The weakening of environmental regulations is often too technical and eye-glazingly bureaucratic for most average folks and reporters to care about.  But this kind of lobbying wizardry can mean big bucks to developers and have a huge impact on our natural world.

The most recent example: The Bush administration has been quietly carving looholes in a fairly obscure but important 1970 law called the National Environmental Policy Act, according to the online journal Environmental Science and Technology.  The article raises an alarm: "Environmental Magna Carta under siege."  The change means corporations and the government have less of an obligation to study the environmental impact of their projects and report their findings to the public.

Meanwhile, another public disclosure law established after the catastrophic chemical leak in Bhopal, India (pictured above), is also being weakened by the Bush administration, according to the Los Angeles Times.

The federal Toxics Release Inventory law for two decades has allowed people to access data about hundreds of chemicals used and released in their communities. Seeking to ease the burden on industry, the EPA last December scaled back disclosure requirements for some small-scale facilities, the LA Times reports. This week, California and 11 other states sued to try to stop the blackout on public health information. 

Like the Toxic Release Inventory, the National Environmental Policy Act was created because of an environmental disaster.  Congress passed the environmental impact reporting law after Ohio's Cuyahoga River caught on fire, and a 1969 oil spill in Santa Barbara, California, according to Environmental Science and Technology.

But with the spotlight elsewhere, companies have been quietly over the years lobbying to weaken these requirements.

"In an attempt to curtail environmental assessments for oil exploration, timber extraction, and grazing on public lands, the Bush Administration is sidestepping one of the nation's first environmental laws," the journal reports. "Environmental assessment in the U.S. was enshrined in law for the first time when President Richard Nixon signed the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) on January 1, 1970. Since then, however, the U.S. has slowly cast aside its role as a leader in the field of environmental assessments, as successive administrations have chipped away at the scope of NEPA, experts say. The cuts have reached a crescendo with President George W. Bush's administration, and proponents of these assessments worry that pressure to develop natural resources with little oversight of the consequences will lead to an unsustainable future for the U.S."

If anyone out there knows of impacts on the Chesapeake Region from these changes, please let me know at tom.pelton@baltsun.com.

 

Posted by Tom Pelton at 12:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)
                       

I did a post two days ago saying that Maryland's Department of Natural Resources had changed the rules for oystering in their managed reserves -- those oyster bars that the Oyster Recovery Partnership is planting with hatchery seed from U. of Maryland's lab.

It turns out that, while the rules were changed back in 2004-2005 during the reserves' experimental phase, they have remained the same since. Oystermen may take out 3-inch oysters until they catch their limits when the oyster bar either had half of its oysters at 4 inches, or when there's enough disease to justify taking them out, says shellfish guru Chris Judy.

DNR's notice did not say anything about each eligible bar already having half its oysters at four inches. The reason Judy said, is because the notice was written for oystermen, and oystermen don't care about that. They only want to know which bars are open, what's the size limit, and how many they can catch.

Makes sense. But that omission is causing some confusion.

ORP Bill Goldsborough noticed the mistake on the blog and called me -- I thank him for that, because we do strive for accuracy here at bayblog...and here's what he says about the ecological value:

Posted by Rona Kobell at 10:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
                       

Watch for Gov. Martin O'Malley to propose tightening state laws regulating shoreline development along Chesapeake Bay and the removal of trees when the General Assembly convenes in January. Those were among the more concrete pledges the governor made when he spoke last night to an enthusiastic crowd of environmentalists and smart-growth advocates at the 10th anniversary gala of 1000 Friends of Maryland.

"Our Critical Area law was the best thing we could do," O'Malley said of the shoreline development regulations pushed through in 1984 by Gov. Harry Hughes.  As with most legislation, O'Malley added, it was "a product of consensus and compromise.  Our people expect a lot more than a law that was the product of the 1970s can provide."   (I think he meant to say 1980s; or maybe I misheard him - a momentary hallucination from hunger, having been obliged to sip water while others dined, for eithical reasons.)

O'Malley also vowed to propose changes to the Forest Conservation Act, a law pushed through by another of his predecessors, William Donald Schaefer.  O'Malley said the law needs tightening "to replace what we've lost through sprawl."
The governor said his administration is working on a "sustainable forestry" initiative, and he signaled his willingness to push for more state actions to combat climate change.

"Things have to change," he said.  "It's not true that all growth generates needed tax revenue .... It's not true we have to grow or die. It's not true that undeveloped land is just a waste."

Such rhetoric was music to the hundreds of activists, officials and developers (yes, some of the 1000 Friends are builders and developers.)

Interestingly, though he was speaking to the converted in decrying the ills of sprawl, one pledge O'Malley didn't make last night was to propose specific revisions to the state's 10-year-old Smart Growth laws.  He's previously said they need tightening.  He even invited Smart Growth's architect, former Gov. Parris N. Glendening, to arrange a two-day, closed-door skull session with his cabinet on how to do a better job of managing growth.

O'Malley did vow last night to "stop making state investments that actually chase bad local decisions." And he suggested that "we need to do a much better job of calculating the true costs of growth," to identify what's economically sustainable and what's not.  

In almost the next breath, he mentioned the "opportunities" presented by military base realignment, which by some projections could bring upwards of 45,000 jobs and 28,000 families to Maryland.  He's expected to propose new funding and legislation to pave the way for that influx, though in this case economists have projected that the new jobs and people will more than refill the state and local tax coffers in years to come.

An O'Malley administration official said later that he is still committed to Smart Growth reform, but intends to put off pushing for it until 2009 - to give officials more time to flesh out proposals.

Whatever the case, he said enough of what the crowd wanted to hear to get a standing ovation.  He also got a plaque honoring what he's done so far to push environmental protections and reinvigorate the state's Smart Growth efforts, which many activists believe had been all but abandoned under O'Malley's immediate predecessor, Republican Gov. Robert Ehrlich.

Missing amid all the praise for O'Malley was any mention of the Inter-County Connector, the controversial Washington area highway that galls so many environmentalists and smart-growth advocates.  For all his other green cred, O'Malley has been a staunch supporter of the highway, and joined with the federal government in defeating a lawsuit by environmentalists seeking to block the project.

Dru Schmidt-Perkins, executive director of 1000 Friends, said she had planned to make a wisecrack about the connector in her remarks last night before the governor's speech, but thought better of it.

"I know there are many here that disagree with me on that," O'Malley said of the ICC when approached after his speech.   Asked how he squared the highway with his support of Smart Growth, he paused, then said, "It's more in the spirit of catching up on the mistakes of the past." Asked if he'd stuck with the project because he felt it would be too difficult to back out of the state's commitment to the project, revived by Ehrlich, he paused again, and said, "Yes."

O'Malley did say he expected to steer more funding to mass transit, thanks to the $400 million  that the General Assembly earmarked at his request for transportation from the tax-increase package he pushed through in the special session just finished.

The governor wasn't the only one getting "attaboys'' at the 1000 Friends gala, despite doing things that have disappointed or angered the faithful.  Another public official praised last night was Howard County Executive Ken Ulman, who despite other steps he's taken to promote green building and the like presided over the Baltimore regional transportation board's approval of a long-range transportation plan that many advocates complain slights transit.

Whatever the differences with O'Malley and others, last night's celebration evidently was not the politic time to air them. Instead it was a time for activists to honor and encourage a governor whose heart, judging by his rhetoric, seems to be with them, even if all his actions aren't. 

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 10:03 AM in growth/land use | Permalink | Comments (1)
                       

Few subjects ignite more intense reactions than wind power.  Supporters of wind farms see them as pollution-free sources of electricity and symbols of our nation's willingness to tackle the moral crisis of global warming.  Critics call them government-subsidized scams too unreliable to replace coal and gas power plants, but certainly large enough to permanently mangle a lot of beautiful landscape.

I published a story in today's paper about a Western Maryland farmer who wants a developer to raise three nearly 40-story turbines on his land.  For 69-year-old John Roth, the wind farm would bring him enough money (perhaps $15,000 to $20,000 a year) to allow him to retire and stay on the more than century-old farm where he and his father were born.  Without the cash, Roth worries he'd have to sell the farm, because he's getting older and can't physically tackle raising corn anymore.  So he wants to reap the wind.

Many neighbors praise Roth, saying he's growing a clean energy plant and has the right to do what the hell he wants with his land. But the project, led by Annapolis-based Synergics and its director Wayne Rogers, a former chairman of the Maryland Democratic party, has some persistent critics, who worry about Maryland's tallest ridge being turned into an industrial landscape.

Shorly after my story was published this morning, I received this email from frequent wind critic Jon Boone of Oakland: "Yet another reprehensible story enhancing the industrial wind con, helping Wayne Rogers.... despoil and exploit the land and people of Western Maryland for his own very substantial profit. Rogers' wind project atop Roth Rock would contribute nothing to the region's energy store while clearcuttting, dynamiting, and fragmenting some of the most sensitive habitat in the state, jeopardizing several state-endangered species, and threatening the quality of life for virtually all surrounding neighbors. Those who endorse or profit from placing such industrial complexes near the homes of others evidently don’t have a clue about how to foster civil society. If Rogers succeeds with this project, it will be because the gullible are led by the pretentious, a process made easier because of a lack of accountability.... and the pervasive vacuity of our political and regulatory culture. And stories like this one, from reporters who couldn't hit water with an accurate accounting if they fell out of a boat."

Well, I think we can read between the lines there -- Jon isn't the world's biggest supporter of wind. I'm going to quibble with his last line, however.  In fact, I frequently hit water with great accuracy while falling out of boats.

However, another reader, George Marsh, correctly pointed out that the story contained an error (for which we are running a correction.)  My story said that the Maryland Public Service Commission last October approved the Roth Rock Wind Project. In fact, a hearing examiner for the commission issued a proposed order, approving a permit (called a "certificate of public convenience and necessity (CPCN)").  This might have been enough to allow the project to move ahead -- but it was appealed, and the full five member Public Service Commission hasn't yet voted on this appeal.  Without this vote, it's not official.  Thanks for setting the record straight on this matter, George.

But there's also a twist: a law passed last spring says that CPCN's aren't necessary for wind farms of this size.  So the whole issue of approval or not approval of a CPCN may be moot. 

(George also brought up the fact that the ridge owned by John Roth where the windmills are proposed are above his farm, and physically separate from it.  I don't think this changes the fact that Roth hopes to make enough money to remain on his farm by allowing the developer to build the wind turbines on his land -- whether the turbines are "above" his farm (which is what I wrote) or right in the middle of his fields)

From another reader, I got this message in support of John Roth from Andrea Lake, an educator from Harford County: "Dear Mr. Pelton, My vote is to let Mr. Roth do what he wants with his land - we have lost so many of our rights - let's let this one stand. Our country needs to 'wake up'.

Another reader, Don Airey, from upstate New York, reports that fights over wind turbines in the Schoharie Valley have gotten so bitter that police had to escort someone out of a town hall meeting this week. "It's that emotional and passionate when people's homes are involved," Airey wrote.

Meanwhile, The New York Times and many other publications have been discussing the reliability of wind power.

A Nov. 23 story by The Times' Mark Landler says: "Wind energy is coming under sharper scrutiny, not just from hostile neighbors, who complain that the towers are a blot on the landscape, but from energy experts who question its reliability as a source of power."

"For starters, the wind does not blow all the time. When it does, it does not necessarily do so during periods of high demand for electricity. That makes wind a shaky replacement for more dependable, if polluting, energy sources like oil, coal and natural gas. Moreover, to capture the best breezes, wind farms are often built far from where the demand for electricity is highest. The power they generate must then be carried over long distances on high-voltage lines, which in Germany and other countries are strained and prone to breakdowns. In the United States, one of the areas most suited for wind turbines is the central part of the country, stretching from Texas through the northern Great Plains -- far from the coastal population centers that need the most electricity."

The Times piece also brings up the current lack of electrical storage capacity for wind power. So that lots of electrity is created on windy days, but there are few practical ways to store this excess until its needed on windless days.

Another perspective comes from writer Karl Stahlkopf, in the technical journal Spectrum Online. He suggests that power grids could be redesigned with equipment that could redistribute power, so that a lull in wind in one area could be compensated by turbines operating in another zone.

"Electronics devices can be combined with energy storage technologies that operate over a range of time scales to manage the shifts in wind power production," he writes. "....Continental supergrids eventually will help, too, by distributing wind-generated power across whole regions, balancing regions where the wind happens to be blowing with those that may be becalmed, while simultaneously spreading the burden of providing backup power."

Is this possible? I always thought that if wind is down in one region of the country it's likely also down in nearby areas from which transmission would be pratical. I don't know.  But if there are any experts on electricity transmission out there, I would like to hear from them.

Posted by Tom Pelton at 11:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (8)
                       

Update: there is new information. Please see more recent post that addresses it.

We have just gotten word that the Department of Natural Resources has changed the rules for managed reserves of oysters in the Chesapeake Bay. They've gone from a 4-inch requirement to a partial 3.5 to now a 3. 

The significance of this may not be apparent because it's couched in bureaucratic language. But it means the difference between the supposed purpose of leaving the oysters in the water for a longer time to get ecological benefits -- the stated purpose of the so-called managed reserve program -- and just letting the watermen take them out as they would in any other harvest bar. 

In April, my colleague Greg Garland and I wrote a story about the Oyster Recovery Partnership, the nonprofit that has received millions of dollars in federal finds to re-seed the bay with oysters. Many of those oysters are planted in the managed reserves, which were an alternative to the old approach, where DNR would just spread seed around the bay. Here's how we explained:

Charlie Frentz didn't want to spend millions of dollars to plant disease-resistant oysters only to have the state turn around and deposit diseased seed nearby.

So he asked the watermen to turn down the state's seed. He said the partnership would instead provide hatchery-raised oysters that would eventually be available for harvest. The oysters would be planted on special bars that he called "managed reserves."

Normally, watermen can take oysters from the bay when they are 3 inches long. In the managed reserves, they had to wait until the oysters were 4 inches. The larger size meant the oysters would have an extra year or so to live in the bay.

But after the first year, when one waterman was so mad about the restrictions that he threw an oyster hammer at Larry Simns, the partnership changed the rules. Today, when half a bar's oysters reach 4 inches, watermen also can remove the 3-inch oysters.

Now, here's what is making the rounds (and apparently infuriating lots of recreational fishermen, who have long been howling about this program):

The Secretary of the Maryland Department of Natural Resources (DNR) pursuant to Natural Resources Article §4-1009.1 of the Maryland Annotated Code and the Code of Maryland Regulations 08.02.04.14 announces that the oyster harvest reserve areas described below for the Chester River, Choptank River and Patuxent River will be open for harvest under the conditions set forth below.... This action is recommended by the Oyster Harvest Reserve Steering Committee.

Harvesting conditions for all sites: Open Monday through Friday, December 3, 2007 through March 31, 2008 from sunrise till 3pm; 3" minimum cull size; 15 bushel daily limit per license not to exceed 30 bushels per boat (oyster surcharge fee must be paid for each harvester); 5% tolerance of oysters which measure less than 3 inches from hinge to bill and cultch consisting of shells, stones, gravel and slag; only the gear that is legal for the area may be used; catch must be held in containers.

The first year I covered the reserves, in 2004, the difference between them and other oyster bars was clear: the managed reserves were only open Saturday and were only open to tongers and divers. Plus, the aforementioned 4-inch size gave the oysters an extra year in the water.

Now I am wondering what makes the "managed reserves" different than regular harvest bars? Sure, they're monitored and measured, but at the end of the day, you still have the federal government spending millions of dollars to plant oysters in the bay only to let watermen take them out.

Does that make sense? Why did they change the rules? Inquiring minds want to know, but phone calls were not returned last night. All I got from DNR was an explanation of what ORP does, which they surely know I already know.
 

Posted by Rona Kobell at 10:59 AM | Permalink
                       

After my recent rant about not seeing enough hybrids, I walk into the parking lot and I am sandwiched between two- a Prius and a Civic. Then, I get on the road and I am behind three Priuses...

Is a change in the air?

Posted by Rona Kobell at 10:53 AM | Permalink
                       

Is the Chesapeake Bay Program trying to put lipstick on a pig?

That's the impression one could be left with from this headline: "Chesapeake Bay Summer Oxygen Conditions Significantly Better Than Predicted." This came to my inbox a little while ago.

It has long been well-established that dissolved oxygen conditions are poor in the summer, particularly in the deep water of the bay. Conditions in summer largely have to do with the kind of winter and spring it was.  Lots of rain = bad conditions. Drought = better conditions. So, because we can't predict the weather, we plan on what we're going to see in the water figuring it will be an average year.

As we all know, there was a pretty significant drought this year- - good for the few oysters remaining and the grassbeds, not so much for the farmers and for my new landscaping efforts. And there was a big wind event in July, which helped mix things up and get some oxygen to the bottom.

There are two problems with the headline, in my opinion. One, the full report, which is available here on the University of Maryland's eco-check web site, is far less rosy and emphasizes that we had continuous harmful algal blooms and numerous fish kills. And two, if weather is the reason for any improvement, however slight, then what is the Bay Program really doing to improve pollution problems?

I am on deadline, and I didn't read every word of it, but it doesn't appear that our government is attributing any of the success, limited as it is, to anything we have done, such as stormwater permit rules, sewage treatment upgrades, controls on development or power plant emissions, successful tributary management, etc.

Are we really trying to manage an estuary by determining which way the wind blows?

Posted by Rona Kobell at 4:22 PM | Permalink
                       

Maryland's highest court is about to wade into a controversy about large-scale development in rural Allegany County that could have a bearing on Chesapeake Bay and the rest of the state.  The case concerns Terrapin Run, a proposed 4,300 community that would be built on 935 acres off of Scenic U.S. 40 by Green Ridge State Forest.  

It's drawing statewide and even national attention because the heart of the dispute is about the legal weight to be given to comprehensive or master plans, the blueprints for growth that every county and muncipality in the state is required to have.  You can read the story I wrote about it in The Sun here.  As Tom Pelton, the Sun's environmental beat reporter, pointed out to me, controversies have erupted around other large-scale development proposals that did not square with local plans, such as the Blackwater Resort project in Cambridge and Harbor East in Baltimore.

Even as the Terrapin Run dispute was heading to the Court of Appeals in Annapolis, a new one has flared up in Allegany over yet another plan.  This one, two years in the making, seeks to spell out growth in LaVale, an unincorporated area outside Cumberland.  Though parts of LaVale are already heavily developed, with stores, motels and offices along U.S. 40, the new plan drawn up with citizen input over the past year or so originally called for discouraging large-scale residential development.

But local Realtors and at least one large landowner objected to that plan.  The Realtors complained the plan would impose "draconian" restrictions on new housing construction, and worried that the development restrictions imposed in the LaVale plan could become a countywide policy.  They argued that Allegany, struggling to rebuild jobs and hold onto its population, needs to encourage more develpment, not discourage it.  Here's a letter explaining their objections.

After those objections, county planners produced a new version of the plan, calling for more residential and commercial development in the area and nearly doubling the amount of land targeted for new housing, even though state planners project population loss there.  Here's a story about the changes in the Cumberland Times-News.

Smart-growth activists complained that the new language said large-scale residential development was to be encouraged in LaVale. Here's a letter published in the Cumberland Times-News from Dale Sams, a member of the Citizens for Smart Growth in Allegany County, the group that has fought Terrapin Run.

The planning commission's executive director called the revisions "clarifications," which did not require a new public hearing before approving the plan, according to this story in the Times-News. But residents complained the plan's intent had been stood on its head.  The local forestry board objected that the revised plan did not protect lands traditionally used to produce harvestable timber, while the League of Women Voters complained that the changes were made without notice or opportunity for the public to comment. 

The county commissioners have scheduled a public hearing on the plan Dec. 6, after which they could approve the plan or suggest modifications, according to the Times-News. Plan on hearing more about this.

UPDATE: Allegany County commissioners have postponed the hearing on the LaVale plan until January, to give the planning commission a chance to consider amending it.  The planning commission will meet Dec. 19 at 7 p.m., the Cumberland Times-News reports.

 

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 1:53 PM in growth/land use | Permalink
                       

My new radio program, "The Environment Report," starts this morning on WYPR-FM, 88.1 in Baltimore.  It's scheduled to run at 9:35 a.m. every other Wednesday. 

I plan to discuss a wide range of subjects, from exotic species to efforts to fight global warming, as well as battles over pollution control laws in Annapolis.

If you missed it on the radio, you can listen to a digital recording of it on the WYPR web site by clicking here.

If you want to offer any feedback on the show, feel free to post comments on this blog.  Also, please let me know if you have any ideas for stories in the newspaper, radio features or things you'd like the community to discuss on the Bay & Environment blog.  You can contact me at tom.pelton@baltsun.com

The first segment, "Terrapin Man," was about Willem Roosenburg, a biologist who helped lead a lobbying effort to save Maryland's mascot, the Diamondback Terrapin. This spring, he and allies convinced the Maryland legislature to ban the trapping of the turtles, which were being increasingly harvested because of a growing market in China for Chesapeake turtle soup. 

When I wrote a profile of Roosenburg on this blog a few months back, he very modestly replied that he was part of a large group that protected the 'Terps.  In my radio essay, I referred to "Team 'Terp."  Roosenburg spelled out many of the important members of that team: "I want thank Tom for a very flattering story but there are many people who deserve credit for the success of this endeavor.  I have achieved a career goal but with the help of many people including Rick Stanley, Jack Cover, Virgina Clagett, Roy Dyson, Alex Seiss, Jeff Topping, Sandy Barnett, Vicky Poole, Tim Hoen, Norm Meadows and many others who helped direct the political process in the direction that my science indicated.  To these people I am indebted," Roosenburg wrote.

Posted by Tom Pelton at 9:00 AM | Permalink
                       

In this space a couple of months ago, we discussed upcoming priorities for the green groups for this legislative session: to recap, we expect to see a cellulosic ethanol bill and perhaps something on ghost crab pots; there will definitely be discussion of fisheries, such as yellow perch, and some sort of something on oysters, but it's not clear what yet.

Now comes word from the Patuxent Riverkeeper that they're looking to strengthen the Critical Areas Law.

The law restricts building within the shoreline, but exceptions are often granted; and on some occasions (see: Little Island, many other parts of Anne Arundel County) people just build in the critical area anyway, without permits or regard for the law.

Don't know what the environmental groups have in mind, but we shall soon see. At least one activist group, South Arundel Citizens for Responsible Development, is pressuring a bank not to lend to anyone building in the critical area. Stay tuned.

Posted by Rona Kobell at 10:36 AM | Permalink
                       

Good morning! Washingtonian magazine has this very interesting piece about what would happen if a flood were to hit the area.

A thought I'd rather not ponder:

“There’s been considerable development in areas that in my opinion shouldn’t be considered for development,” says University of Maryland coastal scientist Michael Kearney. On Kent Island, on the other side of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge from Annapolis, “I can’t believe that those new homes wouldn’t be at severe risk from a major hurricane.”

The writer, Steve Olson, points out that we are losing our early warning signs for hurricanes-- tidal marshes and wetlands. Just as they did in Louisiana. Even in good-weather times, these wetlands, which are rapidly disappearing, are like the kidneys of the bay -- they help filter sediment and protect us from erosion.

Posted by Rona Kobell at 10:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
                       

You've heard about eco-friendly vacations and reusable shopping bags.... how about green funerals?

Growing in popularity across the U.S. are funeral services that don't include cremation (which is cheap but produces lots of greenhouse gases), embalming fluids (toxic pollutants) or metal coffins (which don't biodegrade), according to this report.

The green way to go, according to this new industry, is to quickly put the deceased, without any embalming fluids or makeup, into a cardboard box or wooden coffin.  Then bury him or her in a wildlife area, with only a natural rock as a marker.  The key: use the thousands of dollars that would have been spent on a conventional funeral on instead buying conservation easements to help permanantly protect a piece of land.  That way, a person returns naturally into the Earth -- and prevents blacktop or stripmalls from blighting the landscape in the future.

Sounds like a peaceful departure.  But there are downsides, according to the Chicago Tribune: "Green burials also have downsides, mainstream funeral directors contend. They say that makeup application, often used to make the deceased look better after long illnesses, is difficult without embalming. They worry that doing viewings quickly -- usually within 24 to 48 hours to beat any decomposition -- is sometimes too fast for grieving families. They say that digging graves in some parts of the country can be next to impossible for weeks on end in winter, but that unembalmed bodies should not be kept unburied for that long. And they assert that embalming cuts down on the risk, however small, of disease transmission....."

Is this the next frontier of green living?  

A discussion of this subject has been continuing on Treehugger,
with one writer suggesting that coffins made of recycled newspaper are the most eco-elegant way to go.  (Perhaps for someone in the newspaper biz.  But wait....isn't that how dead fish make their exit?)  Or how about a coffin woven from wicker? (See above photo from the British company Greenendings, which advertises "individualised, eco-friendly funerals" with "a range of papier mache, wicker and bamboo caskets....)"

Correspondent Kpod asks if an ethically superior goodbye is to simply donate one's body to medical research.   "So which is greener: a green/woodland burial, or recycling your body by donating it to science?"

I wonder how many people would even care that much about what happens to them after they're gone?

 

Posted by Tom Pelton at 1:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
                       

I spent Thanksgiving week in Galveston, Texas, where my in-laws live. It was an interesting week in many respects -- but for the purposes of this blog, it's probably best to focus on the, er, outdoors parts.

One day, we took a walk along the harbor near The Strand, a revamped part of old Galveston that actually reminded me of a lot of old shore towns, except much bigger. These beautiful old buildings were redone, and now they're touristy shops. Down by the water, we saw white and brown pelicans perched on the rocks. And out in the water sat four huge oil platforms, with ships next to them.

I don't exactly understand all the mechanics of oil drilling -- on my next visit, maybe I'll go to the little museum next to the platform and learn about it -- but I was so disappointed I forgot my camera because I have never seen anything like this before. These cement platforms, just sitting in the water, with huge ships next to them. My brother-in-law tells me that the boats are going ever deeper into the bay to get the oil, which is shipped all over the place. We saw one of the ships said "Halliburton" on the side but we couldn't make out where the other ones were from.

Galveston Bay seems a lot more industrial than the Chesapeake Bay, even more so, I would say, than Baltimore, with its Lehigh Cement and the few other factories that remain. From a distance, it's oddly beautiful to look at, but I do wonder how their crabs and oysters appear to be doing so much better than ours with all of that industry...maybe they have fewer people? There sure did seem to be a lot of development in suburban Houston....

And speaking of Turkey Day, Angus Phillips reminds us that it's not too soon to start thinking about Christmas, and that great wild goose he's going to eat.

I admit I have only tried the bird once -- it was on a sail from Annapolis to St. Mary's, and it was jerky, and it was not necessarily the thing you most want to eat when your stomach is already queasy. But when I woke up in St. Mary's after a rough night at sea, that goose jerky hit the spot. As the captain told me, it was just killed a couple of days before. So it was very fresh jerky...if that isn't an oxymoron.

Posted by Rona Kobell at 11:08 AM | Permalink
                       

Maryland's recent approval of $50 million in Chesapeake Bay cleanup funds comes at a crucial time, advocates say.  The state is stepping up and shouldering its responsibilities at a time when the federal government is paralyzed by political gridlock. 

A lobbying effort in D.C. to get $500 million in federal funds -- parallel to the campaign in Annapolis to get state assistance for the bay -- appears to have flipped off the rails into the swamp.

For months, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation and others have been trying to persuade Congress to revise the federal Farm Bill.  They want the normal cash subsidies handed out to farmers every year to include more financial rewards for environmental good behavior.  For example, more money to entice farmers to plant buffer strips of trees along streams, forming a natural filter to prevent fertilizer from running into the bay.  But recently the foundation conceded that nothing will happen this year.  Their lobbyists say political gridlock is holding up meaningful revisions to the Farm Bill.  And of course next year is an election year, so it may not be the best time for serious legislative debate.  Efforts in the past to win large amounts of federal cash to clean the bay have also run aground.

The Bay Foundation issued this statement, expressing frustration:

(WASHINGTON, D.C.) -- For the last two weeks, the Senate has been mired in gridlock preventing consideration of the Farm Bill. (On Nov. 16) the Senate failed to move the process forward, and it is now possible that the bill will not be considered this year. Following today’s vote, Chesapeake Bay Foundation (CBF) Federal Affairs Director Doug Siglin issued the following statement.

"The Farm Bill currently on the Senate floor would provide an unprecedented amount of conservation funding critical to the health of local farms and water quality in rivers, streams, and the Chesapeake Bay. This bill provides farmers the tools they need to reduce runoff and remain profitable. Allowing this gridlock to continue and failing to pass a new Farm Bill jeopardizes up to $500 million in new conservation funding for the region. Our waterways and the Chesapeake Bay are a national treasure, and CBF is calling on the region’s Senate delegation to work together to move the Farm Bill forward."

Posted by Tom Pelton at 6:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
                       

When people think about pollution choking the Chesapeake Bay, they often focus on sewage treatment plants, leaky urban storm drains, or farmers spreading poultry manure on their fields.

But what about those suburban lawns?  Fertilizing farm fields is one thing.  At least farmers do that for a socially useful purpose, to grow food for the rest of us to eat.  But lawn fertilizer is an aesthetic thing. No one will starve without it.  Some folks just like the look of a bright green spongy chemically enhanced lawn.  It's kind of like a carpet outside your house -- and kind of like nature on steroids.

By some calculations, lawn fertilizer makes up 11 percent of the pollution entering the Chesapeake Bay.  That would make it at least as big of a problem as poultry manure, which makes up about 10 percent of the pollution flowing into the estuary from Maryland.

In an open letter to Gov. Martin O'Malley, a former Maryland Department of the Environment official, Vincent H. Berg, makes the case that the state should consider a ban on lawn fertilizer containing the phosphorus, a pollutant that helps to spur excessive algae growth.  Similar bans on laundry and dish detergent containing phosphorus have been passed in recent years by the state.  Perhaps it's time for the focus to shift to lawn fertilizer.

Check out Berg's letter to the Governror (which follows).  And then stay tuned to see if he gets a response.    

 

An Open Letter to the Governor of Maryland

October 25, 2007

Honorable Martin O’ Malley, Governor

State of Maryland

Maryland State House

Annapolis, Maryland, 21401

Re: Urban/Suburban Lands: Causing the Failure of the Chesapeake Bay Program

Dear Governor O’Malley:

There have been many stories about the Chesapeake Bay Program over the last several months. I thought I would give you my perspective concerning the Chesapeake Bay Program having lived with the Program for the past 25 years. I have worked closely in the urban/suburban programs (county and state level), forestry programs and agricultural programs of the Bay during my career. I have also been a member of the State Water Quality Advisory Committee, Middle Potomac Tributary Team, and local land conservation, agriculture and forestry committees.

The three main land use and facility areas of Bay Restoration are Agriculture, Wastewater and Urban/Suburban Lands. All of these groups must reach 100% of their goals if the Bay Restoration efforts are to be marginally successful. A great deal of progress has been made in two of these areas, Agriculture and Wastewater. As you can see from the enclosed tables (1 to 5) from the presentation by the USEPA Chesapeake Bay Office, based on Bay Restoration Goals, reductions for Agriculture are 45% for Total Nitrogen, 49% for Total Phosphorus and 43% for Sediment. The Wastewater component has reduced Total Nitrogen loads by 72% and Total Phosphorus by 87%.

Remember all three elements are needed to have a successful Bay Program with the established goals to be reached by the year 2010. Also consider that about 9% (18% in Maryland) of the Chesapeake Watershed area is in the Urban/Suburban category. After 25 years, the Urban/Suburban Lands component has increased the Total Nitrogen load by 90%, increased the Total Phosphorus load by 87% and increased the Sediment load by 57%. After 25 years the Urban/Suburban Lands programs is nearly twice the distance away from their required Chesapeake Bay Goals. How could such a situation have occurred with so many government agencies and technical people looking after this issue? The impact of Urban/Suburban Lands is now nearly twice as great (22%) on the Bay and a minor source is now a major source of pollutants and growing fast.

The basic problem is the entire population of the watershed (people), and the way we do not control our every day activities and the impacts of our urban/suburban life-style has on the watershed. In 2001 45% of the total nutrients (fertilizer) tonnage used in Maryland (farm and non-farm) was used on urban/suburban lands and it is projected to reach half of all nutrient (fertilizer) use shortly (see chart 9). We regulate and control agricultural nutrients, but have placed no controls on urban/suburban use of fertilizers in Maryland. As a major first step to control urban fertilizer use, many organizations have been supporting the need for retail sales of ‘Zero Phosphorus Lawn Fertilizer’ to reduce nutrient loadings (this product should be less costly than current lawn fertilizer). I strongly urge you to move forward on this important legislative initiative this year.

The next issue is how we control or do not control the runoff from urban developing lands, redeveloping lands and infill development. Maryland Laws do not require documented improvement in runoff and water quality conditions when development occurs, only that Best Management Practices (BMPs) be employed on development projects. Your own environmental agency has said that development of urban/suburban lands reduces nutrient and sediment loads (TN= 25%, TP= 40% and TSS=40% all reductions) to the Bay. If this were true the attached graphics would be quit different. How is this false information helpful and honest to the Chesapeake Bay Program?

The Stormwater and New Development Task Group (SNDTG) within the USEPA Chesapeake Bay Program Office has been assigning efficiency ratings to Urban/Suburban BMPs to be used in the Bay Model. The Bay Model will be used to predict progress in meeting the Bay’s Goals. The efficiencies the SNDTG are using are based on very little science and mostly on individual’s best judgment to assign efficiencies to the BMPs. To make matters worse they are assigning the first operational year (highest efficiency) to the BMPs as the efficiency rather than the mid life efficiency of each BMP. The model is being skewed to look better for Urban/Suburban BMPs than it will be in reality over the life of the BMPs. An honest Bay Model is needed to project accurate progress.

The need to utilize new, proven and innovative BMPs and the need for retrofitting existing developed areas with stormwater controls has not been the priority of your environmental regulatory agency. There should be documented "no net increase" in nutrient and sediment loads from all new development and major reductions from redevelopment projects.

As you know Senator Bernie Fowler has tried for 30 years to have one tributary of the Bay restored to a healthy condition and the "Wade In" has shown a continuous decline for the past 10+ years. It is unfortunate that during one of the greatest development periods in the history of Maryland we were not able to make positive progress towards the Urban/Suburban Goals of the Patuxent River and the Chesapeake Bay Restorations.

It is my hope that I and the many constitute groups that have a stake in the ultimate success of the Chesapeake Bay Program can provide additional support and advice to your Office in developing more effective means for the protection and restoration of Maryland’s waters and reversing the Urban/Suburban Lands problems quickly or the Bay Restoration effort will be lost.

Sincerely,
Vincent H. Berg, P.E.,

Vincent H. Berg, P.E. has worked on urban environmental issues for the past 34 years. Mr. Berg was the former Director of the Sediment and Stormwater Administration of the Maryland Department of the Environment from 1989 to 1992. Mr. Berg is currently a member of the Middle Potomac Tributary Team and local land conservation, agriculture and forestry committees.

Posted by Tom Pelton at 6:00 AM | Permalink
                       

Where are the last great places in Maryland?  In a Land of Pleasant Living rapidly becoming a sprawling, conjoined suburb of Washington and Baltimore, where are the most beautiful remaining natural areas?  And what are they up against?

I'm taking a poll of readers.  If you know of a forest, or an expanse of scenic farmland, or a wetlands or beach that's close to your heart but on the verge of being overwhelmed by development or pollution, please respond to this post.  Ask your friends.  I'll add your suggestions to my list.  And perhaps I can follow up and write some stories that could shed some light on the problems.

Please be specific -- give the exact location of the natural area that you think deserves protection, and what makes it great.  Then let me know the specific projects or problems that could put an end to this beauty.

Here are a few ideas to start the list.  I'll revise it as suggestions flow in.

1) POCOMOKE RIVER CYPRESS SWAMP in Worcester County on Maryland's Eastern Shore. 

This is a rare and vanishing example of a haunting, Louisiana-style bayou in a Northern climate. The spooky-looking cypress trees, with their buttress-like, spreading root bases, are sometimes called the "wood eternal" because they can live for more than 1,000 years.  They form a vault over the peaceful Pocomoke as it wanders toward the Chesapeake Bay.

Developer Mark Odachowski is proposing to build 2,170 homes, a grocery store, movie theater, shops and a sewage plant near the river in a project that would triple the population of quiet and historic Snow Hill.  He has claimed all this construction will mean less pollution flowing into the Pocomoke than the nearby farmland today. But others see a massive suburban-style subdivision overwhelming a fragile and primitive landscape. 

2) GREEN RIDGE STATE FOREST in Allegany County.

About 1,000 acres near this hilly Western Maryland forest are targeted by a developer who wants to build a 4,300 home subdivision called Terrapin Run.  If the project moves ahead, Columbia-based PDC Inc. would, in one swoop, create a new city of 10,000 people. That would transform a mostly wooded area into the second largest town in Allegany County.  The developer has argued that the dense project is a good example "Smart Growth." But opponents call it a poster child for ugly sprawl in a scenic and rural area.

3) MATTAWOMAN CREEK in Charles County.

This Southern Maryland tributary to the Potomac River is one of the most productive breeding grounds for fish in the Chesapeake Bay watershed.  Its wetlands support Maryland's largest population of nesting wood ducks, as well as bald eagles, great blue herons, great egrets, osprey, beavers, mink, otter and a rare lotus plant, Nelumbo lutea.

But the amount of pollution flowing into the Mattawoman Creek is rising as fast-growing Charles County becomes an exurb of Washington.  County officials have targeted much of the creek's watershed as a high growth zone, which means an extra 50,000 people could pour into the delicate ecosystem by 2020.  The state temporarily slowed some of this growth in 1998, when former Gov. Parris Glendening helped approve the $25.3 million purchase of 2,225 acres to stop a giant riverfront development called Chapman's Landing.  But now other parts of the watershed are threatened by a highway project and roads bringing strip malls, subdivisions and litter. 

4) BLACKWATER NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE on the Eastern Shore. 

 

This spectacular, primordial landscape of marshes, islands and sunken forests is slowly being swallowed by rising sea levels.  It could soon look like a vast open sea, instead of a winding maze of streams fringed by forests and grasslands.

The bald eagles and other animals that live here dodged a bullet last year, when former Gov. Robert Ehrlich announced the day before his re-election loss that the state would spend $10 million preserving 728 acres north of the refuge.  That meant a proposed $1 billion subdivision, called the Blackwater Resort, had be scaled back, shrinking to about 600 homes from the 3,200 originally proposed by developer Duane Zentgraf.  But that still means hundreds of homes will soon be built around the refuge's bucolic entrance.  And hundreds of more homes are popping up in cookie-cutter subdivisions just east of Zentgraf's land.

5) CHINCOTEAGUE BAY, off the Atlantic Ocean 

Just west of narrow, sandy Assateague Island -- fabled land of the pony Misty of Chincoteague -- is a long stretch of sheltered water called Chincoteague Bay.  Kayakers love its wild, untouched edges and its expanses of marsh grass.  Watermen still dredge for oysters here, and vacationers feel their stresses melt away just looking across the bay to the forested national seashore, dotted with wild horses.

But recently, macroalgae blooms have been tangling boat propellers and suffocating seagrass, depriving a home for young crabs and fish.  A suspected source is nitrogen fertilizer running off of poultry operations and grain farms in neighboring Worcester County.  And just across the state line, in Virginia, developer Robert E. Warfield is proposing to expand a waterfront subdivision called Captain's Cove by adding 4,800 homes and a sewage treatement plant that would dump 900,000 gallons of effluent a day into a tributary to Chincoteague Bay.

6) HOOPERS ISLAND, on the Eastern Shore. 

This toothpick of land dangling off the bottom lip of Dorchester County is an island of time as much as a peninsula in the Chesapeake Bay.  Driving down its one dead end road, you travel back decades to a time when watermen still made their living by hauling pots of crabs onto docks, and folks lived on the water because they needed a place to tie their workboat.  The long bridges provide spectacular views at sunset -- but be careful of the waves crashing across the roadways.

Talking to residents here, you'll hear stories about vanishing islands just off shore.  And then you'll understand why those waves nearly swept your car off the road.  Hoopers Island is rapidly being submerged by rising sea levels, caused by global warming and the melting of polar ice caused by greenhouse gases.  So in a sense, Hoopers Island is being destroyed by pollution -- carbon dioxide from our SUV's and power plants.  Development isn't a threat here.  Amazingly, there isn't a McDonalds or chain-owned business on the whole island.  That alone makes Hoopers Island an endangered species on the order of the Right Whale.  But that isolation could change if a rumored second span to the Bay Bridge is built from the Western Shore to Dorchester County just north of Hoopers Island.

7) ANTIETAM NATIONAL BATTLEFIELD, Washington County 

These 3,200 acres of preserved land northwest of Washington are haunted by the ghosts of the bloodiest battle in U.S. history.  The Antietam National Battlefield is considered an almost sacred site, because about 23,000 men were killed or wounded there during cataclysmic fighting between Union and Confederate forces in 1862.  Visitors can expore the rolling hills, walk down Bloody Lane and cross Burnside Bridge (pictured above).

But the northward march of stripmalls and cul-de-sacs from the DC suburbs is threatening a new assault on the area around Antietam.  A group called the Save Historic Antietam Foundation warns: "Rapid growth and development threatens the history and charm of the Antietam Valley."  Two years ago, the National Trust for Historic Preservation put the battlefields and other major Civil War sites along Route 15 from Pennsylvania to Virginia on the group's list of most endangered historic places.  Nearby, South Mountain Battlefield State Park, where 6,000 soldiers died, has little protection against development and almost no budget for maintenance.

8) THE CHESAPEAKE AND OHIO NATIONAL HISTORICAL PARK, along the Potomac River

This 184 mile, scenic biking and hiking path trails an old canal that winds along beside the Potomac River from Washington to Cumberland, Md.  The C & O Canal park is a beautiful place to exercise, learn about the history of our nation's pre-railroad transportation system or photograph wildlife.

But The National Parks Conservation Association  calls it "An American Treasure in Peril."  The group warns that "this historic place faces many modern threats. Flooding..., invasive exotic species, rapid development of adjacent lands, utility rights of way, lack of funding, and staffing shortfalls all contribute to the decline in park resources." Moreover, the U.S. Park Service has approved plans by Georgetown and George Washington universities to build large boathouses on parkland within sight of the canal towpath. The association warns: "These plans threaten the integrity of the resources."

9) DOUGHOREGAN MANOR, Howard County

This National Historic Landmark was built in 1725 by the grandfather of Charles Carroll III, one of four patriots from Maryland who signed the Declaration of Independence. He was the only Roman Catholic signer of the document, and the wealthiest man in America at the time. His home -- and its hundreds of acres of surrounding grounds -- were frequently visted by John Hancock, George Washington, Samuel Adams and other founding fathers.

Earlier this year, an agreement that prohibited development on 892 acres of the estate expired.  To help pay for maintenance and taxes on the manor, Carroll's descendants are considering a proposal to build hundreds of homes, perhaps as a retirement community, on the eastern edge of the property.  A 1,200 acre section right around the mansion would remain in permanent preservation.  But an activist group called Preservation Howard County earlier this year named the property as the No. 1 "most endangered" historic property in the area because of the potential for large-scale construction, traffic and discruption.  It's the largest undeveloped tract of land in a county that's rapidly malling and sprawling. 

 ...........................

Readers, what should I add to this list?  Give me your thoughts. 
 

Posted by Tom Pelton at 4:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)
                       

Maryland lawmakers have approved $50 million a year to help clean up the Chesapeake Bay.  And, after an intense debate in Annapolis that ended last night (Sunday, Nov. 18), legislators decided against robbing a land preservation program to pay for pollution reduction efforts, which was what the state senate advocated.

Instead, tourists and drivers will pay to clean up the bay.  Everytime someone rents a car in Maryland, a portion of their state car rental tax will go to the new Chesapeake Bay 2010 Trust Fund. And a portion of the state's gasoline tax will also go into the fund.

Environmentalists are declaring victory this morning.

"We've been at it for three years, trying to get dedicated funding for bay cleanup," said Kim Coble, Maryland Executive Director of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation (pictured below).  "This is a real step forward...The legislators said 'we are going to make the bay a big priority.'"

 

Legislation specifying exactly how the money will be spent did not pass yesterday.  The appropriations will be discussed by lawmakers in January.  Temporarily, the $50 million a year will go to the Maryland Department of Natural Resouces.  The intention is for the money to go to  programs to reduce runoff of fertilizer pollution into the bay, such as paying farmers not to use fertilizer while planting wheat and other crops in the fall, and encouring them to plant buffer strips of trees and grass along streams.  Part of the money will likely go to local governments, to fix leaky urban and suburban stormwater systems that disgorge sewage and trash every time it rains.

Dru Schmidt Perkins, director of a preservation group called 1000 Friends of Maryland, said this morning she's relieved that the legislature did not move forward with a proposal to pay for the Bay Trust Fund in part by taking $20 million a year from the state's Program Open Space.  This would have shortchanged the purchasing of fields and forests to protect them from development, and taken away from local recreation programs, she said.

The reductions in runoff achieved through the Bay Trust Fund are designed to help Maryland meet goals of reducing nitrogen and other pollutants by 2010.  So far, the state is no where near its goals.  Way too much nitrogen gets flushed by rain into the nation's largest estuary, fuelling the growth of algae, which kills fish and creates low oxygen "dead zones."

But the Bay Trust Fund will start the state down the road toward cutting this runoff pollution.  Many experts say this "non point source" pollution -- runoff pollution -- is the hardest problem to fix, because it pours in from everywhere, including farms, urban streets and suburban parking lots.

Former Gov. Robert Ehrlich three years ago helped address a different source of bay pollution: from the outfall pipes of sewage treatment plants.  He worked with state Del. Maggie McIntosh (a Baltimore Democrat and leader in the effort to pass this year's Bay Fund) and others to create a "flush tax" that generates $65 million a year to upgrade filters on muncipal waste treatment systems through a $30 annual fee on the sewage bills of all state residents.

For the last nine months, lawmakers and environmental advocates have been debating who should pay for the next phase of bay cleanup.

A "Green Fund" proposed the Chesapeake Bay Foundation last spring would have stuck the bill on developers of sprawl-like subdivisions in cornfields and forested areas far away from towns and cities.  But that $85 million a year proposal was fought by rural counties and developers, and was killed in part by Senate President Thomas "Mike" Miller.

Then the Bay Foundation last month proposed imposing a fee on all property owners statewide, including business owners and the owners of existing homes and new homes.   But business groups and some Republicans objected, saying heaping more taxes on local folks would hurt the state's economy. President Miller nixed the "Green Fund."

But then, during a press conference in the State House recently, Miller announced that he was proposing a different kind of $50 million annual dedicated fund to clean up the Chesapeake Bay.  He renamed it the Chesapeake Bay 2010 Trust Fund.  He said setting aside money to clean up the bay is an important priority that he personally supports.

"What we hope to do is have the governor, speaker and myself get together to produce ... a trust fund in a lock box for the Chesapeake Bay," Miller said.

Miller said legislators will have to come back in January to work out the details. Stay tuned.

 

Posted by Tom Pelton at 10:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
                       

Is it progress to take from one environmental program to give to another?

In this case, does it make sense to take millions of dollars that would be used to preserve forests and fields, and instead hand the cash to farmers and stream reconstruction companies for runoff control projects?

That's what the Maryland Senate, led by President Thomas "Mike" Miller, is proposing to do, and Gov. Martin O'Malley's administration isn't opposed to the concept. But the Maryland House of Delegates isn't yet on board. And some preservationists think it's a bad idea -- a modern form of robbing Peter to pay Paul -- that would undermine a successful and popular environmental program. Moreover, the critics say, preserving forests and open spaces is the best way to filter runoff and stop pollution into the bay. So cutting this effort for the sake of an unproven concept raises questions.

The state Senate recently cast preliminary votes in favor of a bill that would take about $20 million a year that would have gone to the more than 30 year old Program Open Space, which pays to preserve land and build playgrounds. The money would go instead to Senate President Miller's proposed new "Chesapeake Bay 2010 Fund."  (Until last week, it was called the "Green Fund,"  but Miller said that wasn't going to pass, and he nixed the Chesapeake Bay Foundation's idea of imposing $20 fees on homeowners statewide).  Under Miller's new version of the bay fund, that $20 million would be combined with another $30 million from motor vehicle taxes. The grand total of $50 million a year would go to projects meant to combat runoff pollution into the Chesapeake Bay.  Farmers would get money to refrain from using fertilizer while planting cover crops in the fall and winter, as well as money to plant buffer strips of trees to protect streams. Stream reconstruction companies would also be paid to build stormwater control dams and ponds in urban waterways. 

The proposal is evolving, with House leaders suggesting that the money all come from vehicle taxes.

Dru-Schmidt Perkins, executive director of a preservation group called 1000 Friends of Maryland, said that taking money from Program Open Space would hurt efforts to keep pollution from flowing into the bay.  If land is not preserved through this program, it often is gobbled up by developers, which means more pollution into the bay, she said.

"This program prevents land from being converted into new development.  So it makes no sense to raid this program," said Perkins.  "It's completely unacceptable.  We know how urgently funds are needed to preseve open spaces.  We are millions and millions short in that fund...It does not help Maryland to shortcut one program that helps the environment to help another. It does not work."

She noted that Gov. O'Malley, during his election campaigns last year, repeatedly promised to "fully fund" Program Open Space, and not raid the preservation funds, as governors have for years.

 "Local governments urgently need these funds to run recreation programs and have ballfields for their kids," said Perkins.

Rick Abbruzzese, spokesman for Gov. O'Malley, said the governor will work with whatever compromise the House and Senate leaders come up with.  But Abbruzesse said the administration doesn't disagree with the concept of taking from Program Open Space to help pay for bay restoration.

"It's a valid use of those dollars," Abbruzzese said.  "If you use funds from Program Open Space that restore the Cheapeake Bay, I would argue that you are fulfulling the goal of Program Open Space." 

And he added that the senate is also proposing the closing of a loophole on transfer taxes for corporate properties. That could bring $14 million or more a year into Program Open Space, reducing the size of the cut.  Local governments could also get some more money through the closing of this loophole, and they could spend this money on parks if they want, he said.

The specifics may be hammered out in the next few days in Annapolis.  

Posted by Tom Pelton at 5:47 PM | Permalink
                       

The Potomac River, one of the largest tributaries to the Chesapeake Bay, has seen its pollution levels plateau or rise since much-praised cleanup efforts three decades ago, according to a new report by a nonprofit group, the Potomac Conservancy.

Read the group's new summary of the river's "D plus" grade for health, which was released today.

One of the most shocking facts in the report: For every 8 percent rise in population in the Chesapeake Bay's watershed, the amount of pavement grows by 41 percent.  This means fewer trees and fields to filter rainwater flowing into the bay, and more roads and parking lots to accelerate the flushing of junk into the nation's largest estuary.

How to combat this death-by-mall-and-sprawl?  More compact and ecologically smart development designs.

Another interesting recommendation of the report is for the federal government to set limits on pharmaceutical pollution, which today is unregulated.  Over the last few years, scientists with the U.S. Geological Survey have been finding large numbers of sexually mixed up bass in the Potomac River. Male fish are growing eggs, with their organs malformed they are incapable of reproduction.

It's unclear why this is happening.  But researchers have suggested one cause might be residues of birth control pills and other medications flushed down toilets and then washed out into the Potomac River without filtration.

Among several other steps to clean up the river, the Potomac Conservancy advocates changes to the federal Clean Water Act to list "endocrine disruptors from personal care and pharmaceutical products" as pollutants that must be controlled.

“The Potomac River is a national treasure, and part of the lifeblood of the Chesapeake Bay,” said H. Hedrick Belin, president of Potomac Conservancy. “Decision makers must take immediate action to protect and preserve the river so it is available for all people to enjoy. The steps we take – or fail to take – today will have a profound impact on the future of both the Potomac and the Chesapeake.”

Here is the press release from the Potomac Conservancy:

------------------------------------- 

First “State of the Nation’s River” report rates Potomac’s health a D+

Action steps listed for Maryland and Virginia to control stormwater runoff
and protect forest cover at the local level

SILVER SPRING, Md.--- Potomac Conservancy grades the health of the Potomac river watershed a D+, saying “polluted runoff from our parking lots, roads, and roofs,” soil erosion, unhealthy stormwater, and river pollution are overwhelming and degrading the Potomac River system.

The report, State of the Nation’s River: Potomac Watershed 2007, was issued with a companion Potomac Agenda. The Agenda lists several steps that local and state governments can take immediately to help the river in two critical action areas: land development and stormwater management.

State of the Nation’s River Report

According to this year’s report, the health of the river has reached a plateau. Improvements were made initially after the 1972 passage of the Clean Water Act. In the three decades since, population in the region has boomed. The resulting land conversion and development, as well as poor land use practices, have increased polluted runoff.

There have been some reductions in nutrient and sediment pollution, the report says, but the pollutants still exceed their caps, and levels are not decreasing enough to significantly improve water quality. Of the rivers that flow into the Chesapeake, the Potomac delivers the largest amount of sediment each year, and the second-most volume of water.

“The Potomac River is a national treasure, and part of the lifeblood of the Chesapeake Bay,” said H. Hedrick Belin, president of Potomac Conservancy. “Decision makers must take immediate action to protect and preserve the river so it is available for all people to enjoy. The steps we take – or fail to take – today will have a profound impact on the future of both the Potomac and the Chesapeake.”

The Conservancy said it found “disturbing trends of loss of forest cover and inefficient increases in paved surfaces amidst improvements in nutrient runoff and CSO prevention.” Data from the US Geological Survey point to a 41 percent increase in paved surfaces such as rooftops, sidewalks, and parking lots, for every 8 percent increase in population in the Chesapeake Bay watershed.

Solutions offered in the report include:
• Protect existing forest land, and replant strategic areas
• Mandate use of low-impact development techniques
• Require states to fully fund cost-share programs and best-practice implementation and hold agricultural interests responsible for mitigating their impacts on the watershed.
• Update the federal Clean Water Act to respond to new sources of pollution such as phthalates from plastics and endocrine disruptors from personal care and pharmaceutical products.

The group will provide annual reports on specific issues facing the Potomac watershed.

The report is based on data compiled by the Interstate Commission on the Potomac River Basin, the Chesapeake Bay Program, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and researchers at the University of Maryland, among others. It was funded in part by the Chesapeake Bay Trust and Danaher Corporation.

The Potomac Agenda

Potomac Conservancy Director of Policy Anne Merwin said, “Our first-ever Potomac Agenda identifies the Potomac Conservancy’s two top policy priorities—land protection and better stormwater management—and highlights several specific actions that Maryland and Virginia can take in the immediate future to make a positive difference in those areas.”

The Agenda details actions that will protect existing forest land and replant strategic areas, such as streamside buffers and greenways and mandate use of low-impact development techniques in new and rebuilt construction for better stormwater management.

The full report and the Potomac Agenda, as well as a five-minute video featuring Potomac Conservancy President Hedrick Belin, are available on the Conservancy website at www.potomac.org/site/state-of-the-nations-river/

About Potomac Conservancy
Since 1993, Potomac Conservancy has protected the health, beauty, and enjoyment of the Potomac River and its tributaries. The Conservancy’s primary focus is protection of water quality through land protection and sound land use practices and policies. Because clean water alone is not enough, the Conservancy also works to preserve and restore the Potomac’s scenic landscapes, and to enhance river-based recreational opportunities

Posted by Tom Pelton at 12:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)
                       

Is nuclear power the answer to global warming? It provides lots of reliable electricity while producing almost none of the greenhouse gases that pour out of the smokestacks of coal and gas-fired power plants.  And it takes up very little land, compared to the construction of wind turbines -- another form of relatively clean energy.

These are questions that Marylanders need to tackle, because Constellation Energy is discussing the construction of a new nuclear reactor at its Calvert Cliffs plant in Southern Maryland (shown above).  That 1970's era plant today produces about a quarter of the state's electricity, which could increase to nearly half if Constellation and the federal government give their okay.  Meanwhile, more than 150 wind turbines, each about 40 stories tall, have been proposed off the beaches of Ocean City, Md., and in the scenic mountains of Western Maryland.

Which makes more sense for fighting global warming?  A single new nuclear reactor at Calvert Cliffs wouldn't consume an additional acre of land, but would provide about as much electricity as about 1,000 wind turbines.

A new book that I profiled in Sunday's paper, "Power to Save the World," by Gwyneth Cravens, a former New Yorker editor, makes the case that nuclear power is a logical solution to our global climate crisis.   She argues that the media and some environmental groups have exaggerated the threat posed by radiation from civilian nuclear power, frightening the public into thinking that uranium-based fuel is more dangerous than coal.  In fact, she says, it's just the opposite: burning coal kills some 24,000 people a year from air pollution, heart attacks and lung disease. But nobody was killed at Three Mile Island, and only a handful have died in accidents at civilian nuclear reactors in U.S. history.  Even the Chernobyl disaster wasn't as bad as people thought, and a similar release of radiation couldn't happen at U.S. reactors, which are built with containment vessels that the Soviet reactors lacked, Cravens says.  About 50 people were killed by the Chernobyl explosion, and another 4,000 are expected to die from cancers caused by the radiation.  But that's far fewer than the 24,000 people a year killed in America every year by coal pollution.

So why, she asks, does the public think of nuclear radiation as a deadly threat, but coal-fired power as normal and beneficial?  Could it be just that we're more familiar with coal, which provides about half of America's electricity and has been widely used for about two centuries?   Well, nuclear power has now been around in the U.S. for a half century, and it provides about 20 percent of our electricity.  At what point -- if ever -- will people begin to see it as normal and beneficial?

How much are the media and anti-nuke activists to blame for crippling our nation's ability to respond to global warming with what some regard as the most practical solution?  And what about the drawbacks to nuclear technology -- most notably, its connection to the proliferation of nuclear weapons around the world? And then there's the intensely political issue of the disposal of spent fuel rods.  Nevada politicians, including Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid, are blocking the opening of the federal Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository, which was promised to the nuclear industry.  Taxpayers have spent $8 billion on this project, which is running almost a decade behind schedule and shows no signs of opening soon. 

Does this matter?  Readers, what do you think about all this?

In my piece in Sunday's paper, Dr. Cindy Parker of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health argues that nukes aren't "The Power to Save the World" in part because they aren't renewable.  She says high grade uranium will run out in about 70 years. After that, the more difficult mining and processing of the fuel will create so much carbon dioxide that it will wipe out any purported advantage of nuclear power.  Dr. Parker suggestes that human society should reorganize into more decentralized patterns, with most people walking to work and to stores and most homes having their own solar cells and wind turbines.

One reader, Jon Boone of Oakland, a frequent critic of wind power (which is proposed in his part of Western Maryland), wrote that Dr. Parker's support of wind and solar power is illogical. "Her wishful thinking about the efficacy of wind and solar energy is not only not scientifically grounded; it's also not feasible, given modern expectations for reliability and performance," Boone wrote in an email. "Such intermittent, highly variable technology has no capacity value. That you quoted her at the end of your article as an informed voice validating the utility of 'alternate' renewables demonstrates once again how little you've come to know about this issue."

Any other views out there?

Posted by Tom Pelton at 11:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (17)
                       

The wildfires that ravaged parts of Southern California so badly a couple weeks ago are nearly all out now. But the threat remains, and it isn't limited to the arid West. 

Maryland, despite its normally abundant rainfall, faces a significant and growing risk of runaway blazes that threaten to burn homes and other structures, according to a two-year-old state study.

A "wildland fire assessment" done by the Maryland Department of Natural Resources points out that the state's forests have become increasingly fragmented over the years, with development spreading out from the cities and suburbs into rural areas.

"You have a lot of wildland-urban interface," said Monte Mitchell, state fire supervisor at DNR's Forest Service, all along the Baltimore-Washington corridor, but also reaching into southern and western Maryland and to the lower Eastern Shore.

Unfortunately, this report is not available online.  But here's a page I scanned in from the study, with a map depicting the state's "wildland-urban interface"  -- those areas where homes and wooded areas mingle.

Interestingly, the report says, the state's conservation laws and Smart Growth are at least partly to blame for increasing the risks of wildfires to homes.  In the old days, developers bulldozed all the trees before building a new housing subdivision; now, builders are required to leave trees and "natural" buffers, and such leafy communities are popular with home buyers.

"The trend shows that the number of incidents involving structures that are damaged or threatened from wildfires has steadily grown each fire season," the report says. 

Last year, DNR's Forest Service responded to 753 wildfires that burned 6,074 acres.  The vast majority burned less than 10 acres, unlike the Southern California blazes that blackened thousands of acres each.   But the immediate triggers were often similarly human - debris burning, arson and children accounted for most.

It's been several years since the state suffered a bad fire season, but the drought of 2001-2002 was particularly severe.  One major blaze, in September 2002, charred 1,400 acres - more than 2 square miles - and forced the evacuation of the town of Oriole, where one house and several outbuildings were damaged.

Though the mix of homes with trees and brush may be high in the suburbs and exurbs of central Maryland, the degree of development and the small size of the wooded patches limites the amount of harm a wildfire could do.  The biggest risk, when factoring in other considerations, including where the most "fuel" is, shows that there are high to very high wildlfire hazards in western Maryland, in Southern Maryland, on the lower Shore, and even in parts of Anne Arundel and Baltimore counties.

The study breaks down the fire risks in each county, carving them up into hex-sized grids 1.5 miles across.  But because Maryland is so densely populated, Mitchell says, the DNR study didn't attempt to tally how many homes might be at risk.  

The report was distributed to every county's planning office for use in weighing future development patterns and for preparing fire response. Mitchell says he's unaware of any county that has incorporated the state's wildland fire assessment into its comprehensive development plans, but the department has been working with individual communities to help them reduce their risks, by clearing brush from around homes and the like.  DNR also does controlled burns of several hundred acres each year, he says, to reduce the amount of "fuel" that might feed a wildfire.

This is normally a peak time for wildfires in Maryland, and the state is still in the grip of a drought. Mitchell says heavy rains a couple weeks ago dampened the "fuel" and eased the risks.  However, he cautions, "spring is normally our worst fire season."  

For more on what you might do to reduce the threat to your home from wildfire, check out DNR's web site here.  

If you'd like to know what your community is doing to reduce its wildfire risk, contact your local fire department or planning office.  DNR's efforts to prevent and curb wildland fires are explained here. 

To see the report, email Monte Mitchell, state fire supervisor, at mmitchell@dnr.state.md.us

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 6:40 AM in growth/land use | Permalink
                       

A proposal to raise millions of dollars to clean up the Chesapeake Bay has risen from the dead.  The thing doesn't look the same in its reincarnated state.  But advocates say it could still be a force for good, providing $50 million a year to reduce stormwater pollution and agricultural runoff.

The change could be a surprise for some readers who read headlines last week proclaiming the demise of the "Green Fund." "The Sun's (Nov. 3) headline 'Senate kills 'green fund' bill' reminded me of that old Mark Twain quote, 'the reports of my death have been
greatly exaggerated," Cindy Schwartz, executive director of the Maryland League of Conservation Voters, wrote in a letter to the paper.

Here's what happened. On Nov. 2, Maryland Senate President Thomas "Mike" Miller (pictured below) announced that the "Green Fund" proposed by the Chesapeake Bay Foundation was not going to pass during the ongoing special session of the General Assembly.

The bill, sponsored by House environmental matters committee chairwoman Maggie McIntosh (pictured below) and backed by Gov. Martin O'Malley, would have provided $85 million a year in bay cleanup funds by imposing a tax of about $20 a year on almost every homeowner in the state, along with a fee on parking lots of a penny per square foot.

Instead, Miller said he was introducing his own bay cleanup bill.  He renamed it the "Chesapeake Bay 2010 Trust Fund."  And he said the tax on homeowners and parking lots favored by the Bay Foundation was not going to happen.

Today, on Nov. 8, the Maryland Senate cast a preliminary vote in favor of Miller's fund.  The "Bay 2010 Trust Fund" would set aside $50 million a year for unspecified water pollution control programs. $30 million of the money would come from motor vehicle title taxes, and $20 million would come from a state program used to preserve open space and build playgrounds in urban areas, called Program Open Space.

On the House side, McIntosh's committee removed the funding mechanism proposed by the Bay Foundation. But it's still moving forward with the Green Fund concept, except now the money would be distributed in part through Gov. O'Malley and his computer-assisted data analysis center called "BayStat." Perhaps a wedding is planned between this cash distribution system, and Miller's fund-raising mechanism.

Beth Lefebvre, a spokeswoman for the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, said that her organization is "very happy" that something positive is moving forward, even if it isn't called the "Green Fund."

"The good news is it's still being worked on," said Lefebvre (below). "Of course, it's not over yet, but it's looking good."

More votes and revisions are expected in upcoming days.

 

Posted by Tom Pelton at 4:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
                       

Looking for a chance to learn more about "green building?" How it can help lower energy bills while also cooling global warming?

One of the nation’s leading advocates of sustainable design will be in town next week. Matt Peterson, president and CEO of Global Green USA, is coming to Baltimore Nov. 13 to speak to the Baltimore chapter of the American Institute of Architects.

"I’m excited to come out and speak there," Peterson said by telephone recently from Global Green’s headquarters in Santa Monica, California. He said he intends to deliver "the message that we’ve been pushing for over a decade -- that sustainable design, green building is a critical solution to proventing and adapting to global warming."

Founded in 1993, Global Green is dedicated to stemming global warming, creating green cities and buildings and eliminating nuclear weapons. Living in Los Angeles, Peterson gets to rub shoulders with a lot of celebrities – Hollywood stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Edward Norton sit on Global Green’s board -- but the environmental projects they're involved in are no act.

The group has partnered with actor Brad Pitt, for instance, on an effort to help rebuild New Orleans from the devastation of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The group sponsored a design competition to build a "zero-energy" affordable housing deveopment in the Holy Cross neighborhood of the lower 9^th Ward, which was virtually obliterated by floodwaters. Construction began last May, and the first home is expected to becompleted in December, Peterson said.

Petersen will speak at the American Visionary Art Museum in the Jim Rouse Visionary Center. An exhibit and reception will start at 5 p.m., with the program following at 6 p.m. Tickets are $15/person, $10/students, AIA associates and seniors. Tickets should be pre-purchased, but may also be purchased at the door as space permits. For tickets, call AIABaltimore 410-625-2585 or go here.

For more from my interview with Matt Peterson, read on .....

Global Green is especially committed to providing housing to low-income families, Peterson said, because they are most affected by high housing costs and unhealthy environmental conditions.

"I’d say it’s where it’s needed most," he said of green building technology."Often low-income families have energy costs second only to rent on their bills, often greater than health-care costs."

In addition to its efforts to encourage green affordable housing, Peterson’s Global Green also is working with the Los Angeles school district to build 24 healthier, more environmentally friendly schools.

"Kids learn 20 to 22 percent better in healthy, high-performance classrooms," he said. Many of the schools built in recent years, though, provide very little daylight and fresh air.

"I think green building is proving out," Peterson said, predicting that "we’re at the beginning of a huge upswing in adoption of green building standards." People are demonstrating greater interest, he said, as are businesses that see the marketing benefits of having green workplaces.

The key, Peterson said, is to be sure that what’s billed as green really is – with independent verification.

"Even building LEED silver buildings everywhere isn’t going to solve the climate crisis," he said, referring to the nationally known green building rating system known as Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design. "But it’s a big contribution to it, given 40 percent of energy uses overall go into buildings."

Speaking on a day when wildfires seemed to be consuming much of southern California, Peterson said he’s "mostly excited and hopeful" about the future, "but definitely with a sense of urgency.

"I think it’s definitely time to be bold," he concluded.

For more information about Matt Petersen and Global Green, visit www.globalgreen.org.

 

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 5:13 PM in global warming, growth/land use | Permalink
                       

The political pendulum seems to have swung away from pro-growth sentiments here in Maryland, in Northern Virginia and in Oregon, a high-profile battleground over growth controls in recent years.  

Voters in Aberdeen yesterday turned out their mayor, S. Fred Simmons, in a bitter election contest fueled in part by a backlash to the mayor's efforts to promote the town's growth.  As colleagues Mary Gail Hare and Madison Park reported in The Sun today, a citizen's group that first squared off against Simmons over a large annexation last year campaigned against him and figured in the election of his opponent, Michael E. Bennett, a retired state trooper.

Simmons and town officials had approved annexation of a tract called "The Wetlands" for development, but residents petitioned the boundary expansion to a referendum late last year and soundly defeated it.  They argued it would strain town's water supply, crowd schools, worsen traffic congesion and raise taxes.

Slow-growth candidates won eight of nine seats yesterday on the board of supervisors in Loudoun County, Virginia - one of the fastest growing counties in the US, where voters have seesawed in recent years between pro- and slow-growth sentiment.  According to a story today in The Washington Post, slow-growth Democratic candidates defeated four pro-growth Republican incumbnets, while four other slow-growth incumbents won reelection.

"In 2003, a slate of pro-growth Republicans wrested control of the Board of Supervisors." The Post's Sandhya Somashekhar reported. "The previous board, elected in 1999, had angered property rights advocates by trying to institute one of the country's strictest growth-control policies."

In Oregon, meanwhile, voters overwhelmingly approved a ballot measure rolling back the property development rights they had approved just three years earlier.  Oregonians, who for decades had lived under the the tightest land-use controls in the country, rebelled in 2004.  They passed Measure 37, requiring state and local governments to ease development restrictions or compensate landowners. 

This year, in a heated debate that pitted conservationists against timber interests, and with farmers on both sides, voters decided they'd gone too far, approving Measure 49 by a 61-49 margin.

As the Portland Oregonian reported today, "Under the new law, rural landowners will be allowed to build one to 10 houses under various scenarios. The measure prohibits larger subdivisions and commercial and industrial development, however".

 

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 1:07 PM in growth/land use | Permalink
                       

After posting my last piece that asked whether drinking bottled water is a sin, news suddenly erupted.  The anti-bottled water insurgency has hit the streets of Baltimore.

As it happens, a nonprofit organization called the Campaign For Corporate Accountability is holding an event called "Think Outside the Bottle."  From 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. tomorrow (Wednesday, Nov. 7) volunteers will be outside the Barnes & Noble bookstore at 33rd and St. Paul Streets in the Charles Village neighborhood of Baltimore.

There and in seven other cities around the country, the activists will be urging consumers to pressure Coke to admit on Dasani bottled water lables that the fancy-sounding product is really just tap water.

Jenna Garland, Baltimore organizer for the Boston-based Corporate Accountability group, said she thinks bottled water is essentially a rip off. She says it creates litter and wastes 17 million barrels of oil a year used to make plastic bottles.

I asked: isn't drinking bottled water at least better for your health than drinking carbonated sugar water, which is what people normally buy at convenience stores?  She replied that may be true...but better yet would be to save your money. Instead of wasting money on water you could just get out of your tap, she urges people to carry a reusable water bottle and fill it up at home.

"They are trying to sell people something for $1.19 that they can really get for free," said Garland. "So they have to fancy it up a little bit. That's why they've avoided saying it's really tap water. But we want people to have that information, so that people know what they are buying is...tap water."

She's urging people to call Coke's customer service line at 1-800-438-2653 and ask the company to put the words "public water source" on the Dasani labels.

Ray Crockett, spokesman for Coke, said such a change would be unnecessary, because he said consumers aren't confused about where Dasani comes from.  The labels don't say "tap water," but he points out that a Dasani Web site that says Coke "starts with a local water supply which is then filtered." 

"The labels clearly state that it's purified water," said Crockett.  "We add some minerals for taste."  When asked which minerals, he said: "Salt and minerals."

He said that bottled water sales continue to grow across the country, because people like the taste and convenience of the product.  Dasani is the No. 2 bottled water in the U.S., after Aquafina, which is distributed by Pepsi.

"Consumption of bottled water is a personal choice," said Crockett. "People can choose bottled water, or they can bring their own tap water.  We offer water in convenient, portable and resealable packaging that's readily available to them."

 

Posted by Tom Pelton at 5:50 PM | Permalink
                       

Chesapeake Life, a mag I like a lot, has a list of ways you can be green...check it out here.

Posted by Rona Kobell at 3:53 PM | Permalink
                       

 

The rise of the bottled water industry has sparked a backlash.  Some environmental activists complain that the "privatization" of the nation's water supply -- paying for bottles of stuff that's free and clean straight out of the tap -- is a scam. They say it just creates more litter, and wastes petroleum needed in the manufacture of the plastic bottles.

Here  is a story in the Philadephia Inquirer about the anti-bottled water insurgency.

But does all this concern about environmental impact have anything to do with why people drink bottled water?  For some people stuck in the fast-food lifestyle of driving from meetings to home to soccer practice, grabbing a bottle of water on the road is a no-sugar, no-caffeine alternative to buying a can of soda.  Is that so bad?  People are going to grab something to drink when they're at a convenience store.  Isn't plain water better than brown carbonated sugarwater?

Some people might argue that we should just take a cup or reusable bottle along with us in our car.  We could walk into a convenience store and ask to use the bathroom, and then fill up our cup with tap water.  That might work.  But that takes some advance planning (something harried Americans sometimes aren't good at). And would you trust the tap water in a filthy gas station on the Interstate? 

Readers, what do you think about this?

Here are some highlights from the story that ran in the Philadelphia Inquirer: 

By Sandy Bauers, INQUIRER STAFF WRITER

"Bottled water, once an icon of a healthy lifestyle, has become a pariah, the environmentally incorrect humvee of beverages. In recent months, dissent over the once innocuous bottle of Aquafina or Dasani has grown from a trickle to a tsunami.....

Bottled water - a $10.9 billion-a-year industry in the United States - has even emerged as a moral issue, a peace issue.

"We are called by our faith stance," said Sister Sharon Dillon, a former executive director of the Franciscan Federation in Washington, as she pledged to forgo Deer Park, Poland Spring, and all the others.

For her, it's a matter of equitable access. A billion people worldwide don't have safe drinking water, one in five of them children.

Americans, on the other hand, with near total access, are binging on bottled of every sort, from the handheld variety to the office jugs. We swigged 8.25 billion gallons in 2006 - an average of 28 gallons per person.

Dillon spoke at a teleconference organized by the advocacy group Corporate Accountability International, which sees bottled water as a corporate abuse - the takeover of a natural resource that should belong to everyone.

The group wants people to "Think Outside the Bottle" and, like Dillon, pledge not to drink it.

Canada's Polaris Group, which advocates for social change, wants people to take a closer look at what's inside the bottle. According to the Beverage Marketing Corp., more than 40 percent is filtered or treated tap water.....

The Women's International League of Peace and Freedom has launched a three-year "Save the Water" campaign, on the notion that drinking bottled water encourages privatization, which can lead to wars over water."

 

 

Posted by Tom Pelton at 12:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (1)
                       

"Detroit has to change. Detroit won't change." -- Elizabeth Kolbert, The New Yorker, Nov. 5

"Why can't Detroit build a better car?" -- air-quality specialist, last month, in Annapolis.

In this week's New Yorker, Elizabeth Kolbert writes about all the promise surrounding the "car of the future," a super-vehicle that was to get 80 mpg and run on hydrogen. Japan, believing Detroit was serious (the Big Three auto execs, after all, did make this promise to the American people while standing next to President Clinton in 1993) figured they'd better build their own hybrid before they got edged out of the market.

Fast-forward to 2000. Toyota already has its early Priuses out, and the car of the future is still in the concept stages.

Fast-forward to 2008: Toyota and Honda are offering all sorts of different hybrid models, while Detroit still has not much to brag about in this area.

On Sunday, The Sun's Allison Connolly reports that GM is trying hard to catch up: It will be building hybrid SUVs at its White Marsh plant.

She writes:

GM probably will play up an overall fuel economy savings of 30 percent over their nonhybrid equivalents, with the same city mileage as a four-cylinder Toyota Camry. Dealers are expected to advertise them as a way to drive a big honking SUV without contributing to global warming.

The Tahoe and Yukon will get 21 miles per gallon in city driving and 22 mpg on the highway, compared with 14 mpg and 20 mpg in their nonhybrid equivalents, according to federal standards.

"You have to remember that in a truck or SUV, the value of a hybrid is significantly greater than in a regular car," said David Cole, chairman of the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, Mich. "The savings is much greater in a truck that usually gets 15 miles to the gallon."

No disrespect to David Cole, but who is going to buy a hybrid to possibly get 2 more mpg on the highway than its nonhybrid version? Who would even buy one for the six to eight extra miles?

Here's what has always perplexed me: Why doesn't the auto industry make fuel-efficient hybrids and then market them to those who would truly benefit from driving them?

My theory is that there is a small percentage of people, say 5 or 10 or at best 20 percent, who are willing to pay money to do something because it's the right thing to do. I'm guessing that a number of those people also appreciate comfort and have the means to purchase what they want. Maybe those people want to spend a few thousand dollars more for a hybrid SUV or a large car hybrid that doesn't do much better than its nonhybrid equivalent. So, make a small number of those, so that supply is small and perhaps demand will be high, and let them have their cake and eat it, too.

The rest of us, and in this I include myself, are largely motivated by affordability and economy. I drive a hybrid because I drive a lot, and I can get 45-50 mpg on the highway. Most of that driving is for work, and I get reimbursed, so it makes economic sense. That it's also better for the environment is a big bonus in my case, but even if it weren't, the numbers work for me.

So I can't understand why more journalists, photographers, pharmaceutical salespeople and business travelers do not drive hybrids. My colleague, fellow hybrid-driver Frank Roylance, said he counted about half a dozen hybrids in our parking lot. Our staff is shrinking, but we still have a couple hundred employees, at least, who park there. What gives?

I think there are two reasons. One: the car companies simply don't market the cars that way. I've never seen a commercial featuring a salesman pulling into his driveway saying something like, "I made $300 this week, and none of it was from sales. it was from driving this car." Note to Detroit: if I see this on TV, you will be hearing from my people!

The second reason is, that when you drive a small, fuel-efficient hybrid, you are giving up something. I can't get both groceries and a stroller into my trunk, and I can't get my jogging stroller in there at all. I can't throw a bike in the back, as I could in a minivan, and when we pack for road trips it takes twice as long because of the tiny trunk.

In my case, I never really considered buying an SUV or a minivan. But I have a friend who is of a similar disposition to me, and for a long time she was driving a tiny Toyota. When it died, her husband suggested they look at minivans. She was reluctant. But then she sat in one. She realized that, not only did the minivan mean they wouldn't have to take two cars anymore every time her family (two kids, one in-law) wanted to go out, but the vehicle was incredible. It even had a spacious changing table.

As soon as she sat in it, she said, all those feelings of guilt melted away. And when I peered in, I could see why. In her situation, I don't know what decision I would have made.

Detroit has to change. Detroit won't change. But Detroit is just giving us what we ask for. Maybe it is us who really have to change.

Posted by Rona Kobell at 10:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)
                       

Is the Chesapeake Bay getting cleaner or more polluted? It depends on where you cut the graph. And that can make a huge difference in public perception about whether more cleanup efforts are needed.

Water quality monitoring data shows that the nation's largest estuary was receiving less and less pollution from 1985 through the late 1990's. But then, something happened, and a good trend turned into a bad one. Over the last eight or nine years, the Chesapeake has been choking on an increasing amount of pollution from stormwater drains, farms and sewage plants.  And this has meant more algae blooms and low-oxygen "dead zones."

During an "Eastern Shore Poultry Summit" in Salisbury on Wednesday, and in news releases, poultry industry representatives and the Maryland Department of Agriculture have painted a happy picture by comparing 1985 pollution estimates to current levels.  But they neglect to mention the worsening trend over the last decade.   

In a news release that touted its efforts to curb farm fertilizer runoff, the Maryland Department of Agriculture said farm nitrogen pollution into the Chesapeake Bay has fallen by about half over the last two decades. "Since 1985, Maryland agriculture has achieved a 54 percent nitrogen reduction," the MDA said inthe Oct. 2 news release.

The agency later cited "a 49 percent decrease in total nitrogen loading across the tributary area since 1985," in an Oct. 22 letter to The Sun.

Wow. Those are some pretty impressive numbers. A reader might wonder: Why should the state impose any more environmental regulations on farmers if the bay is that much cleaner? If farmers are doing this well in cleaning up their nitrogen, perhaps the state should get off their backs.

This was the same point made by Bill Satterfield, director of Delmarva Poultry Inc., a chicken farming trade group, at the "Poultry Summit," which was organized by the Waterkeeper Alliance to find solutions to the problem of farm pollution.

Satterfield said poultry farmers oppose a proposal by Maryland to require industrial-style water pollution control permits for large, confined chicken-growing operations. These permits would mean annual inspections by the state's environmental inspectors and fines of up to $32,500 for allowing manure into streams.

Satterfield gave a Power Point presentation with a variety of graphs that show continuing improvement in controlling runoff since 1985. "The poultry industry on the Delmarva Peninsula is doing its part and reducing P (phosphorus) and N (nitrogen) pollution in the bay," Satterfield said.

The problem is ... the trend isn't that simple. Recent research by the U.S. Geological Survey shows that the amount of nitrogen pollution flowing into the Chesapeake from most major tributaries was indeed declining from the mid 1980's to the late 1990's. But then it reversed course and started getting worse.

Data collected by the federal agency show a rising amount of nitrogen flowing into the bay over the decade from the Choptank, Patuxent, James, Rappahannock, Pamunkey and Mattaponi rivers.  The trend lines for the two largest rivers feeding the bay, the Susquehanna and Potomac also seem to be inclining over the last decade -- but it's not statistically significant enough for scientists to call it a true increase. So call those two relatively constant -- but it's certainly not decreasing pollution.

In general, nitrogen pouring into the bay from these major tributaries "had decreased, and now has changed directions, and is now increasing," said Scott Phillips, Chesapeake Bay coordinator for the U.S. Geological Survey.

What's going on here? What happened in the late 1990s to reverse progress in the bay? 

Joel Blomquist, a hydrologist with the USGS., theorized that the trend line headed down in the 1980's and early 1990s as sewage treatment plants made relatively easy improvements to cut pollution. But now that "low hanging fruit" is gone. And now the next step, reducing runoff pollution from suburban sprawl and from agriculture, is much harder to achieve and takes longer.  Meanwhile, the population keeps growing.

"The pressures on the bay watershed have stepped up significantly in the last decade," said Blomquist. "The population growth has increased," and from this fact, he speculated: "The pressure on agriculture has also increased, to feed more people."

The picture looks just as bad, when you look at Maryland Department of Natural Resources data on the Pocomoke River and other waterways on the Eastern Shore. There's been no improvement in nitrogen pollution levels over the last decade, despite the passage of a 1998 law that requires all farmers to have "nutrient management plans" designed to minimize their use of fertilizer.  More than 95 percent of farms now have this paperwork ... but the amount of pollution flowing into the bay hasn't improved.

No matter how you slice those statistics, it doesn't look good.  

Posted by Tom Pelton at 5:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
                       

Crab cake lover Fred writes:

"Drum point Market, Tylerton, on Smith Island. Huge, 97% fresh-picked crab, just a little binder/seasoning. Incredible.

We spent 7 wedding annivs @ Inn of Silent Music in Tylerton. We were there 24 days total, so that means 24 lunches of crab cake @ Drum Point Market. Enjoy.

My story on the crab cakes is no longer on The Sun's Web site, so I'm posting it here from the archives. And if you go, remember, you want the boat to TYLERTON. If you don't specify, you may find yourself in Ewell - not a bad place, with a pretty good crabcake, too. But you won't be in Tylerton.

Here you go:

Fried or broiled, worth the trip: Renowned crab cakes lure visitors to island
By Rona Kobell, Sun reporter

TYLERTON -- The aroma hits as soon as the screen door to the Drum Point Market swings closed. It wafts up from behind the ice cream cooler, near the cracker packs and stacked boxes of Jell-O, filling up the garage-sized general store in this remote Smith Island town.

The regulars - hardened watermen, tourists who keep coming back - know that smell. Those are Mary Ada Marshall's crab cakes in the deep fryer, and they might just be the best in the world.In a place where crab is king and every island lady has her own closely guarded recipe, that claim is no small boast. But from the crab shanties lining the wooden docks to the homey living room in Tylerton's lone bed and breakfast, the story is the same: If Mary Ada's crab cakes aren't the best, they come pretty darn close.

"I'm pretty much a connoisseur of crab cakes, and you'll find none better," says Bobby Smith, a boat captain who grew up on the island and estimates that he's tried 300 types of crab cakes in his lifetime. "And the best part about it is that it's made with crab meat caught in the area, not that foreign mess you get anywhere else."

The lure of Marshall's crab cake has brought people to the island just for lunch - a trip that includes a drive to Crisfield and then an hour's ferry ride over choppy Tangier Sound to the most isolated of Smith Island's three villages. It has gotten the 59-year-old island native a tour of the White House at Christmas and a visit to the upper reaches of the State Department. And it has helped keep afloat a small country store that is the lifeblood of an island struggling daily against rising tides and falling crab harvests.

Marshall began making these crab cakes about 12 years ago, when her oldest son, Duke, bought the land and, with his brother Kevin, built the Drum Point Market. The island had lost its store the year before and Duke, an insurance agent who lives in Crisfield, wanted a product to bring in visitors as well as islanders. Nothing says Smith Island like a crab cake, molded with meat picked by the island ladies from crabs caught by the island men.

There was only one problem: Mary Ada Marshall is allergic to crab meat.

She'd discovered her seafood allergy a few years before Duke opened the market, when a piece of shrimp sent her into anaphylactic shock and she nearly died before reaching the mainland. When she recovered, she knew she'd never be able to eat crab cakes again.

But with Duke and her husband, crabber Dwight Marshall, as her tasters, Marshall began trying to resurrect from memory the recipe her family had always loved. She'd make a batch and send them over to the store for cooking. Word would come back: They were good, but they weren't the ones. For a couple of months, Marshall tinkered.

"After a while, I got one they liked better than any," she says, "and so that's what we stuck with."

Marshall won't reveal the recipe - only Kevin knows it, and she only told him so that the tradition would continue when she dies. But she says the secret is the local meat, picked from the claw as well as from the backfin.

There are only so many ingredients that one can put in a crab cake. Usually, there's mayonnaise, some pepper, a touch of mustard, maybe an egg - nothing that would make one so earth-shatteringly different from any other. But there is a distinctiveness in Marshall's crab cakes, and it's not just the bargain price - $7.50 for a softball-sized sandwich that could easily feed two. The NSA-like secrecy of the ingredients only adds to the pleasure.

Friends have begged for the recipe. Tourists call the market to have the crab cakes shipped as far as Florida. One island lady sheepishly gave Marshall some crab meat and asked her to make it into cakes -the woman's husband liked the Drum Point version better than hers.

A few years ago, David Harp, a former Sun photographer who specializes in the Chesapeake Bay, went on assignment for a regional magazine in search of the best crab cake. He ate dozens, he says, and after each one, his reaction was the same: Not bad, but not as good as Mary Ada's.

"It's crab cake held together by magic," Harp says. "I can't tell you whether I like them better broiled or deep-fried -they're just darn good either way."

Once, when Marshall made them for a group visiting the island, one man seemed particularly smitten. When Marshall asked what he did for a living, the man replied he worked for the president.

The president of what? she wanted to know.

The president of the United States, the man replied.

Turns out the visitor was a senior Bush administration official, and he offered Marshall and her husband a Christmas tour of the White House and the State Department. The Marshalls went to Washington with crab cakes in hand.

Tourists often ask innkeeper LeRoy Friesen about the crab cakes as soon as he greets them at the dock.

"They want me to rush through the orientation of the town so they can light out for the store and get there before it closes," says Friesen, who runs Tylerton's Inn of Silent Music.

Most days, Drum Point opens at 10 a.m. and gets busy at "boat time" - around 1:30 p.m., when the ferry docks, the mail comes in and the island women take up residence in the plastic chairs. It closes at 3 p.m., reopens again about 6, and quickly fills up with men who chat until about 8 p.m. and then go back to their shanties to tend to their crabs.

A few tables sit between the shelves of fresh produce and paper towels- items Duke Marshall picks up in Crisfield and sends over on the ferry. In the back of the market is a wall of black-and-white photos. The old schoolhouse is there, along with a snapshot of earnest young men posing in a boat.

On an island where a waterman's work has gotten harder and the payoff smaller, the store has become the place to vent, reminisce and commiserate. Oyster harvests have been abysmal, and crabbing isn't as good as it once was. Some younger men and women have moved to the mainland for jobs in the state prison in Princess Anne, where they'll get good benefits and regular checks.

In their place have come second-home buyers like Jim Thiess, a Glen Burnie builder who owned two homes on Smith Island but sold them and is building a third. Thiess, 47, says he's been coming for 16 years and yes, the crab cakes are a big draw.

"They're excellent," Thiess says. "I always heard that G & M down by the airport had good ones, but I don't think they compare," he adds, referring to the Linthicum restaurant that's a perennial "best crab cake" winner.

Duke Marshall is encouraging his mother to start an Internet crab cake business, but she says she doesn't have time and, anyhow, she doesn't "do" computers. Nevertheless, Duke has been giving out his e-mail address to anyone who wants to order one.

Regardless of whether a cyber-crab business gets up and running, Marshall will still make her crab cakes every morning except Sundays as long as she's healthy. And no matter how many times visitors ask, she will never reveal the recipe.

"It's the good crabmeat, and that's the God's truth," Marshall says. "It's just like with a man. If you have a good man, you've got it made."

Posted by Rona Kobell at 3:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
                       

Over at Dining at Large, the eponymous blog of Sun restaurant critic Elizabeth Large, a debate is raging about crab cakes. Who makes the best ones?

Elizabeth said that, as a restaurant critic for more than 30 years, this is the question she's most often asked. As the bay writer, I get asked it a lot, too, but it's a harder one for me to answer because:

a. I often am SO hardworking that I only have time to grab a quick Subway sandwich while out on the Shore (editors, are you reading this?) so I can quickly get back to write.

b. I prefer rockfish.

c. I didn't grow up eating crab cakes so I don't feel I am qualified to judge.

All kidding aside about my work ethic, all three are true. I wish I had more time to sample the Shore's cuisine when I'm out there, but too often, I am rushed ... the nature of deadlines.

Anyway, Elizabeth's readers have developed quite a list of favorites: G and M in Linthicum, Gertrude's at the BMA, Faidley's at Lexington Market and Captain Larry's in Federal Hill.

I second the Larry's recommendation. Not only is their crab cake delicious, but they have an excellent drink, called a dark and stormy, that mixes rum and beer. And the cake is half-price on Tuesdays.

On the Shore, I once had them at the Robert Morris Inn -- when someone else was paying -- and I remember they were delicious.

Last year, I went to Smith Island and did a story on Mary Ada Marshall, who people have said makes the best crab cakes in the world. They were delicious, made even more so by the fact that you have to travel four hours to get them.

Have any favorites? Subway does get old ... so send them my way.

Posted by Rona Kobell at 11:12 AM | Permalink
                       

It pays to spend all week at a fisheries meeting! As Candy Thomson reported on our Web site, Maryland's rockfish season will from now on be managed by Maryland Natural Resources officials:

"For the first time in 15 years, Maryland striped bass anglers will have a spring trophy season designed and managed by state fisheries officials.

By an overwhelming margin, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission yesterday relinquished control of the state's most popular and lucrative season for 2008, thereby eliminating an annual quota that was often exceeded and allowing Maryland to regulate its season the way other Eastern Seaboard states do.

State officials say their management plan will protect the striped bass - Maryland's state fish, commonly known as rockfish - while providing increased opportunities to recreational anglers and the declining charter-boat industry. The monthlong season is worth $7 million to the state economy."

You can read the whole article here.

Charter boat captains and sportfishermen rejoiced. But perhaps no one was happier than Howard King, who has worked at Maryland's Department of Natural Resources for 38 years and will soon be retiring. He's been pressing for the change for a long time, and lost a similar vote last year.

 

Posted by Rona Kobell at 11:04 AM | Permalink