Pollution

State rules requiring "offsets" for water pollution from new development have been delayed until next year, Maryland's top environmental regulator told lawmakers Wednesday. Although the regulations originally had been set for issuance by next month, Environment Secretary Robert M. Summers told members of House and Senate environment committees that there are "more details to be sorted out," mainly over a plan to let developers buy pollution "credits" elsewhere or pay a fee to the state for the costs of offsetting their projects' water-quality impacts.

Why does the Chesapeake Bay Foundation refuse to take seriously the threat posed by the Conowingo Dam's inability to hold back Susquehanna River pollution? With respect to the effect of Susquehanna River pollutants, the bay foundation has taken an inexplicable U-turn in its long-held doctrine regarding pollutants and the Chesapeake. In August, the U.S. Geological Survey reported last year's Tropical Storm Lee contributed 39 percent of the sediment, 22 percent of the phosphorus and 5 percent of the nitrogen flowing through the Conowingo Dam over the entire previous decade.

Just two weeks after Baltimore voters approved setting up a special fund for cleaning up the city's degraded streams and harbor, City Hall has proposed legislation to begin levying a "storm-water remediation fee" next year on all property owners. Introduced by City Council President Bernard C. "Jack" Young at the behest of the Rawlings-Blake administration, the bill would require homeowners and businesses to pay a quarterly fee toward municipal efforts to keep trash and pollution from washing off streets, parking lots and buildings into storm drains and streams whenever it rains.

As the dust settles in the wake of the latest presidential election, where can the open-minded voter turn these days for reasonably unbiased analysis and commentary on the state of political affairs? It's a challenge in this era of talk radio and cable chatter in which committed partisan political operatives, with an occasional allegedly nonpartisan journalist thrown in for cover, are given free rein to spread their slanted pitches and propaganda. The problem was emphatically illustrated in the appearance of conservative Republican guru Karl Rove on Fox News on election night, disputing the network's call on President Barack Obama's carrying the state of Ohio.

I got a nice award recently - for environmental leadership, the inscription read - really, for just doing work I was paid for and that I often confused with fun. I've always been a little uncomfortable with awards. I got in trouble as editor of a military newspaper in the 1960s when I editorialized that medals were so common that if you didn't get one, it meant you must have screwed up. I was forced to cut my hair, shine my shoes and iron my uniform, all for a two-minute dressing down by the commanding officer (but of course I still received my Good Conduct Medal when I got out)

Testimony wrapped up Wednesday in the federal court trial of a lawsuit accusing an Eastern Shore poultry farm and Perdue of polluting a Chesapeake Bay tributary, but a ruling isn't likely until later this year. After 10 days of hearing witnesses and legal arguments, U.S. District Court Judge William M. Nickerson directed lawyers for the Waterkeeper Alliance, Berlin farmers Alan and Kristin Hudson and the Sallisbury-based poultry company to submit post-trial statements by Nov. 14, with responses due a week later.

Cows, rather than chickens, caused the pollution for which an Eastern Shore farm couple and Perdue are being sued, contends a witness for the Salisbury-based poultry company. Charles Hagedorn, a microbiology professor from Virginia Tech , told a federal judge Monday that a small herd of cattle grazing on Alan and Kristin Hudson's farm near Berlin were the sole source of high levels of bacteria and nutrients found in drainage ditches there. "These counts - and they are high - came from the cattle," Hagedorn testified.  But a lawyer for the Waterkeeper Alliance pressed Hagedorn to acknowledge that manure blown by large ventilation fans out of the Hudsons' two poultry houses could also have reached the ditches, contributing to the pollution.

Criminals paid to restore a stream that runs through a Bel Air park. They also are covering the cost of upgrades to septic systems in the Sassafras River watershed and an effort to find new ways to detect illegal pollution discharge in Montgomery County and Cumberland. In January, the Gunpowder Valley Conservancy will begin a two-year project to improve the Middle River and tidal Gunpowder watersheds, courtesy of lawbreakers. All of the work is possible because local Coast Guard inspectors caught shipping companies dumping pollutants in the ocean and a federal judge ordered them to pay $1.3 million in restitution.

Alan Hudson, the farmer at the center of a environmental law case that could shake up the Eastern Shore chicken business, took the stand in federal court Wednesday to tell his side of the story. Hudson testified that as a 19-year-old, he built the chicken houses at issue in the case, on the Berlin-area farm that has been in his family for at least a century. "That was going to be my contribution to getting my foot in the door farming with them," the 37-year-old Hudson said, adding that the farm needed a new stream of revenue after its dairy closed down a few years before.

A recent Sun editorial, "Free pass for Md. polluters?," (Sept. 27) did not take into account all of the ways that Maryland enforces water pollution violations. Criminal prosecution is just one tool that we employ to protect public health and the environment in Maryland. Administrative and civil authority is often the more effective route to achieve compliance with environmental laws due to the high bar set by the courts for criminal enforcement. The majority of Maryland businesses and citizens comply with environmental laws, but a strong and fair enforcement program is essential to protect our investment in the environment as well as the health and quality of life of all Maryland residents.