Environmental Groups

The Chesapeake Bay Foundation and other environmental groups have urged a Pennsylvania federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit challenging the federal government's plan for reducing pollution fouling the estuary. The lawsuit filed in 2011 by the American Farm Bureau Federation and the Pennsylvania Farm Bureau contends that the Environmental Protection Agency did not have the authority to issue the pollution limits, that the public was not granted sufficient opportunity to review and comment, and that the limits are based upon flawed computer modeling and input data.  Other agricultural and building industry groups later joined the suit.

Hundreds of Anne Arundel County charities are hoping to get a fundraising boost from a round-the-clock, online donation event. The Community Foundation of Anne Arundel County will host the "Great Give" from 7 p.m. Wednesday through 7 p.m. on Thursday. Donors can go to a designated website -- greatgiveaac.razoo.com -- to donate to their favorite charities. Corporate sponsors are paying for the administrative costs, so 100 percent of donations will go to participating charities.

Having spent a substantial portion of my career in the solid waste management field, I have followed with interest the debate regarding waste-to-energy facilities as renewable energy sources. I find it disconcerting that some environmental groups continue trying to aggressively discredit WTE incineration as a viable option. I am not a fan of solid waste management strategies based on a goal of "zero waste" generation. Such strategies sound good but are unrealistic. Effective waste management strategies need to be comprehensive, incorporating components for reuse, recycling, reduction, processing and disposal.

A bill moving through the General Assembly would give Maryland farmers a 10-year reprieve from new state or local environmental regulations if the state Department of Agriculture deems they're doing their part to clean up the Chesapeake Bay. To get the deal, farmers would first have to reduce pollution from their land more quickly than is now required – an important point, supporters say, since farm runoff is the largest contributor to the bay's...

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.

Environmental groups plan to ask the federal government to crack down on state environmental regulators, accusing them of going easy on water pollution discharged from businesses, sewage plants, farms and developments. The state's Waterkeepers - a network of environmental watchdogs - are expected to file a petition today with the Environmental Protection Agency charging the state Department of the Environment with "systemic failure" to carry out its legal responsibility to ride herd on water pollution piped into Maryland's rivers and the Chesapeake Bay. They say they've been driven to take such an unusual legal step out of frustration with the way the state is handling its duties to safeguard water quality.

More than 60 environmental groups from the six states whose rivers drain into the Chesapeake Bay have formed a coalition to press for stronger federal government efforts to clean up their local waterways, it was announced yesterday. "Clean, healthy water is vital to the health of every one of the nearly 17 million people that live in this region," Jan Jarrett, executive director of Citizens for Pennsylvania's Future, said in a statement announcing the formation of the Choose Clean Water Campaign.

WASHINGTON -- For environmental groups, success in the 1990s means giving up the fight to save the world and instead battling for what Americans really care about: things in their own backyard."

Maryland environmental groups declared yesterday that Republican Ellen R. Sauerbrey would be a disaster on environmental issues if she is elected governor.Representatives of the Maryland League of Conservation Voters and several other groups called a State House news conference to say the Baltimore County delegate's record on environmental legislation is among the worst in the General Assembly."In her 16 years in the General Assembly, Ellen Sauerbrey has voted consistently against the environment," said John Kabler of Clean Water Action.

Charging that Maryland is making it too easy for developers to destroy the state's wetlands, environmental groups threatened yesterday to sue the federal government for turning over protection of marshes and bogs to the state.The National Wildlife Federation and four other groups served formal notice that they will sue the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in 60 days for delegating to the state most of its responsibility for safeguarding Maryland's 600,000 acres of tidal and freshwater wetlands.

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.

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.

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.

— 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.

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.

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.

Two environmental groups have endorsed Republican state Sen. Sandra B. Schrader, while one gave C. Vernon Gray - her Democratic rival - a failing "F" grade for his County Council and zoning board votes. "I think it's wonderful," Schrader said about the endorsements, noting her work on the Education, Health and Environmental Affairs Committee this year. The District 13 Senate election could decide which party controls the Howard County delegation in Annapolis next term. Meanwhile, a group called African Americans in Howard County also issued endorsements - some of which appeared to further confuse the primary race among five Democrats seeking the three delegate seats in District 13. The group is led by Sherman Howell and the Rev. Robert A. Turner, who on Aug. 6, under the banner of a different group called Howard County Black Clergy, urged District 13 voters to vote only for Democrat Pearl Atkinson Stewart to concentrate support for her. Now, with a somewhat different membership, African Americans in Howard County is recommending Stewart and has issued "a qualified endorsement" of Democratic incumbent Frank S. Turner and is also encouraging consideration for Neil F. Quinter, another Democrat.

With an O'Malley administration bill seeking to boost offshore wind development effectively dead, the General Assembly approved another bill to promote projects that would produce energy from poultry manure and wood. SB237 , which would provide incentives to place giant wind turbines off Ocean City, has yet to come to a vote in the Senate Finance Committee.  Environmental groups, many of whom had made the measure a top priority, threw in the towel late in the day, issuing a press release expressing their disappointment with the General Assembly's failure to pass the measure for a second straight year.

A Delaware bankruptcy judge has allowed environmental groups to appeal RG Steel 's plan to limit its investigation of potential toxic contamination in the waters surrounding Sparrows Point. While bankruptcy filings normally put all litigation on hold, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Kevin Carey granted a motion to pursue the appeal filed by the Chesapeake Bay Foundation , Blue Water Baltimore and the Baltimore Harbor Waterkeeper . The groups had challenged a Baltimore federal judge's approval of an agreement between RG Steel and federal and state regulators to sample for toxic contaminants no more than 50 feet offshore of the steel mill at Sparrows Point.