BLACKWATER NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE-- --Digging through the muck of a marshy island, Brian Needelman is hunting for an antidote to global warming.
The University of Maryland scientist is measuring how much carbon dioxide has been trapped in the soil of wetlands planted four years ago. Needelman hopes to prove that creating salt marshes is better than planting trees for removing global warming gases from the atmosphere.
If he's right, power companies in search of pollution credits might be willing to invest millions of dollars to build more wetlands here, which could mean a corporate-financed reconstruction of the Chesapeake Bay's largest breeding ground for birds, fish and crabs.
"Tidal marshes have the highest rates of sequestering carbon of any kind of land," said Needelman, as reeds hissed around him in a stiff wind. "And captured carbon is a commodity worth a certain amount of money."
That's because Maryland and nine other Eastern states have agreed to start a pollution credit trading system in 2009. The system would allow companies to exceed government limits for carbon dioxide emissions if they paid for pollution-control projects. Congress is debating a similar national system.
The idea - which has many critics as well as fans - could make a big difference to a place such as Blackwater. The 28,000- acre refuge on the Eastern Shore is losing about 400 acres of marsh grasses a year to rising sea level and erosion.
Over the past two decades, the staff has worked with others to build about 20 acres of wetlands, using bales of hay, dirt pumped from the bottom of rivers and plantings of spartina grass. They have found that the manmade wetlands last.
The price is high, about $3.6 million per 100 acres. Enter Constellation Energy, the state's biggest owner of power plants.
John Quinn, chief engineer for Constellation, said he thinks it would be "a great idea" for his company to help pay for restoring Blackwater wetlands through pollution credits.
"The scientists say we are going to need huge, huge reductions in greenhouse gases ... so we are going to have to have every tool available," he said.
Constellation is contributing $100,000 to Needelman's state-funded research as part of a penalty for air-pollution violations at its coal-fired power plants near Baltimore.
For years, scientists have known that wetlands are important as pollution filters. But as it turns out, Needelman said, salt marshes are better at capturing carbon dioxide than are forests, farms or grasslands.
