Water Pollution

Evil-smelling effluent bubbling from a factory into a bay. Is that what you see when you think of water pollution?Twenty years ago, that picture would have been pretty accurate. But factories and municipalities have largely cleaned up their act -- and their effluent, the technical term for waste water.Now when it comes to polluting surface waters, the biggest villains are us. You, me, Mr. Perennially Tinkering Under Cars next door, Ms. Weed and Feed the Lawn Every Month Whether It Needs It or Not on the corner, and the folks across the street who paved their yard so they wouldn't have to mow it.The problem is runoff.

The concept behind the proposed Maryland Agriculture Certainty Program is sound. Farmers would voluntarily agree to meet relatively high standards for pollution runoff and hire third-party inspectors to verify the results. In return, they would be spared from new regulations for 10 years. In a business that is fraught with uncertainty from droughts and floods, rising and falling commodity prices and boom or bust crop yields, the appeal of predictability is clear enough. The model is not unlike the discharge permit of some manufacturers or sewage treatment plants - a kind of contract between regulators and polluters.

A series of water pollution violations reported at the University of Maryland's Horn Point environmental laboratory were not violations at all, but "a reporting error," the Maryland Department of the Environment said Wednesday. The university's laboratory near Cambridge on the Eastern Shore was identified as an example of poor state enforcement of water pollution laws in a report by a coalition of environmental groups. The Waterkeepers Chesapeake of Maryland said federal data show the lab had reported 80 violations of its discharge permit requirements over the past five years, and that there was no record of a state inspection of the facility during that time.

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.

Maryland is failing to ride herd on water pollution in the state because of serious funding shortfalls and its own flawed enforcement practices, according to a Washington-based think tank. The Center for Progressive Reform contends in a new report that while Maryland has some of the nation's toughest environmental laws, its enforcement of water pollution is lagging. "They could do better," Robert L. Glicksman, the report's co-author and environmental law professor at George Washington University, said of state environmental officials.

Maryland is failing to ride herd on water pollution in the state because of serious funding shortfalls and its own flawed enforcement practices, according to a Washington-based think tank. The Center for Progressive Reform contends in a new report that while Maryland has some of the nation's toughest environmental laws, its enforcement of water pollution regulations is lagging. "They could do better," Robert L. Glicks- man, the report's co-author and environmental law professor at George Washington University, said of state environmental officials.

A pair of environmental groups said Thursday that they plan to sue Perdue Farms and an Eastern Shore chicken grower for alleged water pollution violations. The Assateague Coastkeeper and the Waterkeeper Alliance filed notice of their intent to seek legal action in 60 days against the Salisbury-based poultry company and the owners of a farm near Berlin that raises 80,000 birds under contract to Perdue. The groups contend that a drainage ditch feeding into the Pocomoke River, a tributary of the Chesapeake Bay, is being polluted with chicken manure washing off the farm.

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.

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.

WASHINGTON - An internal Environmental Protection Agency study concluded that the states are doing a poor job of monitoring and punishing water polluters, even as the Bush administration plans to turn more pollution enforcement over to the states. "Not taking prompt enforcement action increases water pollution as violations go unchecked," the EPA's inspector general found. The 100-page report on state enforcement of water pollution laws in 1998 and 1999 was posted on the EPA's Web site yesterday.

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.

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.

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.

From how we live to where we can live, Marylanders have been expected to make an increasing number of personal sacrifices for the cause of cleaning up the Chesapeake Bay over the last two decades or more. Many have been small (whether laundry detergent contains phosphates or not now seems inconsequential), while others, including the cost to homeowners and businesses of greener, more advanced sewage treatment or storm water control systems, have been substantial. But are the state's most egregious polluters - those who truly thumb their noses at laws protecting the nation's largest estuary and knowingly spill noxious materials into the bay and its tributaries - held as accountable?

The New Windsor town government has asked the Maryland Department of Environment to reduce a fine imposed for water pollution at the town's sewer treatment facility from $5,000 to $500, Mayor Jack A. Gullo said last night at the monthly council meeting.In return, the town will improve its laboratory conditions at the treatment lagoon, explain why wastewater discharged from the system in February and March had a high alkalinity, and improve and document the plant's standard operating procedures, Mayor Gullo said.

Would putting more polluters behind bars help restore the Chesapeake Bay? The Center for Progressive Reform believes it would. In a new report, the  a pro-regulatory think tank argues that both state and federal authorities prosecute water polluters too rarely in Maryland and that the state penalties for conviction aren't stiff enough to deter violators. Criminal prosecutions are an effective way to improve enforcement of environmental laws, especially when government regulators lack the funds to adequately inspect all potential polluters, says Rena Steinzor, the center's president and a professor at the University of Maryland's law school.

Environmental laws do get enforced, however slowly at times.  The Maryland Department of the Environment announced Wednesday it had taken action against about 18 individuals, companies and local governments for alleged violations of the state's laws governing lead paint and air and water pollution. Some of the violators listed in the department's release have paid or agreed to pay more than $100,000 in all in penalties, while state regulators are seeking more than twice that much combined in fines against the others.