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RESTORING THE CHESAPEAKE REQUIRES POLITICAL COURAGE | COMMENTARY
By Gerald Winegrad Last week’s column detailed the embarrassing shortcomings of a farcically weak draft Bay Agreement to guide future efforts to restore the Chesapeake Bay. This draft new plan from the EPA-led Bay Program would be the fourth over the last 42 years. EPA also imposed a mandated pollution reduction plan, called a TMDL, in 2010…
Read MoreCHESAPEAKE BAY CRUSHED BY A CRAB COLLAPSE | COMMENTARY
By Gerald Winegrad Oh no! Just when you think it can’t get any worse for the Chesapeake Bay, we are hit with the news of crashing numbers of our iconic blue crabs. The reality of the drastic decline in an already depleted population is devastating to me personally. Like the Godfather tending his tomato plants in…
Read MoreGERALD WINEGRAD: 2025 LEGISLATIVE SESSION WAS AN ENVIRONMENTAL BEATDOWN | COMMENTARY
Aquaculture regulations are tweaked but not the changes needed to advance oyster aquaculture. The bill allows publicly funded oyster restoration projects to generate water quality trading credits allowing pollution reductions from oysters to be traded for increased pollution elsewhere. In a separate bill, oyster poaching penalties are relaxed. The Legacy Act established a Water Quality Monitoring Program in the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) that simply formalizes the existing water quality monitoring syste
Read MoreGERALD WINEGRAD: TRUMP’S BIG, UGLY, ENVIRONMENTALLY DESTRUCTIVE BILL | COMMENTARY
Vast swaths of our nation’s public lands, including wilderness, are opened to private oil, gas, coal and mineral extraction as well as logging. Existing protections are overturned. The oil and gas industry would gain access to 293 million acres of public lands and waters — an area larger than Texas and California. Quarterly lease sales are required for oil and gas in all states from Alaska to Oklahoma with available public lands.
The pristine Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) wilderness would be opened to oil and gas extraction. ANWR is known as “The Sacred Place Where Life Begins” to the Gwich’in Nation. The refuge supports irreplaceable wildlife habitat that could be permanently disrupted.
Mining would be allowed in lands adjoining the Boundary Waters Canoe Wilderness in Minnesota. Citizens are denied judicial review of permits.
At least 30 oil and gas lease sales are required in the Gulf of Mexico over a 15-year period. Six lease sales are required in Alaska’s Cook Inlet over a 10-year period. Cook Inlet hosts a declining endangered population of beluga whales (331 left), the white whales of the North
Read MoreAS CHESAPEAKE RESTORATION CRASHES, GREENWASHING PERVADES
Let’s examine the Legacy Act’s details: First, a person who has a tidal fish license or commercial channa license and harvests and processes finfish on a vessel by ikejime for direct sale to restaurants need not have a food establishment license. Secondly, minor changes are made regarding the procedures for adoption of fishery management plans. Nothing is included that would better conserve crashing fish and crab populations.
Read MoreGERALD WINEGRAD: ESSENTIAL MEASURES FOR CHESAPEAKE BAY RESTORATION | COMMENTARY
By Gerald Winegrad Last week’s column detailed how the governor and legislature failed to address the major environmental threats facing the Chesapeake Bay in the last legislative session. Despite waves of greenwashing depicting how well bay restoration is proceeding, the harsh reality is that after 41 years of efforts, the best we can say is that…
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