Water Quality

The letter from Steve Everley, a member of a research organization supported by the Independent Petroleum Institute of America ("Fracking gets an unfair rap," Sept. 21), is a bit misleading when it says that the moratorium on fracking "is just another way to obscure the fact that hydraulic fracturing has been examined, studied, assessed, and closely scrutinized for decades. " While it's true that hydraulic fracturing has been used and studied for decades, high-volume slick-water fracturing has been used only in about the past dozen years, and only in 2011 did the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency begin to respond to concerns that fracking was causing problems when they received many complaints from Pennsylvanians who were badly impacted by it. On Feb. 28, 2011, Ian Urbana, an investigative reporter for the New York Times, wrote that he found never-reported studies by the EPA and a confidential study by the drilling industry that all concluded that radioactivity in drilling waste cannot be fully diluted in rivers and other waterways.

Weeks after the weird June 29 windstorm that swept the Mid-Atlantic, I can't shake the feeling of being in an episode of "The Twilight Zone," the 1960s TV series that warned of living selfishly. A dash of Rod Serling spiking a large dollop of Catholic guilt. With a mighty crack, a piece of the giant maple that has reigned in my front yard since Abe Lincoln lived in a log cabin nearly crushed my house during the derecho. Meanwhile, the rest of the country looked like it was burning up. In fact, the whole abused planet seems in desperate need of relief.

Trading pollution "credits" to reduce the cost of cleaning up the Chesapeake Bay risks endangering the health of the region's poor and minority communities, a new report warns. The report by the Washingon-based Center for Progressive Reform contends that without explicit safeguards, water-quality trading programs being launched in Maryland, Pennsylvania and Virginia could result in localized concentrations of nutrient pollution, most likely in urban areas with already degraded waters.

The Chesapeake Bay's water quality has taken a turn for the better, state officials report, as the oxygen-starved 'dead zone' where fish, crabs and shellfish struggle to breathe has shrunk to its second smallest since 1985. Water samples taken in early August found that 11.8 percent of the Maryland portion of the bay has poor oxygen levels, nearly half the long-term average for this time of year, according to a report posted online by the state Department of Natural Resources . That's a turnaround from July, when the volume of water with low oxygen levels was above average.

The multistate effort to restore the Chesapeake Bay is on track to meet its latest timetable for cleaning up the ailing estuary, even though states failed to achieve all the short-term pollution reduction goals they set for themselves three years ago, officials said Monday. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa P. Jackson said Maryland and the other five states that drain into the bay, as well as the District of Columbia and the federal government, have all made "extraordinary progress" the past two years in accelerating their cleanup efforts.

Maryland's swimming beaches have better water quality than those in most coastal states, but still lag neighboring Delaware and Virginia, according to the latest review by an environmental group. In its annual nationwide survey of beach water quality, the Natural Resources Defense Council says that Maryland's public wading and swimming areas ranked 11th among 30 coastal states, including those bordering the Great Lakes.  Delaware ranked first overall, while Virginia ranked sixth, with fewer high-bacteria readings on their beaches.  But a stretch of beach in Ocean City running from 126th Street north to 145th Street earned the NRDC's five-star rating as one of the 12 cleanest in the nation, for not showing any bacteria problems since 2007 and having strong standards for frequent testing and prompt notification of the public if a problem is found.  Delaware's Dewey Beach also earned a five-star rating.

The "dead zone" that forms every spring in the Chesapeake Bay is smaller than average so far this year, state officials report. Water sampling done in early June by the Department of Natural Resources found dissolved oxygen levels too low to be suitable for fish, crabs and shellfish in just 12 percent of the bay, according to the department's "Eyes on the Bay" website. That's well below the long-term average since 1985 of 17.1 percent of the Chesapeake experiencing low oxygen levels.  It's also a dramatic improvement over last year, when a third of the bay's waters was starved of the oxygen that fish, crabs and shellfish need to breathe.

Swimmers should avoid contact with tidal and fresh water for 48 hours after a big rain storm this summer, warns the Chesapeake Bay Foundation . The precaution is suggested by state and county health departments, but foundation officials believe it's not widely known by the public. The foundation says runoff makes the water unsafe, and the large fish kills already seen this year could be a sign that poor water quality is arriving earlier than usual. “I'm amazed how few people know our water can be unhealthy for days after a storm.

A warning against water contact in the lower Patapsco River issued nearly two months ago has been lifted, the Anne Arundel County health department announced Monday. Health officials had ordered an emergency closure of the river downstream from Annapolis Road in Brooklyn and warned against swimming or other water contact after sewage spilled March 25 from a Baltimore County pumping station. Workers halted the spill soon afterward, according to a spokesman for the county public works department.

The 3,000-mile water and land trail network created to relive the Chesapeake Bay's 17th century exploration by English colonists is about to grow still larger. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and National Park Service Director Jon Jarvis are slated to visit Sandy Point State Park in Annapolis this afternoon to celebrate the addition of four new river river trails to the existing Captain John Smith Chesapeake National Historic Trail .  The federal officials are to be joined by Gov.Martin O'Malley, local officials, Native American tribal leaders and conservation group representatives.