wanted to remove to improve spectators' views of the racing.

Only 50 trees are to be cut down along the race course on West Pratt and Light streets, said Strommen - not the 136 that Lonnie Fisher, assistant Grand Prix general manager had told The Baltimore Sun on Monday.  Strommen, who spoke by telephone while vacationing in New Jersey, said she could not explain the discrepancy, but said she had confirmed the city's agreement with the race by phone Tuesday.

News of the tree cutting has upset some residents, who contend that it violates the city's forest conservation code (Article 7, Natural Resources) and is at odds with the city's sustainability plan, which calls for doubling Baltimore's tree canopy by 2037.  

Critics have begun circulating an online petition calling for a halt to any more race-related tree cutting until the plan is fully aired and each tree to be removed identified, as required by city code. Petition drafter Dave Troy contended in an email that the plan for cutting and replacing trees because of the race was "haphazard" and "shoved down the throat of the public without due process."

Strommen said the deal she'd negotiated with race organizers hasn't been announced yet because it has yet to be finalized, reviewed by city lawyers and signed.   But it calls for planting 59 replacement trees in the race corridor, she said, and another 135 trees are to be planted in already empty sidewalk "pits" for trees elsewhere in downtown. 

Continue reading "City: Grand Prix to plant many more trees than it cuts " »

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 6:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (38)
        

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)
        

More than 100 trees are coming down in downtown Baltimore so spectators at the Grand Prix race on Labor Day weekend can get better views of cars speeding through the streets.  (UPDATE: City official says no more than 50 trees to be removed, with nearly 200 to be planted in compensation.  See later post here.)

The Baltimore Sun reports that trees are being removed along West Pratt Street, at the Inner Harbor and near Camden Yards. The first few fell to chainsaws Monday across from the Convention Center.

A total of 136 trees are to be cut down, but race organizers plan to replant them (plus three extras, apparently) - a cycle they'll evidently repeat every year for the next four, under the deal the city has to host the Grand Prix through 2015.

Baltimore Racing Development, the company running the three-day event, worked out the tree removal and replacement plan with the city's Office of Sustainability, the Downtown Partnership and the Waterfront Partnership, according to the Sun. 

For what it's worth, the city's sustainability plan calls for doubling Baltimore's meager tree canopy, from 20 percent of the urban landscape to 40 percent by 2037.  Guess this won't exactly be backsliding if the whacked trees get replaced every year, but not exactly progress, either. 

(Trees being removed across from Convention Center.  Baltimore Sun photo by Gene Sweeney Jr.)

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 6:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (17)
        

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)
        

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)
        

Timothy Wheeler is at the beach this week -- vacation, not assignment. But here are a few recent articles worth pointing out in case you missed them:

• Endangered Hellbenders -- aka snot otters -- get new exhibit at Maryland Zoo. Are

• A former Navy destroyer will soon be sunk off the coast of Maryland to create the largest artificial reef on the Eastern Seaboard.

• University of Maryland College Park students are creating a green house that conserves water for its Solar Decathlon entry.
• Constellation marks the launch of its Maryland wind farm.

 Baltimore Sun photo of a Hellbender by Karl Merton Ferron

Posted by Kim Walker at 6:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: News
        

Legislation seeking to reconnect kids nationwide with nature and educate them more about the environment has resurfaced in Washington - this time with at least a trace of bipartisanship.

Senators Jack Reed (D-RI) and Mark Kirk (R-IL) announced they are introducing the "No Child Left Inside Act," which would provide federal assistance to states to develop and carry out environmental literacy plans. Cosponsors include Maryland's two Democratic senators, Barbara Mikulski and Ben Cardin.

Companion legislation is being reintroduced in the House, where the bill's champion, Rep. John Sarbanes, D-MD, had tried in vain to get it passed in the last Congress.

The announcement comes shortly after Maryland's state Board of Education decided to make environmental literacy a high school graduation requirement.

A coalition of more than 2,000 environmental and other groups has thrown its support behind getting national legislation, but a lack of Republican support has stalled it so far.

“Research shows that hands-on, outdoor environmental education has a measurably positive impact not only on student achievement in science, but also in reading, math, and social studies,” Sarbanes said in a statement. He said federal help is needed because many schools have been forced by budget shortages to scale back or eliminate environmental education programs.

“This will help the American K-12 education system foster innovation and interest in science, technology, engineering and math (the ‘STEM’ fields), which is crucial to keep our workforce competitive in rapidly emerging world markets,” said Kevin Coyle, vice president for education and training at the National Wildlife Federation.

For more on the bill, go here.

(Baltimore Sun photo)

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 1:51 PM | 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)
        

A study released today estimates there are 22,600 "clean" jobs in the Baltmore area, but the growth here of employment in green energy, conservation and environmental services is trailing the nation as a whole.

The Brookings Institution reports that the region's "clean economy" jobs grew by 2.6 percent annually from 2003 to last year, ranking Baltimore 76th among the nation's 100 largest metro areas. Maryland overall fared somewhat better, with a 3.1 percent growth that ranked it 29th among states.

Report co-author Mark Muro told The Baltimore Sun's Jamie Smith Hopkins that the Baltimore area clean economy is dominated by slower-growing, mature industries such as waste management - which actually lost jobs in recent years, according to the report - and has fewer jobs in clean technology, which is showing rapid growth nationwide.

The Washington think tank contends that the clean economy offers great prospects for boosting employment and income without needing additional years of higher education, but that it won't realize its potential without a more focused national effort.

To see the report and more, go here.

(Workers insulating pipes to reduce home energy use. Baltimore Sun photo)

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 8:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

It's not just the heat, or the humidity - it's the bad air. Experts are forecasting "code red," or seriously unhealthy, levels of smog or ozone pollution today in the Baltimore area.

Air quality is expected to be bad enough today to cause even healthy people to experience shortness of breath, coughing, wheezing, fatigue, headaches, nausea, chest pain, and eye and throat irritation if exercising or working outdoors.  People jogging, biking or making any other sort of exertion may feel pain in their chest when taking deep breaths.   And people with asthma or cardiac or respiratory conditions are likely to have more severe reactions to such high ozone levels.

Authorities recommend that people avoid outdoor exercise when ozone levels are expected to hit red levels. And Clean Air Partners, a nonprofit group that attempts to educate the public about air quality, recommends that people take steps to reduce the pollution that forms ozone, by reducing driving, turning off lights and reducing electricity use and by not operating gasoline-powered lawn equipment.

If ozone does reach forecasted "red" levels, it would be the fifth time this year in the Baltimore area, compared with just two "code red" days in the region by this time last summer.

Ozone levels are forecast to reach "code orange" levels in the Washington area, with air quality still bad enough to cause discomfort and health problems for sensitive individuals. The DC area has had six "code red" days so far this year.

Continue reading "Bmore due for "Code red" unhealthy air today" »

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 10:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

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)