Pollution

Accusing the state of failing to control industrial air pollution, environmental groups went to court yesterday to force the Maryland Department of the Environment to set new emission limits for a Baltimore trash incinerator. The groups also threatened to sue Atlanta-based Mirant for allegedly spewing pollutants from one of its power plants in suburban Washington. The plant has been operating for years without a permit. Activists said the actions were prompted by their frustration with the O'Malley administration for foot-dragging in dealing with pollution violations at some of the state's largest factories and power plants.

The omnibus spending bill that President Bush signed into law yesterday provides more than $200 million to clean up the Chesapeake Bay - but still far less than last year's allocation and well short of the amount that bay advocates say is needed to address the bay's pollution. The biggest cut to the cleanup effort involves the State Revolving Loan Fund, which provided money for governments to upgrade their sewage-treatment plants. Funding for the six states in the bay region dropped by $44 million, to about $151 million for the 2008 budget, according to an analysis that the Chesapeake Bay Foundation released yesterday.

EARTH DAY 1999, the 30th annual observance, reminds us of a continuing obligation to the health of our planet. It is not a commemoration of victory but of an ongoing responsibility.Much has been accomplished to clean up the environment since that first Earth Day in 1970. Whether these improvements are a result of stricter laws, or of competitive demands of the economy, is debated. But trends that began before the Clean Air and Clean Water acts of the early 1970s were certainly accelerated by those laws.

SINCE Rudolf Diesel invented his internal-combustion engine a century ago, the vehicles using his eponymous motor have been more fuel efficient than gasoline engines. Until recently, they were seen as a less serious pollution threat, despite their belches of black smoke, and they produced fewer global warming "greenhouse gases."Regulators discounted emissions testing of diesel vehicles as an air cleanup solution.That's about to change in Maryland. The General Assembly has passed legislation to require exhaust testing of large diesels.

Ignoring evidence that pollution in Greater Baltimore is over federal limits, regional planners decided yesterday to press forward with road projects based on outdated 1990 traffic data.If approved by federal officials, the move would erase the threat of delays for several important road projects -- including those for the new Arundel Mills shopping mall off Route 100 and the General Motors Corp. plant under construction in White Marsh.But citizen groups denounced the planners' decision as unethical.

The lights went down in the Towson Commons movie theater, the film "A Civil Action" rolled, and eight pairs of eyes stared at the screen uneasily, as if looking into a mirror.Rod Sterry shook his head as a chemical company lawyer pressured a witness to change his story. Richard Rotosky nodded with approval as the families of leukemia victims told their cash-poor lawyer that his bankruptcy wasn't as important as their problems. And Debbie Hindla sighed as the film concluded with a sweeping shot of a smokestack.

EVEN AS MARYLAND makes long-overdue headway reducing Chesapeake Bay pollution from poultry manure, its upstream neighbor, Pennsylvania, threatens to offset it by inviting a huge buildup of factory hog farms.Pennsylvania's governor, Tom Ridge, has traveled as far as Asia to solicit investment in large, and largely unregulated, corporate pig factories.This at a time when his state is failing to meet goals for reducing bay pollution from existing agricultural operations.To meet goals of reducing by 40 percent the polluting nitrogen flowing to the bay from its Susquehanna and Potomac River drainages, Pennsylvania banked on a 1993 law. That law required that 4,178 farms have pollution-reduction plans by 1998.

Shares of Environmental Elements Corp. jumped 25 percent on nine times their normal trading volume yesterday after the company announced a four-year contract worth more than $100 million, its largest ever.The Baltimore-based company's shares closed at $3.75, up 75 cents each. Nearly 102,000 shares changed hands, compared with a three-month daily average of 11,092."This will definitely add to earnings over the next few years," said analyst David D. Weaver, who follows the company for Legg Mason Wood Walker Inc. in Baltimore.

Anne Arundel County suffers from the worst ozone pollution on the East Coast, according to a study by the Maryland Public Interest Research Group (MaryPIRG).Ozone levels around Fort Meade and in Davidsonville are among the highest in the nation, said the environmental group, which measures the concentration of ozone in the air.Ozone pollution is at its worst from May through September. The gas is a mix of hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide and nitrogen oxide cooked under sunlight. Produced primarily by automobile exhaust and fossil-fuel-burning power plants, it can cause lung damage, eye irritation, breathing difficulties and chest pain.

They're fast, they're fun to operate and they're driven by engines that are among the worst polluters on the water.Personal watercraft (PWCs) are under attack by environmental advocacy groups from the Izaak Walton League of America to the Blue Water Network, a coalition of environmental organizations on the West Coast.San Juan County, Wash., an archipelago in Puget Sound just south of the Canadian border, has banned PWCs from its waters.The National Park Service has banned PWCs from many of its parks, and the Environmental Protection Agency has ordered manufacturers to reduce polluting emissions by 70 percent by 2008.

It doesn't take a world-class bargain-hunter to recognize that the price of anything, from groceries to electronics, is impossible to assess without considering hidden costs. Like that big-screen TV? Better ask about the added cost of cables and digital sound. A home listed below market price can seem great - until repairs to the cracked foundation, faulty wiring and leaky plumbing are factored in. Yet for decades, the U.S. has embraced an energy policy blithely ignorant of the true price tag of driving our highways and providing electricity to our homes.

Maryland politicians and others gathered on the shore of the Chesapeake Bay near Annapolis Monday to announce a new push in Congress to restore the troubled estuary by giving state and federal governments more power and funding to clean up pollution from farms, cities and suburbs. But in a bid to win more support, sponsors of the legislation have agreed to a five-year delay in the deadline for states to do their part. Sen. Benjamin L. Cardin said the bill he helped draft and plans to introduce today would put the bay cleanup on a "realistic but aggressive path."

It isn't easy to avoid fireworks on the Fourth of July. After all, they fill the night sky in just about every neighborhood. But there are grown-ups, pets and kids who would, if they could. Patti Neumann's balcony overlooks the Inner Harbor and she and friends will be there watching Baltimore's fireworks display tonight. But Bogart, her 7-year-old Wheaten terrier, will wait downstairs, thank you very much. "He doesn't mind thunderstorms, but when fireworks start, he starts shaking uncontrollably," says Neumann, founder of CityPeek, a tourism Web site.

Maryland emitted more cumulative global warming pollution between 1960 and 2005 than more than 150 other nations surveyed, according to a report released this week by Greenpeace. And that makes it one of the least-polluting states on a per-person basis. The United States has long been considered the chief emitter, but months ahead of a global forum on the subject, the environmental organization was seeking to underscore the level by compiling Department of Energy statistics for individual states and comparing them with World Resource Institute data from 184 other countries.

A pair of environmental groups is threatening to sue state and federal environmental agencies as well as the present and former owners of the Sparrows Point steel mill complex, accusing them of failing to clean up pollution of the industrial site and of the surrounding community, as they promised to do 12 years ago. The Chesapeake Bay Foundation and Baltimore Harbor Waterkeeper contend that toxic waste from the steel-making complex is contaminating the...

Below is part of a post from The Baltimore Sun's Bay and Environment blog and comments from readers about last week's announcement of new Chesapeake Bay cleanup goals. Our view While the press coverage of the annual Chesapeake Bay summit this week focused on President Obama promising a stronger federal role in the cleanup effort, and state officials pledging to accelerate their pollution reductions, Howard Ernst isn't buying any of it. The associate professor of political science at the Naval Academy has written one critical book on the shortcomings of the restoration effort, Chesapeake Bay Blues.

With scientists pointing to some bright spots and even a possible "tipping point" in the long-running struggle to restore the Chesapeake Bay, Gov. Martin O'Malley vowed Monday to more than double the pace of cleanup of Maryland's rivers feeding into the troubled estuary. On the eve of a meeting in Virginia of the bay region's leaders, O'Malley joined bay scientists aboard the state-owned research vessel Rachel Carson for a firsthand look at the Bush River off Aberdeen Proving Ground, one of a handful of places throughout the Chesapeake watershed where there are signs of recovery from decades of pollution and abuse.

Sparrows Point residents have watched waterways rich in oysters, crabs and fish deteriorate into lifeless streams. They have daily cleared their cars, homes and swimming pools of kish, a shiny metallic grit emanating from steel plants. Many longtimers can tell by the color of the smoke what chemicals are spewing from the numerous smokestacks nearby. And many endure ailments that could be caused by pollution that has fouled the air, land and water in what state health officials say is Maryland's leading disease cluster.

Now that the president and most Americans want national action on global warming, how do we pick the best legislation for reducing carbon pollution? There are three critical tests. First, is the climate policy simple? Second, is it fair? And third, is it built to last? Congress needs to adopt a statutory "cap" on greenhouse gas pollution as soon as possible. Let's agree that the nation's total carbon pollution will peak in 2012 and then get smaller each year - by law - until it's drastically reduced by 2020 and almost gone by 2050.

Few saw it coming, but the General Assembly approved a sleeper environmental bill that will require thousands of homes in Maryland to install more costly nitrogen-removing septic systems to keep the polluting nutrient out of rivers and the Chesapeake Bay. Bay advocates are hailing the septic legislation's passage as a significant boost for the beleaguered Chesapeake, coming as it did near the end of a legislative session dominated by budget woes....