Water Pollution

Steep projected costs for cleaning up the Chesapeake Bay could be trimmed by billions of dollars, a new study suggests, by allowing polluters to buy "credits" for less-expensive reductions made by others. The study, presented Thursday to the Chesapeake Bay Commission, an advisory panel of legislators from Maryland, Pennsylvania and Virginia, estimates that nutrient pollution trading could trim projected costs for upgrading sewage treatment plants and controlling urban and suburban storm water pollution by $1 billion or more a year baywide.

A House of Delegates committee voted yesterday to kill two of Gov. Parris N. Glendening's environmental bills, including legislation to significantly increase fines for water pollution. The same committee could defeat another Glendening priority -- increased fines for air polluters -- as early as today if it is not amended. The committee vote occurred after a flurry of lobbying by the administration to try to salvage the bills, which the governor hoped would add to his record of environmental protection.

Anne Arundel will receive $30,000 from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for its part in a seven-county water pollution study of the Patuxent River.The money is the county's share of a three-year, $1.25 million storm water management project that county officials hoped will serve as a nationwide model for controlling non-point source water pollution, said state Department of Environment spokesman John Goheen.Non-point source pollution includes sediments, fertilizers and other toxins carried into the bay by storm water.

Baltimore: Central Booking Suspect missing from intake center An armed-robbery suspect escaped yesterday from the Central Booking and Intake Center, officials said. Troy Aaron Gross, 42, of Gwynn Oak was arrested Thursday on armed robbery and other charges, said Mark Vernarelli, a spokesman for the state Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services. Vernarelli said Gross was taken to the facility Friday morning. He said correctional officers discovered that Gross, who was being held without bail, was missing yesterday.

Stop drilling for oil and gas near the bayYour recent articles regarding Texaco's exploration for oil an gas along the shores of the Chesapeake Bay were timely. Many people are unaware that this multi-national company has spent tens of millions of dollars in an intense petroleum search throughout portions of tidewater Virginia and Maryland.Texaco has diverted attention away from the long-term ramifications for the Chesapeake Bay. If oil is found, there will be a great potential for oil spills into the bay as crude is transported over its waters in barges and tankers and along its shoreline and under its waters by pipeline.

City environmentalists, seeking to make the long-standing controversy over the Pulaski incinerator an election issue, staged a rally at the plant's gate yesterday to demand its shutdown.Displaying two bins full of barely burned debris they said came from the incinerator's ash, members of the Baltimore City League of Environmental Voters vowed to elect a "working majority" on City Council that would seek to close the incinerator, which has been cited repeatedly in recent years for air and water pollution violations.

Public funding is wrong solution While the legality of transferring public funds from the Fair Campaign Financing Fund to pay for upgraded voting equipment may be in doubt, the heated debate over the issue demonstrates the folly of subsidizing politicians with taxpayer dollars in the first place ("Fund diversion irks state GOP," April 14). "Fair campaign" and "clean election" programs are supposed to end, or at least severely limit, abusive practices by politicians and control the perception that they are looking out for their own interests and not those of the voters.

Warning that the Baltimore area's economic health depends on a clean environment, a report released today by Johns Hopkins University calls for creation of a "regional environmental forum" to tackle the smog and water pollution plaguing the city and its suburbs.The report, written by a group of environmental, business and government leaders, urges the General Assembly to attack the Baltimore region's "serious" air quality problems by adopting California's strict tailpipe pollution standards for all cars and trucks sold in Maryland.

WHEN MEMBERS of Congress head home for the November elections, there may be more than health care reform left unfinished. Lack of attention to water pollution may leave public health begging as well.This is the year when Congress is supposed to revise both the Clean Water Act and the Safe Drinking Water Act. There is ample reason to toughen both laws. The federal Environmental Protection Agency says that more than a third of our nation's waterways are unsafe for fishing, swimming or other uses.

HARRISBURG, Pa. -- A Pennsylvania environmental group says it plans to sue five big Lancaster County hog and chicken farms as part of a sweeping campaign to keep manure pollution out of the Chesapeake Bay. PennFuture, a nonprofit advocacy group, says the five "factory farms" are among up to 250 livestock operations in this state that have failed to get water pollution control permits required by federal and state laws. "These farms have refused to comply with the laws protecting water from farm pollution, despite the fact that they have known of the laws' requirements for some time," said Kimberly L. Snell-Zarcone, staff attorney for the environmental group.