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September 22, 2023

Talbot Spy

Nonpartisan Education-based News for Talbot County Community

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Ecosystem Eco Notes

New Interpretive Panels Connect Visitors to Habitats at Pickering Creek

September 13, 2023 by Pickering Creek Audubon Center Leave a Comment

Pickering Creek Audubon Center is a 450-acre nature center in Talbot County, which is open to the public daily with no admission for exploring on our trails.  The Center is a primary provider of outdoor science experiences for school systems on the Eastern Shore. Visitors to the Center on a daily basis use Pickering Creek’s Farm to Bay Trail, which is 2.5 miles in length.  The Farm to Bay Trail winds its way through cool season grass meadows, warm season grass meadows, brackish wetlands, freshwater wetlands, pine forest, emergent hardwood forest, mature hardwood forest and gives up close views of agriculture on Delmarva on a working farm.  While exploring the habitats, about half of the trail borders agriculture fields while the other half borders brackish Pickering Creek.  The trail affords a rare opportunity to experience most of the rural, coastal plain’s habitats in one place coexisting with agriculture successfully.  Interpretive panels along the Farm to Bay Trail tell the story of Delmarva’s key ecosystems and species. 

In the fall of 2022, Pickering Creek received a grant from the Rural Maryland Council to support creation of new messaging and new artwork for nine interpretive panels. People visit places like Pickering Creek Audubon Center to learn, explore, find adventure, relax and exercise.  Interpretive panels help give meaning to the visitors experience by telling the story of the land: past, present and future.  Interpretive panels help draw connections between habitats, plants, wildlife and people. 

The panels highlight the key habitats along the Center’s Farm to Bay Trail, which include forest, wetland, meadow, agriculture and brackish water creek. Through the panels we tell the story of key habitat features, flora and fauna through both concise written messages and compelling visuals.  Panels help the visitor understand the interconnected nature of land and water on Delmarva.  

The panels replace aging panels that have been weathered by the sun and rain.  None of the existing panels were replicated, so each of the nine panels shares a brand new story about the Center, its wildlife and habitats.  In addition to replacing existing panels, the new panels fill in spots along the trails that have not been previously highlighted. 

Over the course of the past year, Center staff researched, designed, contracted fabrication and installed nine interpretive panels. At the Center’s entrance parking area you will now be greeted by a timeline history of the Center that explains its donation and evolution over time. New panels along the Farm to Bay Trail highlight songbirds in the woods, no till agriculture, the importance of forested buffers between land and water, fungi of the woods, and birds seen on the creek. New panels along the Wetland and Meadow Trails highlight which amphibians you are likely to see and hear, the importance of milkweed in meadow communities, and bluebird boxes and their benefits.

“Pickering Creek is unique as a nature center in that we are also agricultural landowners.  As the Olds Family who donated the Center’s core property wished we continued to highlight agriculture as part of the landscape on Delmarva while also sharing how conservation practices coexist with great habitat for wildlife.” said Center Director Mark Scallion.

Pickering Creek is open to the public daily during daylight hours.  Check the Center website for exact open times as evening daylight gets shorter this fall.  There are several viewing platforms and blinds along the way for you to enjoy scenery and wildlife.  Benches for resting are spread throughout the trails.  The new panels join seven existing panels that have been installed in the last five years in both wetland and meadow habitats.  Together they share the story of outdoor habitats and ecosystems and the creatures we share them with on Delmarva.

 

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

Filed Under: Eco Notes

A View of the Chesapeake Bay’s Health from its Headwaters

September 5, 2023 by Maryland Matters

On a recent rainy afternoon, a dozen educators and environmentalists from Central New York were standing ankle deep in Charlotte Creek here, collecting water samples in test tubes, petri dishes and ice trays. As the rain pelted the group at a sideways angle, with the creek running faster than usual, Heather Grant, one of the leaders, felt compelled to offer a gentle warning.

“The teacher in me wants to say that the water is still high, so don’t go too far out by yourself,” she said. “Please don’t get washed away.”

It would not have been apparent to anyone watching, but this simple scientific inquiry, 282 driving miles from Perryville in Cecil County, the first town in Maryland to touch the Chesapeake Bay, had profound implications for the health of the Bay — and for the imperative of preparing the next generation to work to combat climate change. The creek runs into the Susquehanna River near Oneonta, about five miles east of West Davenport, and the Susquehanna, the longest river on the East Coast, is the biggest and northernmost source of the Chesapeake Bay, one of more than 150 waterways that feed into the venerated estuary.

Not that very many people know it. The Susquehanna begins at Lake Otsego in Cooperstown, N.Y., a quaint village named for James Fenimore Cooper, author of “The Last of the Mohicans” and other 19th century yarns. It’s also home to the Baseball Hall of Fame, which draws a steady stream of tourists. Brewery Ommegang, a giant and popular watering hole, restaurant and event space, is just outside of town in a corn field, its wild success surely a beacon of hope for craft brewers downriver in Maryland.

The only indication that this is the source of the Chesapeake Bay comes from a historical sign in a shady copse in Council Rock Park, which overlooks the lake, three blocks from the Baseball Hall of Fame (or the “B-HOF,” as some locals call it). “This marker signifies the point where the beautiful Susquehanna River begins its 444 mile journey to meet the Chesapeake Bay,” the sign says.

But a number of environmentalists and teachers in this part of the world are taking their responsibility as stewards of the Chesapeake Bay increasingly more seriously. And they are thinking more often about how they can incorporate Bay health into the scholastic curriculum. It can seem at times like a lonely crusade.

“Sometimes up here it’s tough to get students — or anyone — interested in the Bay, which is 400 miles away,” said Jeff O’Grady, program director at the Otsego County Conservation Association (OCCA), a leading environmental group in the area.

For the past three years, OCCA has organized a summertime training for local teachers to learn more about the Chesapeake Bay watershed and to devise strategies for teaching their students about it. Run initially by a group of volunteers, the environmental group, which has been around since the late 1960s, was launched to protect forests in the area. But its size and mission have grown exponentially over the years. Today, nine full-time staffers tackle everything from water pollution to clean energy advocacy to climate resiliency. Three years ago, the group won a grant from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to organize the teacher trainings on the Bay.

“Education is part of everything we do,” O’Grady said.

Maryland policymakers and environmentalists have long been obsessed about upstream pollution that comes into the Chesapeake Bay. But most of their ire and frustration focuses on Pennsylvania, which by all accounts and a series of lawsuits, has been lax, until recently, about its responsibilities to curb agricultural runoff and other pollution that flows to the Susquehanna and its tributaries.

New York is often missing from the conversation. In fact, environmentalists from the area joke about being left off official maps of the Bay watershed and recall a recent document from the Chesapeake Bay Foundation referring to the city of “Binghampton” — a serious misspelling to the locals. That may help explain why it’s so hard for local educators to teach their students and communities about the Bay.

“That’s how little people think about New York and the Chesapeake Bay,” said Liz Brown, OCCA’s clean energy community coordinator, who was co-leader of this summer’s teacher training. “Our portion up here is really critical to the Bay watershed, but it’s obvious why people don’t think of it, because it’s so small in proportion to all the other states.”

Grant, the other co-leader, who is a middle and high school teacher in the Morris Central School District, northwest of Oneonta, recalled fruitlessly exhorting a student to be more curious about the Chesapeake Bay.

“I don’t like oysters,” he replied.

‘We want this to be a place to not let that fleeting idea go to waste’

In Maryland, Bay education is a common and essential thing — and the state has broad benchmarks for environmental instruction that school districts are required to hit. In New York, educators were never expected to think about the Chesapeake Bay until the Empire State signed on to a multi-state agreement to reduce pollution in the Bay more than a decade ago. But there are still no standards or requirements for teaching about it.

For three days teachers participating in the Otsego County Conservation Association training program met in a historic schoolhouse at the Pine Lake Environmental Campus of Hartwick College. Hartwick, a small liberal arts school in Oneonta, just down a steep hill from the bigger campus of the State University of New York at Oneonta, offers housing in small cabins at the environmental campus for students who wish to avoid the hurly-burly of typical dorm living. During the summer, the  environmental campus is used for youth summer camps — and, for the past two years, for the teacher training on the Bay watershed (it was held virtually the first year, due to the pandemic).

The nine teachers participating in the training were at different career stages and came for a variety of reasons. All were clearly committed environmentalists. On the first day, Grant wore a T-shirt that said “Teach climate science” on the front, and on the back said, “Teach climate science for…human health, food security, ecosystems, water resources, wildlife, the economy, our future.”

One member of the group, Amy Favinger, a 4th grade teacher in the Gilbertsville-Mount Upton Central School District, grew up in Baltimore County, taught in county schools, and moved with her family to Central New York during the pandemic after teaching for several years in Northern Virginia. Favinger said the training appealed to her partially out of a kind of nostalgia — she still has family in Baltimore — and partially to network with other educators, because she’s still relatively new to the area.

“Having that connection, living and growing up and teaching in that area, I wanted to figure out how I could use my previous experience to make connections for my students,” she said.

Throughout the three days, Grant and Brown were energetic and enthusiastic guides, mixing wonky science with knowing sympathy about demands and limitations teachers face in their daily lives, coupled with political realities of preaching climate action to reluctant or indifferent communities.

Teachers and environmentalists collect water samples in Charlotte Creek in West Davenport, N.Y., part of their training on how to teach about the Chesapeake Bay watershed. Photo by Josh Kurtz.

“We’ve got a lot of resources for you guys,” Grant told the teachers, later urging them to think creatively. “We want this to be a place to not let that fleeting idea go to waste.”

One of many messages group leaders attempted to drive home was that any scientific or environmental lesson or conversation, no matter how local, could be tied to broader discussions about the health of the Chesapeake Bay watershed. At one point, Brown and Grant asked each of the teachers to think about environmental challenges near their schools that could warrant academic inquiry — and could impact Bay health.

One teacher mentioned a “sketchy” visible gas pipe on the school property, leaking effluent of unknown origin. Another talked about her school being close to an old dump notorious for its methane emissions. Another talked about wanting to study microplastics in local waterways. And another wondered about the ecological impacts of the highly popular vineyards in the nearby Finger Lakes region.

They also talked about opportunities for civic action, at the school level and in their communities — everything from Earth Day cleanups to planting pollinator gardens to pulling tires out of rivers to advocating for meatless Mondays in the school cafeteria. One teacher, Chad DeVoe, a career counselor from the Onondaga-Cortland-Madison counties BOCES (a vocational educational program), said that when a school field trip was canceled in the late spring due to unhealthy air caused by Canadian wildfires, he urged his students to call the local congressman, Rep. Marc Molinaro (R), to ask his office what he was doing to fight climate change. They never got a particularly satisfactory answer, DeVoe told his colleagues, but it was still a valuable exercise. 

“We do letter-writing [to political leaders on climate change] earlier in the year,” DeVoe he said. “But this is far more effective. The kids loved it.”

Over the three days, the group of teachers took several short field trips on the wooded grounds of the environmental center’s campus, and also received visits from a range of experts and advocates: a scholar on local leaves and an authority on archaeology, as well as the director of an agricultural extension office affiliated with Cornell University, the leader of a regional environmental group that specializes in tree planting, and the district manager of the Otsego County Soil and Water Conservation District.

The quick hike to Charlotte Creek, through a piney forest, was part of an exercise to gauge water quality and monitor macroinvertebrates living near the shore. The teachers and environmentalists examined small critters in the test tubes, petri dishes and ice trays they brought with them, and discussed what they collected: mayflies, stoneflies, and two types of crayfish, among others.

The very same experiments, Brown told the teachers, can be done with their students if there is a stream nearby. “Macros are a good way, especially if you do it year after year, to assess water quality,” she said.

‘We need the next generation to participate’

Any educational endeavor, almost by necessity in modern America, comes with its own jargon and series of acronyms. The three-day teacher training was no exception.

The grant from NOAA that the Otsego County Conservation Association received came from a program the federal agency has established called B-WET, which stands for Bay Watershed Education and Training. B-WET teacher trainings have been taking place throughout the Bay watershed for several years, but the OCCA offering is the first in New York state.

More broadly, the B-WETs borrow from a teaching concept known as MWEEs — Meaningful Watershed Education Experiences, pronounced mee-wees. MWEEs can be any number of things and have existed for decades — many teachers in Maryland know a thing or two about them. The four elements they require, educators say, are issue investigation, outdoor field experience, synthesis and conclusions, and stewardship and civic action. Every conversation during the OCCA session was geared to shedding light on those goals.

New York teachers learning from a local leaf expert at a training session on the Chesapeake Bay watershed earlier this summer. Photo by Josh Kurtz.

On the second day of the three-day training, Elise Trelegan, the B-WET program coordinator for NOAA’s Chesapeake Bay Office in Annapolis, joined the meeting on Zoom from her home on the Eastern Shore. Trelegan told the teachers that the work they are doing in New York is part of a bigger effort; there are 637 school districts in the Chesapeake Bay watershed over six states and the District of Columbia, she said, and the B-WET office has an annual budget of $2.7 million — a pittance in the federal budget — to try to reach them all.

“We recognize that if we’re going to do anything on conservation and stewardship, we need the next generation to participate,” Trelegan said. “We haven’t done a lot of work in New York, so we’re really excited to have you all here. This funding catalyzes this kind of environmental literacy, environmental education, in all these school districts.”

Trelegan also explained that NOAA, like other federal agencies, is increasingly trying to emphasize equity and environmental justice as it funds climate and education programs.

“We’re looking for a long-term commitment from school districts to change the culture on environmental education,” she said. “We see this grant as the beginning of more things happening in New York.”

One teacher asked Trelegan why it took New York so long to “jump on the bandwagon” of providing education about the Bay watershed.

“I think it’s a sort of perception,” Trelegan suggested. “If people don’t see there’s a connection to the Bay, they don’t see how the upstream decisions affect things downstream.”

A teacher told a story that illustrated that very phenomenon. “It’s interesting,” she said. “I ask my students, ‘where do you think our water winds up?’ And they may say, ‘Oh, the Susquehanna,’ or ‘Binghamton.’ They don’t really know it goes to the Chesapeake. They don’t know we’re in the headwaters of the Chesapeake.”

Trelegan signed off of the Zoom, from Maryland, and expressed gratitude to the assembled teachers. “Thanks for doing these jobs and being the role models that you are,” she said.

Throughout the three-day session, there were more reminders of Maryland. At one point, the group watched a half hour video about ongoing MWEEs in three Bay watershed school districts, organized through the B-WET program. One was a high school in Lancaster County, Pa., one was a middle school in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley, and the third was Lewisdale Elementary School, in Prince George’s County. The teachers in the room watched with great interest as a Lewisdale teacher led her students to Sligo Creek to take water samples and examine the macroinvertebrates they collected.

“Some of you are saying you have a lobster,” the teacher says in the video. “I don’t think that’s right.” Her students laugh.

Speaking to the camera, the teacher says her students’ families regularly use the park by the creek for picnics and other recreational activities and that the program makes them more attuned to their own responsibility for keeping the park and the water clean. And she praises the B-WET grant for helping to frame her lessons.

“The MWEE does not add on to all the standards that I have to teach,” she says. “To me, it frames [the lessons] in a much different way.”

When the video was over, the New York teachers remarked on the diversity of the student populations in the video they saw, especially the kids from Lewisdale, who were primarily Latino. The teachers, whose districts are small, rural and largely white, also wondered aloud about the resources which school districts in the video may have to enable them to run well-organized and successful MWEE programs.

When the three days had ended, several teachers said they learned a lot and planned to apply what they heard to their classroom instruction in the coming school year.

“It’s pretty great,” said Bryan Hill, a science teacher at Penn Yan Academy, a high school in Penn Yan, N.Y. “I think the coolest thing, apart from the litany of resources, is using hands-on activities that show kids environmental stewardship in real-world ways.”

Hill, who dropped out of medical school to teach at Penn Yan Academy, his alma mater, said he was “shocked, given that we have so many bodies of water around here,” that so little attention has been paid to the impact upriver activities have on the Chesapeake Bay. “It’s so easy to be complacent, to say, ‘I don’t know where the water goes.’”

Favinger, the 4th grade teacher who grew up in Baltimore County, was also impressed — and grateful.

“The resources are there,” she said. “You just have to know where to look and what you need to take in. It’s empowering when you get to make the decisions and set up the programs. There’s a way to do this and meet the standards of what you have to teach.”

Several teachers said the MWEEs appear to allow for a level of creativity and flexibility that many academic programs and mandates don’t have.

“This is not marked in stone,” Grant told the teachers. “We’re not going to show up in your schools in October and check back on these.”

All politics, all environmental action and all educational activities may, at a certain level, be local, but the leaders of the Otsego County Conservation Association were quick to remind the teachers about their small but vital place in a vast watershed.

“It’s important to stay focused on your waterway, but also taking a bigger look,” Brown advised. “Not just where you are, not just the Chesapeake Bay, but globally.”

By Josh Kurtz

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

Filed Under: Eco Lead, Eco Portal Lead

ShoreRivers Safe to Swim Weekend Report

September 1, 2023 by Spy Desk

Along with summer swimming comes ShoreRivers Bacteria Monitoring season. It is advised that people not swim 24-48 hours after a major rain.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

Filed Under: Eco Notes

Eastern Shore Land Conservancy Hosts U.S. Senator Chris Van Hollen at Dorchester County Conservation Easement

August 31, 2023 by Eastern Shore Land Conservancy

On Thursday August 17, Eastern Shore Land Conservancy (ESLC) and Skip and Barbara Watson hosted U.S. Senator Chris Van Hollen for a tour of Waterloo Farm in East New Market, Maryland. Several bay conservation partners also attended, including representatives from Choose Clean Water Coalition, National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, Ducks Unlimited, Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge, and the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service.

Waterloo Farm’s conservation and wetland protection efforts (including impoundments, native plantings, protected woodlands, and vegetative buffers) will be replicated across Dorchester County by ESLC and essential partners through Chesapeake WILD funding, which includes $500,000 in federal funding that the Senator fought to secure to protect habitat migration corridors between Blackwater and the Nanticoke River Watershed. 

Through strategic landowner outreach, ESLC and the Chesapeake WILD project will permanently protect 300 acres, benefiting the long-term resilience of wildlife populations and critical ecosystems throughout Maryland’s lower Eastern Shore.

“What this shows is that this requires a team effort,” said Senator Van Hollen. “It does require everybody working in the same direction. If we’re going to address all the issues and if we’re going to protect the Chesapeake Bay, which is a global treasure, we have to make sure here in the bay, which is an extra sensitive area ecologically, that we have a program specifically targeted on the Bay and that’s what Chesapeake WILD is all about.”

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

Filed Under: Eco Notes

PSC Chair Wants To ‘Lower The Temperature’ on Disputes over Renewable Energy Projects

August 30, 2023 by Maryland Matters

The new leader of the Maryland Public Service Commission said Tuesday that he plans to convene meetings with interested parties over the next few months to discuss the increasingly controversial issue of where to place renewable energy installations in the state.

Testifying before a virtual hearing of the state Senate Committee on Education, Energy and the Environment, Fred Hoover, who took over as PSC chair in July, said he wanted to “get all the parties together to lower the temperature in some of these siting topics.”

The PSC is Maryland’s chief energy and utility regulatory agency, but it also has a historical role in approving proposals to build energy-generating facilities in the state. Where once that job meant considering and approving large power plants, as the industry evolves the commission now is tasked with becoming involved in decisions about where to place renewable energy installations. Those fights, especially over whether to allow solar projects on land zoned for agricultural uses or forests — and the PSC’s role in them — have become increasingly contentious.

Four years ago, the state’s highest court, then known as the Maryland Court of Appeals, ruled that the PSC can supersede local zoning laws when it came to applications to build large renewable energy installations.

Sen. Brian J. Feldman (D-Montgomery), chair of the Education, Energy and Environment panel, said in his view the court ruling suggested “the PSC is top dog” in these disputes. But he acknowledged that other entities, including the powerful Maryland Association of Counties, may have a different interpretation of the court decision.

“This issue has been very controversial over the interplay between the Public Service Commission and local governments,” Feldman said. “…This is still a muddied water kind of topic.”

Hoover pointed out that any entity applying to build a large renewable energy installation, such as a solar array on agricultural land, still must obtain relevant permits from local governments before they can proceed.

Earlier this month, Feldman, along with House Economic Matters Chair C.T. Wilson (D-Charles) and House Environment and Transportation Chair Marc Korman (D-Montgomery) wrote a letter to Gov. Wes Moore (D) seeking guidance on how the state should approach controversies over renewable energy installations given the necessity of increasing the state’s renewable energy generation to meet aggressive climate goals, among other things. Under legislation required last year, the state is required to hit a 50% renewable energy goal by 2030 and to use 100% clean energy by 2035.

“To achieve these targets, Maryland must dramatically and equitably increase its deployment of solar installations across the State and identify appropriate locations for energy storage,” the committee chairs wrote. They asked Moore to direct several state agencies to coordinate these efforts, “as well as identifying innovative policies being pursued in other states.”

Hoover told senators that his decision to convene meetings on siting was, in part, a response to the lawmakers’ query.

The Task Force to Study Solar Incentives, which was set up by state legislation this year, is also expected to examine this topic in months ahead.

So far, local governments have taken a piecemeal approach to renewable energy siting policies. In 2021 Montgomery County passed legislation effectively limiting the number of solar arrays that can be installed in the county’s vast Agricultural Reserve. Just last month, the Carroll County Board of Commissioners voted unanimously to ban large solar projects from being built on land zoned for agricultural use. Next week, the Anne Arundel County Council is tentatively scheduled to vote on amended legislation that could limit the amount of solar arrays permissible on undeveloped land.

Several stakeholders — including leaders of renewable energy companies, environmental groups, agricultural concerns, business organizations and local governments — have begun wondering openly if the state needs uniform standards on where and how to build renewable energy installations. A bill passed in this year’s General Assembly session makes it easier to install solar arrays on industrial lands, public and private rooftops, parking lots and other public facilities. Baltimore County officials, including County Executive Johnny Olszewski Jr. (D), are participating in a ribbon-cutting Wednesday for a rooftop solar project in Rosedale that will eventually provide power to 6,000 area homes.

But it’s widely acknowledged that some agricultural land will have to be set aside for renewable energy installations if the state is to hit the clean energy goals laid out in the 2022 Climate Solutions Now Act.

Hoover acknowledged the possible need for statewide legislation to quell the siting controversy when he told the senators Wednesday that he may approach them for “a legislative fix.”

The discussion about renewable energy siting came at the end of a two-hour hearing by the Senate committee that enabled lawmakers to learn more about the Public Service Commission and its myriad responsibilities. The Senate panel was renamed and given a new portfolio at the beginning of the year, so many members of the panel are still learning about energy issues. Additionally, three of the five PSC commissioners have taken office in the past few months, as Moore attempts to make the agency an aggressive partner in the administration’s desire to combat climate change.

PSC officials led the Senate committee through discussions ranging from how the commission considers utilities’ requests to raise rates, to how to read an electric bill, to whether utilities are being given too much license to beef up natural gas infrastructure, to some of the particulars on electric supply competition.

“To me it seemed like the right level of high-level and basic,” said Sen. Cheryl C. Kagan (D-Montgomery), the committee vice chair.

By Josh Kurtz

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

Filed Under: Eco Lead, Eco Portal Lead

Sweet: To preserve the Bay, EPA and Hershey commit $2 million for Pennsylvania Farmers

August 24, 2023 by Maryland Matters

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Hershey Co. on Tuesday pledged $2 million to support Pennsylvania dairy farmers in adopting environmentally friendly practices, part of a larger conservation effort to protect the Chesapeake Bay Watershed.

They made the announcement at Central Manor Dairy in Manor Township, a 200-cow operation that has been a member of Land O’Lakes (and its predecessor) since 1943.

The Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay, in collaboration with Land O’Lakes, Inc., will use the funding as part of the ongoing “Sustainable Dairy PA” initiative that the agency and the two companies first launched in 2021.

Sustainable Dairy PA participating farmers work with the Alliance to establish best practices to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and improve Chesapeake Bay watershed water quality. At launch, the initiative prioritized 119 Land O’Lakes member-owner farms in central Pennsylvania that ship 50% or more of their milk supply to Hershey. Land O’Lakes operates as a member-owned cooperative, representing more than 1,000 farms across the U.S.

Jenna Mitchell Beckett, Pennsylvania director and agriculture program director for the Alliance, told the Capital-Star that the Sustainable Dairy PA program is voluntary for farmers who want to participate.

“The $2M funding from Hershey and EPA will help Land O’Lakes member farms accelerate their sustainability efforts by investing with them in the implementation of manure storage facilities, soil health practices, riparian forest buffers and other efforts to enhance sustainability on farms supplying to Hershey,” Beckett said in an email, “which builds farm resilience, improves water quality, and reduces emissions.” The Sustainable Dairy PA model focuses on all parts of the supply chain working together, she added, rather than the farmers managing everything themselves.

The EPA is supplying $1 million of the new round of funding, with Hershey providing a matching $1 million. The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation will administer the portion of the funds provided from EPA to the Alliance, the EPA said.

Since 2018, the Alliance has worked to develop agriculture supply chain programs, with an eye toward improving the member farms’ long-term sustainability, improving soil health, and overall efficiencies.

A report released earlier this year by the Chesapeake Bay Program found that pollution reduction efforts by states in the watershed were “more challenging than expected.”

Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia are responsible for around 90% of the Chesapeake Bay’s pollution, and according to a 2022 report from the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, while the states were on track to meet their 2025 commitments for reducing pollution from wastewater, agriculture or urban and suburban runoff pollution reduction efforts lagged behind.

“States are not on track to reduce pollution to the levels needed for a healthy Bay, or implement the practices necessary to achieve them by the 2025 deadline,” according to the 2022 State of the Blueprint Report.

Under the terms of the Chesapeake Bay Agreement, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, Delaware, West Virginia, New York, and the District of Columbia have to reach specific milestones in pollution reduction.

The dairy industry is responsible for roughly 2% of the U.S.’ greenhouse gas emissions, according to the World Wildlife Fund.

“EPA’s funding commitment to Hershey, Land O’Lakes, and the Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay brings $2 million of much-needed support to Pennsylvania dairy farmers to scale up conservation practices that are good for our farms, climate, local streams, and the Bay,” EPA regional administrator Adam Ortiz said. “With this funding, we are not only investing in the current environment, but into the long-term viability of Pennsylvania farmers – our frontline environmentalists.”

By Kim Lyons

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

Filed Under: Eco Lead, Eco Portal Lead

Restoring the Mighty Corsica: A Chat with Riverkeeper Annie Richards

August 16, 2023 by James Dissette

For ten-thousand years the Chesapeake Bay and its tidal rivers have played a pivotal role in shaping and sustaining our surrounding environment. They are crucial components of our complex ecosystem and cultural landscape, offering a myriad of benefits that impact both aquatic and terrestrial life.

The beauty of many of the Bay’s tributaries led Capt. John Smith to write in 1612 to write, “Heaven and earth have never agreed better to frame a place for man’s habitation,” and while that praise still holds, the health of rivers—like the Bay—is a constant concern requiring long-term monitoring and preservation techniques.

Feeding in the Chester River, the six-mile Corsica River and its navigable streams have been widely popular for kayakers, canoers, paddleboarders, and fishing and maintain an active public dock at Centreville Wharf.

The river’s health, however, has been an uphill battle, but Chester Riverkeeper Annie Richards quickly notes that the whole picture is not bleak. In fact, some testing points water quality is showing a 30% recovery.

“The Corsica River, which converges with the middle Chester River at a junction of key waterways, struggles with several water quality parameters. Its relatively shallow nature poses issues with flushing and tidal flow. Unfortunately, the Corsica River ranks as one of the weakest performers in terms of water quality monitoring carried out by Shore Rivers,” Richards says.

From April to March, Richards and her Corsica River volunteers test the water quality twice a month, looking for changes in the water quality parameters, including dissolved oxygen levels, clarity, chlorophyll A (floating plant matter), nitrogen, and phosphorous levels.

“Corsica is not a surprise when we look back at Maryland Department of the Environment’s data whose series of tests in all of the sub-watersheds of the Corsica of which there are 45. 21 out of those 45 tested high high in phosphorus,” Richards says.

With science data in hand, Richards says that Shore Rivers meets in Annapolis every winter to advocate for better laws that can improve water quality and implement correct land use policies on the Eastern Shore.

Partnering with the Natural Lands Project, a program that runs out of the Center for Environment and Society at Washington College, the Annapolis meetings also provide a platform to plan for continued restoration projects, including returning native grasses to replace critical lost habitats.

The Spy recently talked with Shore Rivers Chester Riverkeeper Annie Richards about their ongoing stewardship and plans to enhance the health and quality of the Queen Anne’s river.

ShoreRivers is a nonprofit organization working to improve the health of Eastern Shore waterways through science-based advocacy, restoration, and education. ShoreRivers was created in 2017 when the Chester River Association (CRA), Midshore Riverkeeper Conservancy (MRC), and Sassafras River Association (SRA) merged.

 

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

Filed Under: News Homepage, Eco Portal Lead, News Portal Highlights

Celebrating 50 years of Science for All: Horn Point Laboratory Hosts Open House October 14

August 16, 2023 by Horn Point Laboratory

The University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science’s Horn Point Laboratory (HPL) invites the public to its annual free Open House on Saturday, October 14,2023, from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Mark your calendar and Save the Date! This year’s Open House is celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Horn Point Laboratory.

The theme is “Science for All!” with 50 years of science for the Chesapeake Bay and the diverse marine and human life it supports.  Meet the Horn Point Lab’s team of scientists and explore the Bay using their research in fun interactive exhibits. Learn about healthy marshes, how oysters clean the water and build resilience to sea level rise and climate change, dive into the largest oyster hatchery on the east coast, and more during a day of FREE activities for all ages. Children will receive a free t-shirt for completing the scavenger hunt. 

“This is the best day of the year for the community to learn about the science of the Bay. Everyone at the lab is on deck to explain their research with activities and displays that make it easy to understand,” said Horn Point Laboratory Director Mike Sieracki. 

From the banks of the Choptank River on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, Horn Point scientists engage in world-renowned research in oceanography, water quality, coastal resilience and sea level rise, restoration of sea grasses, marshes and shellfish, and expertise in ecosystem modeling.

Visitors to the Open House will explore the shore through hands-on exhibits created by the Lab’s faculty and students:

  • Build a healthy marsh and learn who are our best partners in this effort.
  • See an animation of the travels of oyster larvae as they move from the reef where they spawned to their new, permanent home reef.  
  • Match up a DNA sequence to microscopic creatures important to the food chain. 
  • Play in a digital sand box to create shorelines and model weather’s impact with laser imaging.
  • Meet and talk to graduate students about their environmental career goals.
  • Build an oyster castle and learn how these growing, living building blocks create habitat for marine creatures and protect against sea level rise and climate change.
  • At the children’s activity booth, create eco-friendly animals that live in our waters. Play games that teach fun facts about the Bay.  Go on a scavenger hunt through the exhibits to learn how the Bay’s lasting health starts with each of us making a cleaner environment today.

FREE and fun for all ages the Open House will take place rain or shine. The Horn Point Laboratory campus is located at 2020 Horns Point Road on Route 343 outside of Cambridge, Maryland. 

For more information, visit umces.edu/hpl/openhouse or contact Carin Starr at [email protected], 410-221-8408.

 

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

Filed Under: Eco Notes

Mid-Shore Ecosystem: One Last Chance to Hold Off a Big Box at Kent Narrows

August 14, 2023 by Dave Wheelan

Recent initiatives to seek critical area allocations on the Mid-Shore are finding significant pushback from citizens worried that they are contrary to the spirit of County comprehensive plans created to protect important habitats.

In one recent example, the Poplar Hill Farm development in Easton, which had plans for more than 400 homes, was withdrawn last month after the developer faced strong community opposition to using critical area allocations to build out a residential development.

And last week, there was a similar debate in Queen Anne’s County on how those allocations would be used. In this case, the question of the table was a proposal to provide allowances for a 150,000-square-foot storage facility at Kent Narrows to be built.

In the second of two formal reviews in front of the Queen Anne’s County Commissioners, the applicant sought final approval for the structure after the first review resulted in a 5-1 vote in favor of the development project.

In public comments at the August 8 meeting, Bib Zillig, a citizen advocate against the proposal, once again made his case by reminding the commissioners that the proposed land use was contrary to the spirit of the QAC Comprehensive plan. Zillig and several other environmental advocates outlined the fallout of overdevelopment, swelling traffic, and stressed infrastructure to these ambitious undertakings.

In response, the Commissioners asked QAC Department of Planning & Zoning County’s Planning and Zoning staff Amy Moredock and Stephanie Jones, who helped coordinate the latest update of the comprehensive plan, their analysis of the proposed use.

They reported that the project aligned with the comp plan, particularly concerning stormwater management. They further stated that the applicant’s proposal had minimal need for sewage capacity, and that the project documented a commitment of the developer to exceed minimum zoning standards.

It is anticipated a final decision on the application will be made at the next County Commissioners meeting.

The Spy captured both points of view to share with our readers.

This video is approximately 8 minutes in length.

 

 

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

Filed Under: News Homepage, Eco Portal Lead, News Portal Highlights

ShoreRivers Raft-Up Concert Returns to Shaw Bay

August 12, 2023 by ShoreRivers

Celebrate the end of summer with ShoreRivers and the Miles-Wye Riverkeeper at the Shaw Bay Raft-Up Concert from 3–6 pm on Saturday, Sept. 9. The Eastport Oyster Boys will be making their 20th appearance and the Wye River Band will be back for their fourth at this free concert, which aims to raise funds and awareness for clean water efforts on Maryland’s Eastern Shore.

This annual benefit concert is a must for mariners of all kinds. Bring your dinghy, paddle board, kayak, sailboat, or power boat, and join the floating raft up to enjoy live music in Shaw Bay, near the mouth of the Wye River. Visit shorerivers.org/events to find sponsorship opportunities, a map of nearby locations from which to launch your vessel, and to sign up to receive text updates on the event.

While the concert is free, donations are welcome, with all proceeds helping to promote the clean water initiatives of ShoreRivers on the Miles and Wye rivers and Eastern Bay. Attendees are asked to use the organization’s pumpout boat services while in Shaw Bay, and throughout the boating season, to help with these efforts.

Since May 2016, the ShoreRivers pumpout boat has removed more than 90,000 gallons of waste from boaters on the Miles and Wye. The pumpout boat is funded by the Maryland Department of Natural Resources and operates in partnership with the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum in St. Michaels, MD. The vessel operates Friday–Sunday and on holidays from mid-May through mid-November. Pumpouts may be scheduled on VHF Channel 9 or by contacting Captain Jim at 410.829.4352 or [email protected].

ShoreRivers is a nonprofit organization dedicated to restoring Eastern Shore waterways through science-based advocacy, restoration, and education. Our local waterways are polluted by excess nutrients and sediment that run off of urban, suburban, agricultural, and commercial land. ShoreRivers is dedicated to implementing real solutions through programs and projects to improve the health of these waterways. To learn more, please visit shorerivers.org.

Event questions may be directed to Freya Farley at [email protected].

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

Filed Under: Eco Notes

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