Environmental Impact

Fort Meade is proposing to build a sewage sludge incinerator, a prospect that has drawn outrage among western Anne Arundel County civic leaders and criticism from the county's top health official about the potential environmental and health impacts. The Maryland Department of the Environment is holding a public hearing tonight in Odenton to discuss plans by a Tennessee contractor, Ameresco Federal Solutions, to build the incinerator near the Army post's sewage plant adjacent to the intersection of Routes 32 and 198. The incinerator would run 24 hours a day on weekdays, disposing of hundreds of tons of sewage a year more cheaply than by trucking the waste away, county and Fort Meade officials said.

Rep. Wayne T. Gilchrest added his voice yesterday to the growing federal chorus opposed to plans to dump 18 million cubic yards of silt and mud from Baltimore harbor's approach channels in open waters near the Bay Bridge.Gilchrest, an Eastern Shore Republican whose district includes the land closest to the proposed dump site, called on the U.S. Corps of Engineers to tear up the draft environmental impact statement it released last winter and start over. Ultimately, he said, the corps should reject the site, a 4-mile-long area about a mile from Kent Island.

Opponents of a plan to dump 18 million cubic yards of silt and mud in open waters near the Bay Bridge were buoyed yesterday to learn that a key federal agency -- the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service -- has gone on record against the dredging proposal.In a strongly worded letter Monday to the Army Corps of Engineers, fish and wildlife officials criticized a draft environmental impact statement for "errors, omissions, inconsistencies and apparent bias."The letter, addressed to the Corps of Engineers' regional office in Baltimore, also threatened to take the issue before the Council on Environmental Quality, which arbitrates policy disputes among federal regulatory agencies.

WASHINGTON -- The Environmental Protection Agency joined other federal agencies yesterday in raising objections to the proposed selection of a four-mile-long site in the Chesapeake Bay as a dumping ground for silt dredged from shipping channels.The selection of site 104, near Kent Island, is "an issue of increasing concern with the agency," said Bill Mataszeski, director of EPA's Chesapeake Bay Program.He said an earlier study by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which had endorsed the site, failed to pay adequate attention to the composition of silt that would be dumped there or to nutrients and other pollution from the dredged material that could seep into the bay.In response to sharp public criticism this summer from environmentalists and other federal agencies, including the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service, the corps is taking a second look at the environmental impact of the dredging site.

A project to link the natural, cultural and historic resources of towns along the Patapsco River in Baltimore and Howard counties met a major roadblock last night at a community meeting when dozens of angry citizens voiced concern that the plan would ruin the resources it purports to protect.About 100 citizens attended the Patapsco Heritage Greenway Committee's meeting at the Trolley Stop in Oella to hear urban planner Deana D. Rhodeside unveil proposals for a trail network that would link the communities of Catonsville, Ellicott City, Elkridge, Oella and Relay.

A project to link the natural, cultural and historic resources of towns along the Patapsco River in Baltimore and Howard counties met a major roadblock last night at a community meeting when dozens of angry citizens voiced concern that the plan would ruin the resources it purports to protect.About 100 citizens attended the Patapsco Heritage Greenway Committee's meeting at the Trolley Stop in Oella to hear urban planner Deana D. Rhodeside unveil proposals for a trail network that would link the communities of Catonsville, Ellicott City, Elkridge, Oella and Relay.

Southern Maryland and Eastern Shore residents have an opportunity to comment at meetings this week and next on the environmental impact of test flights conducted around the Chesapeake Bay from the Navy's Patuxent River base.The Navy is preparing an environmental impact statement on its planned operations at Patuxent River Naval Air Station in Southern Maryland, including the test pilot school and the Chesapeake test range.Meetings at which comment can be made are:Today: Prince Frederick, Calvert High School, 3: 30 p.m. to 5: 30 p.m. and 6: 30 p.m to 8: 30 p.m.Thursday: Leonardtown, Leonardtown High School, 3: 30 p.m. to 5: 30 p.m. and 6: 30 p.m. to 8: 30 p.m.May 14: Westover, J. M. Tawes Technical Center, 3 p.m. to 6 p.m.May 15: Cambridge, Christ Episcopal Church, 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. and 6: 30 p.m. to 8: 30 p.m.For more information, call the Navy's public affairs officer, Cathy Partusch, at 301-342-7512.

Environmental groups have filed a lawsuit seeking to block a key permit for Chapman's Landing, a controversial 4,600-home development planned on a wooded stretch of the Potomac River in Charles County.The Friends of Mount Aventine and Friends of the Earth asked the U.S. District Court in Washington on Wednesday to block a wetlands permit issued last week so that the development's environmental impact can be studied more thoroughly.The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers granted Legend Development Co. a permit to disturb 3 acres of nontidal wetlands on the southern portion of the Chapman's Landing property.

Relief to long-suffering Mountain Road motorists came a step closer yesterday when the state set aside $500,000 to study widening a portion of the heavily traveled Pasadena route.The money will be used to analyze the environmental impact of adding a lane to the eastbound and westbound sides of Mountain Road between Route 100 and Lake Shore Drive.The one-mile stretch is three lanes wide with the middle lane designated as a left-turn lane.A State Highway Administration traffic study showed about 27,000 motorists use Mountain Road daily.

Chapman's Landing idea would do harmTom Horton's column (Oct. 4, ''In Charles County, a legal travesty") incorrectly implies that the Army Corps of Engineers has met all of its legal obligations in determining whether to approve the 2,250-acre Chapman's Landing development project. In fact, the National Environmental Policy Act requires that the Corps ask for a comprehensive ''environmental impact statement'' if a project is likely to adversely affect a site's environmental quality, including, but not limited to, its wetlands.

Despite recent claims to the contrary, Maryland's Intercounty Connector - expensive though it surely is, at $2.4 billion - will deliver a very strong return on investment to Maryland residents, including many residents of the Baltimore metropolitan area. According to U.S. Census data, more than 130,000 people from greater Baltimore commute to the Washington area every day, many to jobs on the Interstate 270 technology corridor. Traffic forecasting illustrates the enormous benefit these travelers will experience from the ICC. The ICC will provide a much-needed link from BWI Thurgood Marshall Airport to the Washington metropolitan region, ensuring long-term economic benefits for Maryland.

The state Board of Public Works approved yesterday a marina, observation piers and a shoreline project for the Villages at Swan Point, a Charles County development, over the objection of Gov. Martin O'Malley, who expressed concern about the negative environmental impact on the Chesapeake Bay and the area's wetlands. O'Malley didn't state his reason for voting against the wetlands license for the project during the public meeting, saying he would explain his position in a letter he plans to write to the board.

It's difficult to understand how the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission could judge the proposed liquefied natural gas facility at Sparrows Point as environmentally acceptable, given the quantity of unknowns involved. But that's the conclusion of the agency's draft environmental impact statement, which nonetheless acknowledges there are a considerable number of concerns to be mitigated. This much is clear: Momentum for the project proposed by Virginia-based AES Corp. appears to be growing.

Is highway expansion a threat to watershed? The Sun's telling article about the plight of Mattawoman Creek emphasizes that land-use decisions are in the hands of local officials ("Highway threatens creek filled with life," April 7). However, state and federal agencies have the permitting tools that can curtail destructive local policies. In this case, Mattawoman Creek is threatened by a Charles County "development district" larger than the District of Columbia that blankets Maryland's most productive tributary to the largest estuary in the world, the Chesapeake Bay. Calling the development of a huge, largely forested area "Smart Growth" attempts to greenwash with modern concepts a decades-old and outmoded plan for sprawl.

If you thought divorce was bad for the kids, you should see what it does to the environment. A study published last week in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Science found that the resource inefficiency of divorced households resulted in an extra 73 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity use in the U.S. in 2005 - about 7 percent of total home use. "Turning on the light uses the same energy whether there are two people or four people in the...

PARIS -- L'Oreal SA lost investors when the world's largest cosmetics maker acquired the less profitable Body Shop last year. Now, amid a growing appetite for greener cosmetics, the acquisition has given L'Oreal an edge that should help push the stock higher. Sales at the unit will grow three times the French company's pace by 2010 as more consumers seek products that use natural ingredients and aim to limit their environmental impact, according to an estimate by Oddo Securities. That will outweigh the drag of Body Shop's lower margins on L'Oreal's immediate profitability.

Environmentalists called yesterday for the federal government to stop work on a disputed six-lane toll road across Montgomery and Prince George's counties, contending that there is new evidence that children and other residents living along the route could be harmed by pollutants from the traffic. Two groups, Environmental Defense and the Sierra Club, said a study commissioned by one of them shows that construction of the 18-mile Inter-County Connector would violate tightened federal air-quality health standards on soot -- the fine particles emitted in vehicle exhaust and other forms of combustion.

Fort Meade is proposing to build a sewage sludge incinerator, a prospect that has drawn outrage among western Anne Arundel County civic leaders and criticism from the county's top health official about the potential environmental and health impacts. The Maryland Department of the Environment is holding a public hearing tonight in Odenton to discuss plans by a Tennessee contractor, Ameresco Federal Solutions, to build the incinerator near the Army post's sewage plant adjacent to the intersection of Routes 32 and 198. The incinerator would run 24 hours a day on weekdays, disposing of hundreds of tons of sewage a year more cheaply than by trucking the waste away, county and Fort Meade officials said.

Alleging that the Ehrlich administration violated federal environmental law, opponents of the proposed Inter-County Connector said yesterday that they will soon file a lawsuit to block construction of the Washington-area toll highway. The Audubon Naturalist Society and other plaintiffs notified the State Highway Administration that they would ask a federal judge to prevent construction of the ICC. They argue that its approval was based on a flawed environmental study. This is the second of two planned legal challenges to the proposed $2.4 billion highway connecting Interstate 270 in Gaithersburg and Interstate 95 in Laurel.

Lynton Keith Caldwell, 92, who helped shape the nation's policy requiring environmental impact studies for major projects, died Tuesday at his home in Bloomington, Ind. Dr. Caldwell, a professor emeritus at Indiana University, helped write the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969. His draft resolution, much of which was incorporated into the act, required environmental impact studies for all major federal projects that would significantly affect the environment. He helped create Indiana University's School of Public and Environmental Affairs.