Runoff
2012: Changing the Dialogue About Chesapeake Restoration
(This is the first in a series of posts on What’s It Going to Take?: A look at how the environmental community can regain the initiative and build the political will necessary to clean up the Chesapeake Bay.)
(Posted by Bill Dennison)
Our New Year’s resolution for 2012 should be to improve our public dialogue about Chesapeake restoration. Instead of public arguments, recriminations, and debates about the watershed models, we should be talking about innovative approaches to reducing nutrients reaching the Bay. Instead of arguing about how restoring Chesapeake Bay will be too expensive, we should be embracing the new jobs that restoration activities create (see the Chesapeake Bay Foundation report “Debunking the ‘Job Killer’ Myth: How Pollution Limits Encourage Jobs in the Chesapeake Bay Region”). Instead of bemoaning the difference between current conditions and the “good old days,” we should be celebrating the achievements that are being made with respect to realistic, short term targets.
Maryland’s Outsized Manure Problem
(Posted by Dawn Stoltzfus.)
Today, standing in front of the M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore, to represent the enormous amount of chicken litter produced each year in Maryland (a pile twice as high as the stadium!), Environment Maryland released a new report detailing the problems with Maryland’s current manure regulations and, in particular, with too much phosphorus in our soil and our waterways, including the Chesapeake Bay.
Read MoreO’Malley Piles On
(Posted by Tom Horton.)
Governor Martin O’Malley presumably thinks he’s helping Maryland poultry growers and processors by pressuring the University of Maryland’s environmental law clinic to drop out of a lawsuit aimed at stopping chicken farms from polluting.
But the pollution is real, it’s substantial and it’s not going to get better until the governor and agricultural interests acknowledge we have a problem with too much poultry manure.
Read MoreProtecting Forests and Increasing Buffers to Restore the Bay and Local Rivers
(Posted by Dawn Stoltzfus.)
With all the recent focus on the Chesapeake Bay TMDL and local WIPs, here’s something that may have flown under the radar of Marylanders following Bay restoration efforts: the Maryland Sustainable Forestry Council is developing a set of legislative proposals to achieve a “No Net Loss” of forests in Maryland, due by December 1, 2011. It seems like we could easily be losing sight of the forest for the trees!
Last week, former Maryland State Senator Gerald Winegrad testified before the Council. As Senator Winegrad notes in his testimony [link], “the Sustainable Forestry Council can greatly assist in efforts to restore the Bay by focusing on nonpoint source pollution as forests and wetlands are the greatest protectors of the Bay from pollutants.”
Read MoreNutrient Trading—Promise or Pitfall?
(Posted by Dawn Stoltzfus.)
With the watershed states (Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania, New York, W. Virginia and Delaware) and D.C. working to significantly reduce pollution to meet the Chesapeake Bay TMDL, nutrient trading is a hot topic. Some see trading as a way to reduce the challenging costs of Chesapeake Bay cleanup, and it looks good on paper—but there are serious scientific concerns about its practicality and water quality benefits, particularly with trades between nonpoint sources (like agriculture and stormwater runoff) and point sources (like wastewater treatment plants). Difficulty in accurately measuring trading’s effectiveness also seems like a big obstacle.
Read MoreBuilders: Do No Harm
(Posted by Howard Ernst)
Before Henry David Thoreau borrowed an axe and withdrew to the woods at Walden Pond, he spent a great deal of time daydreaming of owning a proper farm. He writes that “at a certain season of our life we are accustomed to consider every spot as the possible site of a house.” Toward this end, he had “surveyed the country on every side within a dozen miles of where I live. In imagination I have bought all the farms in succession.” He imaged how he would transform the land “into orchard, wood-lot, and pasture” and decided “what fine oaks or pines should be left to stand before the door.”
It seems that no one, not even the sage of Walden Pond, can escape from the pull of home ownership. In many ways it is the American Dream—white picket fence, grassy lawn, dog rolling in autumn leaves, every home a castle and every homeowner the king or queen of their castle. Entire television programs—no entire television networks—are based on the premise of buying, building or rebuilding the perfecting home (e.g., “House Hunters,” “Property Virgins,” “Curb Appeal,” and my favorite, “Flipping Out”—who can resist Zoila?).
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