In an earlier post, I gave recommendations of great summer getaways. I neglected to mention Tylerton on Smith Island -- not becuase it isn't a wonderful place, but because I didn't know if there was anywhere to stay. (Besides private homes.)

When I was last on the island in October, Leroy and Sharryl Friesen, the warm hosts of Tylerton's Inn of Silent Music, were preparing to sell the place and move to the Midwest. The couple hoped that someone else would buy it and keep it as an inn. But there was lots of interest in the well-kept property as a private home, and not so many buyers interested in running an inn on a remote island town about an hour's boat ride from Crisfield.

The Friesens worried that, without the inn, Tylerton would lose a critical part of its income (tourism), while the rest of Maryland would miss out on a chance to experience an island out of time, as Tom Horton chronicleed so eloquently in his book by the same name.

Well, I called this week and as it turns out, the Inn is still open. Rob and Linda Kellogg, a couple of landlubbers who most recently lived in Colorado, saw the place, loved it and bought it late last year (sorry I was late on this.) Linda, a former principal at Sparrows Point Middle School who is also a personal chef, said she's not going to try to copy what Sharryl did in the kitchen (she made great corn salads, frittatas and soft-shell crabs), and the food will be local seafood with an Italian spin. But everything else -- the canoes, the bikes, the porch with the waves lapping below -- will be pretty much as it was.

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The Sierra Club has just released a report, The Dirty Truth About Coal. It's a deep look at all the problems that come from using coal as a source of energy. The Chesapeake Bay makes an appearance in the report, in the "what remains" section -- Chisman Creek, near Norfolk, is now so pulluted with metals from coal ash that it has become a Superfund site. (I'd have more to say about this, but air pollution isn't my specialty...and our air guru, Tom Pelton, is on vacation.)

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Some of you have perhaps noticed that there is very little public access to the waterfront in Maryland's portion of the Chesapeake Bay. When I first got here, this astounded me: my husband and I were asked to leave Harborview when once, on a walk around our old Federal Hill neighborhood, we ventured to the water and the pier. (Apparently, something gave away that we didn't live/belong there.)

Another time, on Tilghman Island, I found that the public area was so small that my "walk" took about five minutes. Even Public Landing, despite the name, could use more public space.

Now comes a report from Maine Sea Grant that this problem is a national one. Though the report cites Annapolis for having good waterfront access due to City Dock, it takes some other cities and towns to task for not having enough public access. It discusses all the potential conflicts and suggests we all try to get along and work together to combat problems like sea level rise. The Sea Grant Web site has other interesting tidbits, too, if you have some time to take a look.

Many thanks to colleague Candus Thomson for alerting me (and you all)  to the report...

Posted by Rona Kobell at 10:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
                       

After seeing the algae bloom photos, one of my sources alerted me to this great page from the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science. Their Integrated Application Network (a scientific term for the people that analzye the data and put it out there for the rest of us to understand) has an image library that's filled with all sorts of interesting pictures. There are aerial shots of the bay, images of environmental problems such a parking lots that go right up to the water's edge (hello, untreated stormwater runoff) and photos of Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge's delicate marshes. if you register, you can download the images and use them as long as you give credit where credit was due. Good to know....

Posted by Rona Kobell at 10:20 AM | Permalink
                       

 As eight companies race to build Maryland's first ethanol plant, some environmentalists are questioning whether the alternative fuel boom could end up fouling our air and water. 

But it's not a simple issue. Even if growing more corn for ethanol creates more fertilizer runoff into the Chesapeake Bay, it might mean less air pollution -- because alcohol burns more cleanly than petroleum. 

Also, there's a national security question.  Some might argue that slightly worse water pollution from expanded corn production would be an acceptable tradeoff for making our country less tied to the war-torn Middle East.

No blood for oil, however, might mean more cash for food.  The Washington Post has an article today on how much the rising price of corn, driven by the ethanol boom, is pushing up the price of everthing from cubed steak to milk. (Because cows and pigs eat corn which is in rising demand for car fuel).

See  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/14/AR2007061402008.html 

Meanwhile, the Des Moines Register conducted an investigation of the pollution from Iowa's booming ethanol industry and found 394 violations of air, water and solid waste pollution laws.  Among the problems were 276 sewage pollution violations, often involving the release of water with excessive amounts of iron.  See http://www.agobservatory.org/headlines.cfm?refid=98856 

Iowa farmers responded furiously to the Register's stories, suggesting the articles exaggerated the problem. See http://thesouthofiowa.blogspot.com/2007/06/dm-registers-attack-on-biofuels.html 

In Maryland, the O'Malley administration's transition committee report on environmental issues this winter suggested that the corn liquor fuel boom could hurt the bay.  Ethanol plants are proposed on Baltimore's industrial waterfront and in Somerset County, among other locations.

 The Bay Journal, a publication of the EPA-funded Alliance for the Chespeake Bay, wrote: "The Environment and Natural Resources Transition Work Group for Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, warned in its report that 'recent initiatives to produce ethanol from feed grains such as corn may adversely affect Chesapeake Bay restoration” as it could 'drive an increase in acreage planted in corn, which typically requires heavy fertilization with nitrogen, a key Bay pollutant.''

"If 1 million additional acres of agricultural land in the Bay watershed were converted into corn production, it could increase nitrogen runoff by roughly 15 million pounds a year, especially if farmers choose to convert idle land, hay fields, and pastures—all low-runoff uses—to corn, according to rough estimates."

More nitrogen runoff is bad.  But on the other hand, more money for these Eastern shore corn farmers could keep them in business -- and keep their land out of the hands of developers. More construction of strip malls and cul-de-sacs on farmland would certainly lead to more water pollution, as more pavement flushes stormwater into bay tributaries.

If you had to vote, would you give a thumbs up or down to ethanol plant construction in Maryland? For example, along Baltimore's gritty Curtis Bay waterfront?

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As promised, here are photos of the algae blooms. Thanks to Cheaspeake bay Foundation for their permission to share...

This is the bloom up close....

and an aerial--I think that is the 301 bridge.

Posted by Rona Kobell at 3:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
                       

Hertz and Avis appear to be trying as hard as they can to win the distinction of greenest rental company. USA Today reports that Hertz is adding a thousand Toyota Priuses into its fleet. Avis plans to do the same. Both, however, appear to be playing catch-up to Enterprise, which already has 3,000 hybrids available for rentals. Whole thing here.

The good news for hybrid bargain hunters is this: more "gently used" hybrids will be available for sale in the coming years. It's hard to find a used hybrid now, but rental companies typically sell the best of their fleet after a year or two. My hybrid, while not purchased from Enterprise, began its life as a member of that fleet. I bought it used for a fraction of the price of a new one, but it took some detective work and an 80-mile drive to find it.

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The Chesapeake Bay Program, that multi-state/federal agency that monitors the health of the bay, just put out their annual forecast on the bay's overall state. As usual, things don't look good. But this year, the forecast was prescient; it predicted there was a "moderate to high" likelihood of algal blooms in the Potomac River. Sure enough, there was one on Monday, the day the forecast came out. The Chesapeake Bay Foundation hired a plane to fly over the river and check it out. In the process, they also reported blooms in several Virginia rivers, including the York and the Rappahannock. one of them was about 30 miles long. They sent me pictures which I will post if i get permission to do so, and can figure out how to do it!

I was out yesterday and saw a decent-sized bloom on the Choptank. I asked a couple of experts if we should be concerned. The answer is yes, though the blooms can go away as quickly as they come due to rain. But the underlying cause of the blooms is too much pollutions in the water. And if they continue, we will likely see more fish kills. The experts' consensus is this: we have got to find ways to reduce how much pollution we're putting in the water.

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The most nauseating moment of spring: when black gunk from car tailpipes forms a crispy crust atop snow melting beside the road.

As it turns out, that soot from vehicle exhaust doesn't just foul the snow -- it plays an active role in melting the snow.  Black particles absorb the sun's heat, acting like tiny radiators that melt the ice.

The same phenomenon is happening on a massive scale at the earth's poles.  And the role of sooty air pollution in melting the world's ice, and driving up sea levels in the Chesapeake Bay and elsewhere, turns out to be much greater than the role of carbon dioxide, according to a new article in Scientific American, which draws upon a study published by University of California, Irvine, climate physicist Charlie Zender in the Journal of Geophysical Research.

Here's a link to the article: http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=0BB80100-E7F2-99DF-3243FADB64A2D768&chanID=sa003 

"Black carbon in snow causes about three times the temperature change as carbon dioxide in the atmosphere," Zender says in the article.

Although forest fires contribute to the soot, at least 80 percent of it comes from human industry -- smokestacks of power plants, tailpipes of cars and trucks, and the exhaust vents of trains and ships.

This last factor -- pollution from ships -- creates a feedback loop.  As polar ice melts, more ships can make the once-impossible voyage over the top of Canada and Russia.  And their sooty exhaust dirties the snow around them, making it melt even faster.

The impact here in Maryland is obvious. Low lying sections of the Eastern Shore, like Hooper's Island, are being steadily eroded by rising water levels caused in part by the melting of the Greenland ice cap and glaciers.  

In a more immediate context, microscopic soot from coal-burning power plants also causes an estimated 30,000 deaths a year in the U.S. from heart attacks and asthma hospitalizations. Baltimore has one of the worst asthma hospitalization rates in America.

All this suggests that shifting away from coal as a source of power could potentially achieve two goods.  It could save our lungs, and it could clean up the snow.  And whiter snow could slow the flooding of Maryland's Eastern Shore and Baltimore's Inner Harbor, among other waterfront areas.

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The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is throwing itself a party, and Oklahoma Sen. Tom Coburn is  not happy about it.

It's not because the agency, which is celebrating 200 years of its work on all things nautical, didn't invite him. it's because the Oklahoma doctor, who has railed against congressional earmarks and for fiscal restraint, thinks the whole hoo-ha is a waste of money.

In a letter to NOAA Administrator Vice Admiral Conrad Lautenbacher, which was obtained by The Sun, Coburn points to NOAA's own website in his list of the offending events: a Washington, DC gala, a reception for members of Congress, a festival and concert at Hawaii’s Waikiki beach park, outreach at the Iowa State Fair, and other activities.

NOAA already hosted several fetes in 2000, when it celebrated its 30th anniversary as a federal agency, Coburn writes.

"It seems difficult to justify this year’s bogus anniversary while other priorities face reductions in funding. NOAA has, for example, cut funding for a hurricane research program, according to the Miami Herald. I do not know the merits of this particular research program but I do know that protecting people from hurricanes should be a greater priority than fanfare and celebrations. The Associated Press (AP), likewise, has reported that a December 11 memorandum prepared for the White House by NOAA and NASA warned that "the overall climate program [is] in serious jeopardy" due to the downsizing in the number of climate sensor satellites. The AP describes this program as a "costly and problem-plagued satellite initiative begun more than a decade ago" with "technology glitches and a near-doubling in the original $6.5 billion cost." Yet, if NOAA believes this program to be essential, perhaps the agency could forgo periodic anniversary celebrations and other lower priority activities to ensure it has adequate resources."

"Could you please provide a total cost estimate of all activities and expenses associated with NOAA’s 30th anniversary celebration held in 2000 and NOAA’s 200th anniversary celebration being held this year? Please also include an itemized listing of all related expenses and activities involved with these anniversaries."

Here's hoping that those answers find their way to The Sun, and to bayblog. Editors, if you're reading, I think i need to go and cover that Waikiki beach party. I smell breaking news there.

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I wrote a story for today's paper about Environment Maryland's latest report, a blueprint to help stem global warming. It's inside the paper but you can find it here. Shari Wilson, MDE secretary, and Eric Schwaab, the number two guy at DNR, were on the call with the advocacy group, saying they supported the recommendations. We shall see if they will turn up in legislation next year. Meantime, the group's executive director called the administration's support "refreshing." He no doubt was remembering the last administration, when Ehrlich's environmental secretary, Kendl Philbrick, helped block an air pollution control bill because it would hurt power plants.

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Every day, I drive past a beautiful farm in the middle of developed suburbia. It’s on Old Court Road near Enclave Road, maybe four miles past the Park School but not quite all the way to the intersection of and Park Heights.

The farm looks to be fairly small, maybe 20 acres or so, though it could be more as there is a line of trees that I can’t see beyond. I’ve enjoyed watching this farm go from fallow to sprouting green little nubs to what it is now, which is filled with green fields of corn.

I wonder about the farmers, how they manage to stay in business when everything around them has changed. I wonder if they’ve been tempted to sell out to the housing developers, who seem to have gobbled up everything around them.

Anyway, if anyone knows the name of the farm, I’d love to hear from you; post a comment below or send me an email, rona.kobell@baltsun.com.

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Some people in the Old Dominion state are pretty sure that sea level there, like everywhere else, is rising. But they don’t know by how much, because they say Virginia hasn’t produced the maps necessary to assess the situation. So Wetlands Watch, a Norfolk-based environmental group, is calling on the Kaine administration to figure out which places are at risk, and by how much, and what we can do about it.

The group’s executive director, Skip Stiles, explains that Maryland and North Carolina used state and federal money to pay for flights over low-lying wetland areas and do precise maps. The Virginia Institute of Marine Science, the state’s premier environmental research institution, is helping those states. But, Stiles said, Virginia has no maps for scientists to work with.

"Our ‘best guess’ estimate is that Virginia will lose between 50 and 80% of its vegetated tidal wetlands absent some efforts at mitigating the impacts of a 1/5 - 2 foot sea level rise over the next 100 years. That rate of rise is double the current rate and is the base rate. It will happen regardless of efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions," Stiles said.

For a detailed overview of their work, click here.

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ast week, I posted a note about "wade-in season," which is upon us now. I had hoped to post something about Bernie Fowler’s Patuxent wade-in, which started all the others and features the folksy former senator in coveralls and a straw hat, wading in to see his feet. See wade-in post for my rambling history of the event and its connection to the lawsuit that helped start the bay cleanup movement here.

Now the Chesapeake Bay’s office of the EPA has sent me the official wade-in flyer, which you can find here

One of my all-time favorite stories I’ve done at The Sun was a June 2004 profile on Bernie, which I would link to but it’s no longer on The Sun’s page (and that would be blatant self promotion, wouldn’t it?) For that story, I followed Bernie around as we went to his old stomping grounds — the Broomes Island oyster house, which is to be turned into a banquet facility, the water around Broomes and the shores of Solomons Island. Once fertile ground for crabs and oysters, the place had become developed and the water quality deteriorated. Bernie, who is usually pretty optimistic, was pretty fed up about the situation in his river, the Patuxent, and he was trying to get a commitment from then-Gov. Ehrlich to do something about it. Ehrlich instead chose to focus on the smaller Corsica, due to a high-profile sewage spill.

Here’s how that 2004 story ended — with Bernie’s words.

As Fowler walks along Broomes Island's sands, he wonders whether he has done enough, whether the river's good years gave him a rest that made him complacent.

In the past decade, some of the scientists who joined his lawsuit have died, as have many of the island's crabbers. If the state doesn't act now to restore the Patuxent, he fears, people will accept the river for what it is without knowing what it was.

"My deepest worry that I have about the river and the Chesapeake Bay is that voices like mine will be silenced one day," Fowler said. "And when that occurs, there's nothing in the computer banks that's going to tell you what that river was like."

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The Inner Harbor area stinks today, and it probably will for another week. There was a massive fish kill over the weekend, as The Sun's crackerjack morning team reports.

There was a massive algae bloom a week or two ago at the Inner harbor that turned the water a rusty brown color. Tourists noticed. But by last Monday, workers at the aqaurium reported that the water was back to normal.

However, when the water reached 70 degrees this weekend, the algae died, and when it decomposed, it took away the oxygen the fish needed. About 7,000 fish died.

That 7,000 fish still live in the Inner Harbor may come as a surprise to those who walk by it and notice it's not exactly pristine. But there's a lot of life in that harbor -- rockfish, snapping turtles and crabs are just some of the creatures you can find there. And as the area has become less industrial, the water has looked cleaner.

It may smell for another week or so. Let's hope all the creatures that survived the bloom can stick it out to swim another day.  

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So many questions linger after watching the Democratic presidential debate Sunday night. Did Bill Richardson and Barack Obama call each other to coordinate ties? Why did John Edwards call everyone else "senator" or "governor" but called Hillary Clinton "Hillary"? (He seemed to begin referring to her as "senator" mid-debate, perhaps taking his cues from everyone else.) Were Dennis Kucinich's ears that large the last time? I don't remember. And who is this Mike from Alaska running for president?

But among the questions that weren't asked: anything really substantive on climate change, or global warming, as they were calling it in the debate. There was some brief talk about what to do to get gas prices down and wean our dependence on foreign oil. But you would think a panel that includes a former energy secretary would have offered some more substantive insights into what these candidates plan to do about sea level rise, emissions and other pressing problems. 

Not to worry. Our current leader has a solution. "Aspirational goals" for cutting emissions and reducing pollution.

As the Washington Post reports, the goals would be just that -- something to shoot for, not something for which countries and companies will be penalized if they don't meet.

"Virtually without exception, environmentalists questioned why Bush has devised a plan that lacks mandatory cuts in greenhouse gas emissions," the Post writes.

Aspire seems to be the wrong word here. One can aspire to run a marathon, lose weight, keep New Year's resolutions, watch less TV, or become a better person/wife/husband/mother/father. But does one really "aspire" to curb pollution? Seems one would instead make laws, enforce them, make offenders pay penalties for violating them and them take measurements to see if the program is working.

Makes sense to me. Perhaps that's why I never ran for office.

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Celebrities always seem to be plugging one cause or another, and critics often question if they really know anything or care about the causes they're flogging.

Grist, the irreverent online journal of environmental news and commentary ("doom and gloom with a sense of humor") has put together its own ranking of "green actors" who aren't just acting concerned about the environment. 

Topping the list of 15 is Leonardo DiCaprio, recently of "Blood Diamond" and "The Departed," who's got his own environmental foundation and is working on a documentary about global warming (Move over, Al Gore).  Others making Grist's honor roll include Robert Redford, Cameron Diaz, George Clooney, Cate Blanchett and Columbia native Edward Norton, of last year's "The Painted Veil" and "The Illusionist."

Those on the list aren't just talking green. They usually drive hybrid or electric vehicles and live in solar homes. Oddly, nowhere on the list, even among runners-up, are Ted Danson and Woody Harrelson, two celebrities who've been touting environmental causes for years. 

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What's with the Rachel Carson backlash?  

First, Maryland Sen. Brian Frosh introduces a bill in the General Assembly to proclaim May 27 Rachel Carson Day in Maryland. Carson, who died of breast cancer in 1964, two years after she wrote Silent Spring, would have been 100 years old this year. Her work is credited with saving the lives of many bald eagles, whose eggs were destroyed by the pesticide DDT, and with banning that pesticide.

No doubt Frosh expected little opposition to this bill -- after all, we have days to honor various athletes, students and others, so why not a day to honor one of the world's most famous environmentalists? Plus, as my Sun colleague Candy Thomson notes here, Maryland wasn't exactly a pioneer. Pennsylvania has celebrated her birthday for years, and Toronto, Canada, uses the day to increase the awareness of breast cancer.

But Frosh found opposition not from the pesticide lobby, but from Del. Pete Hammen, a member of the Nature Conservancy and the Chesapeake Bay Foundation. The bill failed; and an astounded O'Malley Administration, clearly perplexed that such a routine matter wouldn't get passed, honored her by executive proclamation anyway.

Now comes Ben Cardin, former Speaker of that deliberative body in Annapolis, now a U.S. Senator, with his own tribute to Carson. Cardin had intended to submit a resolution celebrating Carson, for her "legacy of scientific rigor coupled with poetic sensibility."

But Cardin didn't submit it, because Sen. Tom Coburn said he'd block it.

Coburn's reason? He thinks Carson was an alarmist environmentalist. Her brand of "junk science" has turned the country against pesticides, like DDT, that could stop the spread of malaria, the Oklahoma senator says.  If we could just spread DDT on the walls in infected places, he seems to be saying, we could save the lives of many children.

Coburn is a medical doctor (his Senate receptionist always answers the phone "Doctor Coburn's office.") He's also a resident skeptic, and a guy who likes to stick his finger in the eye of conventional wisdom. He had long railed against earmarks, including the one that my colleague Greg Garland and I wrote about for the Oyster Recovery Partnership. He even asked that our stories be entered into the Congressional Record.

Guys like him keep things interesting, that's for sure.
 
Would Rachel Carson really object to the use of DDT if it could save people's lives? The Chicago Tribune seems to think not in this editorial. 

What do you think?

Posted by Rona Kobell at 11:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)