Pollution

What untold number of years will we have to wait for developers to take responsibility for their actions ("Md. lawmakers propose delaying, weakening storm-water pollution control," Feb. 18)? Del. Marvin E. Holmes Jr. says he agrees with the "objectives" of a restored Chesapeake Bay. Let's be clear what those objectives are: water Marylanders can enjoy safely, clean water where crabs, oysters, and rockfish can thrive, and a bay that doesn't turn into a partly-dead zombie every summer.

Air quality will be poor in Baltimore on Sunday, according to state officials. Higher than normal air pollution concentrations could threaten sensitive groups like children, the elderly and people with asthma, heart disease or lung disease. People who may fall into these categories should avoid strenous activity or exercise outdoors. Late Saturday, the Maryland Department of the Environment issued Sunday's code orange air quality alert for the Baltimore metro region. More information about the alert can be found on the Department of the Enviornment's website or by calling the Maryland Air Quality Hotline at 410-537-3247.

Could pollution "trading" really shave billions of dollars from the costs of restoring the Chesapeake Bay?  Or would the long-running cleanup effort suffer at the hands of those looking to make a buck on it? A study presented Thursday to the Chesapeake Bay Commission suggests there could indeed be significant cost savings from letting polluters pay others to make less expensive reductions in bay-fouling nutrient pollution elsewhere.  RTI International, an economic consulting firm from Research Triangle Park NC, found that savings could range from 20 to 80 percent, depending on how trading is structured.

The Potomac River, which flows between Maryland and Virginia, was named the nation's "most endangered" waterway today by a Washington-based environmental group. American Rivers put the Potomac atop its annual list of endangered rivers.  Though cleaner than it used to be, the "nation's river," so named because it flows through Washington, D.C., still faces threats from urban and agricultural pollution, the group says, and from cutbacks being pushed in Congress of federal environmental regulations.

Maryland's environmental agency filed with federal regulators Thursday a draft of the most detailed Chesapeake Bay "pollution diet" plan to date. "The Watershed Implementation Plan is going to affect everybody," said Margaret Enloe, spokeswoman for the Chesapeake Bay Program, the restoration partnership of the Environmental Protection Agency, bay states and the District of Columbia. "There are so many benefits that can come out of it. " The draft represents the second part of a "three-phase planning process that extends to 2017," according to the Maryland Department of the Environment's filing, which was made available online, and breaks down the state's pollution-reduction tactics county by county.

The House approved a bill Friday that would ease state requirements for some developers to keep pollution from washing off their building sites. The vote was 127-13. The measure now heads to the Senate. Developers and local officials have been pressing for some relief from new storm-water pollution regulations scheduled to take effect May 4, arguing that they could cost the state jobs and tax revenues and aggravate suburban sprawl. The bill would exempt some projects already in the works from having to meet the new, tougher requirements for controlling runoff, and it would give breaks to some redevelopment projects.

The Environmental Protection Agency has levied nearly $250,000 in fines against Baltimore City and Anne Arundel and Harford counties for failing to adequately protect their waterways from pollution washing off streets, parking lots and lawns. The EPA's Mid-Atlantic regional office in Philadelphia proposed fining the three local governments more than a year after inspections found they were violating permits requiring them to control storm-water pollution from government facilities, construction sites and businesses.

N o sooner had farmer groups in the Chesapeake region started protesting the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's suggestion that some farm production processes might have to be regulated to reduce nutrient pollution loads, than Maryland announced that it intends to place more and better oyster bottom areas off-limits to watermen. Oyster harvesters were quick off the mark, registering their dismay. We have The People's response to greater environmental accountability. They don't like it. We have not yet heard how the screws will be tightened on city dwellers and developers to reduce their pollution loads, but we know that should be coming.

On a bridge behind a strip mall on Liberty Road just west of Baltimore, a group of state biologists trekked out in the morning drizzle Monday to gauge the health of the Chesapeake Bay. From the bridge over the Gwynns Falls, they lowered a device about 2 feet into the brown-green water to take the temperature and measure the dissolved oxygen. Then they lowered a bottle with a small crane to collect a water sample, checking for sediment, nutrients and solids. The effort, made at 54 sites each month across the state since 1986, shows the short- and long-term health of Maryland's streams, the Inner Harbor and, ultimately, the Chesapeake Bay. The results not only help guide those who regulate pollution, but help the biologists show how the way people live and work affects the water quality nearby and downstream.

What a surprise to see an article praising Constellation Energy on the front page of The Sun this Saturday ("A new smokestack cleans Baltimore's air," Feb. 20). This is good news for the citizens of Baltimore as they will be breathing cleaner air than they have been in the past. It is amazing that the new technology has made the Brandon Shores Power Plant a virtual non-air polluter. The article also mentions a cost of $1.5 billion for the pollution abatement for this project and others for a utility that provides power for 1 million households.

Farmers may be leery of anyone from the federal government promising help, but here's one offer that sounds too good to refuse. The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Natural Resources Conservation Service announced this week that it is making up to $315,000 available to "farmers, ranchers and forest landowners" in the Catoctin Creek watershed in western Frederick County. The offer is part of a new water quality initiative by the NRCS directing technical and financial help to 157 watersheds nationwide.

Could pollution "trading" really shave billions of dollars from the costs of restoring the Chesapeake Bay?  Or would the long-running cleanup effort suffer at the hands of those looking to make a buck on it? A study presented Thursday to the Chesapeake Bay Commission suggests there could indeed be significant cost savings from letting polluters pay others to make less expensive reductions in bay-fouling nutrient pollution elsewhere.  RTI International, an economic consulting firm from Research Triangle Park NC, found that savings could range from 20 to 80 percent, depending on how trading is structured.

Steep projected costs for cleaning up the Chesapeake Bay could be trimmed by billions of dollars, a new study suggests, by allowing polluters to buy "credits" for less-expensive reductions made by others. The study, presented Thursday to the Chesapeake Bay Commission, an advisory panel of legislators from Maryland, Pennsylvania and Virginia, estimates that nutrient pollution trading could trim projected costs for upgrading sewage treatment plants and controlling urban and suburban storm water pollution by $1 billion or more a year baywide.

In their quest to cure Baltimore's ailing harbor, advocates and authorities have tried one gadget after another: floating wetlands, a solar-powered aerator, even a trash wheel. Add now the "algal turf scrubber," a long wooden sluiceway through which harbor water is pumped over a bed of slimy green algae. The gutter, 350 feet long by a foot wide, uses native algae to strip nutrients, suspended sediment and carbon from water and inject oxygen into it before returning it to the harbor.

In their quest to cure Baltimore's ailing harbor, advocates and authorities have tried one gadget after another: floating wetlands, a solar-powered aerator, even a trash wheel. Add now the "algal turf scrubber," a long wooden sluiceway in which harbor water is pumped over a bed of slimy green algae. The ecological restoration firm Biohabitats and the Living Classrooms Foundation invited news media to see the contraption set up on a former chromium plant site in Fells Point. The gutter, 350 feet long by one foot wide, uses native algae to strip nutrients, suspended sediment and carbon from water and inject oxygen into it before returning it to the harbor.

Baltimore's air is healthier to breathe than it used to be, but the region still has some of the nation's worst smog and soot pollution, according to the American Lung Association. In its annual report on the state of the nation's air, the advocacy group says the greater Baltimore-Washington region had nearly 41 fewer days of high ozone levels during 2010, the most recent year for which verified federal air-quality data are available. But the region still had the 13th most bad smog days out of 277 metropolitan areas across the country.

A pair of environmental groups and several Dundalk-area residents filed suit Friday against present and former owners of the Sparrows Point steel mill, accusing them of polluting nearby waterways that feed into the Chesapeake Bay and threatening the health of people in neighboring communities. The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court in Baltimore by the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, the Baltimore Harbor Waterkeeper and seven people who live near Sparrows Point. They are seeking injunctions to halt what they claim is continuing pollution and require cleanup of all contamination on and from the 2,300-acre peninsula.

The signs shout advertisements from the sidewalks: $1 crabs, day care open until midnight, cherry wood furniture and fresh starts after bankruptcy. They cover telephone poles and sprout up in medians, sometimes getting swept away by wind. And they really get under some people's skin. "It irritates me to no end," said Ed Bard, president of the Rockdale Civic & Improvement Association, who called fighting illegal signs "one of my passions. " Baltimore County code enforcement officials say they are cracking down on the common nuisance.

For insight as to why we're having trouble restoring the Chesapeake Bay, I'm reading "The Evolution of Obesity" by medical researchers Michael L. Power and Jay Schulkin. It's an illuminating look at how we got so fat. It's epidemic - more than a fifth of the world's population is overweight or obese. In the United States, obesity-related health problems are soaring. The standard revolving door has gone from six to eight feet, and hauling our ampler butts costs airlines a quarter-billion more in fuel than it used to. The proportion of normal-weight Americans is at an all-time low. But what's a fat book got to do with the state of the Chesapeake Bay?