Feeling like playing Johnny Appleseed?  Blue Water Baltimore needs volunteers to help plant heirloom apple trees Friday (Dec. 2) in Carroll Park, at 1500 Washington Blvd.

The area watershed group will be working with elementary school students from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. to put the trees in the ground.

Assistance welcomed. Gloves, tools and training will be provided.

For more info, contact Suzie at slmerryman1@yahoo.com

(Photo:  Students from Baltimore Talent Development High School plant fruit trees in Carroll Park, 2006.  Baltimore Sun photo by Kim Hairston)

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 6:22 AM | 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)
        

Baltimore's "virtual supermarket," an 18-month old experiment in fighting urban food deserts, has captured some national attention.  Now it only has to catch on better here.

Baltimarket, as it's known, is one of six sustainability programs around the country that are going to be recognized next month at a National League of Cities gathering in Phoenix, Az.  All are examples of "creative collaboration, increased efficiency and enhanced quality of life for residents."

For many city residents, it's not that easy to get fresh fruit and vegetables, because there aren't any supermarkets in their neighborhoods. The corner markets and convenience stores that are nearby just don't carry many perishable items like that. 

Residents lacking cars often took the bus to a grocery store, then had to pay $10 to $15 for a cab ride home with their purchases, according to Laura Fox, coordinator for the online market program with the city health department.

So in March 2010, the city started offering residents of two neighborhoods without many food choices the chance to order groceries and have them delivered to a central location.  The first sites for the experiment were the Orleans Street and Washington Village library branches of the Enoch Pratt Free Library.  Fox said Santoni's supermarket, which already offers online grocery shopping, agreed to participate and waive its delivery fee.

Continue reading "City's "virtual supermarket" gets national recognition " »

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 8:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

An autumn potpourri of things happening this weekend:

Trees: It's autumn, ideal time to plant a sapling. Baltimore County is having a big tree sale from 9 a.m. to noon on Saturday.  The costs range from $20 - $30. The event will be held at the Baltimore County Center for Maryland Agriculture, 1114 Shawan Road.  For details, go here. 

Stream cleanup: The Friends of Gwynns Falls/Leakin Park plan to clean up the stream that flows through the park's Winans Meadow, from 10 a.m. to noon Saturday. There's plenty of debris to clear from the tropical storm flooding last month. Gloves will be provided. Meet at the parking lot of Winans Meadow at 4500 Franklintown Road, 21229. For additional information, call 410-566-2230.

Park reopening:  When you're done planting trees or clearing stream debris, why not head over to Robert E. Lee Park and check out the $6.1 million facelift it got while closed the past two years?  There's a new bridge, a new half-mile boardwalk across wetlands and a new dog park (though you'd better keep your pooch on leash, and clean up after him or her!)  It officially reopened today (Friday, Oct. 14), but there'll be activities Saturday as well.  On Lakeside Drive, near Falls Road.  For directions, go here.

(Walking dogs on at rehabilitated Robert E. Lee Park. Photo by Noah Scialom)

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 4:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
        

Another patch of weedy, vacant land in Baltimore city has been reclaimed by and for its residents, and a graffiti-scrawled building turned into a huge, colorful mural proclaiming neighborhood pride.

Residents of Morrell Park in southwest Baltimore toiled alongside other volunteers through summer into early fall to clear an overgrown, trash-strewn lot in the 2600 block of Washington Boulevard and turn it into a memorial garden and park.

Now there's a stepping stone path with inlaid mosaics memorializing community members and their relatives who have died. Benches also have been placed along the path to sit and enjoy the flower and vegetable beds in the garden.

A few blocks away, at 2300 Washington Boulevard, Access Art, a community art program, transformed a frequently graffiti-defaced wall into a dramatic welcome sign for the neighborhood. Artist Chris Peters worked with youth and community members to identify bits of neighborhood history and other visual imagery to incorporate into the mural, which was painted in August and September.

The projects were funded with grants from PNC Bank (via the Baltimore Office of Promotion and the Arts), the Annie E. Casey Foundation and the Parks and People Foundation. Besides Access Art, other partners were the Morrell Park & St. Pauls Improvement Association and the Morrell Park Recreation Council.

For more views of the garden, memorial walk and mural, go here.

(Photos by Marshall Clarke, executive director Access Art) 

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 11:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)
        

Who says drinking water is dull? "Dam Jam 2011" on Sunday Oct. 2 aims to change that.

The daylong celebration at Cromwell Valley Park of Baltimore's drinking water reservoirs features live music, food, historical reenactors, wildlife on display and activities for kids, plus t-shirts and tattoos.

What more could you ask for? Oh, yeah, and there'll be a guided tour of Loch Raven Dam, with background on the history and inner workings of the region's three reservoirs.

Musical acts include Mosno Al-Moseeki, the "3rd World Rocker," Feinwood Jammgrass and Jeremiah Clark, who performs "alt-country Americana." City and county employees and local conservation groups will be on hand to present info on the importance of the region's waterways and what people can do to protect them.

Cosponsored by the city of Baltimore, Baltimore County and the Towson Arts Collective, the event runs from 10 a.m. to 4 pm.

Admission is free, and attendees are urged to bring chairs, blankets and picnic baskets to spend the day. The park is at 2175 Cromwell Bridge Road. For more information call, 410-396-500 or email kurt.kocher@baltimorecity.gov

(Patuxent Publishing Photo: Loch Raven dam, by Brian Krista) 

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 6:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

The Maryland Zoo in Baltimore has more than polar bears and prairie dogs to show its visitors. Just look up!

In addition to some 1,500 animals on exhibit, the lush 135-acre compound in Druid Hill Park boasts some champion trees, such as the number one osage orange in Baltmore city, seen at right.   This giant is 76 feet tall, with a trunk that's 20 feet 1 inch around.

There's also a state champion bur oak in the African exhibit, measuring 87 feet in height and 11 feet 4 inches circumference.  Plus another city champion, a white ash, and two finalists, a towering 148-foot tulip poplar and a white oak.

The trees earned their champion or near-champion status under the state's Big Tree Program, which measures trees all over Maryland and seeks to identify and preserve the biggest and most magnificent of them - most in people's "backyards."

Though its primary focus remains on its wildlife, the zoo's decided to shine a bit of a spotlight on its arboreal splendor.  It's posting informational signs by these and some other notable trees on the grounds.  Sheryl Heydt, the zoo's curator of horticulture, is holding the osage orange sign in the picture at left. 

Other trees of interest include a Turkish filbert, which Heydt says she's been told are very rare in these parts, a sapling from the Wye oak, the venerable tree destroyed by a storm in 2002, and a beech that's showing its age - with the date 1907 carved in its trunk. Such graffiti is prohibited today, but it's a reminder that the Maryland Zoo in Baltimore is the third oldest in the country, established in 1876.  Only Philadelphia (1873) and Cincinnati (1874) have older zoos.

So stop by and check out the zoo's trees in addition to its animals. For those who want a more in-depth exposure, there's a tree identification walk on Monday, Oct. 10, where visitors can stroll through the grounds and learn to spot them by their leaf, bark, twig, and fruit characteristics.  The session is for early risers, from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. It's free to zoo members, and registration is required. More here.

(Photo at top of osage orange courtesy Maryland Zoo in Baltimore)

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

This weekend brings more attention to the Baltimore area's water ways, with some stream cleanups scheduled Saturday followed by a fun fund-raiser for the region's watershed watchdog.

Last Saturday marked the 26th annual International Coastal Cleaunup, with volunteers clearing beaches and stream banks of debris and trash. This Saturday (9/24), there are a few more pickups planned, including of Bread and Cheese Creek in eastern Baltimore County, and of Stony Run in Baltimore city as it flows past Wyman Park near the Johns Hopkins University Homewood campus.

The Bread and Cheese cleanup is from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. starting around 1401 North Point Road. Gloves and trash bags provided, as is lunch. E-mail clean_bread_and_cheese_creek@yahoo.com or call 410-285-1202 to sign up!

The city event organized by Friends of Stony Run goes from noon to 4 p.m., and includes tree planting as well as trash pickup. Trash bags provided, but bring gloves and wear long sleeves, pants and rugged shoes. Look for signs at Tudor Arms & Craycombe to take the path down to the site for tree planting. For the trash cleanup, enter by the Remington Avenue Bridge and work north.

That same afternoon (9/24), Blue Water Baltimore is having its 4th annual Trash Bash fund-raiser from noon to 5 p.m. at Nick's Fish House, 2600 Insulator Drive 21230. Cost is $55 and includes seafood, drinks, live music, silent auction and electric boat tours of the Middle Branch. For more, go here.

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

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

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

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

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

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 6:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

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.)

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Urban farming's the rage these days, at least in some green circles. If you're wondering how to get in on it, there's an all-day workshop Thursday (Sept. 15), with hands-on training, lectures and tours of existing farms in Baltimore.

The free event open to anyone is organized by The Greenhorns, a national nonprofit promoting urban farming.  Besides the health aspects of raising nutritious local produce, the session will focus in part on how productive green space can reclaim the former industrial sites known as brownfields that pepper the city. Baltimore has at least 1,000 brownfields comprising 2,500 acres, according to the group. The city’s Office of Sustainability is aiming to convert 10 acres of city-owned vacant lots into farmland though competitive grant giving.

Visits are planned to Five Seeds Farm in the Belair-Edison neighborhood and Real Food Farm in Clifton Park in Northeast Baltimore. Partners for the event include the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future, The Radix Ecological Sustainability Center, Maryland Institute College of Art and the Baltimore Free School.

For details. go here.

(Real Food Farm, 2010 Baltimore Sun photo by Barbara Haddock Taylor)

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 9:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

What's a little rain and wind when you have toxic wastes eating a hole in your basement?

A tropical storm may be bearing down on us, but Baltimore city is NOT canceling its drop-off of household hazardous wastes Saturday (8/27) from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Baltimore Polytechnic Institute parking lot at Falls Road and Cold Spring Lane.  The event is run by the Department of Public Works Bureau of Solid Waste.

City residents can drop off oil-based paints, pesticides, herbicides, car and household batteries, drain cleaners, gasoline, pool chemicals and many other items. Latex paint can be dried up and the cans put out for regular trash collection.

Do NOT bring trash, acids, asbestos, ammunition, fire extinguishers, industrial or medical wastes, or radioactive materials, including smoke alarms with a radioactive symbol.

Residents must show proof of city residency - a driver's license, telephone bill or tax bill - and are asked to use the Cold Spring Lane entrance to the school parking lot. For more, go here.

(Baltimore Sun file photo)

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The 2nd annual Charm City Garden Tour rolls out Saturday, Aug. 13, offering a chance to see some of Baltimore's lushest community gardens and sample some locally sourced refreshments at a post-tour garden party.

The tour begins and ends at the Whitelock Community Farm, which figured prominently in a recent Baltimore Sun story I wrote about the greening of Reservoir Hill. The farm is at 940 Whitelock Street, and the tour runs from 2 p.m to 5 p.m., with the garden party from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m.  Stick around, and you can catch the open-air movie showing at Reservoir Hill's German Park at 8:30 p.m.

The event is sponsored by Community Greening Resource Network, the UME Baltimore City Master Gardeners and Parks & People Foundation.

A bus tour already is sold out, but space is still available for a bicycle tour covering the same route, which makes stops at gardens in Mount Washington and Park Heights as well as Reservoir Hill. The cost is $15 a head, and cyclists are required to bring their own bike and strongly encouraged to wear helmets.  To reserve a spot, email charmcitygardentour@gmail.com or call 410-448-5663 ext 128.

(Newington Avenue in Reservoir Hill. Baltimore Sun photo by Gabe Dinsmoor)

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 4:19 PM | 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)
        

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)
        

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

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

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

Weeds as art? Never underestimate the ingenuity of artists!

Starting Monday, bush bus shelters on North Avenue will feature large-scale photographs of some of the oft-overlooked and usually unwanted plants growing in the cracks in the sidewalk, in the gutters and storm drains throughout the city.

The bus shelter ads are part of a public art project called Uncultivated, offering what it calls "a virtual and physical tour of Baltimore's wild plant life."

Whle many might dismiss the green growth as weeds, the artists behind this project want people to look at them in a different light, as "tiny pockets of wildness within the urban environment."

"Often these tenacious plants are referred to as invasive, as if the blame for their presence lay with the plant itself," according to the  release from Lynn Cazabon, the project's director and photographer. 

"In reality, these plant species have simply evolved to thrive in the extremely harsh environment of the city, which is perpetually effected by human-caused disruption."

The release goes on to say that "these plants communicate something very important to us, telling how the landscape of Baltimore is evolving over time due to the effects of global climate change."

The photos are linked to a website, http://uncultivated.info , which provides information on the plants in the pictures, plus a map showing where they were found in the city.  Others involved with the project are horticulturist Christa Partain and Amanda Barrett and Patterson Clark, who provided web site and logo design.

Look for the posters throughout July on North Ave. shelters between Howard and Charles streets and on St. Paul Street outside of Penn Station.  Maybe this will give all the critics of the "Male/Female" sculpture at Penn Station something else to look at and talk about.

(Photo courtesy Uncultivated)

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 9:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (9)
        

Sunday is the 9th annual Tour Dem Parks, the yearly bike ride through Baltimore’s parks and neighborhoods.

With the heat easing off, it's a great chance to enjoy the city's green gems, like Carroll, Leakin, Patterson, Clifton and Druid Hill parks. There's a choice of routes to match riders' abilities, from a 12-mile "family" jaunt up and down the Gwynns Falls Trail to the 64-mile Metric Century that's for serious road warriors indeed.

There are rest stops at Patterson, Herring Run, Druid Hill, and Leakin parks, with complimentary snacks, Gatorade and water, plus toilets or port-o-johns and even bike mechanics to help keep you rolling. And when you finish, there's a barbecue and live music at Carroll Park to wind down.

Cost is $20 for children 15 and younger, $40 per adult. Even though it's fun, it's also a fund-raiser, okay? The money goes to help gussy up the parks, print trail maps, create rain gardens and the like. For more on that, go here.

Rides start in Carroll Park, 1500 Washington Blvd, and run from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. Go here to register in advance. If you'd rather not ride but want to be part of the scene, they're looking for volunteers to staff registration and rest stops.

(2008 Tour Dem Parks, Baltimore Sun photo by Algerina Perna)

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

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

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

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

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

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

(Baltimore Sun photo by Kim Hairston)

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

If you're like me, you probably have a few old or broken cell phones lying around your house - maybe even a 1980s dinosaur like the one pictured here. 

I could never bring myself to throw them away, figuring they'd just wind up in a landfill or even incinerated. So they're sitting on a shelf or in a box somewhere.

Now, here's a chance to get those unwanted phones recycled, and make a little cash in the process. From Friday (6/10) through Sunday (6/12), everyone who brings two old cell phones to Mondawmin Mall will be given a $10 gift card.  You can go green and get some green in exchange.

The event is sponsored by General Growth Properties, owner of Mondawmin and other area malls, in partnership with Cathy Allen, a West Baltimore resident who dubs herself the "Green Ambassador."  Among her efforts to green the urban environment, she's campaigning to plant trees in every public elementary school in the city.

Remember, you need to turn in TWO old cell phones to get a gift card. The swap will be taking place at Center Court at Mondawmin, 2401 Liberty Heights Ave. from 1 p.m. to 8 p.m. Friday, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday, and from noon to 6 .m. Sunday.

For more, go here.

(Baltimore Sun photo by Barbara Haddock Taylor)

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 10:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

Want to know what's being done to make Baltimore more bicycle-friendly? This evening (Monday, April 18) is your chance to find out, and help get it in gear.

As part of Green Week, there'll be an update on bike-related activities at Johns Hopkins University's Homewood campus.  Nate Evans of Baltimore's Department of Transportation will present the latest on bike lanes and other bicycle improvements in the city.   May is the Bike Month Challenge, for instance. 

Alison Dewey of the League of American Cyclists also will talk about what it would take for Baltimore to gain "bicycle friendly" status under her group's rating system.  And there'll be a discussion about starting a bike-sharing program here like the one in DC.

The update will be from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. in the Great Room at Levering Hall, between the west and south gates to Homewood campus. There's metered parking on Wyman Drive and $6 parking in the South garage. Bike parking, of course, is available on campus. Beverages and light refreshments will be served.

(Bicyclist commuting along Hanover Street. 2005 Baltimore Sun photo by Kenneth K. Lam)

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 7:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

Green Week has begun in Baltimore, and it's already sprouting some interesting activities.

On Wednesday, students, parents, staff and volunteers started a "vertical garden" at Kennedy Krieger High School, planting seeds in soil-filled pouches hanging on a chain-link fence. It's a great way to grow in a small urban space.

Woolly Pocket provided a grant and the pouches, while local gardening outfit Baltimore Contained provided technical assistance. If you'd like to see vertical gardening demonstrated, there'll be another chance on Sunday, April 17, from 2-4 p.m. at the school, 3825 Greenspring Ave.

Today (Thursday, April 14), there's a multidisciplinary art exhibition, entitled " Regeneration," focused on the theme of balancing the needs of people, the economy and the environment. Fifteen local artists will present works on various media, some using reclaimed building materials. Appropriately, the exhibit is at Second Chances, which sells salvaged materials, at 1400 Warner St., south of M&T Bank Stadium. It's from 5 to 10:30 pm. and free. Curated by Jason Meyer.

For more Green Week events, go here.

(Photo courtesy Baltimore Green Works)

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 9:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)
        

There was more trash talk at City Hall this week about Baltimore's ailing harbor - and a challenge issued to the city's tax-exempt universities to lend a bigger hand in the struggle to heal the watery heart of the metro area.

A City Council committee heard from municipal officials, business leaders and community activists Wednesday evening on what's being done, and what's to be done, to reduce the water-borne litter and debris that are just the most visible form of pollution plaguing the Inner Harbor.  It was the latest in a series of hearings held on the issue over the last 2 1/2 years.

There was no shortage of ideas and opinions aired at the hearing about how to curb the torrent of trash washing into the harbor whenever it rains. But the speakers made clear that money and political will would be needed to do something meaningful, and it wasn't clear if either would be forthcoming anytime soon.

Al Foxx, director of the Baltimore's Department of Public Works, said the city faces "some very costly and challenging mandates" from state and federal governments to clean up the harbor, and he bemoaned the inflexibility of the Environmental Protection Agency in seeming not to care about whether local taxpayers could afford the ordered cleanup measures.

The Maryland Department of the Environment will be requiring significant curbs on trash in the harbor as part of a stringent new permit calling for major reductions in pollution washing off city streets and parking lots, noted Kim Burgess, head of the DPWs surface-water section. The city already is doing some things to keep litter out of the water, she noted, including patrolling the Inner Harbor and Middle Branch with trash-skimming boats and sweeping city streets of debris that otherwise might wash into storm drains.

But some of the city's litter-collecting efforts, including a mill-style trash "wheel" at a huge storm drain outfall in Canton, have been disabled by vandalism and maintenance problems.  Though city funds are tight, some relatively small-scale "pilot" projects are planned in the near future to test other approaches to dealing with the problem, Burgess said.

Peter Auchincloss, a downtown engineering consultant who led a group studying the harbor trash problem, said it needs to be made a higher priority. His group urged the city to restore funding cut last year for street sweeping and other pollution control efforts, and it called on the city to start raising the funds needed to do more by levying a fee on all municipal properties, based on their size.  He ticked off more than $5 million in  trash-control and cleanup projects proposed, to be paid for with municipal bonds authorized by city voters.

But Dr. Ray Bahr, a retired cardiologist in Canton who's spearheaded a cleanup effort in southeast Baltimore, appealed for a much more modest city investment.  He said by working for more than a year with city officials and community leaders of 17 diverse upstream neighborhoods, they've been able to at least temporarily curtail the torrent of trash flowing through storm drains into the harbor from the Canton outfall.  He and others are eyeing expanding the effort to other nearby neighborhoods. 

But he said he needs 5,000 trash cans to distribute free to poor residents in the area he's been working in.  The cans would be offered to get them to stop putting their garbage out in the alleys in plastic bags, where they get torn open by rats, cats and other vandals.  Neighborhood leaders have told him with such a modest demonstration of the city's encouragement, a "carrot," as Bahr called it, they'll work harder to confront litterers and illegal dumpers.  Without it, he said, the progress made to date will be lost.

"We need a lot of carrots, because we have a serious education problem," agreed Glenn Ross, with the Environmental Justice Partnership. He and others said many residents still don't realize that even inland neighborhoods are linked to the harbor via the vast network of storm drains under city streets.

Councilman James Kraft, who represents the Canton area and who presided over the Judiciary and Legislative Investigations Committee hearing, endorsed Bahr's request for trash cans and pleaded with Foxx to provide them.

(ADDED: It's illegal to put trash out for pickup in anything but a can, but Bahr said he'd found that city sanitation workers were sanctioning it in effect, by advising residents without cans to put all their bags at the ends of alleys. Also, he contended that the city had essentially ignored the buildup of more than 100 "mini-landfills" found during a 10-week sweep last summer of several neighborhoods.  Trash was piling up in the backyards of vacant homes, Bahr said, leading him to ask if there were "two Baltimores," with two levels of city services for rich and poor neighborhoods.) 

But DPW spokeswoman Celeste Amato wasn't encouraging after the hearing closed. "We've tried that before," she said, recalling that the city doled out 100,000 trashcans with "Believe" printed on them, only to see many lost or stolen or get used to store things other than garbage. 

Continue reading "More trash talk about the harbor" »

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

Montgomery County Executive Isiah "Ike" Leggett announced today he'll seek legislation to levy a nickel fee on every paper or plastic carryout bag dispensed by county retailers in a bid to reduce litter in the Washington suburb and encourage consumers to shop with their own reusable bags.

If approved by the County Council, Montgomery would follow the lead of the District of Columbia and not Baltimore in tacking a small fee on throwaway bags to discourage their use. Here in Charm City, after protests from grocers and bag manufacturers the City Council backed away from bills to ban or tax plastic bags and opted instead to encourage recycling them.  

Baltimore may still see the nickel bag fee, though, and Montgomery wouldn't need to act if lawmakers in Annapolis adopt legislation that would apply a nickel-a-bag fee statewide. Tomorrow, (March 8), the Senate Education, Health and Environmental Affairs Committee is scheduled to review SB602, the "Clean the Streams and Beautify the Bay Act of 2011." 

Like the District law, the Senate bill and its House compansion, HB1034, would require stores to charge a nickel for every disposable carryout bag provided to customers.  Stores could keep a penny of every nickel to cover their costs, and could keep a second cent if they also offer their customers credit for bringing their own reusable bags for carrying away merchandise.

Environmentalists argue a throwaway bag fee is needed to reduce the litter that's choking urban waters like Baltimore's harbor and the Anacostia River in the Washington area.  The Environmental Protection Agency has declared both watersheds impaired by trash, and city and county governments are on the hook to figure out how to stop the torrents of trash washed into and down streams after every rain. 

The Anacostia Watershed Society says its trash surveys have found plastic bags the third most frequent litter item fished from the river and the most common type of detritus in the streams that feed into the river.

DC started charging 5 cents on every disposable shopping bag given customers there in January 2010. The fee raised about $2 million in revenue in its first year, earmarked for helping clean up the Anacoastia River. That's less than had been projected, but sponsors say what they really wanted was behavior change, and in that regard, estimates are that the number of bags consumed has dropped by 50 to 80 percent.

The state legislation could raise a lot more money.  Legislative analysts cite Census estimates that there were 19,100 retail establishments in Maryland three years ago, and suggests that if each dispensed 10,000 bags annually, they'd raise $7.6 million in total revenue - with $1.9 million of it kept by the stores.  The bulk of the fees collected by the state would go to the Chesapeake Bay Trust, a nonprofit organization that doles out grants to promote public awareness and participation in the bay cleanup effort.

Retailers and bag manufacaturers successfully fought off a similar measure last year, and can be expected to oppose it again this year. Retailers argue that the fee hurts their business by raising prices at a time when many Marylanders are still struggling economically. Plastic bag manufacturers have argued that voluntary recycling programs are the way to go.

But environmentalists point out that the disposable carryout bags handed out by stores aren't free.  Retailers usually pay 2 to 5 cents per bag, they note, and based on bag use estimates developed elsewhere, the Anacostia Watershed Society figures the average Marylander gets 750 carryout bags a year, for which they're likely paying $15 to $37.50 a year.  Reusable bags, by comparison, usually cost $1 to $3 each, and last up to two years.

If the statewide legislation fails again, that leaves the "plastic or paper" - or neither - issue to be hashed out locality by locality.  Besides the bill introduced in Montgomery, there's legislation pending in Annapolis (HB661/SB721) that would enable Prince George's County - which like Montgomery shares responsibility for the Anacostia watershed - to impose a fee on disposable plastic bags in its borders.

(Baltimore Sun photos. Top: Reusable bag display in DC Safeway, 2010, by Barbara Haddock Taylor; Above: yellow plastic bag and fast-food cup litter Baltimore's Gwynns Falls, 2008, by Jed Kirschbaum)

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 3:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)
        

For those who like a bracing swim - or who were too chicken to take the Polar Bear Plunge right after New Year's - here's another, slightly less frigid, chance to wade in for a good cause.  Supporters of the Marshy Point Nature Center in Baltimore County are holding their 5th annual "Popsicle Plunge" on Saturday (March 5).

The waterfront park on Dundee and Saltpeter creeks encompasses nearly 500 acres of wetlands and woodlands, and it's a great place for hiking and bird-watching. The center at 7130 Marshy Point Road holds festivals, summer camps, weekend canoe trips, discover hikes and demonstrations, and every 5th grader in Baltimore County schools visits Marshy Point as part of the EcoTrekkers environmental education program.

Because the shoreline at Marshy Point is mostly marsh and protected wetlands, the plunge will actually be held on the beach in the Hammerman area of Gunpowder Falls State Park - across Dundee Creek. It costs $20 to register for the plunge, but you get a free T-shirt with just $40 in pledges, and there will be other prizes for costumes and the most pledges raised, as well as food, games, activities and exhibits.

The whole shebang kicks off at noon, with the plunge at 2 p.m. All proceeds benefit the Marshy Point Nature Center Council. For more information, contact Marshy Point Nature Center at 410-887-2817 or visit http://www.marshypoint.org for forms  And for directions to the plunge site at Gunpowder, go here.

(Photo courtesy Marshy Point Nature Center Council)

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 8:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

While a lot of attention has been focused lately on the sorry state of Baltimore's harbor, conditions there won't improve much until the watershed itself gets better.

Toward that end, some architects from the University of Virginia are proposing a radical remedy - "daylighting," or uncovering, part of the lower Jones Falls, which which flows underground two miles under city streets before emptying out in the harbor.

The Jones Falls was actually the birthplace of Baltimore, where the first settler, one David Jones, built his house along its banks in the 1600s.  The river was a source of drinking water for the fledgling city, and ships reportedly could sail as far inland as Calvert and Lexington. 

But growth, flooding and pollution inspired efforts to drain, tame and ultimately bury the troublesome water way around 1915.  Finally, in the early 1960s, the subverting of the Jones Falls was completed with the construction of the expressway of the same name along and atop its course.  It's just the largest of Baltimore's streams to get buried - experts estimate that two-thirds of the city's waterways are underground now, serving as conduits for storm water washing off city streets and parking lots.

That lower stretch of the Jone Falls is like the mythical River Styx - musty, foul and eternally in darkness. I paddled with some others upstream from the harbor many years ago, and the only living thing we encountered was a somewhat startled looking pigeon roosting in the gloom.

"We only peeked into the openings of the culvert and did not dare to go much further," writes Jorg Sieweke, one of the U.Va. architecture professors.  But he and his colleagues would like dare rethinking the Jones Falls, and turning back the clock.

Continue reading "A radical idea for helping Baltimore's harbor - uncover the Jones Falls" »

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 6:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (10)
        

The trash and pollution that get into Baltimore's Inner Harbor tend to stay there because there's relatively little fresh-water flow to flush them out into the Patapsco River and the Chesapeake Bay.

But contrary to what a lot of people may think, the harbor's degraded condition isn't solely the result of littering and poor housekeeping by the city's residents and businesses.

In fact, according to data presented last weekend at the Waterfront Partnership's conference on the state of the harbor, a lot of the trash in the water comes from far upstream -- in the suburbs.

More than 400 pounds of detritus has been collected in a single day at various points in the Jones Falls and Gwynns Falls in Baltimore County, according to the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, which is preparing a report card assessing the harbor's condition.

That's why Baltimore County residents as well as city dwellers are going to be put on the spot by state environmental regulators to help clean up the harbor.   The Maryland Department of the Environment is expected to issue orders next year to the city and county to get - and keep - the debris out of the water. 

And another order is in the works to reduce unsafe levels of bacteria in the water, believed to be primarily from sewage leaks and pet waste washing into streams and storm drains in both the city and the county. As with trash, bacteria levels in the streams that flow into the harbor are often so high that anyone coming in contact with the water risks illness or infection.

The Waterfront Partnsership is working on a plan for making the harbor swimmable and fishable by 2020.  To learn more about it, go here.  Do you think it's do-able?  What would you like to see done?  And what would you be willing to do?

(Image courtesy University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science)

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 9:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)
Categories: Chesapeake Bay, News, Urban Issues
        

After decades - no, centuries - of abuse and neglect, Baltimore's ailing harbor may finally be getting the attention it needs.

Concerned citizens, scientists and community and business leaders have come together to take a hard look at how to heal the northwest and middle branches of the Patapsco River, the most degraded tributary in the Chesapeake Bay.

It won't be easy. As I report in today's Baltimore Sun, the harbor is continually assaulted by torrents of trash, sewage leaks, pet manure and other pollution washing off streets and parking lots whenever it rains. Its sediments also are contaminated in many places, largely a legacy of the city's industrial and shipping past.

There's still plenty of life in the water - crabs, rockfish, white perch, even a roving Florida manatee apparently camped out here last summer. It's just not that hospitable to people, littered with flotsam and jetsam and with "shockingly high" levels of potentially disease-causing bacteria, particularly after heavy rains but nearly all the time in some places.   To see where the harbor's funy (and relatively clean), check out this interactive map.  People also are warned to limit their consumption of crabs and certain fish caught there because they may harbor low levels of toxic contaminants. 

The stuff fouling the water didn't get there overnight, and it didn't just come from waterfront neighborhoods. It's washing into the harbor from the Gwynns Falls and Jones Falls, which drain most of the city and much of suburban Baltimore County as well. Those streams are degraded as well, and the city has even posted some signs along them warning folks not to touch the water.

Watershed activists have been working for years to repair the Gwynns and Jones falls, and Herring Run as well, which drains northeast Baltimore into Back River - another of the bay's sickest tributaries, for much of the same reasons. They've made some progress, and in the past year have merged to form a new, unified watershed group, Blue Water Baltimore, that aims to be an even stronger force for cleaning and greening the area.

They've been joined by business leaders, in the form of the Waterfront Partnership, who've drawn new attention to the harbor's ills and launched a campaign to make it swimmable and fishable by 2020.  The partnership is working on a plan for achieving that, and it's holding a one-day conference on the state of the harbor Saturday (full to capacity, as of late last week - another sign of public engagement)

Given the magnitude of what needs fixing, advocates acknowledge it's ambitious, and probably overly optimistic to think all the harbor could ever be safe to swim in, much less in a decade.  But even if it's a stretch, it's clear there's some momentum now for restoring Baltimore's watery heart that wasn't there before. Partnership chairman Michael Hankin says "the time is now to do this."

What do you think? What'll it take to make the harbor swimmable and fishable?  What are you doing to help? What would you be willing to do?

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 10:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)
        

Is Baltimore a throwaway community?   There's a ranking out of the least wasteful cities in the US of A, and good ol' Baltimore comes in 16th. We're behind the usually crunchy places like San Francisco, Seattle and Portland, but also trailing New York and Pittsburgh, even Dallas and Orlando.

The ranking - which I saw on Mother Nature Network - is the second done by Nalgene, the reusable drink bottle maker, and Baltimore actually dropped four places since 2009, when we were judged 12th least wasteful.  Guess we're getting worse.

Or rather, should I say, when we judged ourselves - because the rankings are based on a survey in which about 150 residents from each of the 25 cities rated were asked to score themselves on 23 different behaviors and practices that are either wasteful or frugal.

Here's some of the things our city's participants in the survey say we don't do:

- hanging clothes out to dry when possible

- limiting showers to five minutes

- composting fruit and veggie scraps

- turning off the water when brushing teeth.

Of course, some of the top cities have a head start on establishing social norms around some of these behaviors.  San Francisco, for instance, has the nation's strictest recycling law, it seems, which has sparked a big jump in residents composting their food scraps.

Continue reading "How wasteful are we, really?" »

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 1:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)
        

A Baltimore landlord has been jailed for failing to comply with repeated orders to fix lead-paint risks in all his rental units.

Cephus Murrell was ordered Wednesday by Baltimore City Circuit Court Judge W. Michel Pierson to be held in the detention center until he had either remediated three rental units with lead-based paint in them or relocated the tenants to safer housing.

Murrell, who according to court records lives in Catonsville, has been the subject of repeated enforcement actions over the past several years by the Maryland Department of the Environment accusing him of not taking required actions to reduce the risks of tenant children being poisoned by ingesting dust from lead paint in their rental units. The state fined him $20,000 in 2007 and signed a consent decree requiring him to fix 52 properties owned by him or C. Murrell Business Consultant Inc.

Pierson found Murrell in contempt of court in June for not complying with an amended consent decree, with eight units still not repaired. In October, the judge ordered Murrell to jail, but stayed his incarceration to either clean up the remaining untreated units or move the tenants elsewhere. But state officials said this week that Murrell had yet to present the required certification that he'd dealt with three remaining occupied units.

Under a 1994 state law, landlords with rental units built before 1950, when lead paint was widely used,  must register their properties with the state and take steps to reduce the chances of youngsters being poisoned.  Ingesting even tiny amounts of lead dust or paint chips can damage young children's developing brains and nervous systems, causing lasting learning and behavioral problems.

Ruth Ann Norton, executive director of the Coalition to End Childhood Lead Poisoning,  welcomed the judge's action, saying Murrell had a long history of noncompliance. 

"He has continually thumbed his nose at Maryland's law to keep kids safe," Norton said.  She also said tough enforcement was needed against repeat violators because while most landlords in the state "do the right thing," there is a "core of owners that just will not follow the law and do not get into compliance."

Murrell could not be reached for comment, nor could his lawyer.  But a woman who identified herself as a tenant or former tenant emailed today that had helped "many, many children and adults" and said that he had "allowed lots of people to move in with out paying security deposits."

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 11:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

In a bid to make Bmore greener, the city is expanding its tryout of locally produced, cleaner-burning biofuels to heat municipal buildings.

The Board of Estimates has approved an agreement to spend up to $1.3 million over the next year to test 440,000 gallons of vegetable-based fuel in the boilers of three city facilities - the Back River wastewater treatment plant, Eastern health center and the Pimlico fire and training complex.  The fuel is to be supplied by New Generation Biofuels, which has a production plant in South Baltimore. 

"Today, Baltimore took a great step twoards becoming a more energy efficient and sustainable city," Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake said in a press release announcing the deal.

The city's been testing biofuel from New Generation for the past year, and found it burned much more cleanly than heating oil.   Ted Atwood, director of the city Department of General Services, said the alternative fuel produced far less air pollutiion  - no sulfur or particulate emissions, and greatly reduced nitrogen oxide emissions - an important consideration in a metropolitan area that still suffers bouts of unhealthful smog every spring and summer.

The biofuel, made from vegetable and soybean oil, is no more expensive than heating oil, according to Michael P. Cook, energy chief for the city's general services department.  The biofuel provides just 70 percent of the heat value when burned as does fuel oil, but it's also priced 30 percent less.

Continue reading "City warms to cleaner heating fuel" »

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 1:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

By now, it seems, a lot of workplaces have gotten into recycling, at least of paper. One office in West Baltimore, though, has taken the plunge into composting - turning coffee grounds, food scraps, paper and other biodegradable refuse into plant food.

A handfull of workers at the Bon Secours of Maryland Foundation started this summer by collecting office paper and old grounds from their West Fulton Street building and combining them with grass clippings and leaves in a compost bin at a nearby community garden run by Operation Reachout-Southwest, a resident-led grassroots organization.

But before long, the initiative of the "Clean and Green" crew spread.  Other staffers began bringing in scraps from the previous night's dinner, old produce and paper and other refuse from home.   Some say they're now composting at home as well.

"Co-workers who at first thought we were crazy started saying, 'I didn't know it was that easy,'" says Erika McClammy, the foundation's director of housing and neighborhood revitalization and head of the effort to raise employees' green awareness.

"I was surprised at how man things we use can go back to the earth,'' says Latera Wallace, a Bon Secours employee.  "I spend so much money every year buying topsoil and mulch for my mother who gardens, when I could have saved money by creating compost just from things around the house."

Continue reading "Composting takes root in West B'more" »

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 12:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)
        

Talk about racing for the green! It seems 83 Ellicott City residents jumped at the chance to win a free rain garden this fall, and 20 lucky winners saw them installed rapid-fire - not in 80 seconds, as the time-lapse video above depicts, but in just 10 days.

As Erica Goldman explains in Chesapeake Quarterly's BayBlog, the "win a rain garden" contest was staged by Howard County as part of a larger effort to demonstrate that doing a lot of stormwater retrofits, bioretention cells (aka rain gardens), and stream restoration projects in one small watershed could have a noticeable effect on water quality. All the entrants lived around Red Hill Branch, which drains into the Patuxent River.

Funding for the contest came from the county and the state's Chesapeake and Atlantic Coastal Bays 2010 Trust Fund. The rain garden installations were overseen by Amanda Rockler of the Maryland Sea Grant extension program, with help from county engineers and experts from the nonprofit Center for Watershed Protection in Ellicott City.

Twenty rain gardens are a start, but thousands upon thousands are needed to help the Chesapeake Bay.  It'll be interesting to see if this contest spurs a new suburban lawn ethic, with homeowners vying to outdo each other in putting in the biggest, greenest rain garden on the cul de sac.

Video by Joe King, by permission Maryland Sea Grant.

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

Workers for the Parks & People Foundation and volunteers pitched in Thursday to remove invasive vines and brush along Gwynns Falls Trail in Westport.

The shore along the northern edge of the south Baltimore neighborhood has been badly overgrown for years, making it hard to know there's even a stream there, much less get to it. 

This cleanup project is one of a number lately in Westport, where a massive mixed-use development is planned near where the Gwynns Falls empties into the Middle Branch of the Patapsco River.  Others involved in the project were Enterprise Holdings (the rental car company) and Westport Community Partnerships, an initiative backed in part by Turner Development Group.

(Spoon Smith, 34, left, from Baltimore, and Kevin Alexander, 55, from Brooklyn, members of Parks & People's Green Up, Clean Up team clear out invasive vines along the Gwynns Falls Trail in Westport. Baltimore Sun photo by Gabe Dinsmoor.)

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 12:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

If you restore a stretch of degraded suburban stream, will the fish come back?

That's what students at Park School of Baltimore may find out in coming years. Right now, they're getting a hands-on lesson in what long and laborious work it is - not to mention costly - to remedy the harm done to their neighborhood stream by development along its banks, including the school's own impervious footprint.

The stream in question is Moore's Branch, which flows along the back of the Brooklandville private school's campus on its way to Lake Roland.  The lake drains into the Jones Falls, which ultimately finds its way to Baltimore Harbor, the Patapsco River and the Chesapeake Bay.

The banks of Moore's Branch are badly eroded, explains Daniel Jacoby, who teaches environmental science and advises the Climate Change Committee at Park (known archly by its initials, CCCP, with lots of Soviet Union jokes).  Students who visit the stream repeatedly over the years say they've seen signs it's not in very good shape, with few of the aquatic bugs on which trout and other fish like to feed.

"The kids used to remember seeing substantial fish, crayfish and a lot more life that's not there now," Jacoby says.

The decline of Moore's Branch no doubt started well upstream of Park School, but Jacoby says the campus bears some responsibility, too.   Years ago, to provide parking for faculty and staff, a lot was paved within 20 feet or so of the stream bank.  When it rains, the water runs off the lot into the stream, adding to storm-fed surges that eat away at the creek banks.  Pavement that close to water wouldn't - or certainly shouldn't - be allowed today, at least not without some runoff protections built in.

That's what Park School and its students are providing now, after the fact.  Inspired to act by a staffer with the Center for Watershed Protection in Ellicott City, the students and Jacoby applied for and got a $20,000 grant from the Chesapeake Bay Trust to landscape the thin strip of ground between the parking lot and the stream.  The school has chipped in even more funds of its own to cover the restoration project, and handled the logistics of hiring contractors to do the heavy earth-moving work involved. 

Continue reading "A school's hands-on lesson in stream restoration" »

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 6:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
        

Leaves are falling, the weather's cooling.  Community groups are getting their last licks in on cleaning up local streams before winter sets in.

On Saturday, Oct. 30, from 8:45 a.m. to noon, volunteers are needed in Catonsville to clear litter, tires (where do they all come from?) and other junk from Bull Run, one of the many overlooked and (until now) neglected streams that flows into the Patapsco River, the most ailing tributary of the Chesapeake Bay. 

The Friends of Patapsco Valley and Heritage Greenway, which is organizing the cleanout, urges volunteers to wear waterproof boots, long pants and shirt (to protect from thorns) and bring work gloves, water and sunscreen.  Volunteers are to meet at the Catonsville Armory, 130 Mellor Avenue, before crossing the road to get at Bull Run.  Walk-ups welcome, but to sign up online, go here.

Next weekend, on Nov. 6, the cleanup shovel swings to the other side of Baltimore, as volunteers tackle Bread and Cheese Creek, a colorfully named but trash-strewn tributary of Back River, from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. 

The area to be policed, from Merritt Boulevard to Plainfield Road. was cleaned out last fall (as pictured above), but litter, junk and shopping carts from nearby shopping centers have found their way into it again - necessitating another cleanout.  (This is why some more systemic approaches to litter need to be found - before volunteers burn out on the Sisyphean task of repeatedly removing tons of debris from their neighborhood streams, only to have to do it all over again in a year or two).

For more, go here. 

(Bread and Cheese Creek cleanup, September 2009.  Baltimore Sun photo by Kim Hairston)

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

Aiming to make a dent in the detritus fouling the Middle Branch, more than 2,000 volunteers are scheduled to swarm the neighborhoods bordering this tributary of the Patapsco River on Saturday.

Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake is scheduled to join other city officials and the chairman of the newly formed Baltimore Water Alliance clean streets, alleys and gutters that drain into the Middle Branch.  Organizers report that 2,123 volunteers from 124 neighborhoods have signed up to participate.

Much more is needed, of course, to permanently reduce the torrent of trash littering the harbor.  But it'll be a good demonstration for the uninitiated of how what gets dropped in the streets can wind up in the water.  

The fall cleanup begins at 8 a.m. at the Rowing Club, 3001 Waterview Ave.

(Students and National Aquarium staff plant wetlands grasses along Middle Branch shore at Westport.  2010 Baltimore Sun photo by Jed Kirschbaum)

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 8:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

On this day in 1860, Baltimore's Druid Hill Park was dedicated, making it the third oldest public park in the country.  

After serving as an encampment for Union troops during the Civil War, the former estate became a green magnet for generations of Baltimoreans to stroll, drive and play, acquiring a minaret-topped bandstand and conservatory.  The city's first public park is also home to the Maryland Zoo in Baltimore.

Festivities marking the park's anniversary concluded over the weekend, but it's not too late to enjoy its 745 acres of natural splendor - or to contribute to it by paying to plant a tree.  For more on the park and how to help green it, go here.

(Youngsters enjoying tennis lesson during Druid Hill Park's 150th anniversary festival.  Special to the Baltimore Sun by Colby Ware)

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 8:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

It's been illegal since the beginning of this month for Baltimore supermarkets, corner grocers and convenience stores to simply give out disposable plastic bags for carrying away merchandise. But don't bother calling 911 on any violators you see out there.

The ordinance, which took effect Sept. 1, isn't being enforced because City Hall botched the startup.   City officials were supposed to create a bag "reduction" program that would've allowed merchants to keep handing out the flimsy sacks, as long as customers asked for them.  Stores also had to offer to recycle plastic bags and encourage customers to buy or bring in their own reusable sacks.

Councilman Jim Kraft, who'd long sought a bag ban as a way to fight the litter in Baltimore's streets, streams and harbor, said city officials were late setting up the bag reduction program, so there was no way for businesses to register to avoid the ban. An online link for businesses to register was posted on the website of the city's Office of Sustainability on Aug. 27, just four days before the ban was to take effect.

"It was really a sort of snafu, where there were some misunderstandings," Kraft said, and city officials "didn't understand what they had to do....I was getting calls from these guys (retailers) saying I want to register and I can't."

As a result, he noted, "Technically, everyone is in violation. As of Sept. 1, if they're not in the program, they can't use (plastic) bags."

Merchants are still allowed to sign up for the bag reduction program and keep using plastic bags, but under the ordinance they have to pay a $500 fee now to do so. Up until Sept. 1, it was free to register, an arrangement Kraft and others had hope would provide businesses an incentive to get on board quickly.

Now, to give food dealers more time to register without paying the fee, Kraft is rushing a "corrective bill" through City Council that delays the effective date of the program to Dec. 1 and extends the free signup to Nov. 30.  Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake has agreed to sign the fixup legislation, Kraft said.

"I think it's going to be fine," he concluded.

(Tip of the proverbial hat to Investigative Voice for first reporting this!)

(Washington Giant supermarket before nickel fee imposed there on nonrecyclable bags. 2009 AP Photo)

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 2:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
        

If you're not a football addict, or can squeeze it in around game time, Baltimore's merging watershed groups are offering residents a chance Sunday to help restore the harbor by buyng - and planting - native trees, shrubs and plants.

The Baltimore Water Alliance, the working name the groups have adopted for now, is having a sale at the Herring Run Nursery, 6131 Hillen Road, 21239, from noon to 4 p.m. Sunday (9/26).  There'll be more than 100 different native trees, shrubs and plants to choose from, plus some perennials.  If you can't make it this weekend, there'll also be sales Oct. 9 and 24.

Proceeds help underwrite the operations of the new alliance, which brings together the Herring Run, Jones Falls and Gwynns Falls watershed associations, plus the Baltimore Harbor Waterkeeper.  Coupons worth $10 to $25 discounts on trees available.  For information on stock and coupons, go here.

(Black-eyed susan, 2009 Baltimore Sun photo by Karl Merton Ferron)

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 8:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Buy local, Chesapeake Bay, Events, News, Urban Issues
        

Ravens fans who roll into Lot G at M&T Bank Stadium Sunday for the home opener against Cleveland are in for a last-minute change in signals about what to do with all the trash and debris their pre-game partying generates.

Parking attendants will be at the gate handing out recycling bags as each vehicle rolls in.  Tailgaters will be "encouraged," the press release says, to put all their bottles, cans and plastic in the sacks and then deposit the bundles in recycling containers by the parking lot entrance.  A recycling "team" will be circulating through the parking lot to hand out extra bags, help collect the filled bags and "encourage" recycling.

The blitz on tailgaters is an expansion of the recycling efforts already established inside M&T Bank Stadium.  Teaming up in the effort are the Ravens, the Maryland Stadium Authority and Central Parking System.   They plan to expand the recycling drive to other parking lots as the season progresses.  For details, go here.

(Tailgating at M&T Bank Stadium, 2004 Baltimore Sun photo by Doug Kapustin)

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 6:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
        

Ever wondered what the city might look like if it didn't have so much asphalt? Well, tomorrow (Friday, Sept. 17) in a handfull of places around Baltimore, you can get an idea.

Activists, artists, landscape architects and just plain folks will be converting curbside parking spaces into pocket parks, complete with grass, plants - even a green roof in at least one case.

It's all part of PARK(ing) Day, an annual event intended to demonstrate the need for more urban open space. It began in San Francisco (of course) five years ago and has gone global since.

"The goal is really to show people what even just a little green space can do to the city," says Joan Floura, co-owner of Floura Teeter, a landscape architect firm in the 300 block W. Franklin Street that's camping out Friday in three spaces in front of the office.

There'll be grass, of course, and a small green roof outside Floura Teeter to show how they're made and how they soak up storm runoff. There'll be more than a bit of whimsy, too.

"We’re having croquet out in Fanklin Street," Floura says. "How many times a year can you do that?"

Continue reading "Parking spaces go green for a day" »

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 3:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)
        

You won't get them here, but you will if you hustle over to a "growshop" in Baltimore this evening (Sept. 13).

Halle Van der Gaag, director of the Jones Falls Watershed Association and Celeste Amato, director of Baltimore city's Cleaner Greener initiative, will talk about storm-water management and provide the aforementioned top 10 tips on making our streams, harbor and Bay cleaner.

The session, from 6 - 8 p.m., is at Puffs & Pastries, 830 W. 36th St. 21211. It's put on by Baltimore Green Works, Parks & People Foundation and the city's Department of Recreation and Parks.   (And thanks to Urbanite for the reminder to this forgetful blogger!)

For more information or to RSVP, contact Abby Cocke at 410.448.5663 x122 or abby.cocke@parksandpeople.org

(Rain barrel installation at St. John's College, Annapolis, 2009 Baltimore Sun photo by Algerina Perna)

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 10:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Chesapeake Bay, DIY, Events, News, Tips, Urban Issues, Volunteer
        

It looks like all the cars tearing around the Inner Harbor next Labor Day weekend won't be racing just for the checkered flag - some at least will be trying to outdo each other in hybrid and alternative-fueled road rockets.

The American LeMans Series plans to stage a race here the day before Charm City hosts its first IndyCar Grand Prix race, Don Markus reports today in The Baltimore Sun.

An official announcement is planned on Wednesday, but a spokesman for the racing organization confirmed it would be bringing its act here.

Some may wonder how a bunch of cars burning rubber and fuel can be all that "green." But the American LeMans Series, or ALMS, pits race teams against each other not just for speed, but for fuel efficiency.  Cars use one of five alternative fuels or energy sources, and compete for points on fuel efficiency.  As I reported last year, the US import of European Le Mans style racing went "green" in 2008, meeting criteria set by the Environmental Protection Agency and the Energy Department.

Of course, that'll be small comfort to those put out by the disruption of downtown traffic for the racing - or, for that matter, the yearlong street repairs already under way to prepare for the three-day event.   But hey, it's another excuse to give B'more's underused public transportation system a try, right?

(American Le Mans Series' 12 Hours of Sebring race March 20 in Sebring, Fla. Photo by Steve Nesius/Associated Press)

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 9:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
        

Then there were two. Three days after the Waterfront Partnership towed its patchwork floating wetland to a mooring off the World Trade Center (seen below), the National Aquarium put a second one in the Inner Harbor between Piers 3 & 4.

This one looks a bit different.  The aquarium's is almost kidney shaped and solid, compared with the checkerboard array of the earlier floating wetland. Grasses and plants poke out of a floating bed of plastic mesh that looks a bit like a Brillo pad.

But the intent is the same - to see how these small patches of vegetation might soak up some of the nutrients fouling the water, and provide shelter and living space for fish and other aquatic critters.

The platform of the 200-square-foot wetland was made in Utah, of all places, then shipped in pieces across country. 

Aquarium staff assembled it Wednesday morning and then, with the help of local student volunteers, planted a mix of native salt marsh plants: smooth cordgrass, softstem bulrush, common three-square, seaside goldenrod and hibiscus. 

The porous plastic base will allow water to reach the roots, and conversely let the roots grow down and out to the water, explained David Nemerson, a conservation biologist with the aquarium.

Scientists with the University of Maryland plan to monitor the two wetlands to see what impact they may have on water quality and what kind of aquatic life they support.

"We're already learning things we didn't expect," said Dan Terlizzi, a UM water quality specialist who's based at the Columbus Center nearby.  He said tests of the wetland medium have found it quickly "colonizes" with bacteria, algae, worms and other tiny aquatic creatures.  That unseen life below the surface can soak up as much or more nutrients than the wetland vegetation poking out of the top.

These two wetlands are among the first steps of a campaign launched earlier this year by the Waterfront Partnership to make the harbor swimmable and fishable by 2020. 

That's a tall order, especially for these tiny patches of green. Dissolved oxygen readings in the vicinity have been quite low this summer, making it a stressful environment for fish (though aquarium staff say they still see plenty in the water around their facility.) 

No one thinks these tiny swatches of floating wetlands can make much of a dent.  But advocates say the aim of thes wetlands is to try them out, then seek to expand them assuming they've proven themselves. 

And as we noted here earelier, their greater value may lie in getting visitors to the Inner Harbor to look more closely at the water, to look beyond the trash floating in it and maybe think about the harbor in a different way.

Click here to see more photos of the Aquarium's wetland coming together. 

(Top photo courtesy National Aquarium)

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 7:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)
Categories: Chesapeake Bay, News, Urban Issues
        

B'more's green scene has arrived. Grist, the cheeky online journal of environmental news and commentary, has a piece saying Charm City's become a hotbed of urban agriculture.

"Baltimore's urban agriculture movement has quietly taken off in the past couple of years, with the twin forces of sustainability and economic benefits providing the boost," Christine Chenot writes.

She ticks off a list of initiatives, several of which you may already have read about in The Sun.  There's the Virtual Supermarket project, for instance, a partnership between the city and Santoni's supermarket, in which residents without grocery stores nearby can have healthy food delivered to their neighborhood library branch, where they can pay for it with cash, credit card or food stamps.

The Grist story also spotlights Great Kids Farm, the city schools enterprise in Catonsville that teaches kids how to grow their own healthy foods.  Then there's Real Food Farm, (shown at left) the hoop-greenhouse operation at Clifton Park, and the Hamilton Crop Circle, (pictured at top) the northeast Baltimore initiative planting rooftop gardens on restaurants and stores.  And more.

Of course, teaching kids to grow and eat healthy foods is no substitute for learning to read and write.  Nor will fresh veggies alone solve the city's crime and poverty.  But advocates say they sure can't hurt, bringing people together and empowering them.  

(Baltimore Sun photos by Kim Hairston and Lloyd Fox)

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 1:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

The number of wetlands in Baltimore's Inner Harbor doubled over the weekend, as the Waterfront Partnership installed the first of two small floating marshes.  It was a welcome touch of "good" green in a water body plagued at times by algae blooms. 

As Jamie Smith Hopkins reported in The Baltimore Sun, a batch of 11 rectangular floats holding lush-looking grasses got towed Sunday from their assembly point at the Living Classrooms Foundation to their mooring by the World Trade Center.  The frames got their bouyancy from discarded plastic bottles collected from the harbor and stuffed into mesh tubes by student volunteers. 

Aiding in the design and plantings was Biohabitats Inc. The project was funded with air-pollution settlement funds provided by the Baltimore Harbor Waterkeeper.

Another floating wetland, this one put together by the National Aquarium, is to take up position  Wednesday. The only other wetland in the Inner Harbor is similarly tiny, a strip of vegetation along the Lancaster Street shoreline at the Living Classrooms Foundation.

Though too small to do much for improving the harbor's water quality, scientists will monitor the floating wetlands over the next year or so to see how they fare.   If they survive and seem to be soaking up at least some of the nutrients feeding the harbor's algae blooms, they're likely to spawn other floating wetlands. 

In the meantime, they're great conversation starters for discussing the harbor's water-quality problems and the partnership's ambitious goal of making the harbor swimmable by 2020.  Stop by and check them out.

(Baltimore Sun photos by Algerina Perna)

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 10:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
        

Maryland's green building gurus have gone suburban. The state chapter of the U.S. Green Building Council has moved its headquarters from a tiny office in downtown Baltimore to more spacious, ultra-green digs in Hunt Valley.

A gaggle of green building enthusiasts and Baltimore County officials gathered yesterday at the entrance to Schilling Green to cut a green ribbon celebrating the council's move into what long ago had been a spice warehouse.   It's been transformed into one of the first office buildings in the Baltimore area to achieve a platinum Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, or LEED, rating - the highest level given by the national green building council. 

The three-story glass and brick palace boasts a green roof over the entrance, solar panels on top, energy-saving glass and insulation and waterless urinals, among other things.  Plus, there are a bunch of parking spaces near the entrance reserved for hybrid vehicles.

Why move from the city?  And what signal does that send to Baltimore's fledgling green building initiative?

Continue reading "Maryland's green building group goes suburban" »

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 6:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (9)
        

Baltimoreans have recycled 50 million pounds of waste since weekly collection began last July, city officials report.

Despite some hiccups as the city shifted twice-weekly trash collection to once a week, the weekly recycling pickups under One Plus One have boosted the city's recycling volume by more than 50 percent.

Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake was to celebrate the milestone this morning in Edmondson Village, where she was to be joined by community leaders.

"We thought the easier we could make recycling, the better participation would be. It actually exceeded our estimates," said Celeste Amato, spokeswoman for the city Department of Public Works.

More than half of the city's residents didn't even use trashcans before One Plus One began, Amato says, so city officials expected a hard sell in a lot of neighborhoods.  But community leaders got behind the effort. 

It helped that Cleaner Greener Baltimore, a city program, and the Baltimore Community Foundation handed out $17,000 in recycling grants for block parties, workshops and distribution of more than 1,000 recycling bins.

Besides reducing the flow of waste to incinerators and landfills, recycling earns the cash-strapped city a little money. Waste Management Recycle America, which contracts to take the city's recyclables, has paid $190,000 so far this year, officials report.

There's still work to do. Amato says city inspectors are "strategically enforcing" sanitation violations in about 40 neighborhoods where trash and recyclables still get left out in bags or dumped in alleys.

Baltimore Sun file photo of Waste Management Recycle America in Elkridge

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 10:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
        

What could be better than bands, BBQ, beer and - oh, yeah - fresh berries? Those will be among the featured attractions at the 5th annual Native Berry Festival Sunday (July 11) at Herring Run Park, Belair Road at Shannon Drive.

Local will be the order of the day, with live music from area bands, Big Bad Wolfe barbecue, Brewer's Art beer, local wine, arts and crafts - and of course berries and plants for sale.

The event, from noon to 5 p.m. is free, though tasting the desserts prepared for the festival requires a "nominal donation." Participants also are encouraged to make their own dessert concoctions and bring them to enter in a contest.  Those who donate desserts get to join in the judging.

The shindig had been scheduled for Saturday, but got bumped to avoid possible thunderstorms that day.  So that should bring cooler, less humid weather, right?  Perfect for eating berries, and the rest!

(Blueberries from Moody Blues Farm in New Windsor, Baltimore Sun photo by Amy Davis)

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 8:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

Talk about a nasty job that somebody's got to do! Four area college students who may have dreamed earlier of spending their summers in other ways are pulling tires and debris out of Back River instead - and finding it satisfying, if a bit mucky.

"I wanted to feel like I was making a difference," said Molly Williams, 21, of Cockeysville.

The difference is a huge pile of tires and garbage bags full of other debris that they've collected, with the help of some old-timers (aka age 30 and above) and Baltimore County, waiting on the bank for removal and proper disposal.  Read my story about their efforts in The Baltimore Sun.  And check out the video, shot by The Sun's Algerina Perna to see what a difference they've made in how one stretch of the Chesapeake Bay tributary has been cleaned up. 

As much debris as the kids have pulled from Back River in the past 2 1/2 weeks, there's plenty more to do.  The banks are still littered with trash.  The Back River Restoration Committee, an energetic newcomer on the community action scene, has a big cleanup planned Saturday, 9 am to 2 pm.   The kids will be there, but they could use plenty of help.  Volunteers should meet at the Essex Park & Ridge on Eastern Boulevard by the Back River bridge.   p>

It'll take a lot more to restore this river, of course.  But the collegiate cleanup crew has shown what the river can look like if only Baltimore city and county residents in the 55-square-mile Back River watershed can be persuaded to stop littering and clean up their streets and neighborhoods.  Otherwise, the labors of these hard-working, idealistic kids will be buried under another torrent of trash washed down the storm drains and creeks the next time it rains.

Impaired as it still is, Back River boasts some beautiful natural vistas, and some signs of life.  Not all of them are welcome, as I reported last week on the midges swarming there, bedeviling boat owners and waterfront residents.  Those, ironically enough, may also be a sign of life returning to the river.  A Towson University biologists suggests that the nonbiting flies can be pretty hardy, so may be among the first things to flourish in an ecosystem still lacking the fish and other bug predators that could keep their numbers in check.  So they're possibly a hopeful sign, one that can lead to others with still more work on the river and on the land throughout the watershed.

;(Baltimore Sun photo and video by Algerina Perna)

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

Supporters and opponents of a refuse-burning power plant in south Baltimore squared off Monday night, with residents of Brooklyn and Curtis Bay saying they need the jobs the nearly $1 billion project would bring, while environmentalists warned it would emit health-threatening air pollution.

About two dozen people turned out for the public hearing called by the Maryland Public Service Commission, which must decide whether to approve the 120-megawatt "renewable energy" plant in Fairfield.  Only about a third spoke during the brief hearing at the Polish Home Hall in Curtis Bay, but the majority favored the project proposed by Energy Answers International of Albany, NY. 

Kurt Kramer, project manager, said the company aims to build the facility (artist's rendering above) to gold LEED standards on a capped portion of the contaminated old FMC chemical plant (pictured below) on Patapsco Avenue.  The project would employ boiler technology used in coal-burning power plants to generate electricity and steam from shredded municipal trash, tires, auto parts and wood waste.  It would be more efficient and cleaner than standard waste-to-energy incinerators, Kramer said, exceeding federal pollution-control requirements for emissions of particulates, nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide, mercury and lead, among other things.

The project manager also contended the facility would pump more than $40 million a year into the local economy, employing 300 to 400 people on a daily basis in its construction.   Company officials have said the plant's operation would employ about 200.

Environmentalists, though, warned that the plant would still be a significant polluter in an area long besieged by industrial emissions and wastes.  Lisa Lincoln of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network contended that it would be one of the state's largest emitters of mercury if built. She said regulators need to limit the types of waste the plant could burn to safeguard the community, and impose tighter pollution limits.  

Kimberly Wilson of the Environmental Integrity Project noted that the plant would be near two schools in an area "already overburdened" with industrial pollution and hazardous waste dumping, and with one of the state's highest death rates for chronic respiratory disease.  She also warned that the plant would run afoul of permitting and enforcement requirements in the federal Clean Air Act if approved by the PSC.

But Andy Dize, president of the Community of Curtis Bay Association, said residents were not as concerned with air pollution as they were with getting jobs in a community struggling with crime and poverty.

"Air pollution used to be a big issue decades ago," said Dize.  But with the gradual closure of factories in the area over the years, emissions have declined.  Community leaders have been talking with Energy Answers for nearly two years, he said, and are confident that the plant can be operated with proper oversight from the state so that pollution will not be a problem.  "Energy Answers provides a bright spot for the community," he said.

Continue reading "A burning debate in south Baltimore" »

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 9:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)
        

With the city back from the brink of a green fiscal meltdown, its planners are quietly trying to revolutionize how Baltimore grows.

In the first rewrite of the city's zoning code since 1971, planners hope to "transform Baltimore" from a car-centric concrete desert to an oasis of walkability, with shops, eateries and even some types of industry mixed in with housing.

Laurie Feinberg, chief of comprehensive planning, says the new code aims "to make our neighborhoods feel like places you want to walk to" without having to trek across blazing-hot parking lots. The city's in the final week of holding public meetings on the new code - so this is almost your last chance to learn about it and weigh in.

My colleague Julie Scharper has previously reported in The Baltimore Sun how how the new code would make it easier to have community gardens in the city. But the changes go beyond just greening the urban landscape, Feinberg says, to broader issues of sustainability and of "smart growth."

I contacted Feinberg last week to find out how the new code would handle some hot-button "green" issues that have been controversial in the past year - residential wind turbines, solar collectors and wood-chip driveways or parking pads. She preferred to give me the big picture, but answered the thorny questions as well. 

First, the big picture:  Besides recognizing community gardens and urban farming as activities gaining currency in Baltimore and other cities, the new zoning code proposes to create new industrial areas, new transit-oriented development districts and new development rules for college campuses and hospitals.  Living near or even over your workspace will be encouraged in some areas. Vehicle parking will be de-emphasized, bicycle parking beefed up.

The overarching goal is to make Baltimore more walkable and sustainable, with greater "social equity" for its residents, improved prosperity and a cleaner urban environment. 

Continue reading "Zoning toward a greener Baltimore" »

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 7:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
        

What better way to spend a May weekend than outdoors, exploring one of the largest urban woodland parks on the East Coast?

On Saturday, CampFire USA Baltimore is offering guided hikes in Gwynns Falls/Leakin Park, followed by music and refreshments.  If you haven't been there before, it's a sylvan, streamside retreat on the city's West Side, with stone dwellings and other remnants of Baltimore's history tucked away amid the trees.

It's for a good cause - or causes, actually.  Proceeds from the Urban Hike benefit CampFire USA Baltimore, which provides after-school programs for city kids that are meant to help kids learn about the environment, work together and manage conflicts.  It'll also help your kids connect with nature - something studies show they're not getting enough of, and are poorer for it.  

Admission is $15 for adults, free for kids under 12. The hiking begins at 9 a.m., at the Winans Meadow trailhead, with celebration lasting until noon at the Cardin Pavilion.  Go here for tickets, directions or other details.  For more info, email info@discovercfusa.org or call 443-524-2591.

(2002 Baltimore Sun photo Gwynns Falls Trail by Jerry Jackson)

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 8:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

A new waterfront park is in the works on South Baltimore's Middle Branch.  The National Aquarium unveiled the artist's rendering above at a ceremonial seeding of the park Monday.  Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake and other dignitaries donned gardening gloves and tossed handfulls of grass seed onto the bare riverbank. 

They did that instead of the traditional ground-breaking no doubt because the 7-acre site is to be "greened up" instead of built upon.  But sticking shovels in the ground also would have disturbed the layer of clean dirt that contractors have spread after removing 7,500 tons of contaminated soil and debris.The park is part of a 20-acre tract the city once used as a vehicle garage and yard, which left the soil tainted with heavy metals, polyaromatic hydrocarbons and other contaminants.  The riverbank was built up with debris from the construction of Interstate 95 and other building projects.

When the park is finished next spring, it will feature trails, a pier and overlooks to take in the waterfront views.   It's another step in the slow revitalization of this long-neglected area of South Baltimore.  Farther west by the Westport light-rail stop, a new mixed-use development is in the early stages of development.  

Assuming all goes as planned, in a few years, many more people will be living and recreating along the Middle Branch.  Maybe the water will get a makeover, too, as it's still fouled with trash, sewage overflows and storm-water runoff washing pet waste, oil and other pollutants from city streets and parking lots.  

(Baltimore Sun photo by Karl Merton Ferron)

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 8:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
        

No, this has nothing to do with Baltimore's professional football team. Loch Raven is one of the city's three drinking-water reservoirs, and it's going to be abuzz with activity this Saturday (May 8).

To cap off National Drinking Water Week, the city is inviting the public to come out and see where their water comes from. You can even walk out on the 82-foot high dam holding back some 23 billion gallons of water from the Gunpowder Falls and a batch of smaller creeks and streams.   

Engineers from Gannett-Fleming, the firm that managed a reconstruction of the dam completed five years ago, will be on hand to explain the mammoth $28.8 million overhaul. And there'll be opportunities to learn about the history of the Gunpowder valley and how the water system serving the city and surrounding counties operates. 

For you history buffs, this is the 100th anniversary of what we know as the region's modern water system - when the city began to disinfect the water and laid plans to build the dam at Loch Raven and a water treatment plant at Montebello.

Not far from the dam, in the Pines area on Loch Raven Drive, there'll be other activities, including exhibits of live local wildlife from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. There'll also be demonstrations on fly fishing, and guided hikes through the forest surrounding the lake. 

And, if you're feeling really energetic, the Gunpowder Valley Conservancy could use some more volunteers to help plant trees around the reservoir on Saturday.  The group aims to get nearly 800 in the ground this season, adding to the more than 18,500 it's planted in the valley since the 1990s to help protect the water supply from pollution.  To take part, contact Peggy Perry at pperry@gunpowderfalls.org

Water rates may be going up again - that's another story - but at least some things about the water system are free.  This is one of them.  Plan on bringing a lunch, and wear hiking shoes.  Call 410-396-3500 for more information.

And if you can't get out to Loch Raven just north of the Beltway, take a stroll around scenic Lake Montebello at 3901 Hillen Road in northeast Baltimore.  To commemorate the system's centennial, the city has mounted a series of historical photographs depicting the construction of all these facilities.

To get to the dam, take Cromwell Bridge Road from the Beltway, then left on Loch Raven Drive just past Sanders Corner restaurant.  For the wildlife, fly-fishing and hikes keep driving up Loch Raven Drive past the dam about two miles.  For a map to Loch Raven, go here.  For Montebello, here.

(2005 Baltimore Sun photos by Christopher Assaf and David Hobby)

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 10:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

Can an urban garden like the one pictured above help bring blighted neighborhoods together,  impart some measure of hope or peace where little exists?  That's the question a group of community activists and Baltimore's chief arborist will tackle on Friday (May 7) during a daylong "urban revitalization expo." 

Organized by Civic Works, Baltimore's "urban service corps," the expo features some hands-on work completing a pathway through a rain garden, exhibits and presentations on the group's residential energy-upgrade efforts, plus film screenings and art installations.  

Discussing what impact community greening might have on urban violence will be representatives of Civic Works, BUILD, Historic East Baltimore Community Action Coalition and other community and nonprofit groups, plus Brian Henry, chief city arborist.   WYPR's Maryland Morning with Sheilah Kast previewed this discussion on her show this morning, which you can listen to here.

The expo runs from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. and includes breakfast.  The forum is from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.  All events - except for the rain garden work -- will be held at the Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Community Center, 901 N. Milton Ave. on the third floor.  The rain garden to be fixed up is across the street.

(2003 Baltimore Sun photo by Algerina Perna, garden at Lafayette & Mosher)

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 12:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)
        

Big on other continents for a long while, electric bikes haven't caught on here -- yet.

But a local entrepreneur wants to change that. Ray Carrier has opened Green Rider LLC, at 714 Broadway in Fells Point. He is selling electric bikes, some that are folding, as well as electric scooters.

The bikes, which sell for a little over $1,000 to around $2,500, use batteries that plug into any socket. Riders can peddle when they want and use electricity when they need to go uphill or keep up with traffic. They can go up to 20 mph, which means they are still classified as a bike under federal rules.

Officials say they could probably hold a charge for a week.

Carrier said they could overcome some of the issues that we have with regular bikes in Baltimore. They can better keep up with traffic, at least downtown where drivers have to go a bit slower. That means less passing, which is one of the scary parts of biking. The scooters go a bit faster.

The electricity also means you don't have to sweat, so you can ride to work and not need a shower.

Continue reading "Electric bikes have arrived in Baltimore" »

Posted by Meredith Cohn at 3:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)
Categories: Urban Issues
        

B'More Green reader Erin sent in some photos of birds hanging out in on a roof near her house. She suspected they were vultures and wondered what they were doing in the city.

I sent them to the guy in charge of the Audubon Society's annual bird count, where volunteers head out all over the country at Christmas time to, well, count birds. Over time, the information helps understand how different birds are doing and where they are doing it.

Geoff LeBaron definitely knows how to ID his birds. 

He says they are, indeed, Black Vultures, and they are common birds in the Baltimore area. So, kudos to Erin for calling that one.

LeBaron also said they often roost and/or perch on buildings, "and are quite content in city environs as well in the countryside."
 
City dwellers often feed the birds bread (even though other experts have told B'More Green that bread isn't good birds because it lacks nutrition they need), as well as bird feed. But LeBaron said he doubted anyone was feeding the vulture because they eat carrion. That's dead animal.

There could be a source of food nearby, he said, especially if the building where they are perched "is near the waterfront or a roadway or some other area where there could be carrion available, which is why they’re hanging out on the building." In Baltimore City you're pretty much never far from the water, and dead varmint.

 The vultures like rooftops for roosting overnight, too, because they stay warmer than some other areas, he said.

So there you have it. Vultures in Baltimore.

Photos courtesy of Erin

Posted by Meredith Cohn at 7:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)
Categories: Urban Issues
        

Can Baltimore's funky harbor be made swimmable and fishable in a decade?  That's the goal of the Waterfront Partnership, a business group that unveiled its "healthy harbor initiative" on the eve of Earth Day. The strategy calls for deploying a small floating wetland to see if it'll soak up nutrients that feed fish-killing algae blooms every spring.  It also talks of "leading by example" by reducing fertilizer use and capturing rain water in cisterns.

The city's business, governmental and nonprofit elite turned out for the plan's unveiling in a festive ceremony on the 27th floor observation deck of the World Trade Center overlooking the Inner Harbor.  Many encouraging words were exchanged.  Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake showed up to declare: "Together we can make Baltimore's harbor clean and healthy."  There was light-hearted talk of the city hosting a triathlon in 2020, with the swimming leg staged in the harbor.

That's a tall order for a body of water the city's health department now advises the public to stay out of.  Michael Hankin, chairman of the business group and CEO of Brown Advisory, noted that the city's waterfront has enjoyed a renaissance that now draws thousands of visitors and residents.  But he said the unsavory quality of the harbor's water, fouled as it is by sewage leaks and rain-washed street runoff, is the "big elephant in the room."  It's time to change that, he said, trying out a new slogan:  "It's our city; let's act like it."

Maryland Environment Secretary Shari Wilson (pictured above, with communications director Dawn Stoltzfus) ticked off "lots of reasons we have hope" the harbor can be made a wholesome place to recreate in the next 10 years. 

Continue reading "Harboring waterfront dreams in Baltimore" »

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 6:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

Never let it be said the purple and black won't go green. Some Baltimore Ravens plan to tackle trash - and not just talk it - along the Gwynns Falls Trail on Earth Day Thursday.

Members and staff of the city's pro football team will be among about 100 volunteers expected to take part in landscaping, tree removal and other cleanup activities along the trail. 

The trail runs 15 miles along the stream of the same name through West and Southwest Baltimore before emptying into the Middle Branch of the Patapsco River within sight of M&T Bank Stadium, where the Ravens play.  Some volunteers will board canoes to remove litter from a lake along the trail. The bank, a partner in the cleanup, will contribute about 50 volunteers to the effort.

Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, flexing her own green commitment, is expected to join the volunteers.  The trail blitz is being coordinated by the nonprofit Parks & People Foundation.

(Cyclists ride Gwynns Falls Trail tunnel under Carrollton Viaduct; 2008 Baltimore Sun photo by Algerina Perna)

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

There's a price to be paid for neglect, as anyone can tell you.  On Monday, local, state and federal officials  unveiled an ambitious plan for restoring the Anacostia River, which flows from the Maryland suburbs of Washington, D.C., past the U.S. Capitol.   The Anacostia is sometimes referred to as the "forgotten" or "other" river because of the attention lavished on the much larger Potomac into which it empties. It flows through some of the District's most blighted neighborhoods.

The plan, drawn up by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, lays out more than 3,000 projects to be undertaken over the next 10 years to tackle the trash, sewage and storm-water runoff polluting the river.  The estimated cost:  $1.7 billion - none of it budgeted so far.

Among the first tasks will be to put the Anacostia on a "trash diet," making it the first water body on the East Coast and one of only a few in the nation with a mandate for communities along its banks to halt the flow of garbage and debris into it.

That leaves one wondering when Baltimore Harbor will get its own "trash diet." Like the Anacostia, it is littered with so much plastic, foam, paper and other debris that the state and federal governments have officially declared its waters "impaired" by refuse. 

The harbor has no cleanup plan - yet - though a group of waterfront businesses is launching this week a campaign to make the harbor swimmable and fishable in 10 years.  They're proposing to start by putting some floating wetlands in the bulkheaded Inner Harbor.  But the full scope of what's needed to clean up the harbor, and the cost of fixing decades of neglect here, has yet to be confronted by anyone in authority.

(Photo: Associated Press)

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 8:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
        

The years-long debate in Baltimore over whether to tax or ban disposable plastic bags to reduce waste and litter appears headed for resolution - with half a ban, if that.

A council committee revamped the bag ban it had been considering for two years to give supermarkets, convenience stores and restaurants a choice: use only paper bags at checkout or encourage customers to reduce or recycle the plastic ones.  The measure now goes to the full 14-member council on Monday, March 22.

The original ban proposal got watered down to win over merchants and plastic bag manufacturers, who have been sparring with city and state lawmakers around the country to keep their products from being outlawed or taxed.  The new council measure lets Baltimore food sellers keep using flimsy plastic bags at checkout counters if they enroll in a city "plastic bag reduction program."  The program requires them to tout recycling and offer to sell customers sturdy reusable shopping bags.

That's exactly what a lot of large supermarket and chain retailers already are doing.  And recycling of plastic bags and film (such as dry cleaner bags) has increased by 28 percent nationwide since 2005, according to a new report released by the American Chemistry Council, which represents plastic bag makers.  A council exec calls plastic "a valuable resource - too valuable to waste."  The industry has launched a campaign to boost the recycling rate to 40 percent in the next five years.

Though the industry proclaims bag recycling is at an all-time high and rising, its own release indicates how far it has to go.  The same report cites the Environmental Protection Agency's estimate that just 13 percent of the bags and film dispensed nationally gets recycled.  

Council members who originally backed a bag ban or fee (aka tax) say they're willing to try this softer approach if it means they can get something on the books, finally after years of study and debate.  And they're hopeful it will lead to at least some decline in plastic bag use, which they believe should reduce opportunities for the flimsy sacks to wind up festooning trees or floating in the Inner Harbor.  

Continue reading "Paper or plastic? Baltimore eyes half-ban" »

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 10:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (8)
        

Baltimore City Council members who had been pressing to ban or levy a fee on disposable merchandise bags appear ready to embrace a more limited voluntary campaign instead to reduce the plastic sacks that frequently wind up as litter in trees, streams and the harbor.

A bill that would have banned plastic bags from being given out at groceries and other stores in the city has been recast as a "plastic bag reduction" ordinance. The council's Judiciary and Legislative Investigations Committee is scheduled to take up the new measure this morning, and chairman James B. Kraft said in an email he hopes to have it approved by the panel and sent to the full council for its consideration. (Update, the committee approved the bill. Read more here.)

The new bill would forbid food retailers only from giving out plastic bags at checkout unless they join a citywide public education campaign to get shoppers to switch to reusable bags or recycle the disposable ones. Participating merchants would have to post signs prominently saying they give out plastic bags on request only.  They would also have to collect them for recycling and offer reusable bags for sale as an option.

Kraft originally had proposed a broader ban on all merchants giving out disposable bags at checkout.  But he decided at a committee work session a couple weeks ago to abandon it in favor of a voluntary effort to reduce bag litter.  Proposals to ban or impose fees on disposable bags faced determined opposition from retailers and bag manufacturers, as well as from Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake. 

Councilman Bill Henry, who had pushed an alternate bill to levy a 25-cent fee on disposable checkout bags, said he's dropping it now in favor of the voluntary measure, which he helped craft, though he's still skeptical about its success at curbing litter.

"I think this is probably the best compromise we're going to work out for the short term," Henry said. The information retailers would be required to report to the city under Kraft's bill should show whether voluntary measures are reducing disposable bag use.  The new measure would require retailers to report semi-annually on how many plastic bags they've given out, how many taken back in for recycling, and how many shoppers go for reusable bags instead.

"Either we will be happily surprised that there's less trash than we thought we had," he said, "or we will be able to show to the more skeptical among us that voluntary measures don't work."  In that case, Henry said, he would hope to win more support for his belief that the only way effective way to get people to change their shopping-bag habits is to make them "plunk down some actual, cold hard cash" for a disposable sack at checkout.

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 8:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Chesapeake Bay, News, Recycling, Shopping, Urban Issues
        

In case anyone hasn't been around Baltimore's waterfront lately, the Inner Harbor is frequently awash in floating and submerged trash.   That should be no surprise even to landlubbers, given the litter readily seen in alleys and vacant lots, in street gutters and in the storm drains that ultimately empty into the city's watery heart.

A City Council committee held an "informational hearing" Tuesday on how to reduce the torrents of refuse and debris that flow into the harbor every time it rains. It quickly broadened into a spirited discussion of illegal trash dumping, uneven enforcement by the city, and a lack of engagement by municipal officials with residents who feel besieged by the blight.

Councilman James B. Kraft, chairman of the judicial and legislative investigations committee, professed himself "very very frustrated" with the lack of progress on the issue despite numerous meetings since a council resolution calling for an inquiry into the harbor's trash problem was introduced in December 2008.   "It feels like we are in some cases going backwards, not forwards," chimed in Councilman William H. Cole IV, chief sponsor of the resolution.

"We're not where we need to be," acknowledged Marcia Collins of the city's Department of Public Works.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency officially designated Baltimore's harbor "impaired" by trash nearly two years ago, pointed out Phil Lee of the Baltimore Harbor Watershed Association.   Though not traditionally considered a pollutant, the floating debris makes the water uninviting to look at, much less swim in. It's also a carrier of some of the bacteria and other pollutants making the water unsafe for human contact.  As a result, the city will face increasing legal pressure from state and federal government to clean the harbor up.

Continue reading "Talking trash in B'more" »

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 10:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (18)
        

Builders, environmentalists and local officials seem to have settled their differences over Maryland's new requirements for reducing polluted runoff from development projects.

As reported in The Baltimore Sun today, a deal's been struck that avoids a fight in Annapolis over legislative attempts to weaken or delay the state's storm-water pollution regulations. Hearings scheduled Wednesday in the House Environmental Matters Committee on bills backed by builders and county and municipal officials have been canceled, in favor of emergency regulations the state Department of the Environment is crafting to address their concerns with the runoff rules that were issued last year.

Continue reading "Storm passing over storm-water rules?" »

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 9:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

Feel like growth and development in Maryland could be better thought-out and managed? The state Department of Planning intends to write a statewide growth plan over the next year and wants to hear from the public on how economic and population growth can be better balanced with protecting farmland, forests and the environment. You can read a story about the effort here that appeared in The Baltimore Sun today.

A series of 13 public forums to talk about the planning effort are being scheduled over the next three or four months. The first is to be held at Carroll Community College, 1601 Washington Road in Westminster, in the "K" building auditorium. There'll be an open house beginning at 6 p.m., with presentations, questions and discussion starting at 7 p.m. For directions, go here.

The next one after that will be in Baltimore on March 18, at Coppin State University, 2500 West North Avenue in the Talon Center.  It also will run from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m.  Other forums are planned around the state. For a list, go here.  For more info on "PlanMaryland," as the effort is called, go here.

(2006 Baltimore Sun photo by David Hobby)

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 11:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

Health advocates are making another push to beef up Maryland's 16-year-old law to protect children from lead-paint poisoning, arguing that more needs to be done to ensure the safety of youngsters living in the state's large stock of older rental housing. But the effort is running up against the usual resistance from landlords, who contend it would be costly and unnecessary.

Specifically, advocates - along with local officials - want the state to require that rental units built before 1950 get tested for lead dust to ensure that the necessary steps have been taken to render them free of the toxic contaminant that once was widely used in house paint.  They backed SB504 at a hearing in the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee Thursday, and plan to do so again today (Friday) for HB1153 in the House Environmental Matters Committee.  Similar bills failed to pass last year.

Landlords now have the option of testing for dust or doing a visual inspection to verify that the unit's paint is intact, it's been properly cleaned and other steps have been taken to remove or cover potential sources of lead-paint flakes or dust.

Eyeballing units to see if they're safe isn't nearly as reliable as swiping floors and painted surfaces to test for the presence of lead dust, advocates say.  Toddlers who ingest even minute amounts of the toxic dust can suffer brain and neurological damage that can lead to lifelong learning and behavior problems, health experts note.  Studies have found that up to three-quarters of homes that passed visual inspection flunked a test for lead dust. And a Baltimore city health official noted that in 2007 there were 21 cases of lead poisoning in homes that had supposedly been certified as free of lead-paint hazards on the basis of visual checks.

Continue reading "A test for eliminating childhood lead poisoning?" »

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 9:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
        

The chief sponsor of the bill to ban plastic retail bags in Baltimore has backed off in favor of trying a "mandatory-voluntary" recycling campaign to reduce the litter blanketing the city's trees, streams and harbor.

Councilman James B. Kraft, a Democrat representing Canton, outlined his new approach at a City Council committee work session on Thursday, where he explained that he wanted to revise the ban he'd proposed and work with retailers to discourage the free distribution of disposable plastic and paper bags at the checkout counter.

He suggested a public education campaign, in which retailers tell their customers they'll only get a bag at checkout if they ask for one. Meanwhile, the city, retailers and community groups would promote shoppers' use of reusable bags or recycling of any bags given out at stores - much like the sign photographed above as it appeared in a Whole Foods market in Annapolis in 2007.

"I don't think we're ready to move forward with a ban," Kraft said after the session.  He added that a "lot of legitimate concerns have been raised" by retailers about the ban he had proposed last year. The idea, Kraft explained, is "so we could show with cooperation and participation by everyone that we're reducing the number of bags out there on the streets and in the harbor." Kraft asked council members Bill Henry and Mary Pat Clarke to work with representatives of the city's retailers, bag manufacturers and advocates for sustainability on crafting a new bill. The revamped measure is scheduled now to be presented on March 16.

 Left on the council committee table, for now at least, is the alternative bill sponsored by Henry, a North Baltimore Democrat. It would levy a 25 cent fee on all carryout plastic and paper bags. Henry said he was still mulling whether to push it with a reduction or change in the proposed fee.  One option under consideration is dropping the fee to as little as 5 cents a bag, not unlike the litter reduction ordinance that I wrote about in the District of Columbia.

Clarke, a Democrat representing north central Baltimore, indicated she'd prefer to hold retailers' feet to the fire by setting goals for the voluntary bag reduction campaign and then having a fee or ban automatically kick in if those goals are not met after a suitable time, such as a year or two. Kraft, though, who is chairman of the council committee considering the bills, said he could not support any measure that would automatically trigger a fee or ban.

Continue reading "Bag the bag ban in B'more" »

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 6:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)
Categories: News, Recycling, Shopping, Urban Issues
        

What's clean water and a healthy Chesapeake Bay worth to you?  Lawmakers in Annapolis are eyeing legislation that would require every city, county and town in Maryland to assess a "stormwater remediation fee" on all property owners.

Environmental advocates plan to press for passage of the measure (SB686/HB999) at a hearing today in the Senate Education, Health and Environmental Affairs Committee. They point out that urban and suburban runoff is a significant and growing source of pollution of the bay as well as of local rivers and streams.

Retrofitting storm drains and reducing pavement in existing communities to keep litter, oil, dog poop and lawn fertilizer out of the water could cost billions in Baltimore city alone - and upwards of $20 billion statewide, by some estimates.

So far, only three counties and three municipal governments levy any sort of fee to help fix the storm-water problems in their communities: Charles, Prince Georges and Montgomery counties, plus Annapolis, Rockville and Takoma Park. Baltimore city and Anne Arundel, Carroll and Howard counties have talked about fees, but have balked at imposing them.  That's why advocates want the state to require them - to give local politicians the spine - or cover - to act.

Continue reading "A storm-water cleanup fee in your future?" »

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 9:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (39)
        

If you're among those who worried about dumping dirty snow in the harbor, here's a chance to get involved in long-term cleanup of Baltimore's troubled waters. There's a workshop tomorrow (Saturday, Feb. 20) aimed at crafting a plan for reducing the torrents of trash and filthy water washing into the harbor from the streets and yards of southeast Baltimore.

The half-day session, originally planned for last Saturday, was rescheduled because of our blizzards. Sponsored by the Baltimore Harbor Watershed Association, the session will be held from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at St. Casimir's Hall in Canton. St. Casimir's is at 2716 O'Donnell St., on the corner of O'Donnell and Kenwood Avenuve.

Residents and neighborhood leaders from Canton all the way inland to Clifton Park are invited to come talk about the problem and how to make the harbor and their neighborhoods cleaner and more livable - starting by keeping trash out of storm drains, as shown in the above photo.  Helping with the workshop are the Center for Watershed Protection, Morgan State University and Parks & People Foundation.  For more on the effort, go here.

For those who want to get a taste of how the harbor has changed over time, Dr. Ray Bahr, a retired cardiologist, amateur historian and watershed activist, is giving a lecture Saturday afternoon at the Canton Library about the history of the area, once known as Harris Creek.  See you there!

(Photo by Steve Ruark/Special to The Baltimore Sun)

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 4:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Chesapeake Bay, Events, Going Green, News, Urban Issues, Volunteer
        

Baltimore City Council is scheduled to take another run Tuesday at reducing the proliferation of plastic bag litter around the city.

The council will have a hearing and work session on bills aimed at banning plastic carryout bags altogether or imposing a 25-cent fee on each.  The hearing begins at 10 a.m. before the Judiciary and Legislative Investigations Committee, 4th floor of City H all.

One bill, introduced by Council members James B. Kraft, Mary Pat Clarke and Bill Henry, would bar grocery stores and "formula retail establishments" (aka convenience stores and fast-food chains) from giving customers their merchandise in plastic bags.

Merchants would only be able to put merchandise in recyclable paper bags or reusable bags. Violators would be fined $250 for a first offense up to $1,000 for three or more offenses in a six-month period.

The other bill, inroduced by Council members Henry, William H. Cole IV, Kraft and Clarke, would require merchants to levy a 25-cent fee on every plastic bag dispensed at carryout. Exceptions would be granted for bagging up fresh fish and meat, candy, cooked foods, dairy products, fruits and nuts and ice.

This isn't the council's first attempt to cut down on plastic bag litter, but supporters note the city is facing a state and federal mandate to do something about the trash littering the harbor, and plastic grocery and takenout bags are a big part of the mess.

How big, no one knows for sure. A separate resolution getting a hearing would commission the city's Department of Public Works to study how much of the city's litter is made up of plastic bags.

In comments submitted prior to the hearing, the city's Commission on Sustainability says disposable plastic and paper bags add to Baltimore's litter and water quality woes. But it says that both banning and slapping a fee on disposable bags would be inconsistent. It supports a fee only if it applies to both disposable plastic and paper bags. A separate bill being reviewed Tuesday would impose the same 25-cent fee on paper bags used for carryout merchandise.

Some other big cities have similarly attacked plastic bag litter, notably San Francisco (ban) and the District of Columbia (fee). DC's was similarly aimed at cleaning up debris fouling the Anacostia River. Legislation has been introduced in Annapolis to regulate and levy a fee on plastic carryout bags statewide. See it here.

What do you think? Should the city or state ban or charge a fee for using disposable plastic or paper bags? Would it hurt businesses that much, or would consumers get used to either bringing their own bags or paying a small fee? Would it help cut down on the litter and floating debris in the harbor?

(2009 AP photo of Giant grocery bagger in Washington D.C.) 

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 1:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (23)
Categories: Products, Recycling, Shopping, Urban Issues
        

A workshop aimed at helping clean up Baltimore's troubled harbor has been postponed a week by our snowpocalypse.

The half-day session, originally planned for Saturday (Feb. 13), has been rescheduled for Feb. 20, according to Dr. Ray Bahr of the Baltimore Harbor Watershed Association.   The association has been working with the city and other nonprofit groups to round up community support for tackling the trash and storm-water pollution that washes into the harbor at Canton.   Twenty neighborhoods from Canton inland to Clifton Park drain into the harbor there, at a point where once there was a surface stream known as Harris Creek.   It's long since been filled in and paved over.

(The photo above is from a watershed tour offered community leaders on a rainy Saturday last fall.)

The workshop, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at St. Casimir's Hall in Canton, is intended to get residents working on a plan for cleaning up what's draining into the harbor from those communities' streets by greening and upgrading their neighborhoods. Helping with the workshop are the Center for Watershed Protection, Morgan State University and Parks & People Foundation.

St. Casimir's is at 2716 O'Donnell St., on the corner of O'Donnell and Kenwood Avenuve. For more on the effort, go here. To RSVP to the workshop, go here.

Meanwhile, a lecture scheduled Saturday afternoon at the Canton Library about the history of Harris Creek has been canceled by the storm.  Dr. Bahr, a retired cardiologist, amateur historian and Canton native, will recount the tale of shipbuilding, oyster canning and more at a later date to be determined.

(Photos by Steve Ruark/Special to The Baltimore Sun)

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 8:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

Painting roofs of buildings white can cool off cities and help mitigate global warming, new research finds, but it would work better in cities with densely packed roofs and in warm climates where sunlight is strong year-round.

In a study accepted for publication in Geophysical Research Letters, scientists say computer modeling suggests that Energy Secretary Steven Chu and others may be onto something in advocating white roofs as a tool to help mitigate the effects of climate change.

"Our research demonstrates that white roofs, at least in theory, can be an effective method for reducing urban heat," Keith Oleson, lead author, says in a news release from the American Geophysical Union. Oleson, a scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, cautions that further study is needed to determine if it's feasible.

Cities tend to be warmer because asphalt roads, tar roofs and other urban surfaces absorb heat from the sun. Modeling found that if every roof were painted completely white, that "urban heat island effect" could be reduced by a third. The average temperature reduction for all the world's cities would be less than a degree Fahrenheit, but the cooling effect would be felt the most on summer days.

The modeling isn't good enough yet to look at how well white roofs work in specific cities, researchers say. So it's too early to say how valuable it is in someplace like Baltimore, where the Civic Works service corps and private contractors have been painting rowhouse roofs white for several years now.

The merits of doing it, researchers say, depend on several factors, including the density of roofs and their construction.  Roofs covered in metal and with little insulation would get less benefit from being painted white, they say, because that would let more of the sun's heat penetrate into the building.  Cities in warm climates also are likely to get the most out of white roofs, they point out.

(2003 Baltimore Sun photo by David Hobby)

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 6:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (15)
        

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

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

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

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

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

Continue reading "A decade worth of green" »

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

Older communities, long regarded as blighted and polluted, are beginning to change that image by ripping up some of their asphalt and concrete and giving the land a chance to breathe again.

 Little Edmonston, a working-class bedroom community on the outskirts of the nation's capital is the latest example of this greening of urban America. I wrote about the Prince George's County town's "Green Street" project in The Baltimore Sun today.  In this picture, the town's mayor, Adam Ortiz, shows how the community's busy main thoroughfare, Decatur Street, is being narrowed to make room for "bio-retention cells," aka trees and grasses to soak up polluted stormwater running off the streets and parking areas.  Standing behind him is Neil Weinstein, executive director of the Low Impact Development Center, which has been assisting the town with the project.

Besides soaking up damaging runoff, the native trees to be planted in the new strips between sidewalk and street also will help clear the air and provide shade and bird habitat. New, energy-efficient street lamps and bike lanes on porous pavers  will add to the makeover.

The construction is financed with a $1.1 million economic stimulus grant - one of seven "green" infrastructure projects in Maryland receiving a total of $3 million in funding through the Recovery Act. But the Edmonston project couldn't have been "shovel ready" without the assistance of a $25,000 design and engineering grant the year before from the Chesapeake Bay Trust.

Such retrofitting of older communities is vital, because most of them were built before anyone recognized that funneling rain water quickly from streets and parking lots into storm drains would ravage streams and pollute the Chesapeake Bay.  Baltimore and other cities and towns are beginning to grapple with how to do what little Edmonston is doing, but on a massive scale.  The cost is likely to run into billions of dollars, but Weinstein, who's also signed on to help Baltimore with its retrofits, says people need to start thinking of it more as an investment than a cost - an investment in cleaner water and more attractive neighborhoods. 

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 8:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

DC is taking this bike to work thing seriously. Instead of just adding a lane for bikers, the city traffic folks have added a lane that is separated by a barrier so cars can't use it. It's just a pilot program, but could be expanded to other roads. So far, according to the local NBC affiliate, the lane is getting a good response from locals.

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

Here's a listing where you don't want to be No. 1.  Forbes.com, which is fond of doing lists, has come up with "America's most toxic cities."  The business news site has ranked the nation's 40 largest metro areas by the dirtiness of their air and water, the number of places spewing toxic pollution and the number of Superfund hazardous waste dumps.

Atlanta earns the dubious distinction as forbes.com's most toxic city.  It lacks the smokestack industries one might typically associate with pollution, but the sprawl capital of America has some of the worst air quality, thanks to all the motor vehicles cruising its spaghetti bowl of pavement.

Following Atlanta are Detroit, Houston, Chicago, Philadelphia, Cleveland and Los Angeles.

Where's Baltimore? It ranks 32nd on the forbes.com list.  But that doesn't mean Charm City is all that clean, because oddly the list is in reverse order, with cleanest on top and dirtiest at the bottom.  When the list of 40 is flipped to rank the most toxic first, B'more comes in 9th. Not such a green showing. 

One has to wonder if forbes.com hasn't piled on a bit, though.  It lists 37 Superfund sites in Baltimore, when the Environmental Protection Agency only counts 11 in the city. The total doubles when the suburbs are included, but that's still well short of the figure used in the rankings.

But hey, look on the bright side.  Baltimore is only slightly worse than Portland, Oregon (#31, or 10th most toxic) often regarded as one of the crunchiest green places in the country.

Seem like a fair ranking to you?  Or a bad hit?

(2007 Baltimore Sun photo by Kim Hairston)

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 11:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)
        

You may be wondering: What's this guy doing, cooking out on a grassy parking space downtown?  No, he's not tail-gating before a Ravens game.  It's a somewhat unusual come-on for a novel approach to car-sharing that's getting a tryout in Baltimore.

Relay Rides is the brainchild of Shelby Clark, pictured above.  With a small but dedicated team, the long-haired Harvard graduate business student is signing up people in Charm City who want ready access to wheels from time to time.  Nothing unusual about that, you say?  Like Zipcar, right?  Well, he's also rounding up car owners willing to rent out their vehicles when they're not using them.  He wants to help the two groups find each other.

Clark, a Denver native, says he got the idea for "peer-to-peer" car-sharing after finding once that he had to slog two miles through wintry streets in Beantown to pick up the nearest Zipcar available on short notice. "I was biking through the snow and hating life,'' he recalls, "And, passing cars sitting on the side of the road, I was thinking how inefficent this is.  'These cars haven't been driven in weeks,' he says he thought to himself. 'Why can't I take one of these?'"

Not that he dislikes Zipcar.  Clark says he's used the car-sharing service a lot since his car died in San Francisco a couple years ago.  But he says he's learned the hard way you can't count on getting a convenient vehicle if you don't plan at least a couple days ahead.

"This idea makes a lot more sense - it's for the people and by the people,'' says the 27-year-old MBA student.  The appeal for car owners?  "Everybody could use a couple thousand dollars right now."  And for someone wanting to start a business on limited capital, he says, it helps not to have to buy the vehicles you plan to rent out. "Since we don't have to pay for these cars, we can grow the system much much quicker," he notes.

Continue reading "Novel car-sharing biz sprouting here" »

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 12:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (13)
Categories: Air Pollution, Going Green, News, Products, Urban Issues
        

The program is a little behind schedule, but Baltimore's new Charm City Circulator buses are definitely coming this fall, members of the Charm City Circulator Team say. The system will be made up of a fleet of 21 hybrid-electric buses that will pick up residents in close-in neighborhoods such as Federal Hill and Fells Point and take them to stops around downtown.

The idea is to get people out of their cars by making it really convenient and cheap -- FREE -- to get around downtown. The buses have been behind schedule because of the recession and problems in the automotive supply chain, the team says.

But in the next few weeks there will be visable progress, including info panels at stops, signs and street markings for the "buses and bikes only" lanes on Pratt and Lombard. (Hmm, how do we feel about buses and bikes sharing lanes? And if we're okay with that, wouldn't we like to see some north-south lanes as well? I believe the city is working on such lanes.)

Anyway, the buses are supposed to run seven days a week, every 10 minutes and along three routes. There's also a plan to allow people trying to get across the harbor to take the Water Taxi Harbor Connector for free. It will leave from Maritime Park at Living Classrooms Foundation in Fells Point and from the Tide Point dock in Locust Point every 10 minutes. Go to www.watertaxi.com for more info.

So, think you'd take the new bus?  

Posted by Meredith Cohn at 12:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)
Categories: Air Pollution, Going Green, News, Urban Issues
        

A bike commuter resource guide is now available from the Baltimore Metropolitan Council.

It talks about getting your bike ready and laws and offers maps and routes, as well. 

There's also information about combining your biking with other forms of public transportation. You may not know, but you are allowed to bring your bike on light rail and the subway in Baltimore, and the public buses now also have racks. 

There certainly has been a lot of talk about safety and security when it comes to biking in the city. But the council and area officials say they're are working on the issues.

They're adding more bike lanes and racks. More than 100 racks have been added in the region this year, and you can request a rack in your area here.

Further new bike routes are being planned for Bolton Hill, Reservoir Hill and Lake Avenue. They'll either connect existing routes or planned routes.

Hopefully, the number of accidents and thefts can be reduced.

Posted by Meredith Cohn at 10:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: News, Tips, Urban Issues