Bay Journal

EPA hit with lawsuits over Chesapeake Bay cleanup

September 12, 2020 by Bay Journal

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

September 10, 2020 by Bay Journal

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

September 5, 2020 by Bay Journal

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

September 4, 2020 by Bay Journal

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

August 28, 2020 by Bay Journal

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

May 6, 2020 by Bay Journal

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

Long-running Chesapeake Crab Study Threatened with Shutdown

May 1, 2020 by Bay Journal

One of the longest-running scientific investigations of the Chesapeake Bay is in danger of shutting down permanently.

The Morgan State University blue crab monitoring survey has persisted for 50 years through two institutions, three financial sponsors and the evolution from paper to digital tabulation. But its funding dried up this year, and the deep financial downturn triggered by the coronavirus has cast doubt on finding an alternative source.

“Normally, we’d be getting the crab survey ready, but that’s not happening this year unfortunately,” said Tom Ihde, the fisheries ecologist at Morgan State who currently helms the study.

The coronavirus has grounded environmental research across the Chesapeake region and around the globe. Some studies are impossible to carry out without violating social-distancing protocols. Others suffered human resource shortages when university graduate students were sent home. And the future funding picture is hazy at best.

Amid this crisis within a crisis, the Morgan State crab study stands out. Its ills predate the pandemic, putting it in a tougher spot than most of the other suspended work. Meanwhile, what hangs in the balance isn’t a few months of datasets but rather a decades-long crusade that helped fishery managers resurrect the iconic species after years of decline.

Ihde said he has been trying to find other avenues to finance the work. The prospects didn’t look good before the coronavirus emerged, he said. Now, they look even worse.

“These long-term surveys are notoriously hard to keep funded, and it’s not cheap to get boats on the water or to pay for gear and staff time,” Ihde said. “We’re trying to find other ways of funding. I’ve tried quite a few, but there’s no success yet.”

The research historically has cost about $50,000 a year to conduct.

Stanley Nwakamma, an intern at Morgan State University’s Patuxent Environmental and Aquatic Research Laboratory, hoists a crab pot in 2018 while working on the facility’s long-running blue crab survey. Photo courtesy of Morgan State University

The protocol has changed little from the beginning. Once a month from June to early November, when crabs are most active, Ihde and his team bait 30 crab pots with menhaden and drop them into the Bay along the western shore in southern Maryland. The pots are divided among offshore sites near Kenwood Beach, Rocky Point and Calvert Cliffs.

The researchers return in their boat 24 hours later to record how many they caught, the size of the crustaceans and the characteristics of the water.

The study got under way in 1968. It grew out of researchers’ and environmentalists’ concerns about how a new nuclear power plant, which was then nearly a decade from opening at Calvert Cliffs, would affect crabs with its discharges of heated water.

The scientist selected to lead the study was fresh from receiving his master’s degree in biological sciences from the University of Delaware. George Abbe became the first employee of the Academy of Natural Sciences’ Estuarine Research Center on the Patuxent River.

Over the next 40 years, Abbe produced a wealth of publications — more than 150, including his oyster research and other topics. But the crab study was his obsession, colleagues say.

The crab survey would soon move beyond its initial parochial goal — the heated water turned out to be a non-factor. Along the way, the survey shaped science’s evolving understanding of the Bay’s crabs.

Sandra Shumway, a marine scientist with the University of Connecticut who knew Abbe through academic conferences and followed his work closely, called him a visionary for developing a study that stood the test of time.

“Long-term data sets are rare,” she said. “It’s only by having that long, broad picture that you really understand what the population is doing.”

In the 1990s, Abbe was one of the first scientists to warn that the once-abundant species was dwindling in the Bay. His work showed that fishermen were taking too many crabs just over the legal size limit instead of waiting for them to grow mature enough to reproduce, a phenomenon known as “growth overfishing.”

“He rang the warning bell very loudly and clearly,” Ihde said.

Abbe’s research helped inform the U.S. Commerce Department’s decision in 2008 to declare the Chesapeake crab fishery a disaster, Ihde said. The designation made watermen eligible for $75 million in federal aid. It also prompted fishery managers in Maryland and Virginia to enact harvest restrictions that have been widely credited with helping to drive the population up 60% to 594 million crabs as of 2019.

The study has weathered several changes in recent years.

In 2004, the Academy transferred the research center that housed Abbe’s work to Morgan State. Funding for the study began with Baltimore Gas & Electric, the nuclear plant’s original owner. After 15 years, it moved to the Maryland Department of Natural Resources for 30 years. The state money stopped flowing in 2011; there was no funding and no surveying for the next two years.

Abbe continued working and studying the Bay’s shellfish until shortly before his death in August 2013 at the age of 69.

Dominion Energy, which operates a liquefied natural gas plant in the area, stepped up and voluntarily funded the work from 2014 through last year. This year’s stoppage initially stemmed from a mix-up between Morgan State and Dominion over the application deadline for the funds, each side confirmed.

But the coronavirus has forced the energy company to reshuffle its priorities.

“We have halted all expenditures companywide for the foreseeable future,” said George Anas, Dominion’s external affairs manager. “It’s not that we don’t care any less [about the crab survey]. We have enjoyed working with them, and we look down the road hoping we can do some more.”

Maryland’s DNR has no plans to fund the study, agency spokesman Gregg Bortz said.

The state has conducted its own annual crab survey in conjunction with the Virginia Institute of Marine Science since 1990. It uses dredges to collect crabs during the winter.

Bortz added that the agency’s scientists prefer their method for assessing the population size because it analyzes many locations around the Bay and catches crabs of all sizes. In contrast, the Morgan State study focuses on one area and can only capture crabs that are at least a year old.

The director of what is now known as the Patuxent Environmental and Aquatic Research Laboratory insists the study can still be valuable to the state’s fishery monitoring. “Our survey can do different things and fill in some gaps,” Scott Knoche said.

For example, because it looks at female crab movements in the fall, the study can be used to predict reproduction levels for the next spring, Ihde said.

Tom Miller, a crab specialist who directs the Chesapeake Biological Laboratory at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, said the winter dredge survey supplies the best overall snapshot of the blue crab population. He helps author the annual study.

The Morgan State survey may no longer be as vital for fishery managers as it once was, but it is still useful for spotting long-range trends, Miller said.

“What’s important about it is you conduct it the same way,” he said. “If you see crabs are less abundant than they were in this pot survey, because the methods are the same, that should be a reliable indicator of changes in the overall crab population.”

Last year, the center’s staff converted decades of Abbe’s handwritten notes to digital records. Ihde has begun analyzing the voluminous dataset and hopes to dig up findings that persuade some entity to fund future field work.

A long-term study can survive a year or two without collecting new data, Ihde said. But if the delay goes on much longer, it seriously compromises the survey’s ongoing usefulness to fellow researchers and fishery managers.

“Long-term surveys like this are absolutely critical when it comes to trying to understand population changes over time, especially when the system itself is changing,” Ihde said, referring to the way climate change has led to warmer winters and shorter periods of dormancy for crabs. “It’s easy to lose sight of what things should be like. Fifty years is well beyond most people’s professional career memory.”

By Jeremy Cox

Less Seasonal Help, Virus Deliver One-Two Punch to Bay’s Blue Crab Industry

April 29, 2020 by Bay Journal

Crab season is off to a slow and foreboding start around the Chesapeake Bay, with many crabmeat processors crippled by an inability to import seasonal workers and by watermen worried they’ll be unable to sell all they can catch as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.

Chilly, windy weather limited commercial harvests of blue crabs through much of April, the first full month of the season. Warming spring weather usually brings better fortunes, but those in the business of catching or picking crabs say they fear for their livelihoods amid the double whammy that’s hit the Bay’s most valuable fishery.

“It’s kind of a really scary situation,” said Bill Sieling, executive vice president of the Chesapeake Bay Seafood Industries Association, which represents Maryland companies. “It just doesn’t look good.”

Many of the crabmeat processing businesses around the Bay are short-handed because they failed to get federal approval to bring in as many foreign workers as they have in previous years.

The Department of Homeland Security held a lottery in January to distribute a reduced pool of 33,000 H-2B visas nationwide to all of the landscaping, construction and other businesses seeking to bring in seasonal labor, mainly from Mexico and Central America. Under pressure, the department announced in March it would hand out another 35,000 visas, but shelved that in early April amid the coronavirus pandemic.

As a result, only three of Maryland’s nine “picking houses,” as the crab processors are known, received any visas in the initial drawing. After missing out on the lottery, Lindy’s Seafood on Hoopers Island was looking at limping along with a half-dozen local workers.

“We could sell more product, we just can’t produce it,” said sales manager Aubrey Vincent.

Then, in late April, she said she got federal approval to bring back 61 workers who’d picked crabmeat at the plant last fall.

“It’s not all of my people,” she said, noting that the plant typically hires more than 100 seasonal workers. Still, she said, “it’s better than no people.”

The luck was as bad or worse in Virginia, where Graham & Rollins Inc., the biggest crabmeat processor in the state and one of the largest on the East Coast, has been idled after coming up snake-eyes in the visa lottery. The company, a fixture on the Hampton waterfront for nearly 80 years, had asked for 85 visas.

“Without workers, we’re looking at closure,” said Johnny Graham. “The plant’s been mothballed, the power’s pretty much cut off [and] the water supply’s being cut off.”

J. M. Clayton Co. in Cambridge was among the lucky ones. Co-owner Jack Brooks said the company got its request granted via the lottery for about 60 visas.

But then coronavirus intervened. Brooks said that with restaurants shut down and many people losing jobs, the demand for crabmeat is off, and he’s not sure when or if it will come back. So, the company has arranged to bring in “a few more than 20” workers for now.

“We’re looking at probably 30–45% capacity at best,” Brooks said.

Though unable to process much crabmeat, processors say they’re still able to sell live or steamed crabs. There appears to be a robust demand for the limited supply available in this slow-starting season.

Graham said the retail seafood store operated by his company has been selling crabs for carryout like it was the 4th of July, the traditional peak of demand for steamed crabs.

Debbie Fitzhugh sells fresh crab meat at a new service window at the J. M. Clayton Co. in Cambridge. Photo by Dave Harp/Bay Journal News Service

J. M. Clayton also has seen an uptick in retail crab sales, Brooks said. In response, the company has set up a makeshift drive-up window where customers can place orders and pick them up.

“People blow a horn, we go to the window and talk to them,” he said. That way, he explained, “people don’t walk in like they used to” and risk getting or spreading coronavirus.

Processors said they’re taking steps to try to keep their workers healthy. Brooks said Clayton is limiting the workforce in the picking room so workers are spaced 6 feet apart and wearing masks.

Watermen aren’t as worried about social distancing but they do wonder if they’ll be able to sell their catch when warmer weather usually brings more crabs into their boats.

“There haven’t been many crabs so far,” said Jeff Harrison, president of the Talbot Watermen Association. But demand is off, with restaurants closed and many markets not buying much seafood.

“Right now,” he added, “there really isn’t a problem selling them.”

Harrison said he’s worried about how long the coronavirus shutdowns are going to last. They already cut short what had turned out to be a good wild oyster harvest, he said. Now, even if restaurants and other businesses start to reopen in the coming month, he foresees a season where watermen won’t earn as much for what they catch — and feel lucky just to be able to sell it at all.

Already, the dockside price has been about 30% or more below what it was at the start of the season last year, Harrison said. Meanwhile, he noted, the price of razor clams used as bait has gone up.

The $2 trillion in COVID-19 economic relief passed by Congress in late March included $300 million for the seafood industry. But that’s to be distributed nationwide, and industry officials say it’s far from enough to keep everyone afloat. Just in Virginia alone, losses to all commercial fisheries are estimated to range from $53 million to $68 million, according to data compiled by the Virginia Marine Resources Commission.

“Even if it lasts another month, it’s still going to be a mess,” Harrison said. “And if it goes two months, we’re done.”

Amid news reports that air and water quality have improved as a result of so many businesses closed and people ordered to stay home, Harrison said the effort to halt the spread of coronavirus is probably helping the Bay. But, he added, it’s “not the way we wanted it to happen.”

By Timothy B. Wheeler

Coronavirus Closes Bay Region Beaches, Some Park Facilities

April 1, 2020 by Bay Journal

The coronavirus pandemic that’s keeping many people inside across the Chesapeake Bay watershed is also limiting some outdoor recreational opportunities — closing campgrounds, playgrounds, public beaches and some parks. In Maryland, it’s also putting a crimp in boating.

Authorities issued stay-at-home orders in Maryland, Virginia, Delaware, the District of Columbia, New York and West Virginia. In Pennsylvania, a growing number of counties joined their ranks. But such decrees still allow ample opportunities for getting outside to hike, bike, jog, fish or hunt — or just take in a little fresh air and nature. Following is a state-by-state rundown.

Maryland

The stay-at-home order issued March 30 by Gov. Larry Hogan specifically permits “outdoor exercise activities, such as walking, hiking, running, or biking,” as long as people maintain a 6-foot separation from each other.

But recreational boating is not permitted. That’s a bitter pill in a state with more than 200,000 registered power- and sailboats. Boaters took to social media to complain, and at least one started an online petition asking Hogan to lift the ban. One signer argued that boating is “good for mental health,” while others maintained it fit the spirit of “social distancing.”

Amid a flurry of questions, the state Department of Natural Resources issued new guidelines on Tuesday that say “limited” hunting and recreational fishing are permitted, including by boat, if pursued to obtain food. That prompted at least one boater to suggest he’d be sure to have a fishing rod aboard.

The DNR also specified that kayaking and paddle boarding are acceptable forms of outdoor exercise, if practiced with proper separation. Though not specifically mentioned in DNR guidance, canoeing is also permitted, according to DNR spokesman Gregg Bortz, providing that whoever else is in the canoe is someone you’re living with.

Delaware

Delaware’s state parks remain open with their fees waived, but its state-operated beaches are closed for all but exercise and surf-fishing under Gov. Jim Carney’s stay-at-home orders.

Those parks were all but shuttered to out-of-state visitors. A week after Carney ordered anyone coming into Delaware to self-quarantine for 14 days, he extended the policy March 30 to apply to those heading into the state to fish, hunt or visit a park.

Playgrounds have been closed in parks throughout the region to prevent the spread of the new coronavirus. Photo by Jeremy Cox/Bay Journal News Service

Surf-fishing, an activity known for packing beaches during warm weather, is limited to people fishing from vehicles with a cap of two people from the same household. Vehicles must be parked at least 20 yards apart, according to the Department of Natural Resource and Environmental Control.

“This change is designed to allow a source of food and a bit of safely distant recreation, but it is not intended to allow the normal type of surf-fishing we see with groups of people engaged in non-fishing activities. The beaches are still not a place for numbers of people engaged in social activities,” DNREC Secretary Shawn Garvin said.

All state parks playgrounds, campsites and park offices are closed. Any visitors must practice social distancing. Upstate trout season remains open in seven designated streams.

Pennsylvania

Thirty-three counties are under stay-at-home orders, but residents are still permitted to engage in outdoor activities such as walking, hiking or running, as long as they keep their distance from others.

State parks and state forests remain open but all facilities, such as rest rooms, pavilions, and campgrounds, are closed. For details and updates, go here.

The Fish and Boat Commission did delay the early start of trout season in Southeastern Pennsylvania to coincide with an April 18 opening day in the rest of the state. Stream stocking was accelerated, without the assistance of volunteers. For more info, go here.

Virginia

Gov. Ralph Northam ordered all Virginians to stay home but included “engaging in outdoor activities, including for exercise,” among the exceptions. He didn’t address boating, but said generally that individuals using outdoor spaces, “whether on land or on water,” must stay at least 6 feet away from each other, unless the others are family or household members or caretakers.

Virginia state parks have closed visitor centers, cabins, campgrounds and restrooms, but trails and outdoor spaces are still open for day use. For details, see here.

Northam also declared a moratorium on most private campground reservations and closed all public beaches except for exercising and fishing. For more info, go here.

District of Columbia

As in neighboring states, District residents have been ordered to stay home, unless they have some “essential” purpose. They may venture out to engage in “certain authorized recreational activities.” The list includes: “walking, hiking, running, dog-walking, biking, rollerblading, scootering, skateboarding, playing tennis, golfing, gardening, and other activities where all participants comply with social distancing requirements and there is no person-to-person contact.” It’s unclear whether fishing or any type of boating is acceptable.

New York

With a statewide stay-at-home order, New York park officials encouraged people to get outdoors but to #RecreateLocal.

The Department of Environmental Conservation created the hashtag in a campaign urging people to keep visits short and not travel too far from home. “To keep these places safe and healthy for everyone, we need to adjust the ways we enjoy our parks,” State Parks Commissioner Erik Kulleseid said.

Like other states, New York has waived fees at state parks but closed playgrounds, canceled all public programs and shuttered nature centers and other facilities. All state-operated campgrounds are closed through at least April 30; anyone with a reservation in the meantime is being given refunds. For more info, go here.

The state urged people to keep their distance from each other while outdoors and avoid group activities, such as basketball and football. If crowds are forming at a park, people should go somewhere else, officials said. Fishing and boating were allowed, but officials urged boaters to stay at least six feet from each other.

West Virginia

As in other states, Gov. Jim Justice’s stay-at-home order specifically allows walking, hiking, biking, jogging and just being “in nature for exercise,” with proper separation from others.

All state campgrounds are closed through April 30. All restrooms are closed, and all events canceled.

Day-use areas, such as hiking trails and fishing lakes, continue to be open for public use. The state has waived fishing license fees through April 24 for state residents. Under Justice’s order, no outdoor gatherings could exceed 10 people and they must stay at least 6 feet apart. Justice also closed private campgrounds to out-of-state travelers.

National parks

National parks remain mostly open, but they are coming under increasing pressure to close after reporting that seven employees have confirmed cases of the coronavirus.

The Park Service has closed popular parks such as Great Smoky Mountains, Yellowstone and Grand Teton, plus dozens of other sites to reduce risks of spreading illness. But many more remain open, and the government has waived entrance fees.

The chair of the Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks, Phil Francis, wrote Interior Secretary David Bernhardt on Tuesday urging him to close the parks to protect employees and help slow the spread of COVID-19.

With 54 sites in the Chesapeake Bay watershed, the National Park Service says it is modifying operations on a park-by-park basis during the pandemic. It is basing those decision on guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as well as state and local health authorities, officials said.

Among the sites closed in the Bay watershed are Fort McHenry in Baltimore, the Washington Monument in the District of Columbia and the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad National Historical Park on Maryland’s Eastern Shore.

At other sites, parks have suspended visitor services, with exceptions for law enforcement and trash removal.

Among the changes announced in the Bay region’s national parks:

• The Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park in Virginia canceled its Illumination of the Fredericksburg National Cemetery scheduled over Memorial Day weekend. The event typically draws 4,000-9,000 visitors a year. The parks also curtailed services to only those considered essential.

• National parks in the greater Washington area remain open but most indoors facilities, roads, playgrounds and other facilities are closed. In the District’s popular Rock Creek Park, four iconic park fountains are closed.

• At the Gettysburg National Military Park in Pennsylvania, all non-life sustaining operations are shut down, including restrooms, museum and observation towers.

• The Shenandoah National Park in Virginia remains open but has closed several popular trails and parking lots because they were attracting large crowds. The annual openings of its lodges had been delayed until May 21.

Appalachian Trail

Trailhead facilities and other access points to the Appalachian National Scenic Trail have been shut down in the George Washington and Jefferson National Forests in Virginia to prevent groups from congregating.

After multiple sections of the popular footpath from Maine to Georgia drew large crowds in late March, the Appalachian Trail Conservancy issued an appeal to hikers to stay away until the risks of spreading COVID-19 to others has reduced significantly.

National forests

National forests remain open, but many campgrounds and facilities are closed. The George Washington and Jefferson Forests in Virginia are still open for “dispersed camping and other activities that support social distancing and small groups,” according to a Forest Service release. For details on what’s open where, go here.

By Timothy B. Wheeler, Jeremy Cox, and Ad Crable.

Chesapeake Crab Industry Remains Crippled by Visa Shortage, Coronavirus

March 22, 2020 by Bay Journal

Responding to employers’ calls, including those of crab meat processing companies in Virginia and Maryland, the federal government announced March 5 that it would release an additional 35,000 temporary visas for foreign workers.

That still may not be enough to quench the Chesapeake Bay seafood houses’ demand for temporary workers, according to the trade group that represents the industry. And they may still arrive too late to help much or perhaps get stuck on the other side of the border, as the United States March 20 closed its Mexican border for unessential travel because of coronavirus concerns.

Several seafood company owners and watermen had implored the Trump administration to issue 64,000 more visas, the cap set by Congress.

Jack Brooks, co-owner of J.M. Clayton Seafood Co. in Cambridge, and president of the Chesapeake Bay Seafood Industries Association, said he expects a worker shortfall, despite the government’s action.

Initially, the Department of Homeland Security doled out 33,000 work visas, which are in effect for six months beginning April 1. With the added 35,000 visas, the total still falls well short of the 100,000 slots that U.S. employers nationally had sought to fill.

The agency will likely conduct a lottery to determine which companies obtain visas, Brooks said.

“It’d be great to think that all of [the crab houses] get lucky and win, but I don’t think the odds are great that they all get staffed up,” he said.

The temporary visas, known as H-2B visas, are made available annually to workers in seafood, landscaping, construction and other seasonal fields. To be eligible, employers must prove there aren’t enough domestic workers willing or able to fill the positions.

Only three of the county’s nine picking houses had received their workers during the first visa release, businesses say.

Now, because of the sweeping coronavirus pandemic, it’s unclear if and when the additional 35,000 workers will arrive, said Amanda Wright, CEO of Virginia-based Phoenix Labor Consultants.

Releasing those visas “is not even being talked about now” at the federal government, said Wright, whose clients include Chesapeake seafood processors.

Mexico is one of the main sources of seafood workers. It’s likely they will be considered essential workers, but the United States has shuttered its embassy consulates in Mexico, which threatens to halt the visa application process.

Still, the government signaled it would continue processing workers who have previously participated in the program. The requirement for a face-to-face interview would be waived.

Meanwhile, Guatamala, another major supplier of H-2B workers, closed its borders for at least 15 days beginning March 16, adding more uncertainty to the situation.

Even if the administration were to begin taking employer applications immediately, Brooks said, the earliest that crab houses could expect to welcome the workers would be in early May. The Maryland crab season kicks off April 1.

“Customers are wondering, ‘Where am I going to get the crab meat?’” Brooks added.

A crab house that doesn’t receive any workers could be forced to close its doors for this season, with the possibility that it might never reopen because its customers and suppliers will have moved on, industry leaders say.

Several dozen watermen, crab industry leaders and local elected officials gathered March 2 inside a picking house on Hooper’s Island in rural Dorchester County, MD, to passionately plea for the Trump administration to release more visas.

Seafood is one of the island’s only industries. It is home to eight of the state’s 20 crab-picking houses.

“I hope everyone can see this is more than a job issue. [It’s] more of an American community issue,” said Aubrey Vincent, sales manager at Lindy’s Seafood on Hooper’s. “A lot of these family businesses are holding on by a thread.”

At picking houses, workers scoop meat from freshly caught crabs and collect the chunks into plastic containers to be sold to restaurants and retailers. The processors often struggle to find enough local employees, especially in places like Hooper’s Island, on Dorchester’s isolated coastline, which is a winding, 40-minute drive to the nearest Walmart and movie theater.

So, the businesses turn to foreign workers, mostly from Mexico. The jobs may be seasonal, but many workers return to the same employers year after year, industry members say.

“I consider these H-2B workers part of my family,” said Darlene Ruark of the W.T. Ruark & Co. picking house. “My son grew up with those workers, and they consider him family, too.”

But for the last 15 years, some picking houses have been left waiting for months to receive their workers or have been shut out altogether from the program. In 2018, for example, a new lottery-style allocation system left Dorchester’s processors with a 40% shortfall of foreign workers four months into the six-month season.

The region’s seafood industry blames the visa shortage on increasing competition from other business sectors. But above all, they blame Congress for not heeding their repeated calls to set a higher cap or separate seafood workers into a separate visa class.

“Isn’t this a bunch of B. S. that our government is here trying to put us out of business?” asked A.E. Phillips and Sons CEO Steve Phillips. “It’s stupid. It’s something that can be fixed in five minutes.”

Homeland Security temporarily raised the cap by as many as 30,000 workers in recent years to help meet business’ demands. Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan and several members of Congress from Maryland and Virginia had called on the administration to take that action once again.

Hogan described the additional visas as “welcome relief” but implored that “we still urgently need a long-term solution to this problem.”

The Maryland Department of Agriculture released an economic study on the day of the Hooper’s event, showing that the state’s economy would take up to a $150 million hit without the visa workers in the seafood industry.

By Jeremy Cox

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