There have been two articles recently, one in the Star Democrat and one in the Talbot Spy, regarding the various parks in Easton, the latest being the new waterfront park. One should be aware that these great parks were created under the leadership of our previous mayor, Bob Willey. It is too bad that he has not been mentioned in either article, one by Tom McCall of Chesapeake Publishing and one by the new Easton Town Council president, Frank Gunsallus. 

These parks are wonderful additions to our town, enjoyed by many citizens, and credit should be given where credit is due.

Jane Bollman
Easton 

We urge the public who are interested in clean and safe water to attend an upcoming hearing on the ongoing pollution of our local Transquaking River. The legal hearing will take place on November 2, 2023 at 1:30 pm in the Dorchester County Circuit Court, 206 High Street, Cambridge. Although the hearing is open for public attendance it is not scheduled for public commentary from the audience. Previous comments and testimony from the public, including the three signatories of this letter, are already part of the record before the court.

Many of our fellow citizens are aware that Dorchester Citizens for Planned Growth (DCPG) has been working since 2014 to try to get the Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE) to actually do their regulatory job regarding the industrial pollution emanating from the Valley Proteins rendering plant located on the Transquaking near Linkwood. Much of our work (including ten years of water testing) has been behind the scenes but we have sponsored several well attended forums at the Linkwood fire hall in which local residents have expressed their dismay and frustration over continued wastewater and odor violations which have affected the quality of life in the area surrounding the facility. These continuing violations have also contributed to ongoing harmful algae blooms and fish kills in the Higgins Mill Pond downstream from the rendering plant, where a Health Department sign is posted warning against fishing or swimming in the river and the millpond.

Some of you may recall that around Christmas 2021 a holding lagoon failure at the plant created a massive sludge spill into the Transquaking which forced MDE to mandate a temporary shut down of the facility and an accompanying moratorium on the distribution of Valley Proteins’ created sludge in Maryland. Unfortunately this moratorium was only temporary and now more than ever Dorchester and Wicomico counties are being targeted as the primary recipients of industrial sludge from FOUR STATES labeled as “soil amendments.” ( Source: recently released “U of MD Animal Waste Technology Assessment”.)

At the time of the Christmas sludge spill DCPG, along with the environmental organizations Chesapeake Legal Alliance, Shore Rivers, and the Chesapeake Bay Foundation had already initiated a legal action against Valley Proteins based on their years-long series of discharge violations into the Transquaking. Eventually, this legal action led to a “consent decree” between Valley Proteins, ( now owned by the parent company Darling Ingredients), MDE, and the aforementioned plaintiffs. This legal document required Valley Proteins to pay a fine to the state of Maryland, submit a plan to upgrade their wastewater treatment system, as well as contribute to the environmental groups’ Transquaking River Watershed Fund which was established to commission a scientific temperature and flow study of the river administered by an independent third party named Earth Data. This study is ongoing.

Unfortunately, what is also ongoing is continued blatant pollution flowing into the Transquaking. In fact, in the last 4 reporting quarters, just since the adoption of the consent decree in September 2022, Valley Proteins has self-reported discharge violations in every quarter. One statistic from the most recent quarter (July 1 – Oct 6 2023) shows an exceedance for BOD (a metric which measures possible oxygen depletion caused by excess nutrients entering the water) of a staggering 355%! (Source: ECHO database where companies provide their pollution numbers to the federal EPA.)

What hasn’t been fixed at the Linkwood facility is simply this: far too much pollution is still being released directly into the Transquaking. At the same time, the greater Transquaking watershed, which drains into Fishing Bay and on into the Chesapeake, is suffering a “doubled peril” from the vast increase of harmful nutrients in the largely unregulated sludge being irresponsibly dispersed on the land. Much of that sludge is a direct result of the rendering process at the Valley Proteins plant. The sad fact, based on both their history of violations and their link to the added threat from excess application of sludge, is that unless MDE requires them by law to not do so they will continue contributing to the death of the river.

Perhaps even sadder is the fact that the technology already exists for them to achieve discharge limits that are actually meaningful. For example, there is a process called ENR (enhanced nitrogen removal) which is required for municipal sewage treatment plants like the one in Cambridge, and also for new residential septic tanks being installed near the water. The ENR process is capable of greatly reducing the content of excess nitrogen in discharged wastewater. Common sense would dictate that a profitable industry directly discharging into a stream would be required to use this process but the current MDE operating permit allows Valley Proteins to propose a treatment facility that allows three times the nitrogen release compared to ENR treatment. And it allows them to increase the volume of their wastewater discharge to over three times the current level! These are only two examples of many regarding the laxity in regulation which MDE has adopted in their oversight of this industry.

DCPG has never called for the closing of the rendering plant at Linkwood. The chicken industry is a large part of Delmarva’s economy and the handling of waste products is a necessary part of the food production process. However, the waste disposal should not come at the cost of broken laws, a ruined river, and threats to public health. That is why DCPG is back in court demanding that MDE be required to revise and strengthen the discharge permit issued to Valley Proteins /Darling in 2022. We are joined in this action by The Wicomico Environmental Trust (WET), Friends of the Nanticoke, and the other environmental groups listed in paragraph 3 above.

Again, the upcoming court hearing on this issue is in Dorchester County Circuit Court on November 2, 2023 at 1:30 pm. While there will be no opportunity for additional public testimony, members of the public are allowed to attend and we urge concerned citizens to do so.

Fred C. Pomeroy , DCPG President
Barbara Hale, Richard Ball, members of the DCPG Board of Directors

The lifeblood of our democratic republic is a system of elections in which municipal, state and national officials maintain or hand over their offices depending on the outcome. Besides the systems for voting, there are elaborate processes for challenging and auditing the results. And there is an orderly transfer of power.

In tyrannies there may be electoral systems but results are corrupted to give the image of legitimacy to a despot.   What we face in the United States is an equivalent threat, where the elections are free and fair, but a former president will not accept the legitimacy of the results. In either case, we fail to have a democracy.

Election denialism is a hallmark of MAGA extremism.  Working for the election of an independent minded Republican in Easton’s non-partisan local elections this summer gave me as a Democrat a unique look into the mechanics of local MAGA extremism, in a campaign against their candidate Frank Gunsallus.  

I hasten to add that this candidate had tremendous support from the rest of the community as the results of the election demonstrate. But MAGA extremists were the ones in the trenches.

Election denialism is alive in a handful of local hard right websites: Easton Gazette, Talbot Chapter of Moms for Liberty, and Radio Free Oxford. They churn limited material including articles on elections by Chris Gleason (Maryland has a “massive election fraud RICO operation”).  

Besides election denial, these sites have other priorities, including attacking inclusive curriculum for African American and LGBT+ students and opposing  pandemic public health measures, with strands of fundamentalist Christian anti-government paranoia and anti-abortion sentiments woven through.

The real MAGA engine is the current Talbot Republican Central Committee. Most recently it treated Easton to an event challenging the reliability of Maryland’s election system.  

This was part of a nationwide traveling road show featuring three different presenters who massage local data to raise questions with election reliability.   They seek to give the patina of grassroots by having local organizations as sponsors.

Rudy Giuliani’s events in Arizona, Michigan and Pennsylvania questioning the results of the 2020 election were similar. But Donald Trump supporters filed and lost 62 lawsuits contesting election processes, including vote counting, and the vote certification processes in 9 states.  

It’s no different in Maryland. Any serious claim of irregularities here should be taken through the courts not dangled for partisan political purposes to discourage unsuspecting voters.  

This election denial event was originally scheduled to be held at unsuspecting Sts. Peter and Paul and Easton Club East before they became aware that this was a partisan political event sponsored by the Talbot Republican Central Committee.  

I continue to be reassured by the belief that “the arc of history bends toward justice”.  Now my thought for the day is “a democracy if you can keep it”.  I suggest all democracy loving people get off the benches, realize what’s at stake, get educated and get involved.

Holly Wright
Talbot County

On Wednesday, October 11th, I had the opportunity to attend an event hosted at the Talbot County Community Center, coordinated by several including Councilmember Dave Stepp and the Talbot County Republican Central Committee, entitled “Maryland Voter Integrity Group:  Are you interested in secure elections?”

The speaker, Mrs. Robyn Sachs, is a self-proclaimed voter advocate. Mrs. Sachs used this veiled event and her phony credentials to spew misinformation and disinformation regarding elections, created confusion, and further perpetuated lies and conspiracy theories that directly disenfranchise voters. Sadly and unacceptably, this event took place in a Talbot County government building, under the great seal of Talbot County.

Let’s consider that for a moment, our government buildings are being used to facilitate the spread of disinformation and misinformation.  In attendance among others were Senator Johnny Mautz, Delegate Tom Hutchison, Easton Council President Frank Gunsallus and Sheriff Joe Gamble.

Some highlights of the misinformation and disinformation presented in this meeting:

Speculation that the US Federal Government in partnership with ATT and Verizon are actively engaged in undermining local elections using private servers installed behind the firewalls of our Board of Election offices that communicate clandestinely using the ATT FirstNet and Verizon wireless networks.

Fact:  The Department of Homeland Security and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) provide infrastructure and resources to local Boards of Election offices to protect elections and provide cybersecurity capabilities.

State of Maryland blank ballot data was presented in such a way to raise questions around pervasive voter fraud or vote manipulation.

Fact: Blank ballots are a result of individuals not completing questions on second, third or fourth pages of a ballot.  Often voters will skip ballot questions which reside on the additional pages.

A local analysis of 2022 Talbot County voter data was presented, calling out perceived abnormalities that lead the Maryland Voter Integrity group to purport there is voter fraud in Talbot County.

Fact:  This analysis was completed by an individual, Mr. David Morseburger, with no credentials for the inspection of voter data.

The misinformation and disinformation shared at tonight’s event perpetuates and recruits individuals to spread these ideas in Talbot County.  We have not been immune in Talbot County to voter suppression and intimidation activities – in fact, in the ’22 election cycle the Talbot County Democratic Central Committee received several verified reports of door knocking campaigns to interrogate residents on their voting history, a civil rights violation.

I left this event feeling shaken and deeply disturbed that these lies are being spread in our community, behind the four walls of our local government buildings, endorsed or attended by numerous local politicians.  Misinformation and disinformation  leads to further fractures in our community, when we need to be working together as one.

As I reflect on the past several weeks, I’m deeply troubled at what is being prioritized in this county. Council members voting against a proclamation to support voter education week endorsed by our Board of Elections while at the same time endorsing this event.

WHAT ARE WE DOING?

Phil Jackson
Talbot County

The Tawes Clam Bake is not the model for the way politics should be.  No matter what the organizers and counties originally intended, politically it is now about influence and access peddling.  

The average citizen can pay a reasonable but hefty price to stand in line for really wonderful food.  But for office holders and politicians, it’s quite a different experience.

The central feature of the Tawes Clam Bake is an enormous tent with a large sign at the main entrance saying the “Office of Bruce Bereano” and signs saying “invitation only”.   Access is tightly controlled should a mere voter wish to, this year, come in out of the rain.

Bruce Bereano is far and away the most highly paid lobbyist in Annapolis.  In his tent the food and drink are served to office holders and clients of the host who pay his office handsomely for access and influence over decision making in Annapolis.

For Governor and Lieutenant Governor on down it is a delicious but otherwise a command performance. 

Politicians do very occasionally emerge from the Bereano tent and do a walk around for photo ops from the media.  No media inside to catch office holders hob nobbing with the lobbyist’s clients.  During the walk arounds they may be accessible to the determined voter who is there otherwise for the food and opportunity to get together with family and friends.  

As a model for the way politics in our democracy should be, it is a sad reminder of the way it is, that whoever has the gold for access makes the rules.  

Watching average voters wanting to take some vacant seats in the spacious Bereano tent and be told it’s not for them kind of sums it up.

Holly Wright
Talbot County

I am writing in response to David Reel’s opinion piece in the September 25th Spy.  I understand that appropriately the Spy leaves the content of the writer’s byline to the writer. It would be helpful if David Reel would not be so shy about his Republican Party bona fides as the past Chairman of the Talbot County Republican Central Committee.

This OpEd is characteristic of what I call the post 2016 American Enterprise sandwich.  The American Enterprise Institute is the longtime conservative redoubt that has employed the likes of Newt Gingrich and Dinesh D’Souza. 

In off year elections, the party not in the White House characteristically does very, very well.  In 2016, the Republican Party let their extreme Donald Trump flag fly with disappointing results including the continuing speaker of the house fiasco and legislative stalemate because of the Republican Party’s slimmest of majorities. 

The American Enterprise sandwich is a way for the conservative fringe to further itself with the veneer of non-combative moderation.  The sandwich opens with a seemingly nonpartisan theme, in this case challenges and opportunities for Democrats and Republicans in addressing the African American electorate.  

The meat follows with opinion and statistics which are negative for the Democratic Party. The final section contains platitudes about listening to the electorate.

Any piece dealing with how the Republican Party relates to the African American electorate that does not include the nationwide voter suppression efforts targeting that community cannot be taken seriously.

In the case of David Reel’s OpEd, it is not only in the style of the American Enterprise sandwich, but all the opinion is from American Enterprise staff and all the data is from American Enterprise surveys.

Be on the look out for this type of opinion piece and remember that Donald Trump is overwhelmingly favored to be the presidential candidate for the Republican Party in 2024.  Donald Trump is an existential threat to our democracy and any attempts to distract from that reality should be ignored.

Holly Wright
Talbot County

In its latest and arguably most outrageous effort to insulate the Lakeside project from any County oversight, Talbot County is directly defying the Maryland Department of Environment.  MDE instructed the County to prepare a new Sewer Service Map for Trappe “with the corrected classifications for all of the parcels within the Town of Trappe including the Lakeside development.”  As the lawyers say, “emphasis supplied.”

In response to that directive, the County introduced Resolution 348 (“R348”) to which is attached the new map.  After public hearings and a thoughtful review by the Planning Commission (slated for this Wednesday, October 4th) and action by the Council, this document is supposed to resolve the Lakeside fracas at last.  The map IS ready for review.  However, R348 was carefully drafted explicitly to omit Lakeside entirely from the Planning Commission’s review.  That’s right.  Omit Lakeside—even though it is the central issue, and MDE’s April 24th directive said explicitly “with the corrected classifications for all of the parcels within the Town of Trappe including the Lakeside development.”

As things stand, MDE might not even see this bald defiance for a month, as the County has not sent the proposed Comprehensive Water and Sewer Plan (CWSP) amendment to MDE in advance for review as it is supposed to do.  It is apparently the County’s hope and intention that the faulty Resolution will have gone through the entire County review process—PWAB comment, Planning Commission public hearing, evaluation and vote for consistency with the Comp Plan, and Council public hearing and adoption—without anyone noticing.  Maybe at that point MDE will just accept the outcome and, once again, the hapless Talbot citizens will have been bamboozled.  

And the defiance is directed not at MDE alone.  The Planning Commissioners, who in 2020 were dramatically misled by falsehoods when the original Lakeside map was presented, are being abused here.  And most fundamentally, the citizens of Talbot County are harmed.  If the Planning Commission is forced to accept R348’s improper framing of the “review” of the Trappe sewer map—look at everything except Lakeside—then it might well find the plan “consistent,” and Lakeside would proceed undisturbed.  (And if a jury had tried _____ and been prohibited from considering _____, he’d not have been found guilty, either.)

TIP is doing all it can to keep this debacle from happening, and welcomes the efforts of others.  The Planning Commission should not review R348 as it is now drafted; to do so is to abandon its responsibility to citizens and its duty to the State legislature, who delegated to it alone (not the Council) the task of evaluating land use plans for consistency with the County Comp Plan.  R348 should be withdrawn before the Planning Commission takes it up.  If it is somehow forced upon them, Commissioners should find it “inconsistent” because it asks them to ignore their legal responsibilities to do a proper review,

Unless someone on the Council wants to claim the mantle, TIP lays responsibility for this disgraceful maneuver at the feet of our County Attorney, who from TIP’s point of view has done his utmost to protect and advance Lakeside’s interests for three years.  It was the County Attorney who crafted the language of R348 once the Council gave direction that a stand-alone resolution be prepared.  This is the third attempt to somehow react to MDE’s directive without the matter going before the Planning Commission for a proper review.  (The first was an effort to get MDE to simply accept a “substitute map” administratively; the second was an attempt to bury the issues within a 200-page update of the CWSP that Lakeside’s engineer, Rauch, Inc. has been contracted to prepare.)

It’s all pretty outrageous, and while the County dallies with MDE and the Planning Commission, Lakeside marches on. TIP learned this week that a new plat was just recorded for another 180 lots, Lakeside Phase 1D.  (A State official signed that plat, certifying that it is consistent with the County CWSP.  TIP believes that was incorrect; expect the excuse of “a misunderstanding.”)

Former County Attorney Mike Pullen wrote to the Planning Commission on Wednesday explain the problems with R348 (view here) supplementing  TIP’s letter on point (here).  TIP also obtained a formal legal opinion on this from its Baltimore attorneys, which arrived yesterday (view here).

Meanwhile, on Wednesday TIP submitted to the Planning Commission its comment letter demonstrating the many reasons why Lakeside is inconsistent with our Comp Plan (view here).  That will be relevant only when the Council and/or the County Attorney permits the Planning Commission to do what MDE ordered: review the map for corrections “to all parcels…including Lakeside.”

Dan Watson
The Talbot Integrity Project