Nitrogen

Moving to correct a major water pollution problem in some portions of the Chesapeake Bay, the Maryland Senate agreed Monday to require nitrogen-removing technology on all new or replacement household septic systems near the shoreline. Under the bill, which was narrowly approved, the state would cover the extra cost of replacing a failing septic system with an enhanced one capable of removing nitrogen from household wastewater. But homebuyers would have to bear the added cost of about $5,600 for an enhanced system when building a house along the shore.

WHAT WOULD rank as the worst pollutant of the Chesapeake Bay and the coastal environment in general over the last four decades? The "winner" in terms of media coverage is probably oil. A search through the news library of The Sun shows more ink devoted to oil spills, large and small, than any other water pollutant. That's not too surprising. Oil is highly visible. It slimes anything in its path, staining shorefront property and killing birds and marine life in wrenching, ugly ways. Also, we know we are addicted to petroleum, and each spill forces us to agonize anew about the dirty consequences of our habit.

Imagine if one of our major automakers proposed a model line of gas-wasting, air-fouling vehicles that used 60-year-old technology. Unthinkable, of course. Yet it's little different than what homebuilders and developers propose when they plan most new rural subdivisions. Their outdated model lineup combines sprawl development - a hugely wasteful use of land - with septic tanks, the highest-polluting form of waste treatment, largely unimproved for more than half a century. Proposals to change this - most lately, Gov. Martin O'Malley's attempt to ban most development on septic tanks - are met with predictable cries from builders and land speculators.

SAVING THE BAY is about to get a little easier. I'm talking about the imminent explosion of less-polluting, higher mileage gasoline-electric hybrid passenger vehicles coming to market. Hybrids can significantly improve air quality and water quality. For example, the one I drive, Toyota's mid-size Prius (look for my Bay plate: KICKGAS), emits about one-tenth the nitrogen of a typical late-model vehicle. That's big - or it would be if lots of us drove them. Nitrogen's a key ingredient in smog, and the bay's biggest pollutant.

In what could become a model for Maryland, state, Howard County and Chesapeake Bay Foundation officials have agreed in principle on terms for limiting future nitrogen pollution from wastewater released from an expanded Patuxent River sewage treatment plant. The agreement could set a standard for treatment plants on rivers that ring the bay and, at the local level, will allow increased Patuxent wastewater flows to accommodate Howard growth. Nitrogen is widely viewed as the most dangerous pollutant in the bay - removing oxygen vital for bay grasses, shellfish and other creatures.

A key Chesapeake Bay regulatory group agreed yesterday to cut back the quantity of nutrients that can be dumped in the estuary over the next seven years, but environmentalists said the new standard is too lenient on polluters. The Chesapeake Bay Program agreed to trim nitrogen deposits to 175 million pounds a year by 2010, a 40 percent reduction from current nitrogen levels. Most of that nitrogen comes from farms, sewage runoff and air pollution from cars and power plants. "It'll bring us achievements in the bay that we haven't seen in 40-plus years," Diana Esher, deputy director of the EPA's bay program, told top state and federal environmental officials who met in Falls Church, Va. Although they had the blessing of federal and state agencies, the new standards weren't as tough as environmentalists wanted.

SELINSGROVE, Pa. - Pennsylvania, once a leader in the nation's sewage-treatment efforts, now lags behind its partners in the regional compact to clean up the Chesapeake Bay. Although Maryland and Virginia have sharply reduced the amount of nitrogen discharged from their sewer plants, the nitrogen that spills into the Susquehanna River from Pennsylvania plants is increasing. And scientists say if nothing is done it's going to get worse, undermining the 17-year, $8.5 billion regional effort to restore the bay's health.

IT'S A CLEAR, still March morning, a perfect time to check out the Chesapeake from 2,000 feet up. We'll need that lofty a perspective to fully appreciate what ag researcher and farmer Russ Brinsfield has wrought across the bay landscape. Our small plane will loop the Delmarva Peninsula, heading north and west out of Salisbury, crossing rivers - Wicomico, Nanticoke, Choptank - tracing the scalloped, bayside edges of Talbot and Queen Anne's counties north to the Bay Bridge. Then it's east to Delaware, and back home with the condos of Ocean City out one window, and the marshy toils of the upper Nanticoke out the other.

IS THE HEALTH of trees on Appalachian slopes connected to the health of oysters and fish in the Chesapeake Bay?In general, the answer is simple.It is well-documented that rain falling in the bay's watershed carries far less pollution from forestland (about 60 percent of the watershed) than from farms, cities, golf courses and other land uses.In restraining major pollutants such as nitrogen and phosphorus, our 25 million acres of forest are doing at least as much work as all our sewage-treatment plants and industrial discharge controls, and at considerably less cost.

ANZHEN, CHINA Nitrogen fertilizer has literally lifted the yoke off Hua Xijin's shoulders. Before the "green revolution" came to China, it took roughly 6 tons of river mud to fertilize a rice paddy small enough to fit in the corner of a football field. Hua carried the mud on his back, 130 pounds at a time, in bamboo baskets lashed to a wooden pole. Now 58-year-old Hua spends about a week each planting season sprinkling his field with hundreds of pounds of chemical fertilizer, leaving plenty of time for playing mah-jong or fishing in a nearby river.