Environmental Activists

Gloria McQuaid, a northern Baltimore County environmental and community activist, died Monday of a heart attack at Greater Baltimore Medical Center. The Parkton resident was 79. Gloria Kojan was born and raised in the Bronx borough of New York and studied at Hunter College before earning a bachelor's degree in bacteriology at the University of California at Berkeley. She moved to Baltimore in 1946 with her husband of 59 years, Richard W. McQuaid, then a Johns Hopkins University student and later a Defense Department research chemist.

Jeannette Skrzecz, an environmental activist who fought chemical companies to protect her neighbors in Baltimore's Wagner's Point from illness, died of cancer late Friday at Mercy Medical Center. She was 56.The high-energy grandmother with short, spiky hair and snapping brown eyes was determined to see that she and her neighbors in Baltimore's working-poor enclave got a fair deal from the factories that surround their homes.Family members said she was convinced that her colon and liver cancer was from exposure to pollution from the chemical plants.

Preserving 145 acres of South Carroll farmland, updating the county's master plan, curbing sprawl and stopping open bay dumping are some of the most important environmental issues facing the county and Maryland this year, according to state and local activists. These and other goals were raised during an annual environmental issues forum last night at Carroll Community College. In its fifth year, the environmental issues forum is sponsored by the Catoctin chapter of the Sierra Club, a 550-member group representing Carroll, Frederick and Washington counties.

Monroe G. Haines, the self-appointed protector of a Westminster stream, stopped a contractor yesterday from pumping muddy water from a construction site into the tributary.The 75-year-old environmental activist, who has made the cleanup of Longwell Run a personal crusade for 11 years, said he "got riled" when workers told him they were going to pump muddy water from a construction site into the stream, which flows along the northeast side of the property."That's when I said, 'No, you ain't!

For the fourth time in five years, environmental watchdog Monroe G. Haines has been honored as a volunteer of the year by his fellow retirees from Baltimore Gas and Electric Co.And as in the past, he's giving the money he won to his favorite volunteers -- Westminster Fire Department. His first-place award this year is $1,000. Since 1991, Haines has won $2,200 in BGE volunteer awards, all forwarded to the fire company."I had good luck and got an award," is how Haines sums up the evening of May 31, when hundreds of BGE retirees met for their annual banquet at Martin's West in Woodlawn.

Virtually every major environmental group in the state is urging Gov. Martin O'Malley to veto a bill that would classify waste-to-energy incinerators as a "Tier 1" renewable resource, on par with wind and solar power, but the governor has yet to commit to either signing or rejecting it. On the surface, it sounds absurd that burning trash would be considered on the same level with truly nonpolluting energy sources, but the question becomes more complicated...

Annapolis council to get another earful at hearing on city's budgetAnnapolis residents will get another chance to tell the City Council what they think of the city's proposed $38.3 million budget for the fiscal year that starts July 1.The council decided to continue last week's hearing after residents testified at length about a downtown restaurant's attempt to stay open longer and a zoning change to permit a Safeway grocery store.The council is scheduled to vote tonight on the zoning change to allow the grocery store to open at Forest Drive and Bywater Road.

Some of those environmental activists campaigning against the Keystone XL pipeline are on the young side.  Kids from 20 Maryland high schools, who dub themselves the Tar Sands Students, plan to meet today with a representative of the White House Council on Environmental Quality to press their concerns about construction of the line to carry oil extracted from tar sands deposits in western Canada to refineries in the Gulf of Mexico....

A disputed proposal to build a trash-burning power plant in South Baltimore gets another airing Thursday, as the Maryland Public Service Commission weighs whether to give the New York-based developer more time to build the $1 billion facility. Energy Answers Baltimore won commission approval in 2010 for its planned 160-megawatt project at a former FMC chemical plant in Fairfield. But the company could not meet the regulatory panel's deadline to start construction more than six months ago and asked for an extension until next summer.