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March 4, 2021

The Talbot Spy

The nonprofit e-newspaper for the Talbot County Community

Ecosystem Eco Homepage

Zoning Change Denied for Eastern Shore Salmon Farm

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A Norwegian company’s plans to bring land-based salmon farming to Maryland’s Eastern Shore hit a snag Thursday night when one of the sites it had chosen for raising the commercially valuable fish failed to gain needed local approval.

The Dorchester County Board of Appeals denied AquaCon Maryland LLC a special zoning exception that would have allowed it to build a massive indoor hatchery and fish grow-out facility on a defunct golf course bordering the Choptank River.

The board’s decision came at the end of a 3.5-hour meeting where neighboring residents and others suggested the industrial-scale aquaculture operation would be unsuitable in the still largely rural area just west of Cambridge. Some also voiced concerns that its wastewater discharges, though treated to a high level, might hurt the Choptank River’s water quality, undermining recent signs of improvement.

“Is there a better location?” Choptank Riverkeeper Matt Pluta asked at one point.

The 114-acre site, formerly home to the Cambridge Country Club, is one of four locations AquaCon has selected for its planned facilities on the Shore, each expected to produce up to 15,000 metric tons of salmon annually.

AquaCon had previously declared its plans to build a facility on the outskirts of Federalsburg, a small town in Caroline County on a tributary of the Nanticoke River. The other two sites are in Cambridge and Denton, also in Caroline County, company representatives told the board.

Ryan Showalter, an Easton lawyer representing AquaCon, said it is pursuing multiple sites at the same time with the intent to start construction next year on whichever one first receives regulatory approvals. AquaCon is one of several mostly European companies rushing to build land-based salmon farms in the United States that use new developments in recirculating aquaculture technology.

Showalter touted the economic benefits for largely rural Dorchester County, noting that the company plans to invest $300 million in each facility and that each would create 150 jobs, a number of them high-paying profession and technical positions.

“When constructed, this will be an industry-changing, world-leading facility,” he said.

Bob Rauch, the company’s Easton-based engineering consultant, stressed that each would be an “all-green” facility. Unlike most open-water salmon farming operations in Europe, these fish would be raised indoors in tanks, with nearly all of the water recirculated and filtered to remove waste. They would not be fed antibiotics or be at risk of escape into the wild, two issues with pen-reared fish.

Solar panels would be placed on the rooftop of the massive 27.5-acre buildings to help offset the facilities’ energy needs. The solid waste produced by raising 3 million fish a year would be converted to energy-generating biogas via anaerobic digestion.

Showalter acknowledged that the size of the building — the largest on the Shore — was daunting. But he said the company pledged to plant a thick buffer of trees around it that in about 12 years should have grown tall enough to hide it from view from the road or neighboring properties.

Several of those attending the meeting praised the company’s efforts to minimize environmental impacts, but they voiced concerns about the wastewater it would generate. The facility would use 70,000–80,000 gallons of groundwater daily and pump an equivalent amount of pretreated wastewater to Cambridge’s sewage treatment plant.

The proposed Dorchester facility would also have withdrawn up to 2.3 million gallons of water daily from the Choptank and discharged the same amount back into the river. That water would cycle through tanks where the salmon would be held just before being harvested so they can be purged of naturally occurring microbes that can give their flesh an unappetizing musty odor and taste.

Rauch said the Choptank water would be treated before being returned to the river, with the discharge meeting the state’s limits for nitrogen and phosphorus.

Tom Fisher, a professor at the Horn Point laboratory of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, which is next door to the proposed country club site, expressed some concerns about the potential impact on the lower Choptank. The river is suffering from excess nutrients from agricultural runoff and wastewater, but Fisher said it has shown water quality improvements recently in the wake of an upgrade of the treatment plant in Cambridge.

While the added wastewater coming from the municipal plant and the aquaculture facility’s direct discharge to the river would be treated to reduce nutrient levels, Fisher said he was concerned that the Choptank’s recovery might be undermined by the amounts of nitrogen and phosphorus remaining in those additional discharges.

“Even if there’s a tiny concentration of something in that water, it’s going to contribute to the impairment,” warned Fred Pomeroy of Dorchester Citizens for Planned Growth.

Pomeroy suggested the company focus first on developing its site in Cambridge, which has industrial land in need of redevelopment. Showalter, the company lawyer, said the city site isn’t suitable at this time because it doesn’t have access to the Choptank for purge water. The company is working on a way to eliminate the musty odor in the fish without needing river water, but that’s not ready yet.

Alan Girard of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation questioned how the facility would manage the stormwater runoff coming off the 27.5-acre rooftop. Rauch said the company has at least at least three different approaches in mind, including possibly using the old golf course’s irrigation system to cycle the runoff back into the ground. That portion of the property borders the river, though, where land use is strictly controlled by the state’s Critical Area law, and company representatives said they were still working out how to meet those requirements.

County appeals board members voiced some doubts about the stormwater and the municipal treatment plant’s ability to handle the aquaculture facility’s wastewater, even though company representatives said it had ample capacity to do so.

In the end, though, the appeals board decision seemed influenced most heavily by nearby residents’ complaints about the impacts on their quality of life of such an operation.

“It’s quiet, it’s peaceful, and that’s the way we’d like to keep it,” said David Rineholt, who said he and his wife Kathleen had built a home next to the old country club 25 years ago.

The site is accessed by a narrow two-lane road, which company representatives acknowledged might need some upgrading to handle 30-35 trucks per week. Otherwise, they said, the traffic generated by the 150-person workforce would be roughly equivalent to what the country club had experienced.

“It will tax traffic,” said board member Charles Dayton, Jr., a sentiment echoed by the rest of the board.

He and a couple of other board members seemed to suggest they might reach a different conclusion if presented with additional information and studies to address concerns raised at the meeting.

Afterward, though, AquaCon representatives indicated they wouldn’t try to win the board over but instead focus on getting regulatory approvals to go forward in Federalsburg and Denton.

“We have other sites,” said Showalter. “We redirect.”

By Timothy B. Wheeler

Oyster Farming in Maryland Might Get Harder

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DNR to propose rule that could reduce areas for aquaculture leasing

The Hogan administration is moving to block Maryland oyster farmers from leasing spots in the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries where there’s still a smattering of wild oysters — a step that aquaculture advocates warn will stifle the state’s small but growing industry.

The Department of Natural Resources has announced that it plans to propose a regulation that would enable it to deny a lease application wherever it finds even a very low density of wild oysters on the bottom or when “physical, biological and economic conditions” warrant reserving the area for the public fishery.

The move comes in response to complaints from watermen, who contend that their livelihoods are threatened by having any more potentially productive oystering areas leased to private shellfish cultivation.

“We’ve given up enough bottom already,” Queen Anne’s County waterman Troy Wilkins said at a recent virtual meeting of the DNR Oyster Advisory Commission.

Watermen have long chafed over the state’s move a decade ago to greatly expand its oyster sanctuaries, which put some reefs off-limits to wild harvest. They also have repeatedly protested aquaculture lease applications, citing potential conflicts with crabbing or wild oyster harvests.

DNR officials say they want to establish a process for creating or expanding Public Shellfish Fishery Areas, which are reserved exclusively for wild harvest.

“There are occasions — and they’re rare — when a lease application comes forward, and there are populations of oysters [there that] the fishery has been working on or could be working on,” said Chris Judy, director of the DNR shellfish program.

But oyster farmers contend that the DNR has already been withholding approval or forcing changes to some lease applications when watermen or others object. The rule will only make it easier, they say, for watermen to block them from leasing good spots for cultivating shellfish.

“This is basically a big land grab to the detriment of aquaculture,” said Tal Petty, owner of Hollywood Oyster Co. in St. Mary’s County, where he raises bivalves in cages in a creek off the Patuxent River.

There are already 180,000 acres of the Bay and its tributaries that since 2009 have been officially designated as Public Shellfish Fishery Areas. There are another 110,000 acres that are unclassified but still open to wild harvest.

In comparison, about 325 leases encompassing about 6,500 acres have been issued over the past decade, according to the DNR. A few are used for raising clams or scallops, but the vast majority is for farming oysters. There are about 100 applications pending with the DNR seeking to lease another 2,000 acres. Protests have been filed against awarding about 15 of those pending leases.

Petty, a board member of the East Coast Shellfish Growers Association, said the rule would severely limit the state’s aquaculture industry, which has grown since 2010 and produced about 60,000 bushels of oysters in 2019, according to DNR figures. The wild harvest during the 2018-2019 season was 145,000 bushels, though it nearly doubled in the most recent season ending in March.

“The tragedy is that Maryland is about to significantly reduce the leasable area for aquaculture, using nonscientific methods and measures,” Petty said.

Oyster density debate

DNR officials say they’re not expecting to create vast new areas off-limits to aquaculture but want to correct a regulatory imbalance. Under current rules, oyster farmers may petition to declassify a Public Shellfish Fishery Area so that it can be leased, but there is no comparable procedure for creating new or expanding one.

Judy said the DNR was considering denying a lease application if a survey it conducts finds as few as 5 wild oysters per square meter on the bottom. But watermen have insisted that the threshold for denying a lease be set even lower, to block a lease for a site if there is even one oyster per square meter on the bottom.

Some watermen who use power dredges or patent tongs to harvest oysters contend they can get their limit of 10 to 24 bushels per day, depending on the number of license holders on a boat, even if there are fewer than 5 oysters per square meter on the bottom.

“If you give me 2 or 3 oysters a meter, I’ll put a deck-load on my skipjack,” said Russell Dize, a skipjack captain from Tilghman. Skipjacks, which use sail or motor power to haul dredges, are allowed to harvest up to 100 bushels a day.

Watermen also complain that letting oyster farmers lease areas that already have some wild oysters effectively gives them a windfall, allowing them to make some quick money harvesting and selling those bivalves. But oyster farmers point out that they’re required by state regulations to plant and cultivate far more oysters in the leased area, which requires substantial investment up front in gear and supplies. It takes at least two to three years before they realize any income from raising those planted oysters large enough to harvest.

Two DNR advisory panels dominated by watermen and their supporters have voted to endorse the watermen’s position that leases should be denied if there is even one wild oyster per square meter on the bottom. An aquaculture advisory commission urged the department to set the lease denial threshold much higher, at 25 oysters per square meter.

“It appears to be a one-sided proposal to increase the oyster harvest at the expense of restoration and aquaculture efforts that are helping to bring Maryland’s oysters back,” said Allison Colden, a fisheries scientist with the Chesapeake Bay Foundation.

Though outvoted, several members of the DNR Oyster Advisory Commission argued that the DNR should hold off on the rule and include it as part of a broader effort by the commission to forge a consensus among watermen, oyster farmers and environmentalists over how the state’s oysters ought to be managed.

Tom Miller, director of the Chesapeake Biological Laboratory with the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, questioned the scientific basis for the rule. Miller, a fisheries scientist, said it’s the DNR’s purview to decide where to allow commercial harvest, but he said research shows that oyster populations need to be much denser than even 5 oysters per square meter to be likely to reproduce successfully and sustain themselves.

Ann Swanson, executive director of the Chesapeake Bay Commission, pointed out that experts working to restore the Bay’s severely diminished oyster habitat only consider a reef capable of sustaining itself when it has at least 50 oysters per square meter of varying ages and sizes covering at least 30% of its surface.

Long history of friction

The friction between watermen and oyster farmers in Maryland has a long history.

“Watermen have wanted all of the Bay bottom from the time the first lease law was passed in 1830,” said Don Webster, a Maryland Sea Grant aquaculture specialist and advocate for the industry.

Watermen, who once wielded considerable political clout, succeeded in getting laws passed that from the early 1900s until the early 2000s severely restricted leasing. All a waterman had to do to block a lease then was to swear that he had harvested oysters there sometime in the previous five years.

That changed in 2010, with the passage of a new law that made large areas available for leasing. The Bay’s oyster population had been decimated by then by diseases, overharvesting and habitat loss. A study by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers estimated that there were only 36,000 acres of productive oyster habitat left in Maryland’s portion of the Bay.

State lawmakers decided it was time to encourage aquaculture to take harvest pressure off the struggling oyster population, and they also expanded Maryland’s network of oyster sanctuaries, which now cover about 250,000 acres. Watermen have since complained that the expansion took away many productive harvest areas. Though some may have once brimmed with oysters, a review of DNR data show that only about 10% of the state’s overall wild harvest came from those new sanctuaries in the year before they were set aside.

At the same time it moved to boost aquaculture and enlarge sanctuaries, the DNR also established Public Shellfish Fishery Areas that would be reserved for wild harvest. Those areas encompassed three-quarters of the remaining productive oyster habitat, according to a DNR report.

While harvests have rebounded some in the past decade, they remain well below their historic level, and watermen have pressed to get at least some of the sanctuaries reopened. The DNR in the Hogan administration attempted to do that but was blocked by the legislature amid an outcry from environmentalists.

Oyster farmers say the DNR has been conferring for a year or two with watermen and advocates for waterfront property owners to address their complaints about aquaculture. Meanwhile, they say they have had a harder time getting leases when watermen or property owners object.

JD Blackwell sorts through baby oysters at his aquaculture operation on the Potomac River is St. Mary’s County. Photo by Dave Harp

“DNR has decided to kill oyster aquaculture,” contended JD Blackwell, an oyster farmer who leases sites in St. Mary’s County. “The excitement that existed in 2011 and 2012 to give birth to a new industry is gone. Oyster aquaculture will wither and die from this point forward. Opportunity missed.”

Critics of the rule also say it’s self-defeating for watermen, because a growing number of them are getting into aquaculture to supplement or replace wild harvests.

One of those is Rachel Dean, a Calvert County waterwoman. She applied more than three years ago to lease 26 acres in the Patuxent River to raise oysters on the bottom. At least one waterman and a homeowner objected, she recalled. And when the DNR sampled the bottom there, it found “at least some” oysters on half of the proposed lease site, with an overall density of about 2 bivalves per square meter, according to a 2019 DNR memo.

The memo, signed by the DNR’s Chris Judy, proposed roughly halving the size of the lease to exclude what it called a “functional oyster bar.” Dean said the reduction would diminish the viability of the site for raising oysters, so they resisted it. The application remains on hold, and Dean said the department has not responded when she has asked whether it was formally denying the application.

Neither Judy nor Karl Roscher, head of the DNR’s aquaculture division, responded to requests for interviews or information.

“We’ve got to find a balance,” Dean said, between oyster farming and the wild fishery. “If this regulation goes through,” she added, “there will be no more bottom leases.”

By Timothy B. Wheeler

Congress Extends Bay Program, Related Conservation Efforts

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The U.S. House of Representatives has approved a sweeping conservation measure that provides continued support for several key Chesapeake Bay initiatives and creates a new program to support fish and wildlife habitat restoration efforts in the watershed.

The America’s Conservation Enhancement Act provides support for two dozen conservation initiatives around the nation that were rolled into a single piece of legislation and overwhelmingly approved by the House on Oct. 1.

The Senate had already approved the bill without controversy, and it is expected to be signed by President Trump.

The bill authorizes the continuation of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Chesapeake Bay Program, which has coordinated the state-federal Bay restoration effort since 1983. The program supports research, helps assess cleanup progress and provides grants to states, local governments, nonprofits and others.

The legislation reauthorizes the Bay Program for another five years at up to $92 million annually. Congress had allocated $85 million for the current year.

The bill also reauthorizes the Chesapeake Gateways and Watertrails Network. Administered by the National Park Service, the network includes more than 200 state parks, museums and historic sites that provide access to waterways and highlight the region’s natural, historic and cultural heritage. The legislation reauthorized that program for five years. It received $3 million in the most recent year.

Reauthorization does not guarantee future funding, but it makes Congressional support more likely.

The legislation also creates the Chesapeake Watershed Investments for Landscape Development Program — dubbed WILD — within the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The program is authorized to provide up to $15 million annually in grants that support fish and wildlife habitat projects in the Bay region. That could include things such as forest buffer plantings, wetland restoration, initiatives that improve stream health, removal of barriers to fish migration and efforts to improve habitats for species such as black ducks and brook trout.

Environmental groups praised passage of the measure, which had been in the works since last year.

Noting that outdoor activities generate millions of dollars for the region’s economy, Joel Dunn, president of the Chesapeake Conservancy, said “the conservation and restoration of the Chesapeake Bay’s waters and wildlife habitats is essential for our region’s economic resilience and growth, and the ACE Act will greatly enhance these conservation efforts.”

A bipartisan group of lawmakers helped craft different elements of the Bay-related portions of the legislation, including Sens. Ben Cardin (D-MD), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) and Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV), Sen Tom Carper, (D-DE), and Reps. Elaine Luria (D-VA), Bobby Scott (D-VA) and John Sarbanes (D-MD).

“We’re pleased to see the overwhelming and bipartisan support for the America’s Conservation Enhancement Act,” said Jason Rano, who works on federal legislation for the Chesapeake Bay Foundation. “Legislators from both parties recognize the importance of clean water and a healthy environment.”

Besides the Bay-specific initiatives, the bill reauthorizes a number of national programs that benefit the region, including the North American Wetlands Conservation program, which helps promote wetland restoration, and the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, which oversees several grant programs that support Bay initiatives.

It also creates a National Fish Habitat Partnership program to provide funding and technical resources to local public-private partnerships to conserve fish habitats.

The final legislation reflected some compromises. For instance, it prohibits the EPA from regulating lead content in hunting and fishing gear for the next five years. Some had pushed to permanently ban the EPA from such action.

By Karl Blankenship

Groups Fight for Maryland Forest on Chopping Block

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Lawsuits seek to block business park on 326-acre wooded tract in Harford County near Bush River tributary

The forest teems with wildlife behind Michael and Lisa Lyston’s home in Abingdon, MD. Over the years, they’ve been visited by foxes, opossums, deer, raccoons, owls and woodpeckers — not to mention turtles, toads and “tons of butterflies.”

“They just come up here and go back home,” Lisa Lyston said. “They know they’re safe here.”

But barring a reprieve from the courts, the neighborhood is destined to become a lot less wild. Most of the woods near their home are to be bulldozed for warehouses, shops, restaurants, a hotel and a gas station.

A developer plans to build Abingdon Business Park on the wooded 326-acre tract, one of the largest patches of forest left in this heavily developed part of Harford County near the head of the Chesapeake Bay.

Opponents say if that happens, it shows how both Harford County and the state government are failing to safeguard Maryland’s shrinking supply of ecologically important forestland. “I feel so bad for all these birds and everything that lives back there,” Lisa Lyston said, choking back tears. “It kills me.”

Nearby residents and environmental advocates have been trying since last year, so far unsuccessfully, to save “Abingdon Woods,” as the tract was once known.

But the property by Interstate 95 has long been zoned for commercial and industrial development. The county even placed it in an “enterprise zone” to encourage economic activity there.

Harford County is still mostly rural. But only about a third of its land is forested, according to data from the state-federal Chesapeake Bay Program. Development pressure has been intense along I-95 and, according to the Bay Program, and the county could lose nearly 2,300 acres of woodlands between 2013 and 2025.

“We’ve been opposed to the development on the grounds of loss of forest and wetlands areas so close to the Bay,” said Tracey Waite, president of Harford County Climate Action and head of a coalition opposed to the business park. “Also, in this time of climate change, we don’t believe there should be this level of deforestation in our county.”

Harford County Executive Barry Glassman declined to discuss the project in detail. Instead, he pointed to the efforts his administration has made to preserve about 3,500 acres of farmland – including the recent addition of 347-acre Belle Vue Farm on the Bay between Havre de Grace and Aberdeen.

But Waite contended the county hasn’t put as much money or effort into preserving forest or green space in the southern portion of the county, which she said has a greater proportion of people of color and low-income families. Nearly half of the students attending William Paca/Old Post Road Elementary School, which abuts the business park site, are African Americans and nearly 15% are Hispanic, according to Schooldigger.com. Nearly three-fourths are eligible for free lunches because they’re from low-income families.

Bonita Holland-Buchanan, vice president of the African American Democratic Club of Harford County, said she’s concerned about children at the school having to breathe air laced with vehicle exhaust from business park traffic.

“There’s already a problem of so many kids having asthma now,” she said, adding that “our children deserve better than to breathe poisonous fumes from diesel trucks.”

Opponents of the business park have gone to court. The Chesapeake Bay Foundation and four neighbors of the woods filed suit earlier this year challenging Harford County’s approval of the developer’s forest conservation plan. The Gunpowder Riverkeeper and other neighbors have filed two suits challenging the Maryland Department of the Environment’s permit allowing the developer to build roads across streams and take out some wetlands.

The developer’s plan calls for clearing 220 acres of forest to make way for more than 2 million square feet of warehouses plus other commercial buildings and pavement. The remaining 95 acres of woods would be placed under a protective easement meant to prevent further disturbance. As mitigation for removing so much forest, the county is requiring the developer to plant new trees on 8 acres onsite.

Like most localities in Maryland, Harford’s forest conservation ordinance mirrors the state Forest Conservation Act, which requires counties and municipalities to protect important woodlands from development or have trees replanted onsite or elsewhere. Environmentalists contend the state law isn’t strong enough, in part because the state exercises little oversight of how localities enforce it. Recently, though, a few counties have beefed up their laws beyond what the state requires.

Opponents of the Abingdon project argue that Harford County isn’t even following state law in approving that development. For instance, they note that county officials granted the developer a waiver from the law’s requirement to minimize loss of large “specimen trees,” authorizing cutting down 49 of the 85 largest trees identified in Abingdon Woods.

“It’s just so obscene,” said Jeanna Tillery, another local resident. “I can’t imagine why anybody would think to do something like that, especially in an area like this where we have many warehouses already, many of them unoccupied.”

Jim Lighthizer, managing partner of the Chesapeake Real Estate Group, which is developing the business park, did not respond to requests for comment. In applying for needed permits, the firm said it chose Abingdon Woods for its proximity to I-95 and the Port of Baltimore. While acknowledging there are 18 vacant warehouses in the region, the developer said this is the only suitable site for such a large distribution complex.

County officials declined to answer questions about the project, citing the litigation.

“It is the county’s position that the development approvals for Abingdon Business Park were appropriate,” said Cynthia Mumby, a county spokesperson.

County officials have argued that their approval of the developer’s forest conservation plan is not appealable. A Harford County Circuit Court judge heard arguments on that point in August. A decision is pending.

The MDE permit for stream crossings and wetlands disturbance has drawn fire. Theaux Le Gardeur, the Gunpowder Riverkeeper, and residents near the site asked the Harford court to review the permit, which includes permission to bridge Haha Branch, which flows into the Bush River.

The Bush River is already impaired by nutrients and suspended sediments, Le Gardeur pointed out. Plus, he noted, some of the tree clearing would occur near Otter Point Creek, which the state has designated as a high-quality stream. To make up for clearing more than 5 acres of woods there, the MDE has required the developer to plant trees on half that many acres of farmland elsewhere in the watershed.

The MDE has previously bucked local approval of large-scale removal of forests. In 2019, state regulators denied permits for two large solar energy projects in Charles County that together would have cleared 400 acres of privately owned woodlands.

Asked if he’d join other county executives in seeking to strengthen the local forest conservation law, County Executive Glassman said he’s waiting for an update from the state Department of Planning on how much of the county is still forested. “We’ll take a look at those trend lines,” he said, “and see if we need to do anything else.”

By Timothy B. Wheeler

EPA hit with lawsuits over Chesapeake Bay cleanup

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Making good on threats issued months ago, three Chesapeake Bay watershed states, the District of Columbia and the Chesapeake Bay Foundation took the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to court Thursday for its failure to push Pennsylvania and New York to do more to help clean up the Bay.

In their lawsuit, the attorneys general of Maryland, Virginia, Delaware and the District of Columbia accused the EPA of shirking its responsibility under the Clean Water Act by letting Pennsylvania and New York fall short in reducing their nutrient and sediment pollution fouling the Bay.

“This has to be a collective effort,” said Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh. “Every state in the Chesapeake Bay watershed has to play a part, and EPA under the law has to ensure that happens.”

Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh said the Chesapeake Bay cleanup must be a collective effort. Photo courtesy of the Maryland Office of the Attorney General.

The Chesapeake Bay Foundation, joined by the Maryland Watermen’s Association, a pair of Virginia farmers and Anne Arundel County, Md., made similar complaints in a separate federal lawsuit. Both were filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, where they’re likely to be consolidated into a single case.

“The courts must ensure that EPA does its job,’’ Will Baker, the Bay Foundation president, said in an online press conference held with attorneys general from Maryland, Virginia and the District.

At issue is the EPA’s duty to enforce a decade-old plan the agency drew up for restoring the Chesapeake to ecological health. The plan, known as a total maximum daily load, requires each of the Bay watershed states and the District to do what’s needed by 2025 to reduce their share of the nutrient and sediment pollution harming the Bay.

Progress has been made toward restoring the Bay’s water quality, though much more remains to be done. In particular, Pennsylvania and New York have fallen far behind in meeting their pollution-reduction targets, especially in curbing nutrient runoff from farmland.

All six Bay watershed states and the District were required to submit plans last year spelling out the measures each would take by 2025 to make the needed pollution reductions.

Most of the plans indicate that states will have to increase pollution-reduction efforts to unprecedented levels to reach their cleanup goals. But Pennsylvania’s and New York’s plans don’t even achieve their goals on paper. Pennsylvania’s falls short on curbing nitrogen, the most problematic nutrient, by about 25%, while New York’s was around 33% short. Pennsylvania’s plan also identifies an annual funding gap for cleanup activities of approximately $250 million a year through 2025.

The EPA cited those shortcomings for both states but hasn’t taken any action against them. The lawsuits contend that the federal government is abdicating its legal responsibility by accepting clearly inadequate cleanup plans with no reasonable assurance the two states can achieve their assigned pollution reductions.

Without responding directly to the lawsuits’ core complaint, an EPA spokesman issued a statement defending the agency’s role in the Bay cleanup.

“EPA is fully committed to working with our Bay Program partners to meet the 2025 goals,” the statement said. “We have taken and will continue to take appropriate actions under our Clean Water Act authorities to improve Chesapeake Bay water quality.”

The spokesman noted that in just the past year, the EPA and other federal agencies have supplied “nearly a half billion dollars” to support Bay watershed restoration efforts. The agency also has provided “thousands of hours” of technical assistance to the states, it said.

Those filing the lawsuits say that’s not enough. Unless the federal government holds the states accountable for doing their part to reduce nutrient and sediment pollution, the 37-year effort to restore the Bay’s water quality is likely to fail, they warn.

Will Baker, president of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, said that the courts must make sure the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency “does its job’’ in enforcing Bay cleanup actions. Photo by Mike Busada, courtesy of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation

“When EPA uses its bully pulpit to tell a state that they’re failing to meet their obligations, action follows,” said the foundation’s Baker. “We’ve seen that with Pennsylvania in the past.”

The agency briefly withheld about $3 million in federal funds from Pennsylvania five years ago to prod it to come up with a plan for getting its cleanup back on track. Critics suggest the EPA also could leverage state compliance by threatening to block permits that are needed to build or expand businesses.

Environmentalists and Maryland officials have been complaining for some time that the EPA is not doing more to press Pennsylvania over its lagging cleanup pace. But discontent ramped up in January when Dana Aunkst, director of the EPA’s Chesapeake Bay Program office, described the 2025 cleanup deadline as “aspirational” and said the Bay TMDL was “not an enforceable document.”

The litigants said they didn’t relish taking the EPA to court but felt they had no choice. They faulted the Trump administration, contending it had not only abandoned the federal government’s role as enforcer of the Bay TMDL, but had threatened the cleanup further by rolling back or weakening federal environmental regulations.

The Annapolis-based environmental group and the attorneys general had served the EPA formal notice in May of their intent to sue and followed up later with a letter offering to meet and discuss their concerns. The EPA did not respond, they said.

“We’re here to enforce the agreements,” said Karl Racine, the District’s attorney general. “It’s not unusual at all that when parties don’t do what they’re supposed to do by law, we go to court to have it enforce the remedy.”

Neither Pennsylvania nor New York are defendants in the lawsuits, though their alleged shortcomings are key issues. Deborah Klenotic, spokeswoman for the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, declined to comment on the litigation, saying, “We remain focused on our work to improve water quality here in Pennsylvania and in the Chesapeake Bay.”

But Maureen Wren, a spokeswoman for the New York Department of Environmental Conservation, disputed assertions the state isn’t doing its part to help clean up the Bay.

“New York is fulfilling its clean water responsibilities under the Chesapeake Bay TMDL and is a committed partner” in the federal-state Chesapeake Bay Program, she said.

State officials now expect to meet New York’s nitrogen reduction targets based on new information about Susquehanna flows and a change in the Bay Program’s computer model.

Maryland’s Anne Arundel County, which has more than 500 miles of shoreline on the Bay and its tributaries, joined the foundation in its lawsuit.

County executive Steuart Pittman of Anne Arundel County, MD, walks one of the shorelines in his jurisdiction that border the Chesapeake Bay. The county has joined the Chesapeake Bay Foundation in its suit against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Photo by Dave Harp, courtesy of Bay Journal News Service

“Anne Arundel County residents have invested far too much in the Chesapeake Bay restoration effort to watch from the sidelines as upstream states and the EPA abandon their obligations,” said Anne Arundel County Executive Steuart Pittman. The county has spent more than $500 million in the last decade on Bay protection and restoration, officials estimate.

The Maryland Watermen’s Association, which has been at odds with the Bay Foundation over the state’s management of oysters, also joined in the group’s lawsuit. Observing that “water runs downhill,” Robert T. Brown, Sr., the group’s president, said the nutrients, sediment and debris coming down the Susquehanna River from Pennsylvania and New York are having a devastating effect on watermen.

“So goes the health of the Bay, so goes [our] industry and seafood,” he said. “…We need to have the EPA do its job.”

Also suing are Robert Whitescarver and Jeanne Hoffman, who raise livestock on a farm in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley. Whitescarver, a former Natural Resources Conservation Service representative, has long advocated for farm conservation practices. He said farmers have a stake in this issue.

“All jurisdictions need to do their fair share,” he said. “The efforts that Virginia and Maryland farmers have put into sustainable farming are harmed by EPA’s failure to require all jurisdictions to meet the commitments they agreed to.”

At least a couple of the states suing the EPA to put the heat on Pennsylvania and New York could find themselves on the receiving end of similar pressure if their lawsuit succeeds. Only the District of Columbia and West Virginia have met their 2025 goals ahead of schedule, according to recent data. None of the others are on track to reduce nitrogen by the needed amount.

“If any of the Bay states fall significantly short in implementation, CBF will call on EPA to take action,” Baker said.

By Timothy B. Wheeler

Hogan Administration Backs Down in Md. Poultry Fee Fight

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Maryland poultry and livestock operations will soon begin paying a fee for water-pollution permits after a nearly year-long battle between its executive and legislative branches.

The Hogan administration initially balked at a law passed last year requiring the largest farms to pay a $2,000 application fee every five years as well as an annual charge of $1,200. Smaller operations would also begin paying, but the General Assembly delegated decisions over how much and how often to the Department of the Environment.

Such concentrated animal-feeding operations, known as CAFOs, have been spared paying the fees for more than a decade, a decision that dates to then-Gov. Martin O’Malley’s administration. The goal was to encourage farmers at the more than 500 operations statewide to participate in a program aimed at preventing routine animal waste spills, officials said.

In response to the 2019 measure, MDE initially proposed a fee structure that wouldn’t have covered the program’s costs. Environmentalists and key lawmakers disputed the decision, pointing to a longstanding regulation that mandates that application fees must be “designed to cover the cost of the permit procedure.”

In a July 17 memo, Matthew Standeven, the attorney general’s office lawyer assigned to the MDE, agreed, warning officials that the agency would be treading into “unlawful” territory if it moved forward with its plan.

MDE Secretary Ben Grumbles has conceded to his counsel’s position. He said in a Sept. 3 memo that in addition to the fees prescribed for the largest farms in the law, the department would begin charging the rest of the state’s CAFOs between $120 and $1,200, depending on their size.

He added that the agency has begun contacting CAFO operators about the new fees. Officials will make sure the correct fee amount is collected in each case before issuing a permit, “as required by law,” Grumbles wrote.

By Jeremy Cox

$18 Million in Grants Awarded for Chesapeake Bay Stewardship Projects

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A record $18 million in federal grant money is heading to Chesapeake Bay watershed groups and local governments this year under a 20-year-old program that helps finance restoration projects in the estuary’s drainage basin.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is the major funding source behind the Chesapeake Bay Stewardship Fund, which is managed by the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation in coordination with the state-federal Chesapeake Bay Program.

Matching contributions bring the outlay’s total to nearly $37 million, the EPA announced Sept. 2.

The agency is working with six states — Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Delaware, New York and West Virginia — and Washington, DC, on a plan to clean up the Chesapeake. It has a 2025 deadline.

“EPA’s ongoing commitment and accountability to the restoration of the Bay is furthered by these grants that help address some of our most critical challenges, including reducing pollution from agricultural operations in Pennsylvania,” EPA Region 3 Administrator Cosmo Servidio said in a statement.

Of the funding going toward individual states, Virginia is set to receive the most, with approximately $5.5 million, followed by Pennsylvania at $5 million and Maryland at $3.4 million. Smaller amounts went to the other jurisdictions.

Fifty-six grants were awarded from the fund in 2020. Among them:

  • $975,000 to the Chesapeake Bay Foundation to pave the way to create 360 acres of forested buffers along streams in Pennsylvania (Total project cost: $1.9 million)
  • $950,000 to Trout Unlimited to help install 15 miles of livestock-exclusion fencing around streams, establish 80 acres of forested buffers and stabilize 15 miles of streambanks in Virginia (Total project cost: $1.9 million)
  • $470,000 to the Harry R. Hughes Center for Agro-Ecology to restore wetlands on 32 acres of farmland and map saltwater intrusion in Somerset and Dorchester counties on Maryland’s Eastern Shore (Total project cost: $631,000)
  • $1 million to the Chesapeake Conservancy to work with the Precision Conservation Partnership on projects at 25 Pennsylvanian farms where the greatest benefits to water quality can be realized (Total project cost: $2.1 million)
  • $500,000 to the Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay to work with dairy farmers that supply milk to Pennsylvania-based Turkey Hill Dairy to install conservation practices (Total project cost: $1 million)
  • $500,000 to the Montgomery County Department of Environmental Protection to construct a “green street” project in Silver Spring (Total project cost: $2.1 million)
  • $227,000 to the Chesapeake Bay Foundation to plant 250 trees on city property and install flood-protection infrastructure on Richmond’s Southside (Total project cost: $309,000)
  • $50,000 to the Delmarva Poultry Industry to develop a website that helps connect farmers who have chicken manure to ship with those who need it to fertilize their fields (Total project cost: $59,000)
  • $50,000 to the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments to investigate river herring habitat upstream and downstream of stream blockages and propose passages for fish to get around them in Oxon Run and Lower Beaverdam Creek (Total project cost: $62,000)

By Jeremy Cox

Land-based Salmon Farm Proposed for Eastern Shore

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The Chesapeake Bay is known to many for the seafood it produces: blue crabs, oysters and striped bass.

In a few years, though, the Bay region could become a major producer of an even more popular seafood that doesn’t come from the Chesapeake. A Norwegian company, AquaCon, has unveiled plans to raise salmon on Maryland’s Eastern Shore.

Yonathan Zohar, head of the Aquaculture Research Center at the University System of Maryland’s Institute of Marine and Environmental Technology, shows salmon being raised in tanks in Baltimore. Dave Harp 

AquaCon executives intend to build a $300 million indoor salmon farm on the outskirts of Federalsburg in Caroline County. By 2024, they aim to harvest 3 million fish a year weighing 14,000 metric tons — an amount on par with Maryland’s annual commercial crab catch.

If that goes as planned, the company expects to build two more land-based salmon farms on the Shore over the next six or seven years, bringing production up to 42,000 tons annually. That’s more than the Baywide landings of any fish or shellfish, except for menhaden, and more valuable commercially.

AquaCon’s announcement comes amid a rush by mostly European aquaculture companies to supply Americans with farmed salmon. Another Norwegian company is preparing for its first full harvest later this year from a facility south of Miami, and plans have been announced to build big indoor salmon farms in Maine and on the West Coast. Two small U.S.-based salmon operations in the Midwest also are moving to expand production.

It’s not hard to see why. Next to shrimp, salmon are Americans’ favorite seafood. They each eat more than 2.5 pounds of it annually, according to the National Fisheries Institute. Experts think that appetite could double over the next decade. And right now, more than 90% of the salmon consumed in the United States is imported. Most is Atlantic salmon produced by aquaculture operations in Norway, Chile, Scotland and Canada.

Atlantic salmon, which can grow to 30 inches and weigh 12 pounds, once spawned in every East Coast river from New York north into Canada. But fishing so depleted the stock in U.S. waters that the fishery was shut down in 1948. It’s never recovered, and the species is listed as endangered.

Traditionally, most imported salmon has been raised to market size in open sea pens. But that has several environmental downsides. For example, growers have used antibiotics, pesticides and other chemicals to fend off sea lice, a major problem, along with other parasites and diseases.

Also, uneaten food and fish waste increase nutrient levels in open water, which can deprive aquatic life of the dissolved oxygen it needs to thrive and survive.

In recent years, facing increased production costs and more regulatory limits on open water aquaculture, salmon farmers have begun trying land-based aquaculture, using recirculating technology that’s been utilized for years to raise other fish in tanks.

AquaCon executives say their technology will keep their salmon free of parasites and diseases without drugs or chemicals. It will also prevent water quality impacts, they say, by treating and reusing nearly all of the water in which the fish swim.

“This is really the first true green aquaculture project in the world,” said Henrik Tangen, AquaCon’s chairman. “That’s what we’re trying to achieve here.”

Tangen said he and the company’s top executives are mindful of the need to minimize environmental impacts in the Chesapeake Bay watershed.

“We know we are in an environment where we need to be cautious of any natural resources we are using,” he said.

‘Biodigester’ technology

“There is a huge opportunity here for domestic production,” said Yonathan Zohar, head of the Aquaculture Research Center at the University System of Maryland’s Institute of Marine and Environmental Technology.

To Zohar, the AquaCon venture is the fulfillment of a dream. He’s spent nearly three decades working to make fish farming more productive and sustainable, raising small batches of striped bass, salmon and tuna, among others, in tanks. But until now it hasn’t brought large-scale aquaculture to Maryland.

“Now we believe the technology is finally mature,” Zohar said, “and able to be scaled up in a way that is economically feasible and … environmentally responsible.”

The AquaCon team chose to build on the Eastern Shore because of its proximity to mid-Atlantic markets, but the institute’s nearby expertise helped cement that decision. Executives say they have a formal partnership set up to work with the institute as plans move forward.

Farmed salmon traditionally have been raised to market size in open sea pens. Parasites, disease and regulatory limits have fueled a shift to land-based aquaculture, particularly to supply a growing U.S. demand for the fish.

At the institute’s Baltimore laboratory, the sludge that settles on the tank bottoms from uneaten food and fish waste is siphoned off into an anaerobic digester,  converting 70% of it into methane gas.

Tangen said AquaCon plans to treat its sludge using Zohar’s “biodigester” technology. The company also wants the institute’s help to develop a more sustainable diet for its salmon — one including algal oils and protein from insects. Another rap against traditional aquaculture is it requires harvesting a lot of wild fish to feed the farmed ones.

AquaCon’s salmon-rearing facility would have one of the largest building footprints on the Delmarva Peninsula. Containing 25 acres of space under a single roof, the facility will be roughly the combined size of six Walmart Supercenters.

As to the site, AquaCon is moving to purchase a 200-acre farm just outside Federalsburg. The property, currently composed of chicken houses and cornfields, will be annexed by the town to get access to its sewer lines, if the company gets its way.

The salmon will spend their lives swimming in circles in a complex of 127 tanks. Mimicking their natural life cycle, which involves migrating from rivers to the ocean and back, the fish will start out in freshwater tanks and finish their grow-out in tanks with salinity levels similar to the Mid Bay’s. Salmon can reach market size (about 11 pounds) in about two years that way, faster than if raised in sea pens.

The water in the tanks will be recycled after being treated to filter out ammonia, using technology that reuses more than 99% of it, company executives said.

“Our objective is to optimize the water usage so we don’t have any waste,” said Bob Rauch, the project’s Easton-based engineering consultant.

The handling of wastewater

The Federalsburg facility will still need a vast quantity of freshwater initially to fill its tanks – 49 million gallons, enough for 74 Olympic swimming pools. After that, the operation and processing of harvested fish will only require about 70,000 gallons a day from an onsite well to replace what is lost through its waste treatment systems.

The chicken farm currently operating there is permitted to pump more than 10 times that amount, according to Rauch. But at times, AquaCon may need to double or even triple the current well’s permitted withdrawal rate. Company executives say they believe there is ample groundwater to do that, but would require approval from the Maryland Department of the Environment.

On the edge of the small community of Federalsburg, MD, a proposed indoor salmon farm would sprawl for 25 acres under a single roof. Jeremy Cox

AquaCon hopes to pipe 70,000 gallons of treated wastewater daily from its operation to Federalsburg’s municipal wastewater treatment plant. That facility can process up to 750,000 gallons per day but now uses only about half of that capacity to serve the community’s 2,800 residents.

Lawrence DiRe, the town manager, said that the developers haven’t formally submitted any plans to the town. But if they jibe with what has been publicly presented so far, the wastewater plant should have no problem handling the additional flow, he said.

Federalsburg’s wastewater plant discharges into Marshyhope Creek, about 15 miles upstream from where it drains into the Nanticoke River, a Bay tributary. In 1996, the MDE declared the Marshyhope impaired by nutrient pollution, pointing to the overfertilized cropland that abuts much of its course.

Despite the nutrient problems, scientists and fishermen have discovered that the creek and the Nanticoke River harbor a spawning population of endangered Atlantic sturgeon. The state is conducting a tagging study to monitor the rare, prehistoric-looking fish.

Rauch said environmentalists have expressed concern that the aquaculture complex might upset the waterway’s ecological balance, harming the sturgeon. He vowed the company would take any actions required by environmental regulators to ensure that doesn’t happen.

Federalsburg’s wastewater plant itself has a spotty regulatory history, though, with a handful of violations the last three years, including exceeding discharge limits on phosphorus and E. coli bacteria. The town manager said the plant was run then by an outside contractor, but the town has since taken over.

AquaCon may need to dispose of additional wastewater if it has to purge its fish of a muddy flavor that can plague tank-reared salmon. Tangen said that the technology they plan to use should avoid that problem. But if needed, Rauch said the facility would seek MDE permission to spray the extra treated wastewater onto the land the company is acquiring.

AquaCon’s Tangen noted other “green” features of its project, including the installation of solar panels on the sprawling roof and the methane its waste digester will generate, which could be burned or sold to generate power. And by locating in Maryland, he said, the company will be reducing carbon dioxide emissions used to get its salmon to U.S. consumers, compared with those shipped in from abroad.

Salmon swim in a tank at the Aquaculture Research Center at the University System of Maryland’s Institute of Marine and Environmental Technology in Baltimore.
Dave Harp

Company executives have met with state environmental regulators to explain their plans. MDE Secretary Ben Grumbles wrote AquaCon’s Tangen in June that he is “very encouraged” by the company’s plans and “welcomes the opportunity to support projects that are environmentally responsible and sustainable.”

The amount of groundwater requested by the company is “within a reasonable range,”Grumbles added, though testing would have to confirm it.

The MDE also would need to approve the company’s plans to control stormwater pollution, and agency spokesman Jay Apperson said an air pollution permit tied to the anaerobic digestion operation may also be required.

Can it succeed?

AquaCon’s Federalsburg operation is expected to create about 150 jobs, company officials said. Although it would be located in the Shore’s only land-locked county, it’s a good fit for the predominantly agricultural region, said Debbie Bowden, Caroline County’s economic development director.

“Anything that grows is in our DNA,” Bowden said. “With the cutting edge technology of the aquaculture … it creates an opportunity for more jobs and more economic activity.”

Whether it all comes together remains to be seen. While there’s a lot of buzz around land-based salmon operations, industry experts say they have yet to prove they can reliably turn a profit and compete with traditional openwater fish farming.

All of the salmon facilities announced in the United States call for massive injections of capital, and experts predict some won’t be able to get off the ground. They also warn that glitches in the water purification systems could cause large numbers of fish to die; a large indoor salmon farm in Denmark experienced a big die-off earlier this year. And recirculating systems require a lot of energy to run.

What’s needed is a “major success story,” said Brian Vinci, director of the Freshwater Institute, an arm of the Conservation Fund that works to make aquaculture more environmentally responsible. The institute’s laboratory in Shepherdstown, WV, has been raising a small batch of salmon in recirculating tanks for years to refine the technology.

“We need someone to show that, at this massive scale … they can succeed biologically and can succeed economically,” Vinci said during a recent webinar, “and can do it while maintaining all the sustainability benefits.”

AquaCon’s executive team believes it can do that. First, though, they need to come up with $300 million to build the Federalsburg plant, and $1 billion for all three facilities. This is the first such operation for the company, which was only formed last year.

But Tangen is confident they’ll attract enough investors, because the firm’s management team  has decades of  experience in financing, designing, building and operating aquaculture facilities in Norway and around the world.

Above all, he said, they’re aiming to develop an operation that can produce “American Salmon” — their brand name — with a reputation for environmental responsibility.

“We’d like to have a product that people relate to in a positive way,” he said, “that is something they want to give their children and something they believe … to be a sustainable type of production and product itself.”

By Tim Wheeler and Jeremy Cox

‘Forever Chemicals’ Found in Chesapeake Region’s Freshwater Fish

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High levels of “forever chemicals” have been reported in freshwater fish and water from a Maryland creek, raising new questions about the extent and seriousness of these compounds’ contamination in the Chesapeake Bay watershed.

Per– and poly-fluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, were found in the blood plasma of smallmouth bass taken in 2018 from Antietam Creek near where it flows into the Potomac River, according to Vicki Blazer, a biologist with the U.S. Geological Survey’s Leetown Science Center in Kearneysville, WV.

Vicki Blazer, USGS
Vicki Blazer, fish biologist with the U.S. Geological Survey, removes kidney of euthanized fish collected from the South Branch of the Potomac River. The organ was to be analyzed to assess whether it was affecting the ability of the fish to fight off disease. Studies have found that PFAS can affect the immune system of lab animals. (Heather Walsh / USGS)

PFAS compounds also were detected — though at lower levels — in the plasma of the popular gamefish in three other locations: the South Branch of the Potomac in West Virginia and at two sites in the Susquehanna River in Pennsylvania.

PFAS are a group of more than 4,700 chemicals that have been used for decades in a wide variety of products, including nonstick cookware, stain– and water-repellant fabrics and fire-fighting foams. They are very persistent — hence their nickname — and have been found across the United States in groundwater and surface water, in fish and other foods, as well as in people’s bodies.

The extent of PFAS contamination reported in the six-state Chesapeake Bay watershed has been fairly limited — about 20 sites, many of them connected with military bases or airports where fire-fighting foam has been sprayed. But testing to date also has been limited, though Pennsylvania and Maryland are expanding their search for the compounds in drinking water supplies.

The USGS data are the first reports of PFAS contamination in finfish in the Bay watershed, though a 2002 study reported finding the compounds in oysters at the mouth of the Patuxent River. The Maryland Department of the Environment is checking for PFAS in oysters from that site and from the St. Mary’s River.

Animal studies have found that exposure to high levels of some PFAS can affect growth and development, reproduction, thyroid function and the immune system, as well as injure the liver. Just as they’ve been found in many people, PFAS also have been widely detected in wildlife and fish, where their effects on those animals are less well-known. But PFAS bioaccumulate, meaning they can build up in people who eat contaminated fish and wildlife.

Blazer said the levels measured in the Antietam Creek bass were high compared with what she’d seen in scientific literature. A Canadian lab commissioned by the USGS to analyze the blood plasma samples detected six different PFAS compounds. Levels of one — perfluorooactane sulfonate, or PFOS — measured as high as 574,000 parts per trillion. The average PFOS level among all 34 bass plasma samples was 381,000 parts per trillion.

PFAS levels in fish tend to be highest in their blood and livers, Blazer said, with much lower levels in their muscle or tissue, which is what’s typically converted for fillets.

‘So what we’re eating tends to be lower [in PFAS] than in the plasma,” the USGS scientist said.

Sampling smallmouth bass from Antietam Creek Researchers examine euthanized smallmouth bass collected by electrofishing form Antietam Creek in Maryland. Analysis later revealed high levels of PFAS in the bass’ plasma. (Vicki Blazer, USGS)

“We don’t know what it means to the fish yet,” she added. But it’s become one more possible factor in the health problems she’s been studying for more than a decade in the watershed’s smallmouth bass, including abnormal sexual organs, skin lesions, die-offs and poor reproduction.

Research suggests several factors could be involved in the species’ declining abundance in the watershed, including abnormally high river flows during the spring spawning season. But Blazer and her team have identified other possible culprits, including bacteria and viruses, parasites and hormone-altering chemicals that can suppress a fish’s immune system.

“It does look like [PFAS] might be another risk factor for the immunosuppression we see,” Blazer said. She’s having plasma analyzed from fish collected in other years to see if they also show PFAS contamination.

Brent Walls, the Upper Potomac Riverkeeper, called the PFAS levels in bass plasma from Antietam Creek “astronomical” and “very troubling.” Anglers fishing for sport often release smallmouth bass, he said, but many also are consumed.

The riverkeeper said the USGS data prompted him to look for possible sources of PFAS contamination in Antietam Creek. He hired a Pennsylvania laboratory to analyze water samples he collected from outfalls for wastewater treatment plants serving Hagerstown and Smithsburg. He also sampled water near the mouth of the creek for a comparison.

The lab reported detecting a total of 11 different PFAS compounds at the three sampling sites. The lab measured a cumulative 138 parts per trillion in treated wastewater at Hagerstown, 82 parts per trillion at Smithsburg, and only 7 ppt at the creek’s mouth.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency does not regulate PFAS, though it has said it’s moving toward doing that for a handful of the compounds. It did set a “health advisory level” in 2016 for drinking water of 70 parts per trillion for two compounds, PFOS and PFOA, or perfluorooctanic acid.

Levels of PFOS and PFOA in the riverkeeper’s water samples did not exceed the EPA recommended level for drinking water. But Walls noted that PFAS can build up in animals and people if they ingest it repeatedly over time.

“There’s just a lot of unanswered questions about levels,” he said. “What’s the toxic level in drinking water? What’s the level in fish consumption? What’s good and what’s not good?”

He said he was also worried that contaminants might be in sewage sludge from wastewater plants, which gets spread as fertilizer on farm fields.

Walls said he had presented his and the USGS data to the Maryland Department of the Environment earlier this year but was frustrated by the agency’s lack of response to date.

Brent Walls, the Upper Potomac Riverkeeper, collects a water sample from Antietam Creek by a U.S.Geological Survey stream gage. Water from this location registered relatively low levels of PFAS, but levels were higher in water sampled from two wastewater treatment plant outfalls upstream. (Potomac Riverkeeper Network)

A number of states, likewise frustrated by the EPA’s failure to regulate PFAS, have set or are considering setting much lower limits on PFAS in their drinking water. Pennsylvania is among them. With about 30 contaminated water supplies reported across the state already, the Department of Environmental Protection began testing for PFAS last year in about 400 other locations statewide where it believes contamination is possible.

The MDE spokesman said agency officials have reviewed the Antietam Creek information and hope to have a conference soon with the riverkeeper. Apperson said officials want to know more about how he collected the water samples and the basis for his conclusion about health risks associated with PFAS in fish blood.

Walls welcomes the scrutiny. “Everything was by the book … our sampling program is pretty solid,” he said. Meanwhile, he said he hopes that Maryland officials will be prompted to do their own research and protect the public.

“It’s pretty much up to the states to start doing this, because the federal government is dragging their feet for sure,” he said.

By Tim Wheeler

Coronavirus Quarantine Clears the Air But Likely Not For Long

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Human life has been on a near-universal lockdown since the coronavirus pandemic first gripped the country in late March. It has been a crushing blow to the economy, but another sector has reaped a windfall: the environment.

Power plants eased off electricity production. People stayed home more, and many cars disappeared from the roads. As a result, air pollution is down sharply, and new records are being set for air quality across the Chesapeake Bay region.

Researchers are normally cautious about ascribing an observed phenomenon to a specific cause so soon. But many say the current situation is unique.

“We’ve seen this immense decrease in passenger traffic, anywhere from 40–50% depending on where you are in the state,” said Jeremy Hoffman, chief scientist at the Science Museum of Virginia. It’s important to note that weather plays a huge role in air quality, he added, but “that huge drop in traffic coinciding with this huge drop in [nitrogen dioxide] in the air is, to me, a pretty convincing relationship.”

Nitrogen dioxide, or NO2, is emitted by cars, trucks, power plants and anything else that burns fossil fuel. Fuel combustion also is a major driver of ozone and particulate pollution.

Where such air pollution levels are consistently high, people can suffer from asthma and an increased risk of developing respiratory infections, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Emerging research has shown that areas with poor air quality have higher death rates from COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus.

Air pollution also makes it more difficult to clean up the Chesapeake Bay. The state-federal Chesapeake Bay Program estimates that air pollution contributes about one-third of the nitrogen found in the Bay, fueling algae blooms that kill aquatic life.

Emissions of nitrogen oxides and other fuel-related pollutants have shrunk significantly over the past two decades. But scientists say they’ve rarely seen anything like the plunge in recent weeks.

The average amount of air pollution from nitrogen dioxide in March 2020, while travel — and the related burning of fossil fuels — was greatly reduced to address the outbreak of COVID-19. (NASA GSFC)

The average amount of air pollution from nitrogen dioxide during the month of March 2015-2019. Nitrogen dioxide gets into the air mostly from the burning of fossil fuels. (NASA GSFC)

Researchers at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration in Greenbelt, MD, have been tracking atmospheric dioxide since 2005, using the agency’s Aura satellite. This team’s analysis shows that March of 2020 set a record for the lowest levels of the pollutant in that month during 20 years of tracking. The amount was 30% lower than the typical March reading from 2015–19 along the Interstate 95 corridor from Washington, DC, to Boston.

Air pollution has been trending downward for years, “but this is a step-change down because of the emissions reductions we’re seeing now,” said Ryan Stauffer, a NASA research scientist who studies the atmosphere. “This is like a grand, unintended experiment in atmospheric chemistry.”

Stauffer cautions that the month’s rainy and windy weather likely lent a hand in reducing pollution levels; rain droplets attract aerosol particles as they plummet to the ground, leaving cleaner air behind. And the satellite can only measure air quality throughout entire columns of the atmosphere, so ground-level pollution, which is more likely to be generated by humans, is only part of the picture produced by the satellite.

Ground-level sensors are telling a similar story. The DC metro area has seen a string of healthy air days dating back to March 20, according to EPA monitors that detect ozone and particulate matter. As of May 3, that was 45 days and counting, shattering the region’s previous record of 22 consecutive days, Stauffer said.

Scientists don’t expect the air quality gains to be permanent. When the lockdown is lifted and fuel combustion kicks back into gear, pollution levels are likely to zoom back to pre-pandemic intensity, they say.

The event could help shed more light on how reductions in air pollution affect human health.

In one of the most cited cases in the field, researchers detected a 30% drop in ozone levels when Atlanta all but halted traffic during the 1996 Summer Olympics. Although research initially suggested fewer asthma attacks happened during the games, a follow-up study revealed no firm connections to that or other respiratory ailments, perhaps because there were too few emergency department visits to support the theory.

China’s crackdown on traffic and industrial pollution during its 2008 Summer Olympics also provided a window into the phenomenon. Scientists have variously described a reduction in premature deaths, improved cardiovascular health and higher birth weights.

But more research is needed to firm up the scientific community’s understanding of health effects, Stauffer said. He and fellow researchers have been fanning out across the DC area during the pandemic, collecting air samples in silver canisters. By studying various emission levels, the team hopes to learn whether the short-term air improvements influence pollution levels after the quarantine is lifted.

“This is not the way we want to be cutting air quality problems or reducing pollution,” Stauffer said. “Any reductions we see from the air quality will be temporary. Any impacts we see in the environment or human health, that’s yet to be seen.”

By Jeremy Cox