Water Pollution

Nearly all of the toxic pollutants in Maryland's waterways come from the watershed that enters the Chesapeake Bay near Baltimore, according to a report released Thursday by an environmental watchdog group. The Gunpowder-Patapsco Watershed, which stretches above the Maryland-Pennsylvania border and as far west as Mount Airy, had more than 1.3 million pounds of toxins dumped into it during 2010, the nonprofit group Environment Maryland concluded. That's 98 percent of the chemicals released into the state's waterways that year, the report said.

EVIDENCE of the pernicious Pfiesteria piscicida microorganism in the mucky bottoms of five Maryland rivers is no big surprise, nor is it a cause for great alarm. But it underlines the need to prevent waterway pollution, primarily from runoff of agricultural waste and chemicals, that encourages the tiny creature to turn toxic -- killing fish and causing short-term memory loss for humans. Responding to large fish kills and reports of watermen's illness in 1997, Maryland required farms to develop surface runoff control plans by 2001 if they use chemical fertilizer and 2004 if they use manure.

The Maryland attorney general's office announced yesterday that it has charged a Baltimore company with water pollution violations for work it performed in a Montgomery County parking garage. Prosecutors said the charges were filed in Montgomery County Circuit Court against Restoration East LLC, a company in the 4200 block of E. Chase St., and one of the company's owners, Louis John Helmacy, 43, of Cedar Avenue in Towson. Restoration East and Helmacy were working on the hydro-demolition of a concrete floor in a parking garage in the 8400 block of Georgia Ave. in Montgomery County, according to the attorney general's office.

The owner of a quarantined Carroll County farm faces more than a half-dozen charges of polluting state waterways and illegally disposing of dead animals. Carroll Schisler Sr., 60, of the 2500 block of Marston Road in New Windsor has been charged with four counts of illegally discharging a pollutant into state waters and four counts of illegally allowing the disposal of solid waste on his farm, a spokesman from Attorney General J. Joseph Curran Jr.'s office said yesterday. The state alleges that the water pollution, which occurred March 8 and April 1, resulted from decomposing animals and from waste and wastewater.

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.

Perdue Farms Inc., the Maryland-based poultry giant, was fined $80,000 and has agreed to upgrade a processing plant in Virginia to settle charges of water pollution. The settlements were with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality. They stem from alleged water pollution from wastewater at Perdue's Accomac, Va., processing plant, according to the government agencies. Perdue's agreement with the state to upgrade its plant is subject to approval by the Virginia Water Control Board on June 19. "These are significant violations," said Dr. David Gussman, a senior enforcement specialist for the Virginia DEQ. Perdue is accused of discharging up to 30 times the permitted amount of ammonia into a nearby creek because of equipment malfunctions.

The federal and state governments agreed yesterday to a $3.5 million settlement in their lawsuit against Baltimore over water pollution at the city's Ashburton drinking water and Patapsco sewage treatment plants.U.S. Justice Department officials said a $1 million penalty was levied against the city -- one of the largest ever against a municipality. In addition, the city -- which approved the settlement last month -- has agreed to spend $2.5 million for three environmental projects."This settlement shows that we are serious about preventing pollution in the bay," said Lois J. Schiffer, the Justice Department's assistant attorney general for environment and natural resources.

Most of Maryland's poultry-raising operations would be regulated as potential sources of water pollution under an Environmental Protection Agency proposal to curb runoff from the nation's livestock feedlots.The proposal, unveiled yesterday and scheduled to go into effect between 2002 and 2005, would treat large-scale growers of cattle, pigs and poultry as potential polluters, just like industry. Large livestock-raising operations would have to get federal permits, requiring them to limit the amount of harmful byproducts from animal manure that could flow into nearby waters.

Four Maryland water-watchdog groups are suing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency today, claiming that the federal government is not doing enough to protect the state's rivers and streams from pollution. The lawsuit, which is expected to be filed in U.S. District Court in Baltimore, seeks to force the EPA to take control of setting limits for acceptable pollution levels in state waterways. The Maryland Department of the Environment is supposed to set those limits. The plaintiffs - the Potomac Riverkeeper, the Chester River Association, the South River Federation and the Assateague Coastal Trust - say the MDE is woefully behind in setting the limits, called total maximum daily loads.

Companies that dump toxins in the water or pollute the air would face a tenfold increase in fines under proposals Gov. Parris N. Glendening has submitted to the General Assembly. The increases are part of the governor's environmental package, which includes bills to protect coastal bays from development, bolster drinking water standards and better monitor companies that store hazardous chemicals. Although the plan is less ambitious than some of his previous environmental initiatives, Glendening said he hopes the bills will cement his legacy as a governor who protected the environment.