There was a lot of talk at Mount Vernon on Tuesday about "a new day" dawning in the long struggle to restore Chesapeake Bay, with President Obama declaring the bay a national treasure and states agreeing to short-term pollution reduction plans, aka "milestones."  Virginia Gov. Timothy M. Kaine, head of the bay Executive Council (pictured at right), called it a "turning point," though he acknowledged there was still a lot of work to do.  The cleanup effort now is being ramped up and is going to be much more accountable, we were told. 

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?

Continue reading "Uh, about those milestones ...." »

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 2:36 PM in Politics, legislation, water quality | Permalink | Comments (1)
                       

A few weeks back, I wrote about some Marylanders plowing through the icy Bering Sea off Alaska to study how it's changing.  Now there's another local who's exploring faraway waters, though he's picked a warmer spot - the Red Sea.

Glenn Page, former conservation director for the National Aquarium here in Baltimore, is part of an international crew on a research cruise investigating coral reefs off the coast of Saudi Arabia.  Since leaving the aquarium, he's founded his own environmental consulting firm.

For the past couple weeks, Glenn has been shooting underwater photos and videos of the Farasan Banks to take stock of the health of the reefs there.  You can read more about the expedition and see photos and video of the work here.  The bright blue coral at right is stylophora.

In addition, Glenn's been keeping a blog about the expedition.  His most recent post, which he sent me today, serves as an Earth Day greeting from the other side of the planet:

Imagine giving up 1/2 of your income, in addition to taxes and payments for house, college etc., just so you can ensure your children have a chance for a future.   That's exactly what the desperately poor Vezo, an indigenous group of nomadic fishing communities of southwest Madagascar, did when they established the first real marine protected area in the Indian Ocean.   They risked everything just for the slim chance to save their ecosystem and indeed, themselves.  Every day is earth day for the Vezo.  As a local leader noted recently, "In order to be Vezo, a person must act in the present, for it is only in the present that one performs one's identity.

Read the rest here. 

Continue reading "Earth Day from afar" »

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 4:56 PM in Sustainability, fisheries, water quality | Permalink
                       

After decades of ambiguity and controversy, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson thinks it may be time for Congress to review and strengthen federal wetlands protections.

Speaking last week in Washington at a preview of a documentary about pollution in the Chesapeake Bay and Puget Sound, Jackson said because of Supreme Court decisions "there is murkiness" now about whether the EPA or states have any say over filling or draining many wetlands, which filter out pollution naturally.

"I do believe we need a legislative fix to clarify the jurisdiction issue," she said.  The nation is losing wetlands "at an alarming rate" to development, which next to agricultural pollution is one of the biggest threats to the nation's waters, including the Chesapeake, she added.

Jackson made her remarks at the National Press Club, where she and others got a sneak preview of "Poisoned Waters," a two-hour documentary that looks at the Chesapeake and at Puget Sound as examples of how the Clean Water Act has failed after more than 30 years to restore the nation's waters.  The film, by veteran journalist Hedrick Smith, airs on PBS on Frontline April 21.  I'll be reviewing it before it's shown, but you can see a trailer for it now here, and watch a Webcast of the preview last week by going here.

At last week's event, the new EPA chief assured the audience that "EPA is back on the job."  And she defended her agency's recent move to make hundreds of poultry growers on the Delmarva Peninsula apply for federal water-polllution permits.  She said the crackdown, which I wrote about a few weeks ago in The Baltimore Sun, should lead to significant changes in how farmers manage their chicken manure, not just more paperwork.  

"We don't take these lightly," she said, adding that "regulation without enforcement is fairly meaningless."

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 4:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
                       

This is stock-taking season, it seems, for the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries.  You can be forgiven if your head is spinning now with grades and scores, and wondering what it all means.

A couple weeks ago, we had the "Bay Barometer" produced by the Environmental Protection Agency's bay program. It rated the bay's health at 38 percent, severely degraded still despite decades' worth of government efforts to restore it.  Water quality was an abysmal 21 percent, the EPA said.

About a week later came a report card issued by the Patuxent Riverkeeper on the well-being of the 110-mile river that flows between Baltimore and Washington.  It scored a near-failing D-minus.

A few days later, the Severn Riverkeeper declared the river flowing through the state capital was struggling with a C-minus.  Similarly distressing report cards either have been produced or are expected for the West, Rhode and South rivers.

Now comes the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, with its annual assessment, finding the bay's vitality essentially unchanged, at 43 percent of ecological health.  It grades that a C-minus overall, though various tributaries of the Chesapeake earn marks from B-minus in upper Western Shore tribs to D and D-minus for many of the other rivers in Maryland -- and an F for the lower Western Shore tribs - including the Severn.

So, that begs the question - how could the Severn Riverkeeper rate its river's health at C-minus, while the university researchers found it and its neighbors to be failing utterly?  It's particularly intriguing, since the Center for Environmental Science helped the riverkeeper groups prepare their report cards.

"The letter grades are definitely liberal," observes Bill Dennison, project leader for the university's assessment.  While the center helped the riverkeepers compile and analyze the data, they pick their own letter grades, he pointed out.

Continue reading "Bay report cards - grading on a curve?" »

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 5:54 PM in water quality | Permalink | Comments (2)
                       

It's probably no big surprise to those who live along the Severn River, but the first-ever report card on the 14-mile waterway that runs through the state capital found it's in poor health.

The Severn scored 45 out of 100 possible points for conditions on the river and its feeder creeks last year, according to a report released today (Monday) by released by the Severn Riverkeeper and the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science.  The report card's authors gave it a letter grade of C -.

The river got relatively high marks, 68 out of 100, for its abundance of bay grasses.  But it ranked an anemic 47 and 49, respectively, for dissolved oxygen and water clarity, and totally flunked as habitat for yellow perch, which once swarmed the shallows every spring.

One of the more surprising, and disturbing, finds was that monitoring has revealed a "dead zone" of low dissolved oxygen in the shallow waters of Round Bay.  Scientists aren't sure what's causing the problem, but the likely suspects are warm-weather algae blooms that consume oxygen in the water when they die and decay.  For more on the report card, go here.

The report card comes out as the state Senate prepares to vote on whether to require that new and replacement septic systems along the bay and its tributaries have enhanced nitrogen-removing technology.  Lawmakers have debated whether to make this a requirement, and whether the state should pick up the added cost if it is mandated.  The bill is SB554.  Nitrogen-removing systems can cost $5,600 more than a conventional system, and up to $12,000 when replacing an existing system, according to some estimates.

Though not a major source of nutrient pollution fouling the bay overall, septic systems are key in certain areas where many waterfront homes are not hooked up tot sewers.   Among them is Anne Arundel County, which encompasses the Severn.  

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 1:04 PM in water quality | Permalink
                       

The Environmental Protection Agency tempered its once habitually optimistic updates on the restoration of the Chesapeake Bay, finding that the ecosystem remains severely degraded despite all that's been done or said over the past 25 years.  Even so, there are those who think the picture is cloudier and darker than even the agency's gloomier new "Bay Barometer" paints it.

"I have questions," says Roy A. Hoagland, vice president of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, which issues its own yearly reports on the bay's status. 

Hoagland credits the bay program with shedding its penchant for rosy assessments, giving the Chesapeake an overall health rating of just 38 out of 100.  But he throws a "red flag" on some of the restoration claims made in the annual report released Thursday.

For instance, the report claims that overall, the states and federal government have achieved 61 percent of their restoration goals. It also says that since 1985, the governments have made 58 percent of the pollution reductions needed to restore the bay - an increase of 1 percentage point  since 2007. Hoagland points out that the progress must have been much greater in earlier years to reach that total.

Another head-scratcher is the statement that 64 percent of all the sediment runoff controls needed to help clear the bay's waters have been made.   But reductions of sediment from farmland are at only 48 percent of their goal, and mud from urban and suburban lands is going in the wrong direction - 61 percent worse, the report says.  It's not clear how those numbers fit together.

At least one of the bright spots highlighted looks a little less impressive when put in perspective.  More than 900 acres of oyster reefs were restored last year, the report says, bringing the effort to 70 percent of its goal of restoring nearly 2,500 acres of reefs between 2007 and 2010. 

However, those numbers are tiny when you consider that the bay once had more than 450,000 acres of oyster reefs.  Thanks to overharvesting in years gone by and rampant oyster diseases in recent decades, most of those reefs have been buried under a torrent of silt washing off the land.  The draft Environmental Impact Statement issued late last year on proposals to restore the bay's oysters estimates that the bay continues to lose nearly 2,700 acres of reefs every year - nearly three times what was restored last year.

Hoagland is not alone in questioning the EPA report.  William C. Dennison, who oversees a separate report card on the bay's health for the University of Maryland, says he thinks it's an improvement over past government assessments, but it's still too upbeat, given the declines in water quality he's seeing at various places around the bay.

"Right now I am still not convinced we are not having continuing degradation of bay health,'' he said.

Richard Batiuk, associate director of EPA's bay program, says there have been real pollution reductions, but they haven't been big enough to really budge the oxygen-deprived "dead zone" that makes much of the bay inhospitable to fish and shellfish.  It'll take a lot more reductions, and at least several more years, to see cleaner, clearer water, he says.

J. Charles "Chuck" Fox, the EPA administrator's new bay adviser, pledges to step up the pressure to show real progress, though given the past, he shied away yesterday from pledging that next year's report card would show dramatic improvements. 

You can read the EPA's full Bay Barometer report here, or get the highlights in the press release here. 

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 6:01 AM in water quality | Permalink | Comments (1)
                       

Ever wonder what happens to all that rock salt that gets sprinkled on roads and highways, walks and driveways when the snow falls?  It winds up in area streams, ponds and lakes, where research indicates it's altering the development of frogs and other aquatic life.

Salt levels in streams tend to spike after a storm like the one that hit Maryland and the rest of the East Coast this week.  While those peaks do drop within hours or days, the salt washed downstream seems to be building up in some ponds and lakes. 

The salt concentrations in Baltimore's drinking water reservoirs have been slowly rising. A report several years ago found that levels in Liberty had tripled since the 1970s, and quadrupled in Loch Raven, trends that officials attribute to the increased use of salt to de-ice growing amounts of pavement around the region.  Still the treated water supplied by the city remains below the salt threshold recommended by the federal government, says city spokesman Kurt Kocher.

So the water's not too salty to drink, but it may not be quite so kopacetic for the critters that spend their lives immersed in it.  Chris Swan, an assistant environmental science professor at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, found that the slight elevation in salt seen in area waters is enough to alter the development of grey tree frogs - like the ones that visit my backyard every spring.  They grow faster and larger than normal, he says.  Some insects found in area streams and ponds also thrive in salty water.

But Swan found even modest amounts of salt are bad for zooplankton, the microscopic animals swimming in water that feed on algae, and upon which some fish feed.  Likewise for some of the microbes that help regulate the nutrients in the water.

The long-term effects of this gradual dosing of our freshwater environment are unknown.  Kocher, a spokesman for the Baltimore Department of Public Works, said city officials are keeping an eye on the salt levels in our drinking water, but have no plans to stop using the stuff to maintain safe streets.

"It's not something that anyone wants to have, but we do have to balance that against a car going off the road," he said.

Likewise, State Highway Administration spokesman Dave Buck says road crews try to scatter only as much salt on the pavement as they need to to ensure safe driving.   Trucks are equipped with special spreaders to distribute it evenly and minimize waste, he said.  The state puts down 200,000 or more tons of the stuff every winter, though - with tens of thousands of tons sprinkled in the past few days alone. 

(The truck pictured above, photographed by the Baltimore Sun's Amy Davis, was working for the city schools, treating an alley near Margaret Brent Elementary School in Charles Village.) 

"I'm not going to suggest we should sacrifice human safety for frogs," Swan says, "but we ought to figure out if there are better ways to manage it.

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 6:30 AM in water quality | Permalink
                       

Maryland is set to begin policing the largest 200 of its 800 poultry farms for the first time next week, as farmers grumble about the hassle and environmentalists worry the new rules don't go far enough.

The state Department of the Environment announced on New Year's Eve that it was going forward with its final regulations requiring farmers to take steps to control polluted runoff from large "animal feeding operations."  The rules take effect on Monday (Jan. 12).

MDE spokeswoman Dawn Stoltzfus said the rules had been changed in various essentially minor ways in response to comments received since being published last fall.  You can read the changes and comments here. 

The rules still would require about 100 of the largest farms (with 125,000 or more birds) to get permits to ensure that the animals' waste does not get into the bay.  Another 100 medium-sized farms would have to certify they are taking the same precautions, which include limits on piling poultry manure outdoors for more than two weeks and preventing rainwater from washing it into ditches or streams.   Farms would have to submit reports and be subject to state inspection.

As The Washington Post reported in a story today, farmers are unhappy with the regulations, which they contend are unneeded, time-consuming and costly.  Environmentalists welcome the state's move to regulate, but wish it applied to more farms.  State officials say these rules should cover about half the hundreds of millions of pounds of manure generated annually by Maryland's poultry farms.

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 5:19 PM in water quality | Permalink
                       

The Chesapeake Bay weathered this past summer better than scientists had predicted, it seems.  The dead zone was "average" rather than awful, according to Chesapeake EcoCheck, a Web report card on bay health maintained by federal and University of Maryland scientists.  

Back in the spring, scientists had issued a gloomy forecast for the bay's summer.  Heavy flows down the Susquehanna River in late winter and early spring foretold poor water quality, they said.  They predicted the dead zone - the area of bay water with little or no oxygen to sustain fish and crabs - might be the fifth largest in 20-some years.   Experts also warned of a surge in harmful algal blooms.  

They based their gloomy forecast on the fact that rainy weather tends to wash more nutrients off the land into the bay, worsening water quality.

But summer proved drier than normal, apparently thwarting the dour outlook - though scientists say they have yet to pin down why things turned out the way they did.  Whatever the reasons, the dead zone's size wound up being about average.  And while there were the usual run of mahogany tides and other harmful algae blooms,  they were not as widespread or as thick as in some years past, especially in the Potomac River.

Another bonus for bay bathers: sea nettles, the stinging jellyfish that can make swimming a pain, were not as plentiful and showed up later than usual.

All was not hunky-dory, though.  The bay's water was murkier than normal, though clarity was more hit or miss in the tributaries.  And the algae blooms that did break out took their toll in multiple fish kills, including two big ones each claiming more than 100,000 fish in Marley Creek and the South River in Anne Arundel County.

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 4:49 PM in water quality | Permalink
                       

The Environmental Protection Agency announced late last week that it had finalized a rule requiring farmers with large livestock herds to manage the animals' manure so it doesn't run off into nearby streams and rivers.  The impact of "factory farming" on the environment is a hot-button issue.

According to EPA's press release, the government estimates its rule on "concentrated animal feeding operations," or CAFOs, will keep 56 million pounds of phosphorus, 110 million pounds of nitrogen, and 2 billion pounds of sediment out of streams, lakes, and other waters every year. 

Under the rule, farmers would have to submit a "nutrient management plan" when applying for a pollution discharge permit, spelling out how they intend to use and dispose of animal manure and other fertilizers on their fields.  Such plans had been required in the past, but the new rule now makes the specifics legally enforcable as part of the discharge permit.

An Associated Press story quotes the National Pork Producers Council calling the new rule "tough but fair."  Environmentalists, though, call the federal move toothless, alleging that it's basically left up to the farmers to decide if they should apply for a discharge permit and subject themselves to regulation - something they might not voluntarily do.

No one yet seems able to explain how, or if, this rule would affect Maryland.  The state has proposed its own rules for handling manure, which this release from the Department of the Environment asserts would regulate more than 200 large animal operations, mainly chicken farms, which collectively generate more than half the poultry litter in the state.  Nutrient management plans already are required of all farms in Maryland, though critics say they're not that strict or strictly enforced.

Some activists have voiced concern over the compromises the state has made in its proposed animal feeding rule to address farmers' complaints.  But they say the feds' apparently weaker regulation now takes some heat off the state to do more.  Eric Schaeffer of the Environmental Integrity Project, for instance, wrote in an email that it "will limit opportunities to strengthen" the state's regulation.

Interestingly, an unusual coalition of conservation and conservative groups called on the Bush administration late last week to suspend such "midnight regulations" issued in the waning weeks of its term.  The groups argue that any new rules now may further hurt the economy and that trying to get them through before the next president takes office could cut the public out of the decision-making process.

Public meetings on the state's regulation are upcoming next week, as follows:

• November 10, 2008 at 6 pm, Wor-Wic Community College, Salisbury; Guerrien Hall Auditorium at Route 50 and Walston Switch Rd.
  
• November 12, 2008 at 6 pm, Chesapeake College at Wye Mills; First Floor Theatre in the Todd Performing Arts Center, 1000 College Circle

• November 13, 2008 at 11 am, Frederick; City Hall Board Room, 101 N. Court St.

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 12:30 PM in water quality | Permalink | Comments (1)
                       

There's been another sizable fish kill near Annapolis this week.

According to the Maryland Department of the Environment, about 40,000 menhaden were found floating at the head of Bear Neck Creek off the Rhode River.  The photo at right of the dead fish comes from Chris Trumbauer, riverkeeper for the West and Rhode rivers. He also provided the map below, with the creek highlighted inside the box.

As in prior fish kills reported in the area this year, low dissolved oxygen -- aggravated by algae growth -- is the suspected culprit, says Kim Lamphier, MDE spokeswoman. 

Low dissolved oxygen is frequently listed by MDE as the likely cause of fish kills, according to state data you can see here.  MDE lumps such kills among those attributable to "natural" causes.

Yes, oxygen levels do drop naturally at night in ponds, streams and coves.  The algae in the water, which in daytime pump oxygen into the water through photosynthesis, stop at night when the sun goes down. But that decline can be sudden and extreme in waters where the algae in the water has grown so thick that bunches of it die, sink to the bottom and begin to decay - using up oxygen in the process.  Sharp drops in oxygen can prove fatal for fish in confined waters, such as ponds, coves and headwaters, as the fish suffocate without enough oxygen getting through their gills.

Menhaden are particularly vulnerable, it seems, because of their tendency to travel in schools.  But it's too easy to blame the victims. Before anyone says it's the menhaden's fault or stupidity for not turning around and swimming to safer water, keep in mind that the algae growth in streams is fed by nutrients in the water.  Likely as not, those nutrients are being washed into the creek from fertilizer used on farms and lawns, from septic systems leaking into shallow ground water and from pet (and yes, wildlife) droppings left on streets and lawns. 

By the time MDE inspectors get to the site of a fish kill, it can be hard to be sure of the cause.  Oxygen levels may have recovered, as the fish stopped breathing and algae began supplying more oxygen with the sunrise.  And algae blooms may have dissipated, with the tides or current.   But the bay and its tributaries are known to be overloaded with nutrients, from people and their activities - providing an all-you-can-eat buffet for algae blooms whenever conditions are ripe. 

So when seen that way, such fish kills don't seem quite so natural. 

UPDATE: It turns out there was a sewage spill into Bear Neck Creek on Wednesday - after the fish kill. 

Anne Arundel County officials reported that the Mayo sewer collector system overflowed.  Officials said most of the wastewater had been treated, according to an Associated Press report.  But apparently there were enough harmful bacteria present to prompt health authorities to close the creek and warn against human contact with the water until further notice.

The human health threat from partially treated sewage will abate in a few days.  But nutrients from that same wastewater could help spur more algae growth - exposing more fish to the risk of death from "natural causes."

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 9:29 AM in water quality | Permalink