Say It Ain't So, Joe!

Yesterday, there was an article posted by 'marylandreporter.com' on The Daily Record, a non-profit news website covering state government and politics.  In this article, the following quote was attributed to State Senator Richard Colburn:

Republican Sen. Richard Colburn from Cambridge said he believes “river keepers,” environmentalists who watch over particular waterways, are dictating business on the Eastern Shore. He compared them to watermelons: “green on the outside and red or socialist on the inside.”


A strange accusation considering that what the Waterkeeper Alliance is advocating is an enforcement of existing state and federal laws. The laws call for measures that will reduce the pollution that has severely damaged the Chesapeake Bay.

• The number one source of nitrogen pollution to the Bay comes from agricultural runoff, which contributes 40 percent of the nitrogen and 50 percent of the phosphorus entering the Chesapeake Bay. 
• In Maryland, manure and waste from chicken production plays a big role in agricultural nitrogen loads to the Bay. Chickens outnumber people approximately 1,000 to 1 on Maryland's Eastern Shore.
• In the Shenandoah and Potomac watersheds, large-scale poultry operations produce more waste than hog, cattle, or dairy farms, and up to 150 percent more nutrient pollution than that generated by human waste in the same area. In addition, poultry waste creates four times more nitrogen and 24 times more phosphorus than hog waste in Virginia.

                           -Chesapeake Bay Foundation, Water Pollution Facts

The Daily Record news article stated that "raising chickens and processing them for sale is a billion-dollar business on the Shore."


However, according to an article in Science Direct addressing the benefits of water quality policies, "The monetized annual boating, fishing, and swimming benefits of water quality improvements in the Chesapeake Bay range from $357.9 million to $1.8 billion"   And this is just an estimate of the direct value from water related recreation. It doesn't even take into account the value of commercial fishing or real estate.

Communist, commie, pinko, socialist. Did I enter a time warp? Is Sen. Joe McCarthy out there waving a list of communists in the Waterkeeper Alliance?

"The State Department is infested with communists. I have here in my hand a list of 205—a list of names that were made known to the Secretary of State as being members of the Communist Party and who nevertheless are still working and shaping policy in the State Department."

 -Joseph McCarthy

I've been called a communist before, but that was during the 60's when I was working in opposition to the war in Vietnam. At that time many people advocated civil disobedience, disobeying the law using passive resistance to foster a change in the laws themselves.

Now I'm working to make sure that laws are enforced. Yes, you heard me correctly; laws are enforced. And I'm being called a commie again! How does that work?

In reciting the information from the Lee list cases, McCarthy consistently exaggerated, representing the hearsay of witnesses as facts and converting phrases such as "inclined towards Communism" to "a Communist."

 -Joseph McCarthy, Wikipedia

Fortunately, the hyperbole, the bombast, the pure bullshit wears on people and, like the boy who cried wolf people just stop listening. I don't think the names carry the same weight they did in the cold war. Really. Maybe these guys should look into some new slurs. How about, "liberal?" Nah, that doesn't work. Sissy? Might work if we weren't already kicking their collective asses. Fag? Nope. How about "Environmentalist?" Yeah, that's the stuff. Boy, I really hope they don’t start using that one on me.

In the 1950 Maryland Senate election, McCarthy campaigned for John Marshall Butler in his race against four-term incumbent Millard Tydings, with whom McCarthy had been in conflict during the Tydings Committee hearings. In speeches supporting Butler, McCarthy accused Tydings of "protecting Communists" and "shielding traitors." McCarthy's staff was heavily involved in the campaign, and collaborated in the production of a campaign tabloid that contained a composite photograph doctored to make it appear that Tydings was in intimate conversation with Communist leader Earl Russell Browder. A Senate subcommittee later investigated this election and referred to it as "a despicable, back-street type of campaign," as well as recommending that the use of defamatory literature in a campaign be made grounds for expulsion from the Senate.

-Joseph McCarthy, Wikipedia

There was a time when Maryland could be proud of its legislators. I wonder if that time will ever come again.

What's Surfing Got To Do With All This Snow?

It started as a joke in an email thread among members of the Ocean City chapter of Surfrider Foundation - wisecracks about all the snow at the beach and in the D.C. area with suggestions that global warming is a myth.      


I almost replied to the thread, reminding these watermen and women of the strange weather patterns we experienced during last summer. I had an urge to remind them of the unusually high tides in the back bays for almost 60 days (due to a slowing of the offshore Atlantic currents,) more persistent northeast winds, disappearance of our normal summer sand bars just off shore. But for the sake of my sanity I refrained from jumping into the 'conversation' knowing that a post on an internet forum always results in painful consequences.

While everyone has been digging out, two environmental writers in the region have posted interesting opinion pieces in both the Baltimore Sun and the Washington Post that deserve some attention.

Mike Tidwell, founder and director of Chesapeake Climate Action Network , had this to say in his Baltimore Sun Feb 14 op-ed which makes the point our weird winter weather is due more to high moisture levels rather than lower temperatures.

Tidwell wrote, in part, "Water vapor in the global atmosphere jumped by about 5 percent in the 20th century, reported P.Y. Groisman and his colleagues in 2004. This while there has been an observed, significant uptick in heavy winter precipitation events in the Northeastern U.S., according to a 2006 study. And all the while, global temperatures have risen sharply, including an average warming of 4 degrees F in the Northeastern U.S.

Consider further: We've had "Snowmaggedon" I, II and III this winter not because of record cold weather. The temperatures in our region have been only moderately colder than normal for the Mid Atlantic winter. No, it's because of record amounts of *moisture* here, pushed into our region by repeated Nor'easters. This historic wetness from the south has met cold-enough temperatures here to produce snow levels that neither science nor old-timers can recall.

Just last fall, the U.S. Global Change Research Program, established by Congress in 1990, predicted more violent storms in the Northeast due to climate change. "Strong cold season storms are likely to become stronger and more frequent, with greater wind speeds and more extreme wave heights," the agency said. So, yes, we are getting record winter precipitation events here even as overall temperatures are rising."

Then there was Bill McKibben's op-ed in the Washington Post this week, which furthers the connection between our weird weather patterns and the fact that Global Warming is here to stay.

McKibben commented, "In most places, winter is clearly growing shorter and less intense. We can tell, because Arctic sea ice is melting, because the glaciers on Greenland are shrinking and because a thousand other signals send the same message. Here in the mountains of the Northeast, for instance, lakes freeze later than they used to, and sometimes not at all: Lake Champlain remained open in winter only three times during the 19th century, but it did so 18 times between 1970 and 2007."

McKibben further noted some tasty tidbits from Weather Underground blogger Jeff Masters, who wrote last week that a record snowstorm requires a record amount of moisture in the air. "It is quite possible that the dice have been loaded in favor of more intense Nor'easters for the U.S. Mid-Atlantic and Northeast, thanks to the higher levels of moisture present in the air due to warmer global temperatures," Masters wrote.

So let's cut out the jokes and take this seriously. Here on Delmarva one of our greatest contributors to global warming is our use of electricity. Our electric power comes from coal generated power plants. Every time you turn on an electric switch, look to the north and watch for the smoke pouring out of the stacks at the NRG plant in Milford, DE.

If we don’t urge our elected officials to support the construction and implementation of an offshore wind farm here in Maryland and get this project moving forward, then all the Surfrider folks might as well kiss those warm summer south swells breaking on outside sand bars goodbye and get used to surfing NE slop on steep beaches.

Congratulations to Tom Patton - 2010 Osprey Award Recipient

One of my favorite people is getting some well deserved attention this month. 

Assateague Coastal Trust founding member, long time Coastal Bays watershed activist and historian Tom Patton of South Point is being recognized by the Maryland Coastal Bays Program with their prestigious Golden Osprey Award on February 18 in Berlin, MD.

Tom, who has lived along Sinepuxent Bay for 75 years and is one of ACT's earliest members, as a member of The Committee to Preserve Assateague Island (which later evolved into ACT.)  He was one of those rare conservationists on the Eastern Shore in the 60's, before the phrase "environmental activist" had been coined.  A waterman and a hunter, he was an advocate for responsible land development long before anyone had mouthed the words "smart growth," and continues to advocate for it today.

My first meeting with Tom was in 2007.  Jim Rapp, ACT's new President was chairing our March Annual Meeting.  It was my first ACT Board meeting as its new Executive Director and as its new Coastkeeper.  The tiny little 'board room' (a dining room in the house that is ACT's office,) was crammed with Board members many of whom I was meeting for the first time.  

Tom arrived a few minutes late and took a chair in the living room just out of my view.  Jim and I had carefully prepared an agenda consisting of elections, committee reports, program reports, old and new business related to ACT, Inc.  Somewhere way down the agenda was a spot for the Coastkeeper report.

About 25 minutes into the reports, a voice boomed out of the living room, "Could we please just dispense with all this drivel and move to more important business - the Coastkeeper report!"   Tom continued, "I mean, why is all of this stuff more important than what we are going to do about cleaning up the coastal bays?"

He then reminded the Board that ACT had been around for over 35 years, Maryland Coastal Bays Program for nearly 10 years, Lower Shore Land Trust for over 10 years and the coastal bays watershed was in worse trouble now and were continuing its slow decline.  He demanded to know what ACT was going to do about it!

Well, so much for our carefully prepared agenda.  There I was, thinking, holy crap - I've only been on the job a few weeks, I hardly know the names of everyone in the room much less have a plan of attack to clean up the water.  Heck, I hadn't even attended my first Waterkeeper orientation yet. 

But Tom gave me my marching orders and I've been following his lead ever since that cold evening in March 2007.  And yes, from that point on the ACT Board meeting agenda has always placed the Coastkeeper report right near the top immediately following the Treasurer's Report.

Here's an article that appeared in our Fall 2009 Newsletter about Tom's environmental and historic conservation efforts.  ACT's Board members had attended a recent fundraiser for Tom's non-profit Rackliffe House Trust, which is restoring the former plantation house located on Sinepuxent Bay into a coastal heritage museum.

Please read on and learn a little something about Tom.   Congratulations Tom - you most certainly deserve the Golden Osprey Award!

Read about Tom in ACT For Bays, the official newsletter of Assateague Coastal Trust.  The story is on the front page, lower left column.

A Different Breed of 'Environmentalist'

Two interesting editorial pieces ran in the The Daily Times recently. 

On December 28, 2009 an Opinion piece on the subject of the Coastkeeper/Waterkeeper Alliance notice of intent to sue Perdue Farms, Inc and a Perdue chicken grower for illegal polluted discharges attempted to dismiss the legality of the situation and called for a fireside chat around the kitchen table as a reasonable solution to the problem.

The editorial further chastised Waterkeeper Alliance for taking what the editor deemed to be too harsh an action.  After all, what's the rush in stopping this poultry facility from filling our waterways with unsafe levels of fecal coliform and e.coli, as well as arsenic, nitrogen and phosphorus?  Let's just talk about it for awhile.  Given Delmarva Poultry Industry (DPI) efforts the past few years to equate the word 'Waterkeeper' with the devil, I'm sure this poultry grower would have welcomed us to his kitchen table with open arms.

And why not talk about it?   After all, that's pretty much what everyone's been doing for the last 25 years and we can all see the benefit of that approach when it comes to the health of the Chesapeake Bay, which is worse now than 25 years ago.

Then, on January 27, 2010 a column in The Worcester County Times attempted to distance one local environmental group from another local group.  It was not unexpected, at least to me, given the past year.  The Maryland Coastal Bays Program has probably more than once had to explain that Assateague Coastal Trust or the Coastkeeper is not part of its organization.

 I'm glad the Maryland Coastal Bays Program (MCBP) approached this matter head-on  with it's January column in The Worcester County Times, and finally said what's needed to be said for a long time about the differences between Assateague Coastal Trust and MCBP.

First - both of these outstanding organizations have a clear and definite purpose in this watershed.   Let me be perfectly clear on this point.

MCBP has the government funding, the staffing, and the mission statement that allows them to  bring diverse stakeholders together.  They are 'the safe green group', the group who can make a developer, a farmer, an elected official, a government agency staffer feel comfortable in the room together.....get them around 'the kitchen table.'

In that role, MCBP is extremely effective in helping to create policy for our watershed that will preserve our current environmental resources and restore those resources we have lost as a result of previous poor environmental policies.   Every watershed needs a group like Maryland Coastal Bays Program.

But there are times when the good intensions of those diverse stakeholders, the will of those politicians and the ability of those government agencies fail.

That is when the need for a 'darker green' environmental watchdog is needed. An organization that does not accept government funding and therefore is not afraid of losing that funding if it takes too strong an advocacy role.  A group that is not afraid it will make it's Board members angry by taking a strong advocacy stance.  A group that is not afraid to speak truth to power.

And every watershed needs one of those groups too!

Assateague Coastal Trust (ACT) is the organization in this watershed who's job it is to speak truth to power.   ACT began nearly 40 years ago when Judith Colt Johnson, Ajax Eastman, Bill Dwight and others stood up to the federal government and a wealthy developer, and said NO to the planned commercial development of Assateague Island.  

ACT took action in the 80's when Ilia Fehrer stood up to Worcester County officials and more big developers and said NO to the loss of thousands of acres of coastal natural resources along Chincoteague Bay.  Her actions led to ACT expanding its mission to the preservation of all of Worcester County.

ACT again expanded its mission in 2002 when it took on the Assateague Coastkeeper, part of the national Waterkeeper Alliance program.  This on-the-water advocate provided a voice for our coastal bays, creeks and river; someone who would stand up to polluters and use the power of the Clean Water Act laws to protect the health and safety of our waterways.

So don't lump us in with all the other environmentalists.  ACT and the Coastkeeper are a different breed.  Some may find our advocacy role too harsh, but given the pending death of the Chesapeake Bay and the deterioration of our Coastal Bays our supporters understand the need for citizen activism, enforcement of the laws, and a loud voice when one is needed.

What does the TSA have to do with water quality?

A recent story in the New York Times about the failed Christmas Day attempt to blow up an airliner got me thinking. The story indicated that the bomber's access to the flight was due to a series of failures in the system that is supposed to protect us from events just like this.


In fact, the bomber was actually subdued by a passenger. Not by any agent or security official. This is a perfect example of how citizens often have to step forward and take action when the agencies responsible for protecting us fail to do their job.


Ironically, the same passenger who subdued the would-be bomber was hailed as a hero.


Why isn't the same standard applied when a citizen environmental whistle blower points out that a factory, a farm, or a developer is polluting our water?


Oh sure, the results of an airplane bomb are much more spectacular.  Three hundred people die in a fiery crash. CNN has news fodder for days. Wolf Blitzer brings in a sleeping bag and camps out in the 'situation room.' Fox News commentators positively squeal with glee as they report how the Obama administration is responsible for the deaths of these god-fearing Americans.


So what happens when a polluter increases nutrient levels or bacteria levels to our waterways, in numbers that are dangerous to the public health?


A physteria bloom, temporary perhaps; fishing and recreation closures; commercial fisheries shut down; hotels and motels suffer a loss of business for years to come. Fisheries are possibly damaged for years to come. And it's conceivable the drinking water for communities along the waterway will be affected.


Twenty five years ago, the Chesapeake Bay was screaming out for help. It was dying. Legislative programs were put in place to rectify the problem. In those twenty + years the health of the Bay has actually declined. All these good intentions went to waste simply because the agencies charged with enforcing the laws which would improve the Bay's health have not been doing their job any better than the TSA screeners for Northwest Flight 253.


In effect, I would be out of a job as a Waterkeeper if the agencies charged with enforcing the laws that would protect our waterways had been doing their job all along.


I have to tell you, it doesn't look like I'll be retiring anytime soon.

Poop is Poop - No Discharges!

Astonishing Admission by Perdue Follows December 17th Notice of Intent to Sue Perdue, Hudson Farm in Berlin, MD.; Fecal Coliform Level “Hundreds” of Times EPA-Permitted Level for Treated Human Sewage Deepen Concerns About Threat to Maryland Waterways and Human Health.
 
We are appalled to learn from Perdue’s public statements that it now admits importing human sewage into the Alan and Kristin Hudson Farm – a chicken factory farm located in Berlin, MD. Our initial assumption was that the only manure problem polluting Maryland waterways and endangering human health at the facility was related to chickens. It now appears that the ‘off the charts’ readings we detected for fecal coliform likely are also related to the human waste that Perdue has acknowledged is being shipped into the site and stored in an unsafe manner.

If Perdue and Hudson try to claim that human sewage trucked into the farm is a safe Class A biosolid, then they need to explain why we found fecal coliform levels at 100-200 times what the EPA allows for Class A biosolids. The levels we detected are comparable to what you would find in a pit of raw, untreated sewage still in liquid form.

It is mind boggling to us that a Maryland farm would be viewed by anyone as an appropriate dumping site for human sewage in any form. This is particularly true when the same farm is already the site of what appears to be an out-of-control situation with animal waste. This seems like the very definition of making an already bad situation worse, with Maryland’s waterways and residents paying the price at the expense of their health.

Unfortunately, what we’re seeing with Hudson Farm – piles of uncovered waste sitting in open fields, alongside drainage ditches that carry pollution to the area’s streams and rivers, and eventually to the Bay – is commonplace throughout the Eastern Shore. Until this industry takes responsibility for its waste, and state environmental agencies get serious about protecting our waterways, no amount of taxpayer money, ongoing study or well-intentioned legislation is going to fix the Bay’s problems.


BACKGROUND
The Hudson Farm and Perdue Farms, Inc., were the recipients on December 17, 2009 of a notice of intent to file suit for violations of the Clean Water Act at the Eastern Shore facility consisting of an 80,000-bird Concentrated Animal Feed Operation (CAFO). The factory farm is is owned by Alan Hudson, a contract grower for Perdue Farms.


The legal action against Hudson Farm and Perdue was the culmination of several years of intense scrutiny of the Maryland CAFO industry for its contribution to the ongoing decline in health of the state’s local waters. The results of recent water sampling from ditches that ran past an extensive, uncovered waste pile on the property show high levels of many toxic pollutants, including fecal coliform, phosphorus and nitrogen.


In addition, photographic evidence taken from both the ground and the air over the past few months clearly shows the runoff from the manure pile to the surrounding ditch drainage areas. The facility discharges pollution into the Franklin Branch of the Pocomoke River, which then empties into Chesapeake Bay. Both the Pocomoke and the Bay have been listed as impaired for nutrients under the Clean Water Act.


Corporate-owned, large-scale factory farm facilities in Maryland and other states nationwide produce a significant amount of waste, including manure and slaughter byproduct. This year, Maryland’s Department of the Environment finalized a state Maryland Animal Feed Operation, or MAFO, permit for some of these facilities which allow for piles of manure to sit in open fields for up to 90 days. The federal CAFO permit that Hudson Farm applied for by filing a Notice of Intent with MDE allows for stockpiling of manure for a 14-day period.


Under either the federal and state permitting system, however, discharges from manure piles are illegal. As a result of inevitable discharges from manure stockpiling, these growing operations continue to pollute drinking and recreational water supplies by fouling rivers, lakes, streams and underground aquifers with untreated livestock manure.

You can read more here, and see photos.

No Money? No Excuse to Pollute!

Voice of America recently launched a five part series on their website about the state of the Chesapeake Bay. Their reporter, Rosanne Skirble, assigned to cover the recent Obama Executive Order to get the Bay cleaned up.

The full report is interesting to watch, but what caught my attention was the part about municipal wastewater and our waterways.

In her special report segment on urban pollution,  Snow Hill, MD Mayor Stephen Matthews talked about the problems with the town’s ancient combined sewer/stormwater wastewater treatment plant and admitted to Skirble and the entire world that every time it rains hard in Snow Hill they have no choice but to open the ‘flood gates’ and let raw, untreated sewage flow into the Pocomoke River.

If this horrifies you, welcome to the club. This is something we’ve been aware of for quite some time and now it’s time for more people to know.
 
Human waste, unlike farm animal waste, by law must be treated before it can be discharged into our waterways or applied to the land. This law also requires that those who do the discharging or application must have a federal permit under the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) program under the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA.)

In Maryland, this federal program is administered by the Maryland Department of the Environment. Twenty years ago MDE entered into an agreement with the EPA to issue/renew the permits in Maryland, inspect the permit holder facilities, and enforce any violations of the permit through fines or legal actions.

But if you read between the lines of this VOA report, you quickly realize that Maryland has done little to force Snow Hill or Worcester County to stop polluting the Pocomoke River.

You'll especially like the part where Skirble & Matthews reveal a little known secret about the Snow Hill treatment plant - Worcester County actually pays Snow Hill tens of thousands of dollars a year to 'treat' waste runoff water that accumulates at the County land fill - a watery goo of landfill toxins and heavy metals that the Snow Hill wastewater treatment plant does not have the capacity to treat or filter, so it all goes into the river. 
And where is MDE in all of this?   The NPDES wastewater permit the State has issued to Snow Hill is expired.  The State has given the County/Town extensions so the plant can continue to operate.  The  NPDES wastewater permit issued by the State does not cover the pollutants coming from the landfill waste.

This is one of the many reasons Waterkeepers Chesapeake, today December 7,  is asking the EPA to look into Maryland's failure to adequately oversee the permitting program entrusted to it by EPA.

Read more about Waterkeepers' 58 page Citizen De-Delegation Petition, which outlines hundreds of examples of poor oversight by MDE,  on the Assateague Coastal Trust website....http://www.actforbays.org/