NEWS & UPDATES FROM BAY ACTION PLAN
Our group found serious shortcomings in the draft of the first Bay agreement in 14 years, the first after the mandatory adoption of the pollution diet under the Chesapeake Bay Total Maximum Daily Load and state watershed implementation plans. We fear the current draft may undermine, not advance, Bay cleanup efforts. … Continue Reading
If, in 1983, we were to create a nightmare scenario for the bay, this would be it — we are living that nightmare! The cause of this decline is attributable to the failure to properly address pollutants from developed land — stormwater runoff — and from agricultural operations. About 90 percent of bay waters remain polluted in violation of the Clean Water Act… Continue Reading
With Ag Certainty, we’ve just thrown a “critical” part of the TMDL out the window; the only real “certainty” that remains is that we’ll all be sitting down in 2025 again and try to come up with the next, great plan to clean up the Bay.… Continue Reading
…some counties have revolted against the State’s threat to their autonomy and decided to test the State’s resolve to use the “stick.” Charles County seems poised to join the ranks of Frederick, Cecil and others who don’t have a problem with new development costs being born by the taxpayers and the water being too dirty for their children to play in. … Continue Reading
A decision is expected soon in the highly publicized federal lawsuit Waterkeepers Alliance, Inc., vs. Alan and Kristen Hudson Farm and Perdue Farms, Inc. The outcome is anyone’s guess, but already testimony from the trial has made clear that Maryland’s effort to oversee and enforce nutrient management plans needs more muscle.… Continue Reading
The costs of reversing the degradation of our rivers, streams and the bay are significant and will require sacrifices from all counties, urban and rural. We need to work together to find more cost-effective ways to reduce pollution, including pollution from the Conowingo dam. Driving a wedge between urban and rural counties by promoting a culture of victimhood will hurt that effort.… Continue Reading
One reality is that nobody wants families to be forced to stop farming. A second widely-understood reality is that the single greatest force driving farm families away from their traditional lives is the ever-growing domination of food production by huge companies like Perdue, Inc.… Continue Reading
After eight months of negotiations and efforts to strengthen the regulations as we have advocated in our Bay Action Plan, new regulations were proposed and published in the Maryland Register on June 29. These regs are still much too weak and fall well short of the Senior Scientists and Policymakers for the Bay science-based positions. Representatives of our group had discussed our positions in detail with the Bay Cabinet at a meeting last September. We have continued to advocate these common sense positions and members of our group sent detailed letter to the Governor and published an Op-ed in the Baltimore Sun detailing the need for better management of animal manure and other nutrients.
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After 28 years of formal efforts to restore the Chesapeake Bay, the single most successful efforts have been in curbing bay-choking nutrient pollutants from sewerage treatment plants, so-called “point sources” from pipes. Maryland has been a leader in these efforts with passage of the Flush Tax in 2004 and its extension in 2012. This will assure that 69 of the largest Maryland plants will be removing both phosphorus and nitrogen to very low levels, approaching the limits of technology. These efforts are paid for by most Marylanders by fees on water and sewer bills.… Continue Reading
(Posted by Gerald Winegrad)
The Maryland Department of Agriculture announced the development of weakened proposed regulations that are well short of the positions advocated by the Senior Scientists and Policymakers for the Bay to address the pollution from millions of tons of chicken and other farm animal manure that is poisoning ground and surface waters. Some key elements of the proposals don’t even go into effect until 2016, allowing four more years to do just some of what has been required for land application of treated human sludge since 1985!