Pollution

The Chesapeake Bay region's fledgling pollution "trading" programs are getting an infusion of federal funds aimed at encouraging farmers to participate. The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced Friday that it's awarding five grants totaling $2.6 $2.35 million to boost pollution trading efforts in Maryland, Pennsylvania and Virginia. They're part of $26 million in "conservation innovation" grants being handed out nationwide, including funds to support other water-quality trading along the Ohio River and in Oregon.

"Environmental racism" isn't a new expression. The Rev. Ben Chavis, former director of the NAACP, first used the term in 1982 to protest the location of a North Carolina toxic waste landfill. Since then numerous speakers have attempted to stoke the fires of activism by calling pollution in the inner cities the next civil rights issue.It's true that both industrialists and governments have typically put smoke-belching factories, air-polluting highways and waste-leaking landfills in communities where the people are least able to fight them.

The Bush administration issues regulations that will give manufacturers broad authority to substantially increase the amount of hazardous pollutants they pour into the atmosphere beginning in the mid 1990s. The rule had been championed by the President's Council on Competitiveness, a group headed by Vice President Dan Quayle.Details on Page 6A

NEWARK, N.J. (AP) -- Diamond Shamrock Chemical Co. intentionally polluted a Newark neighborhood with toxic dioxin over an 18-year-period, an attorney charged yesterday at the opening of a trial of a civil lawsuit.Diamond Shamrock, which operated a chemical factory along the Passaic River from 1951 to 1969, is being sued by 72 former workers, neighbors and local businesses seeking unspecified damages.

A new permit proposed by the state for curbing runoff in Baltimore city is coming under fire from a pair of environmental groups, which contend it fails to require big enough reductions in the pollution fouling the harbor. The Baltimore Harbor Waterkeeper and Earthjustice say the storm-water permit proposed for the city last week by the Maryland Department of the Environment is vague and weak. The groups are calling on the state to include specific deadlines and enforceable requirements in the permit, arguing that without those it's little more than "guidance" for the city.

If you want to be on the cutting edge of pollution control technology, be advised there's a long waiting list. The backup is not at the local recycling center, or even, for the moment, at the auto emission testing stations. It's the competition for free battery-powered lawn mowers that cut the air pollution and noise as they cut your grass.Baltimore Gas & Electric Co. is one of 10 utility companies nationwide that will each distribute 100 battery-driven mowers in a government-industry project to see how much electric mowers reduce pollution from the smoky output of 80 million gasoline powered mowers now in use. It's an admirable goal, because gasoline turf-trimmers cough out more smog-creating chemicals in an hour than driving an auto 50 miles.

The Maryland General Assembly once again finds itself choosing between public health and the special interests of the automobile and oil industries.Automobile and oil companies habitually invest first in highly-paid lobbyists to block environmental action by the government. Their approach is based on the shameless use of hyperbole, inaccuracy and exaggeration.As far back as 1970, Lee Iacocca claimed that federal clean air legislation ''could prevent continued production of automobiles'' and that it posed ''a threat to the entire American economy and to every person in America.

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.

When it rains, not only does storm water flow downstream, but so do the banks of small streams emptying into Red Hill Branch, bringing other pollutants with the eroding soil. In a move to stem environmental problems and add wildlife habitat, Howard County has begun four restoration projects for the waterway in Ellicott City. Officials say they expect the work, which includes overhauling a storm-water pond and stabilizing more than 5,000 feet of the banks of three streams, to be completed by May. Project manager Mark Richmond said the pond behind Salterforth Place will go from being a depression that is dry most of the time to a larger pond that always has water.