This marks farewell for Bay & Environment, a blog I shared for years with now-former colleagues Rona Kobell and Tom Pelton.  For nearly a year now, I've held down the B&E fort solo, and I appreciate your patience and dedication.  Now I'll be joining Meredith Cohn and Christy Zuccarini at the new blog, where we'll be highlighting green issues around Baltimore while still sharing news and views about the Chesapeake Bay and our environment.   So come on over, please! 

You can find it by going directly to this link: http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/features/green/  Or go to www.baltimoresun.com and look it up in the blogs.  Those of you who've been getting RSS feeds of blog posts will need to subscribe to the new blog.

I'd called the movers, packed the house, talked to my new bosses about how they want me to cover my beat in the brave new world of Facebook and Twitter.  I was working on story ideas, calling sources and looking forward to deadlines again.

Then last week, I heard that two colleagues - both older than I am, both with families to support - were about to get laid off.  So I volunteered to be laid off instead, so one of them would be spared.  The company will provide me with a severance package that gives me some breathing room to figure out what to do next.  I hope the next thing includes environmental reporting, but my next gig isn't lined up yet.

It was a quick decision, and yet one that had been marinating in my mind for months. In a year when we were challenged to figure out what our heart's desires were and to follow them, I realized, for the first time in 16 years, that some of mine lay outside the newsroom walls.

This year, I wrote a screenplay.  I read good books.  I put more miles on my bike than I did on my car. I picked up my daughter early from school and took her out for ice cream and to the library. I went out with my husband.  I cooked dinner occasionally.  I traveled - to Russia and Argentina and Northern Michigan and New York.   I had time - a luxury foreign to journalists and working mothers - to think about what I want.  And what I want is to keep doing all of those things.  The two journalists in danger of losing their jobs want to keep them; to the extent that I can make that happen, I want to do that, too.

When I got the Bay beat in 2004, I felt like the luckiest person in the newsroom.  I had a job where I got to be out on boats all the time, where I interviewed fascinating people, and where I learned something new every day.  To tell you the truth, I never stopped feeling that way - even when I had the worst seasickness you can imagine, it still beat a day sitting at my desk.  My mother worked at the same job for two decades and was miserable nearly the whole time, so I knew how rare it was to get to do something I loved and get a bit of a suntan in the process.

My heart may not be in the newspaper anymore, but it will always be with my current and former colleagues - terrific journalists, and great people.

I'll be back in Baltimore at the end of May.  Feel free to send any correspondence, love letters, hate mail, life coaching, lunch invitations, freelance work or job offers to rkobell2002@yahoo.com I'll answer.  Seems I'll have some time on my hands.

Sincerely,

Rona Kobell

Chesapeake Bay reporter

The Baltimore Sun  

A few days ago, I posted here about the results of an effort last winter by Virginia watermen to retrieve lost aka "ghost" pots in their waters.  They pulled up more than 8,600.  At the time, I wondered how many more there might be north of the Old Dominion, still catching and killing crabs and other fish and animals in Maryland waters.

Kim Couranz of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Chesapeake Bay office reports that her people have been hard at work studying the impact of ghost pots in Maryland's portion of the bay.  A couple years back, in collaboration with the state Department of Natural Resources, they did a survey and determined there are about 42,000 "ghost" pots loose in Maryland waters.

Next question is, what if anything is to be done about them?

You may not fix every problem by throwing money at it, but it sure can help.  Maryland is getting $1.73 million in economic stimulus funds to spend on reducing harmful diesel emissions from buses, trucks, ships and construction equipment like the crane pictured above at the Port of Baltimore.

Diesel exhaust contains soot, or fine particulates, and other toxic air pollutants, which research has shown can aggravate asthma, contribute to cardiovascular disease and even cause premature death.  Millions of Americans live downwind of places where lots of diesel engines are at work, such as rail yards and ports.

Here in Maryland, the state is working on reducing those unhealthy exposures, with federal help.  The Department of the Environment will distribute the funds it's receiving from the Environmental Protection Agency to retrofit existing diesel engines.

The funds were authorized under the Obama administration's American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to provide grants and loans for retrofitting diesel engines.  It hasn't been decided yet precisely how the new funds will be spent, but an EPA spokeswoman said they'll generally go to reduce emissions from ships, construction equipment, school buses and trucks.

The diesel-powered dredging equipment shown above at the Port of Baltimore was retrofitted with particulate filters (seen at right) that are supposed to reduce soot emissions by more than 90 percent.  The crane was among the retrofits paid for with a $295,000 "clean diesel" grant EPA awarded the state last year.  The federal grant - and matching state funds - also paid to retroft buses in Rockville and in Prince George's and Washington counties.

Government funds can be spent on cleaning up government-owned diesel emissions, but the privately owned oceangoing vessels that call at ports also are a significant source of harmful air pollutants.  A recent report by the EPA Inspector General's office estimated that commercial marine vessels accounted for 69 percent of the sulfur dioxide emitted at the port, and more than a quarter of the soot, or fine particulates that can get in lungs and cause health problems.

EPA announced earlier this year that it plans to reduce ship pollution within 200 miles of U.S. shores under a new international agreement. U.S. and foreign-flagged ships are to be required to use dramatically cleaner fuel and more effective pollution controls for their engines, the agency said. For more on that, go here.

(Photos supplied by Bill McAllen, Charm City Publishing)

The associate professor of political science at the Naval Academy has written one critical book on the shortcomings of the restoration effort, Chesapeake Bay Blues.  He's got a new, updated account heading to the printer now.

"It certainly doesn't seem like a new direction for the bay restoration effort," Ernst said in a telephone interview Wednesday.  "There's nothing new about more deadlines, more promises. What's missing .... is the funding and statutory powers that would make those deadlines accomplishable, make those goals attainable. "

Ernst was similarly dismissive of the new 2025 long-term cleanup "end date." He noted that officials were careful to say that would not be the year when the bay is actually restored but when all the policies and reductions are in place that they believe should restore it.

"It's back to business as usual," he says, "creating a deadline (when) none of these elected officials will hold their positions.  So much for accountability."

As for the executive order issued by Obama, Ernst says it does nothing except delay action by another four months.  It gives the Environmental Protection Agency 120 days to determine what regulatory powers it has or needs to require the bay cleanup, he contends, even though the Clean Water Act outlining those powers was enacted in 1972. The order also sets up a "federal leadership committee" to coordinate the bay cleanup efforts of the various federal agencies and departments - "another layer of bureaucracy," the critic says.

"There's never been a better opportunity for doing something tangible and big right now," Ernst concluded, "and the EPA and the bay states missed that opportunity."

Anyone share Ernst's criticism, or maybe have a different view?  Is this about the best that can be done, perhaps, given our lousy economy and traditional resistance by many to being regulated or taxed to pay for cleanup?  Will new deadlines every two years prod the politicians to do more now, instead of putting off the tough decisions to their successors?

But take a look at those milestones, at least the two-page summaries handed out to the press and now posted online.  They skimp on key details, especially on what the backup plans are in case those measures fall short, and on what the consequences will be if the states blow these new milestones.  We'll have to wait for those information gaps to be filled, we were told.

Next, look at the graphs showing how much nitrogen and phosphorus pollution each state promises to eliminate.  The graphs start at several million or tens of millions of pounds. not at zero.  Had the graphs had a scale that showed how far pollution ultimately has to be reduced by the "end date" of 2025, the divergence between past reductions and future promises would have looked a lot smaller.

Then there's the case of the mysterious missing information on a few of the states' milestone statements. The two-page outlines of cleanup efforts for the entire six-state bay region and for Maryland, Pennsylvania and Virginia showed graphs with two diverging lines, depicting pollution reductions already in progress and even greater efforts those states were committing to make by 2011.  The graphs projected accelerations of cleanup ranging from 52 to 502 percent. 

But the summaries handed out Tuesday for Delaware, the District of Columbia, New York and West Virginia showed only one line on their graphs.  Each graph depicted the pollution reductions that were being pledged through 2011.   Missing was any line projecting the rate at which pollution would go down based on efforts already under way.

Drafts of the milestone documents circulated only a few days before Tuesday's summit did show current and future rates of cleanup.  The District, New York and West Virginia all were shown  making less progress in the next few years than they had been making up to now.  That's right - negative progress. For New York, the drafts showed a 15 percent backslide on the rate of nitrogen reductions, and for West Virginia a 61 percent slippage in nitrogen and a 45 percent decline in phosphorus removal rates. 

The graph lines and calculations showing negative progress were missing from the final milestone documents handed out Tuesday at Mount Vernon.  What would George Washington think?

Virginia paid out-of-work crabbers $300 a day plus fuel to scour the bay bottom for the "ghost pots,"as they're known - wire-mesh crab traps that get lost when cut loose from their markers by storms or passing boats.  Using side-imaging sonar, they found and retrieved more than 8,600, according to the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, which set up and supervised the effort.  They also collected 61 abandoned fishing nets, plus assorted other debris, including a baby stroller.

The pots evidently keep catching years after they've been lost. As seen in this photo from VIMS, the recovered pots held almost 5,000 crabs and other animals, including fish, eels, turtles, a duck and a muskrat.  Scientists figure each derelict pot, if still functional, can catch and kill up to 50 crabs a year.

If that many abandoned pots were found in Virginia waters of the bay, how many might there be in Maryland? 

State, federal and local officials gather at Mount Vernon in Virginia today to chart a new, reputedly more accountable course for jump-starting the long-running effort to restore the Chesapeake Bay.  Gov. Martin O'Malley says he'll lay out a plan for accelerating pollution reductions by 2.5 times the current pace.  He joined scientists Monday for a look at the Bush River near Aberdeen Proving Ground in Harford County, one of a handful of places in the bay where noticeable progress has been made in recent years.  You can read more about it in The Baltimore Sun.

For those who can't make it to George Washington's Potomac River home, much of it will be Webcast live.  Go here, starting around 11 a.m.  You should also be able to get live updates via Twitter  @chesbayprogram  Starting around 12:30 p.m., there'll also be a panel discussion with scientists, an ex-politician (former Maryland Rep. Wayne Gilchrest), activists and a waterman about the economic, cultural and ecological importance of restoring the bay.  Billed as a first, this "Chesapeake Chat" will be moderated by Sheilah Kast, host of public-radio WYPR's "Maryland Morning" show.

Of course, you'll only be able to follow the public proceedings - not the lengthy closed-door huddle of the governors, EPA administrator and others as they chew over what they're going to publicly announce at the end of the shindig, around 2 p.m.  How accountable is that?

By a 4-3 vote, the council rejected a hotly debated proposal to delete the county's so-called "clustering" rule, which allowed builders to put homes on three-acre lots as long as half the farm is spared from development.  If approved, the measure would have scaled back the number of homes that could be built in rural areas.

The move, which was unanimously recommended by the county's planning commission, was supported by environmental and conservation groups, by residents upset with sprawl and even by some farmers.  But other farmers and real estate interests vehemently opposed the change, saying it would deprive rural landowners of income they could make by selling to developers.

Development of rural land fragments wildlife habitat and increases pollution of streams and the bay.  Wicomico, in the heart of the Shore, has been losing farmland at a rapid clip.  According to an analysis by environmental groups, more home lots were approved outside of the county's designated growth area in 2007 than at any time since the mid-1990s.  USA Today reported that six out of 10 homes in the county are beyond the reach of fire hydrants.

The Chesapeake Bay Foundation, which had backed the downzoning, issued a statement calling  the vote disappointing.  The environmental group noted that the downzoning had been proposed by a group the county council had appointed to study how to preserve more rural land.

"Our current policies put the future of the county's rural lands at risk," said Alan Girard, head of CBF's "Heart of the Chesapeake" office in Salisbury.

The Salisbury Daily Times reported that after the vote, Wicomico County Executive Richard M. Pollitt Jr. said he would form a commission to try again at drafting the "nuts and bolts" of a land preservation scheme.

The medical center, University of Maryland Baltimore and the local community have teamed up to bring fresh, locally grown food to the workers, patients, visitors and residents of that busy corner of downtown.  Local food reduces the energy and air pollution caused by long-distance transportation, according to advocates, and the types of food offered are generally pretty healthy.

Ed Fishel, the university spokesman who took the accompanying photo of the market's opening day today, reports that vendors were selling French bread, range-grown chickens, cheese from western Maryland goats' milk, apples and flowers.  Hours are 10:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.

Luke and Jack Andraka, students at Chesapeake Science Point public charter school in Anne Arundel County, are representing Maryland in the "Siemens We Can Change the World Challenge."  Team AMD, as they are known, are vying with 21 other states' teams for either the grand prize or one of two national prizes.   Besides bragging rights, they stand to win an appearance on the "Planet Green" TV network or even an "adventure trip."

The Andraka team is trying to develop a grassroots campaign to clean up the acid mine drainage that plagues many streams and rivers in the coalfields of western Maryland, Pennsylvania and West Virginia.  The boys' dad and team mentor, Steven Andraka, explained that his family spends its summers and many weekends at a place near Morgantown, W.Va. and they noticed that the local stream there, a tributary of the Cheat River, was impaired by acidic seepage from mining activity.

Various state and federal government agencies are working to curtail acid mine drainage, which can impair and even kill off fish and other aquatic life in streams contaminated with metals and acid from old coal mines.  But with the encouragement and guidance of their dad, the boys - Luke, 14, and Jack, 12 - set out to devise a way for school or community groups to do something about the problem on their own.

Marla Cone, writing for Environmental Health News, reports that the group of 15 scientists, led by a University of California epidemiologist, urges that DDT be used only as a last resort, even to fight a deadly disease like malaria.   People are at risk of serious health effects from the pesticide when it is sprayed in their homes to kill malaria-bearing mosquitoes, the group said.

The scientists' stance is likely to reignite a debate about the safety of DDT, which has been banned for decades in the United States and much of the rest of the world.  The US banned it in 1972 after scientists found it building up in the food chain and that it was behind steep declines in populations of bald eagles, pelicans and other wildlife.

Public health experts, however, have argued that the pesticide is the only one effective at fighting malaria in Africa and Asia.  Spraying it in homes was officially endorsed by the World Health Organization and by a U.S. aid program to fight world malaria that was launched by former President George W. Bush.  Here's a link to WHO's guidelines for indoor residential spraying.

Malaria remains one of the world's deadliest diseases, claiming about 880,000 lives a year. But Cone reports that the scientists, who reviewed some 500 studies, concluded that because of the health problems that could be caused by DDT, it “should be used with caution, only when needed, and when no other effective, safe and affordable alternatives are locally available.”

Among the health risks the scientists cited: reduced fertility, genital birth defects, breast cancer, diabetes and damage to developing brains.

Brennan also says he favors putting a price on climate-warming greenhouse gas emissions, either through some kind of tax or cap-and-trade scheme.

"One of those may be better than the other for environmental or political reasons, but either goes a long way toward preventing all of us from regarding the atmosphere as a free dump for the exhaust from our burning," he said.

Brennan also questions the recent efforts by legislators and Gov. Martin O'Malley to re-regulate power generation, suggesting that the current political pressures to hold down prices while also trying to reduce consumption may be discouraging power plant construction.

What do you think?  How many are cutting back because it's the right thing to do, and how many to save money?  Have you done anything to conserve energy in your life?  Increase insulation in your home, turn down the thermostat or drive less?  Were you conserving more when prices were higher recently?

To read more of Carrie Madren's Q&A with Brennan, go here.

Walk out on Loch Raven Dam, like you used to be able to do, and get a presentation from the engineers who oversaw reconstruction of the impoundment. You can hear, too, about the Gunpowder Valley and its role in the region's water supply. Up in the Pines area, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., check out a presentation by "Scales and Tales" of what animals occupy the reservoir watersheds.

Guided hikes, fly fishing lessons and more, including live music.  All part of the kickoff of National Water Week. Call 396-3500 for more information. (Warning: Event may be canceled if it's raining cats and dogs.)

That's the upshot of a new report by the American Lung Association, which after analyzing air quality readings from 2005 through 2007 finds that Baltimore city ranks 15th among U.S. counties with the worst short-term particle pollution.  

The greater Washington-Baltimore region was judged to have the 14th worst ozone pollution, with 28.8 days a year, on average, when smog reached unhealthful levels.  That's better than it used to be.  A decade ago, the region averaged 42 days a year of bad ozone.  But the short-term trend is headed in the wrong direction - the region only had 26.3 days of unhealthful ozone levels from 2004 through 2006, according to the group. 

Though fine-particle pollution is worse in the city, it's a problem elsewhere in the state as well.  Baltimore County joined the city in earning a "failing" grade from the lung association for short-term particle levels, while Anne Arundel and Prince George's counties got "D"s for having at least a handfull of days with harmful particle pollution every year.

Baltimore once ranked second only to Los Angeles for having the worst summertime ozone, or smog.  Ozone levels have improved, with fewer days of really high readings.  But that good news has been offset by research finding that air pollution is still harmful at lower levels.  In response, the Environmental Protection Agency last year tightened its standards on ozone pollution.

Of 15 counties in Maryland where air quality is monitored, all but two scored failing grades for ozone pollution from the lung association.  The only two that didn't flunk - Baltimore city and Worcester County - didn't have enough air data to analyze, the group said.

Ozone is produced when chemicals from vehicle exhaust and power plants mix in hot sunlight. It can cause a sunburn-like inflammation of lungs and bronchial passages, leading to shortness of breath, chest pain, wheezing and coughing.  It can worsen asthma and even cause premature death.

Particle pollution is also a silent killer.  It's a toxic mix of microscopic soot containing chemicals and metals from diesel exhaust and other forms of combustion.  Even short-term exposure to elevated levels can cause health problems, including heart attacks, strokes, asthma attacks and premature death.

Maryland's air picture is mirrored nationally.  Despite progress in many cities over the past decade in curbing ozone pollution, the lung association found that 60 percent of Americans still breathe harmful levels of either ozone or particle pollution.  The group wants EPA to tighten air pollution cleanup requirements even more - meanwhile, it urges people to drive less and use less electricity, avoid burning wood or trash and urge local school systems to replace old diesel buses with cleaner vehicles.

To read the ALA's latest "State of the Air" report, go here.  You can also find out how the air is in your area by typing in your Zip code.