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May 18, 2021

The Talbot Spy

The nonprofit e-newspaper for the Talbot County Community

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New Hearing Ordered on Lakeside Wastewater Discharge Permit

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Those worried about the potential for water pollution from a massive residential and commercial development planned in Trappe will get another chance to voice their concerns.

A Talbot County Circuit Court judge has ordered the Maryland Department of the Environment to hold another hearing and give the public another opportunity to comment on sewage discharge plans for Lakeside, a proposed community of 2,501 homes and apartments plus a shopping center, in the small town of Trappe.

The April 27 ruling by Judge Stephen Kehoe came in a case filed by ShoreRivers, which had appealed the groundwater discharge permit the MDE had issued to Lakeside’s developer, Trappe East Holdings Business Trust. Development plans called for discharging treated wastewater by spraying it on fields of orchard grass in a corner of the 860-acre tract near the headwaters of Miles Creek, a tributary of the Choptank River.

Lawyers for the developer and the town of Trappe had filed a joint consent to ShoreRivers request that the permit be sent back to the MDE for further review.

State regulators originally granted the project a wastewater discharge permit in 2005, around the time Trappe voters approved annexing the undeveloped land into town limits. Development plans stalled after that, but the MDE tentatively approved a new permit in 2019 and finalized it in December 2020.

ShoreRivers contended that the final permit was different in key respects from the version MDE asked the public to comment on in 2019. The final permit was based on a nutrient management plan that spells out the terms and limitations of the treated wastewater spraying — but that plan was submitted after the public comment period had ended, and the MDE refused ShoreRivers’ requests to reopen the case.

“The nutrient management plan is a core component of the permit,” said Matt Pluta, the Choptank Riverkeeper. “Whether or not the details in [the plan] are adequate in protecting water quality warranted a review from the public.”

The final permit required the developer’s proposed sewage treatment plant to use enhanced nutrient removal, significantly lowering the levels of nitrogen and phosphorus in the wastewater before spraying it on up to 88 acres of grassy fields. The developer also was directed to build a lagoon to store wastewater for up to 75 days during winter and other times of the year when it’s raining or too windy to spray.

Pluta conceded that those changes could reduce chances of degrading nearby waterways. But he and others still question whether the system would prevent pollution from getting into the creek or the Choptank, both of which are already impaired by nutrients.

MDE spokesman Jay Apperson said the state regulatory agency will comply with the court order. But he added that the MDE “has not yet determined when the public comment period will open, and we have not yet scheduled a public hearing.”

The ruling put on hold a separate lawsuit filed by the Chesapeake Bay Foundation challenging the MDE’s approval of the Lakeside discharge permit. CBF spokesman AJ Metcalf said the environmental group would pause its litigation while new comments are taken on the permit.

“We welcome this additional opportunity for the public to weigh in on the nutrient management plan associated with this project’s discharge permit, as well as another chance to comment on the terms and conditions of the permit,” said Alan Girard, CBF’s Eastern Shore director.

Lawyers for the developer of Lakeside and for the town of Trappe did not respond to emails seeking comment.

By Timothy B. Wheeler

ShoreRivers Litigation Forces Owners to Address Toxic Lead Site

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In March, ShoreRivers and the owners and operators of The Point at Pintail came to a settlement agreement requiring the sporting clay course and shooting range in Queenstown, Maryland, to address lead shot that has accumulated to toxic levels in surrounding soils, threatening the health of people and wildlife. While shooting has taken place at this gun club for over 30 years, evidence shows that between 2013 and 2019 alone, 171 tons of lead were discharged at shooting stations around the site, resulting in dangerous lead accumulation in the soil, ditches, and ponds that drain directly to the Wye River. After years of negotiations, the final settlement agreement requires The Point at Pintail to address existing lead deposits, implement practices to regularly reclaim future lead debris, and conduct regular water and soil sampling to ensure no further lead pollution of the site.

Lead is highly toxic; exposure to even small amounts can result in severe neurological, developmental, and reproductive issues in humans and wildlife, particularly in children and birds. For these reasons, it has been banned from use as a gasoline additive, in paints, and in certain other applications. However, while lead-based shot was banned in waterfowl hunting nationwide in 1991, it remains in use in upland game hunting and in trap and skeet shooting sports. At shooting ranges specifically, spent lead shot can accumulate to toxic levels in soil and water unless proper reclamation protocols are in place.

According to Michael McLaughlin, the hazardous waste expert who evaluated the samples taken in 2020 from The Point at Pintail, “. . . the concentrations of lead found at several areas of the gun club present a threat to human health. Those potentially at risk include gun club visitors and staff who can ingest or inhale lead dust.” Additionally, “. . . the ecological risk presented by the lead contamination in soil and sediment at the gun club is substantial.”

The Point at Pintail sits directly on the banks of the main stem of the Wye River just south of Queenstown. In 2015, ShoreRivers entered into informal discussions with the owners about partnering to remediate the lead pollution on site. ShoreRivers also alerted the Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE) and the Queen Anne’s County Health Department. In 2017, after two years of inaction by The Point at Pintail, MDE, and the health department, ShoreRivers filed a Notice of Intent to Sue, and ultimately filed a lawsuit, under the Clean Water Act and under the Resource Recovery and Conservation Act, alleging that The Point at Pintail had failed to protect human and environmental health from lead poisoning as required by law.

The settlement is still undergoing federal agency review, but under the settlement agreement reached in March, The Point at Pintail is required to reclaim or treat with a bonding agent the legacy lead in specific, high-concentration areas; close or re-orient existing shooting stations to prevent lead debris from being deposited in wetlands or ditches; conduct lead reclamation on a regular schedule based on the number of targets thrown to prevent further accumulation; and conduct soil and water sampling at least annually to monitor lead levels and share results with ShoreRivers and MDE to ensure actions are meeting environmental standards.

Isabel Hardesty, executive director of ShoreRivers, states, “We are pleased with the outcome of this settlement and believe these actions will improve water quality while also reducing potential human health risks. Many hunters and sport shooters are conservation-minded, and I urge these communities to look at this as an opportunity for improvement. Can we do more to protect against the damages of lead shot, or further curtail its use by switching to steel or other non-toxic alternatives, in order to protect our shared environment? ShoreRivers welcomes the opportunity to work with the sport shooting community in these endeavors.”

ShoreRivers sincerely thanks the following people and companies for their donated time and expertise in this case: attorneys Kevin Holewinski and Daniella Einik with Jones Day; environmental engineer and lead expert Michael McLaughlin with SCS Engineers; and lead expert Sarah Stoneking with Ramboll US Consulting, Inc. Their significant contributions made this positive outcome possible.

Tred Avon Oyster Sanctuary Work To Resume After Years Of Delays

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Photo by Spy Agent 7

Work is resuming this month on the protracted restoration of oyster reefs in Maryland’s Tred Avon River. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Baltimore District announced that it has awarded a $3.8 million contract to a Florida company to construct 34 acres of reefs in the river.

The Tred Avon is one of five Maryland waterways targeted for large-scale oyster restoration. With Bay oyster populations depleted to 1–2 percent of their historic abundance by pollution, overfishing and disease, Maryland and Virginia have each pledged as part of the 2014 Chesapeake Bay Watershed Agreement to rebuild oyster populations and habitat in five of their Bay tributaries by 2025.

The other Maryland tributaries targeted for large-scale oyster restoration are Harris Creek and the Little Choptank, St. Mary’s and Manokin rivers. Work has been completed in Harris Creek and the Little Choptank, with the St. Mary’s getting under way and the Manokin still in planning.

The Tred Avon project has suffered repeated delays since it began in 2015. It became a battleground of sorts, as watermen objected to the materials and methods used to rebuild reefs and repopulate them with oysters.

Watermen complained that granite rocks used to build reefs in the Tred Avon and Harris Creek snagged crabbing gear and that improperly constructed granite reefs in Harris Creek had damaged boats. They also argued that oysters would not thrive on the granite, contending that oyster shell is the only suitable surface on which spat, or baby oysters, can settle and grow.

Research has shown, however, that juvenile oysters will do well on other hard surfaces in the water, and monitoring of the granite reefs built in Harris Creek found oysters in great numbers on them, and even at higher densities than on reefs rebuilt with shells.

Acting on watermen’s concerns, the Hogan administration placed a hold in 2016 on Tred Avon reef construction, though it later relented. But further delays and cost overruns ensued because of the state’s insistence at that time that no more granite be used in the reef construction. By the time the state withdrew those conditions, federal funding from past budgets had been depleted.

A three-year funding drought followed, easing last year, when the Army Corps included $5 million for Bay oyster restoration in its work plan.

Allison Colden, a fisheries scientist with the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, said she was glad the Tred Avon project is moving forward. She noted that the Annapolis-based environmental group had joined others in urging Congress to provide the federal funding needed to finish the restoration project.

The company selected for the Tred Avon project, BlueForge LLC of St. Petersburg, is to build 12-inch high stone reefs on 21 acres of river bottom, plus 13 acres of reefs only 6 inches high to avoid navigation problems. All will be built of stone in waters that will be at least 6.75 feet deep at mean low water.

“Our team is excited to begin the final portion of restoration work in the Tred Avon River, which will bring us to a total of 130 acres restored in the oyster sanctuary,” said Col. John T. Litz, Baltimore District commander.

To date, 92.5 acres of reef have been completed, with 440 million hatchery-spawned seed oysters planted.

The work had been expected to be done earlier to avoid potential impacts on striped bass spawning in the spring, but unspecified contractual issues delayed the award until now, said Cynthia Mitchell, a Baltimore District spokesperson. The Army requested and obtained regulatory approval to do the work through April, she said, with the construction completed by May.

“We’re thrilled that funding has been allocated to complete the final stages of reef restoration in the Tred Avon River,” said Ward Slacum, executive director of the Oyster Recovery Partnership.

A 2019 monitoring report found that more than 95% of all restored reefs to date in Harris Creek, Little Choptank and Tred Avon Rivers had at least the minimum acceptable density of oysters, which is set at 15 oysters per square meter over 30% of the reef area being measured. More than 80% of the reefs monitored had ideal densities of at least 50 oysters per square meter.

By Timothy B. Wheeler, Bay Journal News Service

Good Stuff: Native Tree Planting at Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge,

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Volunteers gathered to plant eleven native trees along the entrance to the Visitor’s Center at Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge in Cambridge, Maryland this March. The trees were donated by District I (Eastern Shore) of the Federated Garden Clubs of Maryland with funds from the Alice Rush McKeon Trust. The monies from this Trust are distributed on a rotating basis to each of the five garden club districts of Maryland’s Eastern Shore.

Exterior Landscapes delivers the trees to Blackwater

Alice Rush McKeon, a noted environmentalist and author, was a direct descendant of one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence.  Born in Philadelphia in 1884, Alice grew up in Maryland where she twice served as President of the Federated Garden Clubs of Maryland. She spearheaded a national campaign to pass legislation that prohibited billboards on Maryland’s highways. During World War II, Alice hosted “Garden Clubs on the Air” on WBAL, which became known as “Victory Gardens.” Alice is also credited with coining the term “Litterbug.” The slogan “Don’t be a Litterbug” is often employed even today.

(L to R) Ray Paterra of Blackwater NWR, Landscapers Ryan Yost and Mark Beaven, and Jan Kirsh, landscape designer and sculptor, gather at the beautiful gate after eleven trees have been planted to enhance the drive into the Visitor’s Center.

The planting effort at Blackwater was a partnership between Jan Kirsh, a notable landscape designer and sculptor from Talbot County and several Eastern Shore landscaping companies. Jan volunteered her services, making the recommendation of the appropriate native tree selection (Nyssa sylvatica ‘Tupelo Tower’ or Black Gum), acquiring the trees from Tideland Gardens, a Chestertown Nursery, and engaging three local landscapers who provided their staff and services pro bono to plant the trees. Ryan Yost of Long Branch Landscapes, LLC in Denton, Mark Beaven of Exterior Enhancements, Inc. also in Denton and Jess Murphy of J.M. Landscapes & Associates in Claiborne all participated in what they deemed a good cause for the community. In attendance to help celebrate the planting event were David Adams, Dorchester Garden Club President, Jeanne Bernard, FGCMD District I Director and Doris Key, immediate past Director of District I.

Contractor Named, Work to Resume on Tred Avon Oyster Sanctuary

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Work is set to resume by early April on the protracted restoration of oyster reefs in Maryland’s Tred Avon River. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Baltimore District announced Wednesday that it has awarded a $3.8 million contract to a Florida company to construct 34 acres of reefs in the river.

The Tred Avon is one of five Maryland waterways targeted for large-scale oyster restoration. With Bay oyster populations depleted to 1% or 2% of their historic abundance by pollution, overfishing and disease, Maryland and Virginia have each pledged as part of the 2014 Chesapeake Bay Watershed Agreement to rebuild oyster populations and habitat in five of their Bay tributaries by 2025.

The other Maryland tributaries targeted for large-scale oyster restoration are Harris Creek and the Little Choptank, St. Mary’s and Manokin rivers. Work has been completed in Harris Creek and the Little Choptank, with the St. Mary’s getting under way and the Manokin still in planning.

The Tred Avon project has suffered repeated delays since it began in 2015. It became a battleground of sorts, as watermen objected to the materials and methods used to rebuild reefs and repopulate them with oysters.

Watermen complained that granite rocks used to build reefs in the Tred Avon and Harris Creek snagged crabbing gear and that improperly constructed granite reefs in Harris Creek had damaged boats. They also argued that oysters would not thrive on the granite, contending that oyster shell is the only suitable surface on which spat, or baby oysters, can settle and grow.

Research has shown, however, that juvenile oysters will do well on other hard surfaces in the water, and monitoring of the granite reefs built in Harris Creek found oysters in great numbers on them, and even at higher densities than on reefs rebuilt with shells.

Acting on watermen’s concerns, the Hogan administration placed a hold in 2016 on Tred Avon reef construction, though it later relented. But further delays and cost overruns ensued because of the state’s insistence at that time that no more granite be used in the reef construction. By the time the state withdrew those conditions, federal funding from past budgets had been depleted.

A three-year funding drought followed, easing last year, when the Army Corps included $5 million for Bay oyster restoration in its work plan.

Allison Colden, a fisheries scientist with the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, said she was glad the Tred Avon project is moving forward. She noted that the Annapolis-based environmental group had joined others in urging Congress to provide the federal funding needed to finish the restoration project.

The company selected for the Tred Avon project, BlueForge LLC of St. Petersburg, is to build 12-inch high stone reefs on 21 acres of river bottom, plus 13 acres of reefs only 6 inches high to avoid navigation problems. All will be built of stone in waters that will be at least 6.75 feet deep at mean low water.

“Our team is excited to begin the final portion of restoration work in the Tred Avon River, which will bring us to a total of 130 acres restored in the oyster sanctuary,” said Col. John T. Litz, Baltimore District commander.

To date, 92.5 acres of reef have been completed, with 440 million hatchery-spawned seed oysters planted.

The work had been expected to be done earlier to avoid potential impacts on striped bass spawning in the spring, but unspecified contractual issues delayed the award until now, said Cynthia Mitchell, a Baltimore District spokesperson. The Army requested and obtained regulatory approval to do the work through April, she said, with the construction completed by May.

“We’re thrilled that funding has been allocated to complete the final stages of reef restoration in the Tred Avon River,” said Ward Slacum, executive director of the Oyster Recovery Partnership.

A 2019 monitoring report found that more than 95% of all restored reefs to date in Harris Creek, Little Choptank and Tred Avon Rivers had at least the minimum acceptable density of oysters, which is set at 15 oysters per square meter over 30% of the reef area being measured. More than 80% of the reefs monitored had ideal densities of at least 50 oysters per square meter.

“These reefs provide habitat and water quality benefits for the ecosystem,” said Sean Corson, director of the Chesapeake Bay office of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which contributes funding and monitoring of the restoration efforts. “They also will benefit the economy through increased harvest of commercially important species — like blue crab — that use reefs for habitat.

By Timothy B. Wheeler

Conservation Group Study Questions Need for Extra Bay Bridge Span

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A transportation consultant hired by an Eastern Shore environmental group said the state has not justified its pursuit of a third Bay Bridge crossing, concluding that the current spans are likely to last several more decades.

AKRF, a Hanover, Md.-based environmental planning and engineering services firm, also questioned the traffic projections the state used in launching its bid to build a new span across the Chesapeake Bay.

Numbers used by the Maryland Transportation Authority (MdTA) over-stated future growth in the number of vehicles that will be crossing the water, analysts concluded. The authority owns and operates the bridge, and is leading the Hogan administration’s push for a third crossing.

The review of MdTA’s methodology was commissioned by the Queen Anne’s Conservation Association, an environmental group opposed to sprawl. The AKRF analysis, which was presented to the association in December, was provided to Maryland Matters this week.

The report comes amid a delay in the release of a key document, the Draft Environmental Impact Statement, a review required under the National Environmental Policy Act. The delay has prompted speculation about the state’s commitment to the project.

Using a “Life Cycle Cost Analysis” that MdTA conducted in 2015, AKRF engineers determined that the existing bridge spans “can be safely maintained through 2065 with currently programmed and anticipated rehabilitation and maintenance work.”

Beyond 2065, the authority found, the bridge may require major rehabilitation but would not be structurally deficient or functionally obsolete.

“Based on the conclusions of AKRF’s study of traffic congestion and operations on the bridge, and MDTA’s Life Cycle Study of the bridge’s structural integrity, there will not likely be a need for a replacement bridge by 2040 for either traffic or structural purposes,” the firm concluded.

Shortly after Gov. Lawrence J. Hogan Jr. (R) announced plans to pursue a third span in 2016, the state’s analysts predicted that weekday traffic would increase 23% by 2040 (from 69,000 vehicles to 84,000) and that summer weekend traffic would increase 14% (from 119,000 vehicles per day to 135,000).

But AKRF called the state’s analysis into question.

“The MDTA model starts with existing traffic count data from 2017 that leads to biased findings because it only captures one day of weekend traffic from August, which was much higher than an average summer weekend day,” analysts said.

“Our estimates rely on historic growth trends over more than 15 years for summer weekend traffic and the last five years for weekday traffic to present an independent traffic growth forecast,” they added.

MdTA spokesman John Sales said the state data was collected over a two-week period.

“The average weekday data was collected in late April; the summer weekend day data was collected in early August,” he said in an email.

AKRF estimated that bridge traffic would increase only modestly over the next two decades, though the firm conceded that multiple issues — including the growth in telework, the rate of development on the Eastern Shore, and future dips in the economy — make it difficult to project with confidence.

Jay Falstad, executive director of the Queen Anne’s Conservation Association, said the report reinforced his belief that the state’s traffic projections are “over-inflated.”

“The numbers that the state is using are just exaggerated,” he added.

Decision to delay bridge study raises questions 

MdTA was scheduled to release the draft environmental report for the bridge project last fall, but the authority quietly pushed that back to December. Officials then decided to keep the DEIS under wraps even longer.

An agency spokesman told the Capital Gazette in January that officials delayed the the release of the study due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Proceeding with publishing the DEIS and scheduling public hearing would not have been a safe choice while health officials were telling Marylanders they would be safer at home,” Sales told Maryland Matters on Tuesday. “This led us to revisit our roll-out schedule with our federal partners at the Federal Highway Administration.”

That rationale appears to contradict the practice the Maryland Department of Transportation has used on other projects.

The State Highway Administration, an MDOT sub-unit, held a series of public hearings on the I-495/I-270 road-widening project last year. Some were held virtually, others were held in large hotel ballrooms, where staff and the public could maintain proper distancing.

And on Jan. 15, the Federal Railroad Administration, the Maryland Transit Administration (another MDOT unit), the Maryland Economic Development Corporation and Baltimore-Washington Rapid Rail released a draft environmental statement for the Super-Conducting Magnetic Levitation train — known as MAGLEV — despite the pandemic.

An MdTA spokesman declined to explain the inconsistency.

He said the authority expects to release the Bay crossing DEIS and open the public comment period in late February, with both virtual and in-person hearings.

Queen Anne’s County Commissioner James Moran (R)

“I don’t believe it, honestly,” said Queen Anne’s County Commission chairman James Moran (R) of the reason for delaying the study. “What that means is Hogan’s going to be able to get out of office without funding Phase 2 of the [National Environmental Policy Act study]. My opinion.”

Moran has advocated for a westbound, beach-season toll, which he maintains would raise enough money to fund the study and reduce summertime backups at the existing bridge.

“I hate to say it’s smoke-and-mirrors,” he said of the authority’s explanation. “We’re trying to be constructive in our dialogue, but it’s a struggle.”

Anne Arundel County Executive Steuart Pittman (D) also questioned the delay.

“I assumed that the reason was that the governor doesn’t have a plan to fund a third span and that the public doesn’t support spending some $7 billion on a third span after having cut the Red Line in Baltimore, which was less than half [the cost],” he said.

“When you look at the way they came up with their projections of future traffic on the bridge, it was based on a projection of sprawl development on the Eastern Shore,” Pittman added. “Most residents of the Eastern Shore like being a rural area, and they don’t want their farms turned into suburban developments.”

Although the state initially studied 14 potential bridge crossing sites, Hogan declared in 2019 that the site adjacent to the currents spans is “the only one option I will ever accept.”

Pittman, who opposes a third span, said even if in-person public hearings have to be delayed due to the pandemic, MdTA should release its report now. “If the study is done, they should show it to us,” he said. “Nobody likes to have multi-million dollar, taxpayer-funded work by consultants hidden from public view, so let’s see it.”

Policy consultant Gary V. Hodge, a former elected official in Southern Maryland, said the impact of the pandemic on toll revenues and the lack of traffic congestion at the Bay Bridge — thanks in part to the administration’s transition to all-electronic tolling — has taken the wind out of the project’s sails.

“Best to leave the Sturm und Drang over a new Bay Bridge for the next governor,” Hodge said. “There won’t be any groundbreaking or ribbon-cutting on it in the next two years anyway.”

John B. Townsend II, director of media and government affairs for AAA Mid-Atlantic, also said he was “astonished” by the delay.

“We live in a Zoom world,” he said. “I think you could have held the public hearings that way.”

Townsend said it’s important that the state move forward with plans for a third span, noting that a major bridge collapsed in Minnesota in 2007. “How long do we forsake infrastructure like that? Any span that size, over a body of water like the Chesapeake Bay, cannot last forever.”

Townsend noted that MDOT officials have been consumed with the controversy over delays and cost overruns associated with the Purple Line light rail project, and with the selection of a private-sector partner for the I-495/I-270 project, which is expected to be announced in the coming days.

“I wonder if there is some kind of fatigue going on,” he said. “Just to save the Purple Line took an all-out effort. I think it was demoralizing for the whole department because it was a signature project.”

By Bruce DePuyt

Study Finds Some Water Quality Improvements in Choptank River

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The Chesapeake Bay has a long history of nutrient pollution resulting in degraded water quality. However, scientists from the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science’s Horn Point Laboratory are reporting some improvements in the Choptank River on Maryland’s Eastern Shore.

“The data presented here indicate that public and industrial investments in reductions of atmospheric emissions and upgrades to wastewater treatment plants have improved estuarine water quality in the Choptank,” said University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science Professor Emeritus Tom Fisher.

For the last 20 years, scientists have worked with farmers, wastewater treatment plant operators, government agencies, and water quality groups to encourage conservation efforts and to discern trends in water quality in the Choptank basin. In this study, scientists evaluated whether the total maximum daily load (TMDL) for the Chesapeake—established by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to address degraded water quality— and other management practices to curb atmospheric deposition, clean up point sources for pollution such as waste water treatment plants, and reduce runoff from agriculture have led to improved water quality in streams and in the Choptank estuary.

Fisher and fellow researchers evaluated progress towards water quality goals between 1998 and 2017. They found that both atmospheric deposition and wastewater treatment inputs declined due to these management actions, whereas overall inputs increased due to higher agricultural inputs, despite conservation efforts.

Out of three monitoring stations on the Choptank River, the one nearest a wastewater treatment plant outfall, a few miles downstream from Cambridge, Maryland, showed improvement, indicating that public and industrial investments in reductions of atmospheric emissions and upgrades to wastewater treatment plants have improved estuarine water quality. In surface waters, water clarity increased and the amount of algae decreased. In bottom waters, dissolved oxygen increased.

“An interesting question is why there is improving water quality at the monitoring station near the wastewater treatment plant despite an overall increase in nitrogen and pollution inputs to the estuary as a whole,” said Fisher. “This response suggests that local actions matter; in this case greatly reducing local inputs from the largest wastewater treatment plant in the area improved adjacent estuarine water quality, even when the overall estuary was receiving more nutrient pollution.”

The agricultural sector, the dominant source of nitrogen and phosphorus pollution, appeared to provide little contribution to improved water quality during this period, despite efforts to encourage best management practices such as fertilizer management, drainage control structures, or winter cover crops to reduce losses of nitrogen and phosphorus from fertilizers applied to fields. The watershed contains numerous concentrated animal feeding operations, particularly poultry, which produce manure that is applied as organic fertilizer on crop fields. Fertilizer applied to crops such as corn, wheat, and soybeans may also enter the watershed through surface runoff or groundwater.

The Choptank is a tributary of Chesapeake Bay on the Delmarva Peninsula, and its watershed lies primarily in the state of Maryland, with a portion in Delaware. There are strong similarities between the Choptank basin and the Chesapeake as a whole, which enables the Choptank to be used as a model for progress in the Chesapeake.

“The eutrophication of the Choptank estuary is a microcosm of the Chesapeake Bay as a whole,” said Fisher.

The Chesapeake Bay is an estuary which has undergone considerable water quality degradation from human impacts and nitrogen and phosphorus pollutants from the air and land that have impaired use of receiving waters for drinking and recreation, and result in algal blooms and hypoxia. Algae blooms occur downstream in the Choptank and Chesapeake, blocking sunlight and reducing oxygen after the algae settle to the bottom, making it difficult for fish and oysters to survive.

“If reductions in agricultural nitrogen and phosphorus inputs over broad areas do occur in the future, improvements in estuarine water quality larger than those reported here, and more consistently throughout the entire estuary, could be expected. For this reason, it is important to continue monitoring agricultural areas with enhanced management practices,” said Fisher.

The paper “Localized water quality improvement in the Chesapeake estuary, a tributary of Chesapeake Bay” by Tom Fisher, Rebecca Fox, Anne Gustafson, Erika Koontz, Michelle Lepori-Bul, and Jim Lewis of the University of Maryland Extension was published in Estuaries and Coasts.

UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND CENTER FOR ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE
The University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science leads the way toward better management of Maryland’s natural resources and the protection and restoration of the Chesapeake Bay. From a network of laboratories located across the state, our scientists provide sound advice to help state and national leaders manage the environment and prepare future scientists to meet the global challenges of the 21st century.  www.umces.edu

Josh Kurtz Named Chesapeake Bay Foundation’s Maryland Executive Director

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The Chesapeake Bay Foundation (CBF) has named Josh Kurtz as its new Maryland Executive Director. Kurtz joins CBF after serving as the policy and government relations director for The Nature Conservancy in Maryland. Kurtz previously led advocacy campaigns at the Maryland General Assembly and the D.C. City Council to generate support for environmental conservation and policies to reduce climate change.

Josh Kurtz

In his new role, Kurtz will lead CBF staff in Annapolis and Easton as they work on policies and legislation aimed at helping Maryland reach its 2025 Chesapeake Clean Water Blueprint pollution reduction goals. This includes efforts to plant more trees, conserve forested land, help farmers make environmental improvements, green cities, and ensure the state maintains sustainable fisheries. Kurtz will also oversee the Maryland office’s work to add millions more oysters to the Bay and promote regenerative agriculture throughout the state with tree plantings and farm restoration projects. 

“It’s my pleasure to welcome Josh to CBF and our Maryland team,” said Alison Prost, CBF Vice President for Environmental Protection and Restoration. “He brings with him broad experience addressing Chesapeake Bay pollution issues in Maryland at the state and local levels. His work will focus on engaging the community, educating decision-makers, and strengthening the state’s environmental policy and regulations.” 

Kurtz, a Crownsville resident, worked at The Nature Conservancy from 2013 until joining CBF this month. He has a master’s degree in public policy from George Mason University and a bachelor’s degree in wildlife conservation from the University of Delaware. Kurtz will fill Prost’s previous position after she was promoted to oversee CBF’s watershed-wide environmental protection and restoration efforts. 

“Maryland is working hard to meet the state’s 2025 Chesapeake Bay cleanup goals and these next four years will be key to ensuring the progress we’ve made so far becomes permanent,” said Kurtz. “We need to protect forested land, plant trees, minimize stormwater runoff in cities and towns, and ensure farmers continue to reduce polluted runoff flowing off agricultural land. I’m honored to have the opportunity to join the Maryland team in this important work.” 

Chesapeake Bay Receives D+ for Second Year in a Row

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The health of the Chesapeake Bay remains poor, due in part to insufficient management of the Bay’s rockfish population, according to a recent report by the Chesapeake Bay Foundation.

Out of the 13 health indicators, the rockfish score alone declined by 17 points, which is “the largest decline in any indicator in more than a decade,” the foundation said in its report, which was released Tuesday.

The Bay’s rockfish population began declining in the 1970s and 1980s from overfishing, but returned to healthy levels by the early 2000s, thanks to conservation efforts. However, the rockfish population has been under threat again within the last few years. The presence of adult female striped bass dropped by 40% from 2013 to 2017.

In response, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission required Maryland and Virginia to reduce their striped bass, or rockfish, harvest by 18%, and restricted the catching of menhaden, which is a primary food source for striped bass, in 2019.

Still, there need to be stronger actions that help stimulate stiped bass’s population growth, according to the report — especially in Maryland.

“The state needs to take more effective measures to stem the decline in striped bass. While other states chose to close the striped bass fishery during key times when the species is most threatened, Maryland took a piecemeal approach that we believe had limited effectiveness,” Alison Prost, the vice president for environmental protection and restoration of CBF, said in a statement.

The Chesapeake Bay Foundation has been releasing biennial reports since 1998, relying on 13 health indicators, including water clarity, forest buffers, blue crabs and oyster populations.

The bay’s health remained at a D+ since its last report in 2018. It scored 32 on a 100-point scale, one point lower than in 2018. If the Chesapeake Clean Water Blueprint, which calls for six Bay states and the District of Columbia to meet pollution-reduction targets by 2025, is successful, then the Bay’s health should reach a score of 40 by 2025, according to the report.

A score of 70 would represent a “saved” Bay, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation said, and a “saved” Bay would provide $130 billion a year in natural resource benefits to the region.

Not all health indicators were negative this year. For instance, the Bay witnessed lower nitrogen and phosphorus pollution over the last two years, which decreased the size of dead zones, or areas of water that have little to no oxygen. This year, the Bay had the seventh smallest dead zone in the last 35 years.

However, forest buffers, which help slow down nutrient runoff into waterways, are still low, partly due to changes in federal law that used to help fund many of the buffers in the Bay region. The health of underwater grasses, which provide food and habitat for fish, also declined because of heavy rainfall from the last two years, which affects water clarity.

The Bay can be restored by enforcing the Chesapeake Clean Water Blueprint, CBF representatives said, but this heavily relies on Pennsylvania, which has lagged behind other Bay states, to meet its share of pollution reduction goals.

“If Pennsylvania does not meet the obligations it’s promised to meet by 2025, there is no doubt that the Chesapeake Bay will never be saved. It’s that basic,” William Baker, the president of CBF, said during a news conference Tuesday.

Maryland, Virginia, the District of Columbia and several organizations sued the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in September, accusing the federal government of failing to hold Pennsylvania accountable for its portion of the Bay cleanup.

“The stagnating score shows that we are witnessing apathy take hold and political will wane,” Baker said in a statement. “We can still save the Bay and deliver the promise of clean water to the next generation, but only if our elected officials redouble their clean water commitments and invest in finishing the job.”

U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) lambasted the Trump administration for failing to hold Pennsylvania accountable.

“While Congress, on a bipartisan basis, has increased the federal resources available to protect the Bay, the Trump Administration has refused to hold Pennsylvania more accountable for failing to meet their pollution reduction targets under the Chesapeake Bay Agreement,” Van Hollen said in a statement. “Everyone needs to work together and I look forward to working with the incoming Biden Administration EPA to meet our mutual goals of Clean Water in the Chesapeake Bay by 2025 by holding all partner states accountable.”

What will be most important for Maryland, however, is to make sure that lawmakers continue to allocate enough money in the budget for the Chesapeake Clean Water Blueprint, Prost said. Investment in pollution controls for agriculture will also be important, since it is one of the areas that Maryland is relying on the most to reach its pollution reduction goals by 2025, CBF officials said.

Another priority for the upcoming General Assembly legislative session will be the Climate Solutions Act, which is a multifaceted bill that addresses the intersection between climate and water quality, Prost said.

By Elizabeth Shwe

The Shore Voice for Clean Water and, with your Help, Limitless Impact by Jeff Horstman

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In just three years, ShoreRivers has brought nearly $10 million of taxpayer money back to the Delmarva to reduce pollution in our waterways. ShoreRivers works for cleaner rivers by stopping pollution at the source—before it enters the water—and by engaging individuals to make small, compounding changes to create a landscape of collective action for a healthier environment.

At this pivotal moment in our nation’s history, we can clearly see the power an individual can add to a movement through their vote. At ShoreRivers, it is evident that we—and you—are part of something greater: each Riverkeeper is a member of the global Waterkeeper Alliance; your single home yard is part of a conservation corridor creating climate resilience; your sustainable farm is a piece of the two million farmed acres in Maryland; each child is part of the next generation of professionals prioritizing green choices across all sectors; and your gift is one of thousands for cleaner, more accessible water. With your help, ShoreRivers has grown its impact from limited to limitless.

We set a goal to become the clean water voice for the Eastern Shore, and we have done it.

We are a multistate technical provider with the expertise and passion to design, fund, and execute pollution-reducing projects on the micro and macro scale. We are not only “boots on the ground” specialists meeting with farmers to find ways to reduce pollution and increase yield; we are also influencing federal farm policy on behalf of clean water. We are not only teaching in the classroom; we are at the table with the superintendent. We are not only on patrol as Riverkeepers; we are leveraging our credibility to bring in well over $250,000 in pro bono legal and expert support to defend our waterways from polluters. We are not only committed to greater inclusion, access, and justice for diverse communities in the environmental movement; we are emerging as a leader on the Eastern Shore in this work.

With federal, state, local, and individual support, ShoreRivers has taken action against this area’s most destructive pollutants by installing 162 projects—the majority on farmland—that prevent 110,000 pounds of nitrogen, 14,600 pounds of phosphorus, and more than 4 tons of sediment from washing into our waterways every single year.

But the work is not over. On the contrary, in many ways, it is just beginning. This year marks my retirement as well as the retirement of two influential ShoreRivers board members. John Vail and Tim Junkin founded two of our legacy organizations and planted the seeds for ShoreRivers’ success today. To nourish and sustain this momentum, we look forward to fresh, talented, and energetic leadership with Isabel Hardesty at the helm.

I will enthusiastically continue to support ShoreRivers and I truly hope you will as well. Our communities deserve it. And remember: We will clean these rivers.

Jeff Horstman
Executive Director, ShoreRivers