Chesapeake Bay Action Plan

(Posted by Bob Gallagher)

A group of legislators, following a script conceived by the public relations machine of Perdue and the Maryland Farm Bureau, have joined in Perdue’s unprecedented effort to derail an environmental lawsuit that has singular importance for the Chesapeake Bay watershed. The effort is unprecedented in the extent to which Perdue and its enablers are attempting to use the media and the political process to win a case that they have as yet been unable to win in court. Here is the story.

The Waterkeeper Alliance, working with the Assateague Coastkeeper, filed suit against Perdue and one of its contract chickens growers. The suit alleges that Perdue and the contractor, Hudson Farm, polluted the Pocomoke River with chicken waste in violation of the Clean Water Act (CWA).

Waterkeeper Alliance is a community supported organization that operates on a tight budget. It has thousands of supporters in Maryland. It makes extensive use of volunteers and public interest lawyers who work without charge. In this case, it is represented by the student lawyers of the University of Maryland School of Law’s highly regarded Environmental Law Clinic. The Alliance has worked with the Clinic in other cases to stop pollution of our rivers, to protect public health and to protect marine-related jobs and economic activity.

Represented by one of the biggest law firms in Baltimore, Perdue asked the court to dismiss the case as flawed at its inception. The distinguished senior judge hearing the case denied the motion. Perdue’s lawyers then unleashed a blizzard of paperwork on WKA and its lawyers apparently hoping to wear them down in the legal “discovery” process. That didn’t work either. It just made the young law students want to work harder.

Next Perdue filed a motion for summary judgment. That means judgment without a trial. They filed with the court thousands of pages of documents and transcripts of testimony of expert and other witnesses. The judge ruled that all they managed to prove was that the case was sufficiently complicated that it could only be decided after a trial.

From the beginning of the case, Perdue has been very uncomfortable with the idea that this case will be decided by an impartial, independent judge applying the rule of law. Recently, Perdue’s preference for trying the case in the court of public opinion became apparent. It launched a slick website called SAVEFARMFAMILIES. The website was created for Perdue by Levick Strategic Communications. Levick specializes in “crisis” and “high stakes” communications. Its website invites potential clients to hire it to “drive the narrative.” Levick has planted articles, spinning the facts to match Perdue’s objectives, in media across the Eastern Shore, rural Maryland and elsewhere.

On March 14, 2012, the Appropriations Committee of the Maryland House of Delegates held a hearing on House Bill 1349. The bill appears to be the latest sortie in the Perdue/Farm Bureau strategy. Introduced by an Eastern Shore delegate with the zeal of a carnival barker, the bill would punish the University of Maryland for the Law Clinic’s participation in the case by requiring the University to reimburse Hudson’s legal expenses, even if the Court finds Hudson guilty of violating pollution laws.

The delegate’s opening gambit in support of the bill was screening a video portraying the case as being about a rich, foreign organization on a subversive campaign to bankrupt family farmers. The video is expensively produced and professionally narrated.

The delegate used the video to incite a handful of other delegates to threaten the Clinic with dire consequences if it does not withdraw from the case. The website and video have created a backlash of public opinion against the Alliance and the Clinic in some segments of the farm community.

One of the reasons that, in a democracy, we entrust resolution of significant disputes to an independent judiciary applying an objective rule of law is that judges are trained and ethically bound to seek the truth and apply the law fairly. The court of public opinion has no such constraints. In the court of public opinion, the person with the most money often wins.

One of the most insidious aspects of the Perdue/Farm Bureau strategy is that it also entices our legislators to make their own judgment on the case based on the “facts” presented by Perdue’s public relations machine. The video, like the website, is a layer cake of deceit – one layer of sticky sweet lies upon another. Many of the lies are apparent from a review of readily available public documents. But, the point of this piece is not to point out each lie. The truth is for the court to determine.

It is apparent from Perdue’s actions that it desperately wants to avoid a court ruling in the case. That might be because a ruling against Perdue could make Perdue responsible not only for its waste from the Hudson farm but from its many other contract growers.

Trial in the case will proceed if the case cannot be settled in mediation. The Law Clinic has made it clear that, even in the face of intense criticism, its fledgling lawyers will continue to meet their ethical responsibility to represent their clients to the best of their ability.

It won’t surprise many readers that a number of the people involved in the effort to stop the Perdue litigation are also behind the effort to delegitimize proposals to reign in sprawl and pollution from septic systems as a “war on rural Maryland.” I suggest that some of those people could learn something about civic duty from the law students.

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(Posted by Gerald Winegrad)

Maryland’s 2012 General Assembly Session is now more than halfway over, and while elected officials are currently focused on the state’s budget, several pieces of important Chesapeake Bay legislation that would help clean up our waters await committee votes.

Today the Executive Council of the Senior Scientists and Policymakers for the Bay delivered this letter to key legislators in support of the following legislation that is in line with our 25-step “action plan,”  specifically with respect to science-based recommendations to control agricultural pollution, foster clean development, upgrade septic systems, and improve wastewater treatment plants:

• Reduce pollution from the spreading of animal waste on farm fields (Senate Bill 594)–See my recent Baltimore Sun op-ed and Will Morrow’s letter to the editor on the need for this legislation.
• Finish upgrading the wastewater treatment plants that Maryland has already committed to upgrade with enhanced revenues from the Bay Restoration Fund (Senate Bill 240 / House Bill 446)
• Ensure that local governments have resources to reduce polluted stormwater runoff and that they implement their local clean water plans (Senate Bill 614 / House Bill 987)
• Reduce pollution from poorly planned development by limiting new septic systems (Senate Bill 236 / House Bill 445)
• Require that all wastewater discharges, including septic systems, are treated at the level of best available technology to protect public health and ensure clean water (Through Amendments to Senate Bill 236 / House Bill 445 or by Regulation)

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(Posted by Dawn Stoltzfus)

As has been rumored for many months—yesterday Virginia Congressman Bob Goodlatte introduced legislation in the U.S. House of Representatives that would undercut the Clean Water Act and essentially quash the multi-state Chesapeake Bay “TMDL” pollution diet cleanup process. This would be devastating, as many Bay scientists and advocates are hopeful that the TMDL and each state’s Watershed Implementation Plans could finally provide a solution to making our waters, and the Bay, fishable and swimmable again. We’ll be watching this closely and, as CBF’s Doug Siglin says, strongly urge all members of Congress to “steer well clear” of this bad legislation.

If you disagree with this harmful legislation, tell Rep. Goodlatte how you feel by leaving him a message on his Facebook page, or
sending him a Tweet, to @repgoodlatte.

Let him know how you feel.

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(Posted by Roy Hoagland.)

When farmers talk, legislators listen. And when a farmer talks in support of new farming regulations, legislators really listen.

Two Maryland farmers recently told a committee of their state legislators that they wanted to see stricter and better controls on farms. In particular, they supported new proposals that included halting the spreading of manure on farm fields during the winter.

These two farmers are traditional farmers in every sense of the word: They graze their cows. They harvest their eggs from chicken coops. One of their farms dates from the 1700s.

This new breed of traditional farmers is a far cry from the corporate agribusinesses that support the American Farm Bureau Federation and lobby legislators. And they are speaking out for better management of farms and a better environment.

But when a farmer is not clothed in the garb of the organized farm lobby like the Farm Bureau, legislators can be dismissive. That is what one legislator sought to do when these two farmers spoke. They were not “feeding the nation” like other farmers, the legislator said. Yet these two farmers raise poultry and beef, eggs and vegetables, providing commercially available food for the public and restaurants.

They are part of the new breed of traditional farmers that is growing in America. A breed that argues for farming as we know it: farming that has a tie to the land and the community it inhabits, farming that looks to profitable outcomes as well as a healthier environment.

Let’s hope more of their voices are heard more often. And let’s hope legislators really listen.

Roy A. Hoagland, the principal/owner of HOPE Impacts, partners with nonprofits, foundations, and government agencies on Chesapeake Bay restoration matters. An environmental attorney, he is a former vice president for policy and advocacy with the Chesapeake Bay Foundation.

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(This ninth installment in our series, What’s It Going to Take?, looks at how the environmental community can regain the initiative and build the political will necessary to clean up the Chesapeake Bay.)

In this exclusive interview with the Bay Action Plan, Chesapeake Bay Program Director Nick DiPasquale says that the costs of cleaning the Chesapeake Bay are significant, but manageable.

“No time is a good time when you’re talking about trying to implement very costly pollution control measures,” DiPasquale said. “But when you spread that cost over the life of a project…you find that the cost to individual households is a few dollars a month. Compare it to cellphone or cable costs, it puts things into perspective.”

Watch the video:

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