BUSINESS
By Chris Korman and Timothy B. Wheeler, The Baltimore Sun | February 20, 2013
Six Baltimore residents financed by an environmental group sued the owner of Baltimore's yet-to-be-built casino, the city and the state, alleging that they colluded to skirt rules governing the study and cleanup of "highly contaminated properties" near their neighborhood. The lawsuit, filed Wednesday in Baltimore Circuit Court, seeks an injunction to delay the issuing of building permits for the Horseshoe Casino until further study of the land and public discussion of a proposal for making it safe are completed.
NEWS
February 10, 2013
Tim Wheeler 's recent article sheds new light on the confusing, distasteful, yet critically important problem of fecal pollution from chickens in the Chesapeake and coastal bays ("Maryland farm oversight called weak," Feb 2). The problem appears to arise from a failed though well-meant "model" program instituted by the state. Maryland regulators seem to be engaged in a paper chase, in which they make sure that farmers have submitted plans to control runoff, then file those plans away with little effort to verify whether they are actually being implemented.
FEATURES
By Timothy B. Wheeler, The Baltimore Sun | November 30, 2012
Lawyers squared off one last time Friday in a packed Baltimore courtroom to wrap up the long-running trial of a bitterly contested pollution lawsuit with ramifications for water cleanup efforts and the poultry industry in Maryland and nationwide. Jane Barrett, the lawyer for the Waterkeeper Alliance, told U.S. District Judge William M. Nickerson that the New York-based environmental group had amassed overwhelming evidence during more than two weeks of testimony in October that chicken manure from Alan and Kristin Hudson's farm near Berlin had washed into a drainage ditch that ultimately empties into the Pocomoke River, a tributary of the Chesapeake Bay. But lawyers for the Hudsons and for Perdue countered that the environmental group had failed to make the case that the high levels of disease-causing bacteria found in the ditch came from chicken manure.
FEATURES
By Timothy B. Wheeler, The Baltimore Sun | October 4, 2012
— In a challenge to the Obama administration's efforts to jump-start the lagging restoration of the Chesapeake Bay, lawyers for farmers and homebuilders argued in federal court here Thursday that the Environmental Protection Agency overstepped its legal authority and relied on a flawed computer model in setting a pollution "diet" for the ailing estuary. Lawyers for the American Farm Bureau Federation, the National Association of Home Builders, poultry and pork producers, and other farming groups argued that states in the Chesapeake watershed, not the federal government, should be in charge of deciding how and where to reduce pollution fouling the bay. They also complained that the far-reaching "diet" was rushed into place despite gaps and errors and without giving the public enough time to review and comment on it. "It will affect urban growth; it affects how agriculture land will be used," said Richard E. Schwartz, one of the industry groups' lawyers.
FEATURES
Tim Wheeler | October 3, 2012
Two Washington-based environmental groups filed suit Wednesday to block pollution trading in the Chesapeake Bay, contending the market-based cleanup program violates the federal Clean Water Act and will undermine rather than help efforts to restore the ailing estuary. Food & Water Watch and Friends of the Earth contend in the joint filing that the Environmental Protection Agency acted unlawfully in authorizing Maryland and other bay watershed states to set up programs for buying and selling nutrient "credits" as part of the "pollution diet" that the federal agency has imposed for restoring the Chesapeake's water quality.
BUSINESS
By Timothy B. Wheeler, The Baltimore Sun | September 21, 2012
For four decades, the owners of the liquefied natural gas terminal at Cove Point in Calvert County have given a pair of environmental groups a say over expansion of the sprawling complex, originally built to import fuel from abroad via the Chesapeake Bay. By all accounts, it's been a cordial, cooperative relationship. Now, though, that almost unheard-of pact between industry and its traditional adversaries is being tested, as the terminal's owner, Dominion Cove Point LNG, seeks federal approval to export liquefied natural gas through the terminal to lucrative foreign markets in Asia and elsewhere.