Ireton Takes Credit for (Lack of) Rain

No one in the history of local politics can grandstand like Salisbury mayor Jim Ireton.  At a Friday press conference Ireton claimed credit for a “cleaner” Wicomico River.  There’s just one problem – the cause for a marginally cleaner river was last year’s drought.

The report, prepared by Judith Stribling of Wicomico Creekwatchers, cites last year’s lack of rain for improved numbers:

City of Salisbury-led efforts to reduce polluted runoff may have contributed to the reduction, but the biggest cause was almost certainly last year’s drought, said Judith Stribling, a Salisbury University researcher and supervisor of the Creekwatchers program.

Ireton still tried to spin the report, which usually isn’t issued until June, and take credit for a slightly cleaner River:

Dr. Stribling said it right,” Mayor Jim Ireton chimed in. “It’s not just a lack of rain, but it’s also some of the things we’re doing.

That’s NOT what Stribling said.  We should also question whether or not the report’s being issued in the spring also impacted the numbers.  If the readings were not taken at approximately the same time of year, with water temperatures at the same general levels, any conclusions of the report could be invalid.
The report also provided numbers for fecal coliform levels for the first time.  Stribling speculated that coliform levels downstream were the the result of septic tanks.  However, she cited no evidence to back up her speculation versus the possibility that coliform levels downstream were due to a previous spill from the city’s wastewater treatment plant.

Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge to Add 400 Acres

CAMBRIDGE, MD - Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge recently announced that the refuge, through the leadership of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, has added more than 400 acres of vital property.

"We are pleased with this important addition to the refuge which will help support multiple goals outlined in our Comprehensive Conservation Plan and will play a key role in supporting the developing sea level adaptation planning effort that is currently underway," said refuge manager Suzanne Baird in a written statement. "This new addition would not be possible without the significant support of partners."

The property, which was gained through efforts of the Chesapeake Conservancy, the Maryland congressional delegation and the Conservation Fund, will support present and future wildlife habitat management needs and maintain the region's ecological diversity.

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Judge Allows Limited Release of Data on Worcester Farms

ANNAPOLIS - An Anne Arundel County judge has ruled an environmental group may view records on farmers’ compliance with a state pollution law, but only after key information has been deleted.

Circuit Court Judge William C. Mulford II ordered the Maryland Department of Agriculture to redact any information identifying individual farmers from documents it is releasing concerning “nutrient management plans,” which spell out how much animal manure or chemical fertilizer is being spread on fields to grow crops.

The Assateague Coastkeeper had filed a Public Information Act request last year seeking a variety of records on Worcester County farms, including their compliance with a 1997 law requiring them to have and follow plans for limiting how much fertilizer they use so it won’t pollute the Chesapeake Bay.

The Maryland Farm Bureau went to court to block the state from releasing the information, which it argued was confidential under the law. In a July 14 order, Judge Mulford declared that the state may disclose if farmers are complying, but must redact any information that might be in the plan, including the farm’s size and what it grows.

Jane Barrett, director of the University of Maryland environmental law clinic, which represents the Worcester group, said she was still studying the order and had not decided whether to appeal.

from Kim Walker @ the Baltimore Sun

Two Invasive Snakeheads Caught in Delaware Waters

Northern snakeheads have been caught in two Delaware waterways in recent months, the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control Fisheries Section has announced.

The snakehead is an invasive species that can impact fish, amphibians and invertebrate populations due to their predatory nature, competition for food resources and alteration of established food webs. According to research by the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, northern snakeheads and largemouth bass have similar food and habitat patterns, and bass numbers increased as snakeheads were removed from shared waterways.

Last week, an angler caught a 24-inch fish in the Marshyhope Creek near the Route 404 bridge. Last fall, fisheries staff collected a 26-inch long snakehead during electrofishing efforts in Broad Creek just downstream of Laurel. Both fish were adults, weighing between four and six pounds. Both waterways are tributaries of the Nanticoke River, a very popular largemouth bass fishery in Delaware.

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Gilchrest Returns to Teaching

KENNEDYVILLE, MD - After 21 years, Wayne Gilchrest is again teaching in Kent County. But this time, he's doing it outdoors.

About 10 years ago, Gilchrest, a former Kent County High School teacher who served nine terms in the U.S. House of Representatives, read John Wennersten's book, "The Chesapeake Bay: An Environmental Biography," which chronicles the history of human impact on the Bay.

Wennersten's book gave Gilchrest an idea that grew into the Sassafras Environmental Education Center, which officially opened at a ceremony last Tuesday morning at Turner's Creek Pavilion. Gilchrest's goal for the center is for each child in Kent County to visit once a year.

"The plan is, this doesn't happen all at once," he said. "This coming school year, we'll have third- and eighth-grade activities. Next year, third-, fourth-, eighth- and ninth-grade activities. Then five years out, we'll have all the children come out."

Kent County Public Schools Superintendent A. Barbara Wheeler supports integrating the center into the school curriculum.

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Harris Algae Blooms Bill Approved in Subcommittee

The first bill submitted by U.S. Rep. Andy Harris, R-Md.-1st, which would reauthorize study of algae blooms and dead zones in the Chesapeake Bay, made it out of a subcommittee a day after he voted to limit the power of the federal Environmental Protection Agency.

The bill approved Thursday by the Energy and Environment Subcommittee would reauthorize a program to develop technologies to control and respond to harmful algal blooms and the dead zones they create.

"The Chesapeake Bay is a national environmental treasure that so many Marylanders depend on for jobs," said Harris in a statement Thursday.

According to a news release from Harris' office, the bill modifies a program led by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and increases the emphasis placed on developing technologies to control and respond to harmful algal blooms causing oxygen depletion and leading to aquatic dead zones.

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Cash for Clunkers – for Trucks

With more than a million miles on the road, Armand Patella's 19-year-old Ford 9000 truck has seen better days.

But he's hung onto it, because new trucks aren't cheap. Patella, the head of Picorp trucking service on East Lombard Street, still uses the 1992 vehicle to move empty or lightly loaded containers around the Port of Baltimore. 

"It's had a new engine or two," Patella said last week, "but it's paid for."
Now, though, a program aimed at making the community's air healthier to breathe is encouraging Patella and other short-haul truck operators serving the port to trade in their soot-belching clunkers for newer, cleaner vehicles.

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Lufthansa Starts Biofuels Flights

Germany's biggest airline, Deutsche Lufthansa AG, says it has begun trial flights using biofuels in a bid to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

Lufthansa said Friday that an Airbus A321 flying the Hamburg-Frankfurt route four times daily will use a 50/50 mix of regular fuel and biosynthetic kerosene in one of its two engines for the next six months.

The airline says during the test period the use of biofuel will reduce CO2 emissions by up to 1,500 tons.

German environmental group BUND criticized the project, saying any short-haul flight is bad for the environment compared with train travel.

In another effort to reduce emissions and fuel use, Lufthansa said Monday it will begin using a new plastic cargo container that is 15 percent lighter than the traditional aluminum ones.

from the Washington Examiner / AP

State Proposes New Policies to Prevent Rockfish Poaching

State fisheries officials outlined a sweeping plan Wednesday night to curb commercial striped bass poaching in the Chesapeake Bay, just four months after miles of illegal nets filled with 13 tons of fish were discovered by police in the waters off Kent Island.

The proposal by the Department of Natural Resources, which combines a series of new monitoring and enforcement measures, is on a fast track to implementation before the start of the gill net season on Dec. 1.

The discovery of the illegally netted fish throughout February set off a firestorm of protest from recreational groups and conservationists, prompted creation of a $30,000 reward and generated an online petition drive to ban all nets in the bay that collected thousands of signatures from across the country. The incident forced DNR to close the commercial striped bass season for two weeks while officials scrambled to assess the scope of the poaching.

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Luminant May Shut Down Power Plants Due to New Clean Air Regulations

The major electric power provider for much of North and West Texas says it is considering closing or reducing operations at some of its coal-fired plants to meet new federal clean-air rules.

Dallas-based Energy Future Holdings Corp. owns Luminant Generation Co. In a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Wednesday, it said it's considering the shutdowns or slowdowns of its plants and mines, as well as seasonal or temporary shutdowns. It's also considering installing scrubbers to remove sulfur dioxide from plant emissions.

It's unclear from the filing how the company is leaning and which plants are likeliest to be affected.

Energy Future Holdings also owns TXU Energy to transmit the electricity Luminant generates and Oncor to market it.

from the Washington Examiner / AP

McDonnell Says Safe Uranium Mining Would Benefit State

Gov. Bob McDonnell said this morning that he's waiting to see the results of a study on the safety of uranium mining in Southside Virginia, but that the state stands "to gain a lot by a safe and vibrant nuclear industry."

Virginia Uranium wants to mine a 119-million pound deposit in Pittsylvania County, which would require the state overturning a 1982 ban on the practice, and tap into a resource that could be worth $10 billion. 

A National Academy of Sciences committee is currently studying whether that can be done safely, and is expected to issue a report in December, just before the start of the 2012 legislative session where a battle to lift the ban is likely.
"The obvious challenge is, can it be mined safely so it doesn't create public safety issues for the people around the mining site, or worse, contamination of groundwater that could impact... Virginia Beach,"McDonnell said on WNIS radio this morning.

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Crops Getting Parched on Lower Shore

When Ted Wycall started his organic farm in Salisbury five years ago, scarce rain was not a part of his calculations.

But after surviving a serious drought last year, Wycall and his 200-acre Greenbranch Farm, and his fellow farmers across the Lower Eastern Shore, are battling severe heat and drought again this summer.

"It's a very unpleasant surprise," he said. "Just when you think you've got all the expenses covered, you're seeing the vegetables just wilt down and die. I've tilled [under] probably four or five different vegetable fields because I knew they weren't going to make it due to the lack of water."

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Court Limits Sparrows Point Pollution Liability

In a ruling that's left Dundalk-area residents shaking their heads, a federal court has declared that recent owners of the century-old steel-making complex at Sparrows Point can't be made to clean up past contamination of surrounding waters.

U.S. District Court Judge J. Frederick Motz ruled that under the terms of a 2003 bankruptcy sale of the steel mill, the company that bought Sparrows Point from Bethlehem Steel Corp. could not be held liable for any pollution that escaped the 2,300-acre peninsula before that sale.

State and federal regulators had argued that all subsequent owners of Sparrows Point were bound by a 1997 consent decree that required Bethlehem Steel to investigate and remediate any contamination caused by its operations. Severstal, the Russian steelmaker which operated the plant from 2008 until earlier this year, began removing and treating toxic chemicals in the ground water in a handful of spots last year. But the company balked at conducting an extensive search for contaminants in the waters and sediments on the bottom of the Patapsco and Bear Creek, a tributary.

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Report: There May Be No Such Thing As Allergy-Free Dog

If you're hoping to bring home a hypoallergenic dog for some sneeze-free friendship, you may be out of luck. According to a new report, there may be no such thing as an allergy-free breed of dog.

The report, in the American Journal of Rhinology and Allergy, found that 60 breeds of dogs listed as hypoallergenic on various web sites produced levels of the major dog allergen Can f 1 that were on par with dogs not listed as allergy-free. "I have no idea where this whole concept came from," Christine Cole Johnson, the senior author of the study, told the New York Times.

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Harm Yourself With These 5 Dangerous, But Useful, Cleaning Products

Chlorine gas was used for chemical warfare during World War I. You can make it easily in your own home by accidentally combining chlorine and ammonia in a misguided effort to boost cleaning power. Aren't you clever?

Here are 5 ordinary household cleaners that Consumer Reports says should be handled with care:

• Undiluted ammonia can burn skin on contact. Do not mix with products that contain chlorine bleach—it makes a poisonous gas.
• Undiluted chlorine bleach (sodium hypochlorite) is very irritating to eyes and lungs.
• Drain, metal, and oven cleaners with sodium hydroxide (lye) can burn eyes, nose, and throat tissue on contact.
• Toilet bowl cleaners with hydrochloric acid can cause serious eye damage and skin burns.
• Furniture and floor polishes, and glass cleaners with naptha can cause headaches and nausea.

Our frugal cousins at CR have also provided an extensive list of non-toxic alternative cleaners that you can mix up yourself. Vinegar, is there anything you can't do?

How to make your own (less-toxic) household cleaners [Consumer Reports]
Five everyday cleaning products that can cause you harm [Consumer Reports]

from Meg Marco @ The Consumerist

Coca-Cola Plants Living, Breathing Billboard

Advertising, especially of the outdoor variety, is often viewed as being anti-green, a signifier of befouled outdoor spaces. But this Coca-Cola billboard is trying to turn that image on its head — and sell some Coke while it's at it.

Coke recently unveiled a 60' x 60' billboard in the Philippines that uses 3,600 potted Fukien tea plants to both advertise the soda and suck in some carbon dioxide off the busiest street in Manila.

From AdAge.com:

Recycled Coca-Cola bottles were used as pots. The plants, which are potted in a mixture of industrial byproducts and organic fertilizers, are watered by an efficient drip irrigation system called trickle irrigation or micro-irrigation.

The plants each inhale about 13 pounds of carbon dioxide a year, which comes out to a total of around 128 pounds of CO2 each day for the whole billboard.

Coca-Cola Plants a Green Billboard [AdAge.com]

from Chris Morran @ The Consumerist

Officials Dedicate 26 Mile Trail Along Nanticoke River

A lazily flowing Nanticoke River made a splash of its own Saturday as state and federal officials formally commissioned a 26-mile ecotourism trail along a waterway that ranks as one of the state's most-unspoiled and biologically diverse.

Conservation, government and history groups collaborated on development of the water trail, centered on Delaware's 26-mile portion of the river, which extends an additional 37 miles through Maryland to the Chesapeake Bay. Much of the land along both sides is lightly settled, agricultural or undeveloped, with thousands of acres protected under natural or wildlife-area designations.

"Once you get around the bend here and get beyond the old DuPont plant, it's as close as we get to wilderness," said Chaz Salkin, Delaware's Division of Parks and Recreation director. "It's pretty amazing."

Delaware produced four water-tolerant maps detailing its stretch of the trail, in cooperation with the Chesapeake Bay Gateways Network, National Park Service and Chesapeake Conservancy, among others. More are expected to follow as Maryland adds to its own program.

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Worcester County Beaches Earn High Marks

Worcester County’s beaches earned high marks for water quality, according to a national report released last week, but they fell behind two Delaware beaches that earned perfect scores.

The Natural Resources Defense Council on June 29 released its annual “Testing the Waters” report, which details the data gathered in 2010 regarding water quality testing and beach closures at public beaches throughout the country.

Maryland fared well in the report, ranking 16th out of 50 in the nation for the cleanest beaches. That was a drop from a seventh-place ranking last year. The ranking is based on the percentage of water samples exceeding the national standard for bacterial pollutants. Seventy Maryland beaches along were included in the report.

In Worcester County, the beach at Assateague State Park is monitored, as are two locations for the beach at Assateague Island National Seashore, six locations on Ocean City’s beach and one other ocean beach. The water is tested at each location once a week by the Health Department between Memorial Day and Labor Day.

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MD Planning Secretary Defends New Land Policy

The state isn't trying to take over land planning authority from local government, a cabinet secretary told a roomful of Cecil County officials Friday.

Maryland Department of Planning Secretary Richard Hall, who has been on the hot seat with local planning officials since April when his office released PlanMaryland, a draft for "smart growth," insisted the plan doesn't supercede local comprehensive plans.

Cecil County officials and the Bainbridge Development Corp. raised concerns a few weeks ago that the Bainbridge property is not shown on the state's map for PlanMaryland as a targeted growth area.

"This is just a straight-up honest mistake on the map to leave Bainbridge off," Hall admitted. "It's ironic because we've been working with the county and Port Deposit on this project."

Maps drafted for the plan break the entire state down into five categories for planning. Those areas include: green for priority areas for land preservation, dark green for public or privately owned lands under conservation protection, red for targeted growth, orange for established communities and land currently planned for development by local governments in Priority Funding Areas and brown for areas not currently targeted by the state for growth or resource conservation.

"This is a policy plan, not a regulatory document," said Rich Josephson, director of planning services in Maryland's Department of Planning.

Hall said local governments have overreacted to the plan's intentions.

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Rich Hall sounds an awful lot like “I’m from the government and I’m here to help.” Maryland citizens should be reminded that he also has stated, “WE gave them their property values.”, in response to farmer opposition over an attempt to strip Wicomico farmers of their property rights. – Ed.

How Many Flounder Are Maryland Fishermen Catching?

The Maryland Department of Natural Resources wants to know how many flounder recreational fishermen are catching in Maryland's coastal bays.

The department is partnering with the Atlantic Coast Chapter of the Maryland Saltwater Sportsmen's Association on a survey of the recreational flounder catch.

MSSA members will take to the water to distribute the survey to anglers. The surveys distributed in July and August will cover "Flounder Alley," a popular flounder fishing area in the Isle of Wight and Sinepuxent Bays.

The survey results will be compared with estimates from the National Marine Fisheries Service

from WTOP / AP