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April 1, 2023

The Talbot Spy

The nonprofit e-newspaper for the Talbot County Community

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The Mid-Shore’s Geoff Oxnam Preaching the Gospel of Microgrids

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Geoff Oxnam was sitting on the patio of his favorite coffee shop in Easton the other day, talking about his work in Hawaii, California, Louisiana, Massachusetts and dozens of other states. When he needs to confer with one of his colleagues, all of whom work remotely, they’re in Seattle, Norway, Mumbai and other far-flung corners of the world.

Geoff Oxnam

But make no mistake: The work Oxnam does is rooted in Easton and informed by his 13 years as an executive with the Eastern Shore town’s unique municipal utility. Oxnam, 53, is the CEO of American Microgrid Solutions LLC, a young company that advises real estate developers, nonprofits, and community organizations on how to set up solar arrays, resilience hubs, microgrids and other renewable energy installations that are able to withstand the disasters of the present — and future.

“We’ve been blessed that the phone’s been ringing ever since we started,” Oxnam said. “We know that’s not always going to be the case.”

By virtue of his work, and his volunteer time as board chair of the Maryland Clean Energy Center and as a member of the advisory board of the Maryland Energy Innovation Institute, Oxnam has become one of state’s leading advocates for clean energy technology, especially battery storage. And as an entrepreneur, he’s able to use his first-hand experience to spread the gospel and the technology.

Click here to read more from our Climate Calling series.

Oxnam launched his company seven years ago after falling into the electricity generation business quite by accident when he became communications director for municipally owned Easton Utilities, which provides electricity, gas, telecommunications, water, and wastewater treatment services to the town’s 17,000 residents. He rose to become the utility’s vice president of operations — and still never imagined he would become so thoroughly steeped in the world of power grids, solar arrays and transmission regulation.

“We’re 25 years into a two-year plan,” Oxnam likes to say.

In fairly short order, American Microgrid Solutions has grown to serve clients in about 30 states, advising them on how to set up renewable energy installations and storage facilities on their properties or how to establish resilience hubs in their communities — and how to finance and manage them.

“They’re really able to inspire big thinking,” said Christina McPike, director for energy and sustainability at WinnCompanies, a real estate development and management company based in Massachusetts, who has worked with Oxnam.

Every project has a backstory, and reveals something about the challenges of putting clean energy technologies into wide use. They also say something about the state of the electric utility game in an era when natural disasters are becoming more commonplace.

“The American power grid is a marvel of engineering,” Oxnam said. “If you think of the top five things that built the American economy, the grid is one of them. But the technology ages, the components age. What we’re trying to do is build the next generation of architecture that may look different from what we have today.”

‘I was looking at the architecture of infrastructure’

Oxnam’s own journey in some ways reflects the changes and growth in the business of renewables.

He’s a former journalist, publicist and devoted environmentalist who came to Maryland to follow his heart. He was working at a magazine in Rhode Island when he was introduced to his future wife, a Baltimore native, at a social gathering.

“We knew from the hour we met that we were going to get married,” he recalled.

Eventually, Oxnam indulged his passion for the environment by working at the Chesapeake Bay Foundation in Annapolis, where he was communications director for a handful of years. When he and his wife discovered the challenges of finding affordable, kid-friendly Annapolis real estate, they decided to relocate, temporarily, over the Bay Bridge in Easton, so they could start a family. That was 25 years ago.

Within a few years, Oxnam landed the communications job at the local utility. It was a life-altering experience.

“Working at Easton Utilities was the best hands-on graduate school in infrastructure operations I could ever have wanted,” he said. At some point, Oxnam said, his bosses told him, “Feel free to figure out how it works and what you want to do about it.”

The publicly owned utility has an atypical management structure and an exemplary record. The mayor and town council appoint three commissioners who oversee operations, and the utility’s president and CEO, Hugh Grunden, is a local guy and company lifer who has run the operation for almost 30 years. Customer service is at a premium, and power outages in the town are rare.“There’s been so much effort put into preventive maintenance,” Oxnam said. “There’s such a high motivation for excellence in operations. You don’t have a conflict between shareholders and ratepayers. There’s a lot of local pride in it. You can see it, you can touch it. You know the people who are affected by it, so you want to do your very best to make sure the system is operating and functioning.”

Like a standard utility, Easton gets its electric power from the PJM grid, which serves 13 states and the District of Columbia. But the town also has set up a substantial backup microgrid that stores energy, designed to power the entire community for seven to 10 days if the main power source is out of service.

“If there’s a big outage like the East Coast blackout, this is the only place where you’ll be able to use the ATM or get a burger,” Oxnam said.

That vital and unusually resilient backup got Oxnam thinking about the future of modern energy storage.

“Easton has a risk management strategy that’s really diverse,” he said. “While I was there, I was looking at the architecture of infrastructure.”

‘They really helped us see the potential’

So what does American Microgrid Solutions do? It offers an array of services, geared to nonprofits, government agencies and private entities. They may want to convert their power supply to renewable energy. They may want to set up a large-scale energy storage unit. They may want to establish a resilience hub that becomes a gathering place in a community, offering emergency power along with many other necessities during a crisis. As Oxnam puts it, the clients are usually looking for “savings, sustainability or security” — or a combination of the three.

“We’re a mission-driven company focused on strengthening communities,” he said. “And we believe we can strengthen communities best by designing systems that give them more control.”

Many of the company’s clients are small, community-based health centers that don’t have the budget or infrastructure of major medical facilities but are still trying to set up more climate-friendly and reliable power sources, Oxnam said.

American Microgrid Systems will visit a site to see about the feasibility of installing renewable energy systems, a microgrid or battery storage. It will discuss the practical challenges behind operating a system. It will match clients with contractors. And it will make cost estimates and outline financing options.

“Sometimes the financial engineering is more difficult than the actual engineering,” Oxnam said. He calls the services his company offers “soup to nuts management.” Often enough, the advice and services cover present needs but also look to the future.

Consider three projects that American Microgrid Systems currently spotlights on its website. One is a solar installation that the company arranged at the U.S. Geological Service Water Science Center in Catonsville. The government water testing facility, is the first tenant in a tech park just outside the University of Maryland Baltimore County campus, and the solar project includes analysis of whether solar will also be feasible in other buildings when more tenants arrive.

Another American Microgrid Systems project is at a housing redevelopment project in the Barry Farm neighborhood in Southeast Washington, D.C. The company is helping the developer set up a battery storage facility and discussing the possibility of putting a community resiliency center in the heart of the development.

In Hawaii, the company is working with the Maui County government to plan a network of resilience hubs throughout the island — and dealing with the challenges of having to provide back-up renewable power distribution to remote areas that are isolated from population centers (Oxnam laments that when it came time for an American Microgrid staffer to spend a month recently in Maui working on the project, he didn’t get to go).

McPike said WinnCompanies hired American Microgrid Systems after receiving a grant to study the possibility of installing battery storage facilities at six housing developments they own in the Northeast. The discussion also included the potential for integrating battery storage, solar arrays, electric vehicle charging stations and controlled thermostats.

“They really helped us see the potential and the value-add and the complexity of what you do after the conceptual analysis is complete,” McPike said.

Even for a company that is already operating solar panels on rooftops at apartment complexes in Massachusetts, Connecticut, Pennsylvania and D.C., the prospect of a more complex, interconnected system of renewables “is interesting, exciting and a little daunting,” she said. But the company believes Oxnam’s firm is able to help navigate the financial and regulatory challenges.

“AMS is filling a knowledge void,” McPike said.

Oxnam and his colleagues have become such experts that they have collaborated with Kristin Baja, a former climate and resilience planner with the City of Baltimore and now a leader with the Urban Sustainability Directors Network, publishing guidebooks and other how-to materials about resilience hubs.

“We literally co-wrote the book,” he says.

By Josh Kurtz

As part of Maryland Matters’ ongoing “Climate Calling” series, we will feature occasional profiles of green energy entrepreneurs in Maryland.

Chesapeake Bay Foundation Leader Calls for Shifts in Bay Cleanup

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Hilary Harp Falk, president and CEO of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation. Photo by David Trozzo

A little over a year ago, Hilary Harp Falk took over as president and CEO of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, becoming only the third leader of the group since its founding in 1967. Before joining CBF, she spent nearly 13 years with the National Wildlife Federation, where she rose to become chief program officer.

Falk has roots in the Bay watershed and history with CBF. A Maryland native, she says she developed a passion for conservation while exploring the Bay’s edges in her childhood with her father, photographer Dave Harp (who is the Bay Journal staff photographer). She began her career as a college intern for CBF and, after graduating, became an educator at its Port Isobel Education Center.

She took the helm at a time when it was becoming increasingly clear that the Bay restoration effort would likely miss many of its goals by the self-imposed deadline of 2025. Thirteen months later, she sat down with Tim Wheeler, the Bay Journal’s associate editor and senior writer, to talk about the future of the restoration effort and CBF’s role in it.

What follows are excerpts of the interview, edited for space and clarity.

Question: When you became president at CBF, were you surprised to find the Bay restoration effort, which is 40 years old this year, wasn’t further along?

Answer: It’s been interesting to be away for a decade working on national issues and to come back and see both a lot of progress over the last decade and some of the same challenges. We’re all grappling right now [with] this big transition in the Chesapeake Bay movement, with new leaders, at a critical moment for the cleanup. I think there’s plenty to reflect on and consider, and a lot to be excited and optimistic about.

Q: Why do you think there hasn’t been more progress?

A: It’s really important to acknowledge that 2025 was an important deadline, but it was never going to be the finish line. While we’ve made significant progress in reducing pollution from wastewater treatment, we still have not made the reductions that we need in polluted runoff from farms, cities and towns. Certainly, the defining challenge of the Bay movement now is to address pollution running off farms.

Q: You have suggested that the restoration effort needs a dose of “integrity and honesty.” Can you elaborate?

A: We’ve been really focused on the Chesapeake Bay Blueprint [officially called the Bay’s total maximum daily load, or TMDL] and the numbers that we need to hit. What I get concerned about is, are we making meaningful progress and looking at what it’s really going to take to return clean water to the Bay?

I think we need to look at the quality of our plans as much as we need to look at the quantity behind our plans. We have some of the best science and the best modeling in the world. But how can we really couple that with a robust monitoring system and understand how to meaningfully verify progress?

Q: Some key elements of the restoration effort have been questioned, including how well some farm practices actually control polluted runoff. Do we really know what’s working and what’s needed?

A: Two thoughts on that. First, climate change changes everything…. We need to know a lot more about how climate change is impacting the Bay.

Second, we need to pay for outcomes, especially as it relates to polluted runoff from farms. We need to know through documented proof that the investments we’re making are going to have the desired outcome. And I think that is certainly a big gap in the Bay cleanup right now. We are investing an incredible amount of money into the cleanup generally [and] especially best management practices on farms. We need to know that they’re working and that we can see the benefits to local rivers and streams.

Q: Is reducing nutrient pollution really the most important part of restoring the Bay? The federal Clean Water Act calls for fishable and swimmable waters. How does reducing the Bay’s nutrient load make the water fishable or swimmable?

A: We need to focus more on people and communities. And when we do that, we know that the pollution to the Bay is not just [the nutrients] nitrogen and phosphorus, and sediment. It’s also legacy pollution, toxics and temperature. And those are the kinds of things that we need to focus on in addition to looking at the [nutrient and sediment] goals under the Blueprint.

Q: Not long ago, CBF didn’t pay much attention to toxic pollution. Is that changing?

A: Absolutely. The communities that have been left behind, the frontline and fence-line communities that regularly deal with environmental injustices, are very interested in knowing what’s in the water and what’s impacting their communities. And so, here at CBF, we’re very focused on making sure that the benefits of clean water and healthy communities are enjoyed by everybody.

Q: There is a lot of concern these days about PFAS [per– and polyfluoroalkyl substances], so-called “forever chemicals” in water supplies, streams and fish. Is CBF doing anything to be more of an advocate in that area?

A: We’re pretty concerned about PFAS too. Like other toxic chemicals, we know that we need to know a lot more. We just don’t know enough in order to advance advocacy for addressing them.

Q: You’ve talked about the importance of putting people and communities at the center of the Bay cleanup. What does that mean?

A: It means that we need to make sure that we’re looking at the siting of different energy sources, and we need to make sure that we’re not neglecting communities that have been left behind, by ensuring that they have the support they need to challenge the issues that they face.

Q: What has CBF been doing lately to make its leadership, staff and work more diverse and inclusive?

A: We’re really excited this year to bring on a vice president for diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice. [Carmera Thomas-Wilhite, former director of urban conservation initiatives at the Conservation Fund, recently returned to CBF, where she began her career as the Baltimore program manager.] We’re focused on making sure that our organization is inclusive and equitable. And we’re working to build trainings and webinars so that our staff knows and can understand the history of this country and this movement, which includes racism, sexism, classism, and other forms of oppression. [It’s important that] we are advocating for the rights of everyone to have clean water and clean air, and that we are standing shoulder to shoulder with communities who have not enjoyed those benefits or are having issues with flooding or different environmental injustices.

Q: In discussing the Bay restoration, you said recently, “We’ll take a quick look back, but we also know in an age of climate change that we can’t go back. That Bay doesn’t exist anymore.” What did you mean by that?

A: A lot of times we evoke the Bay of 400 years ago, before colonialism. So much has changed during that time. The Bay watershed is now home to almost 19 million people. We’re in the age of climate change. That means we are not going back to that Bay. But it doesn’t mean that we can’t have a really bright future, because we have made so much progress on Bay restoration. We see some examples where we are improving water quality. We see the boom in oyster restoration and oyster aquaculture.

Q: What do you consider a restored Bay, then? Is it one full of crabs, rockfish and oysters or invasive blue catfish and snakeheads? Or all of the above?

A: I think a restored Bay is one where we have healthy habitat, we have resilient shorelines, we have healthy fisheries. And I think all of those things are absolutely possible.

Q: You’ve said you are among a new generation of Bay leaders, such as those at the Chesapeake Bay Commission and EPA Bay Program office. What do you bring to this effort that’s new or different?

A: Well, like many of the new Bay leaders, I’ve gotten to be part of and watch the last 40 years of effort, science [and] restoration. So, I’m pretty clear on the challenges that we face. But also we are optimistic, determined, and I think we also are collaborative. We’re all talking all the time, and I think that those relationships and collaboration will set us apart…. We all know that we stand on the shoulders of the first generation to really raise the alarms about the Bay. We are now taking the baton and need to look at new and creative ways of leading, trying different things, making new mistakes and really building a future that we can all be excited about.

Q: You’ve described Adam Ortiz, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s regional administrator, as a “wonderful partner.” What does that mean? CBF is part of a lawsuit accusing the EPA of not doing enough to get Pennsylvania on track with its share of pollution reductions.

A: It means that we’ve had really productive conversations about the current lawsuit…. I think the EPA is in good hands right now. I think they’re doing a lot of important work, specifically behind the scenes, talking with leaders in Pennsylvania and really understanding the problems that Pennsylvania faces. And I think that’s exactly what the EPA should be doing, in addition to holding the states accountable and making sure that the EPA is there to enforce the laws.

Q: After years of debate and inaction, Pennsylvania last year created the state’s first dedicated source of clean water funding. But it comes from federal money and isn’t nearly enough to close the state’s funding gap for Bay restoration work. What’s happened with that since?

A: The Clean Streams Fund was a really important down payment and a moment for leadership for Pennsylvania. But it was a down payment. There’s so much more that Pennsylvania needs to do. Pennsylvania is one of our biggest challenges.

But I also think it’s a huge opportunity, especially when Pennsylvanians are leading. And I see a lot of really great leadership in Lancaster County right now, building community-based plans that are defined by people who live there. Community based organizations, members of our team [and businesses are] all pulling together to figure out what Lancaster needs to do to protect its rivers and streams.

When we see that kind of effort, it gives me a lot of hope. That’s the way things are going to change.

Q: What would you put in a new Bay agreement if you were creating it? How would you craft it?

A: I’d make sure that it includes climate mitigation goals in addition to climate adaptation goals. We’re not going to save the Bay without addressing the climate crisis. I think we need to take a hard look at toxics and other chemicals of concern…. We need to really focus on growing the monitoring data. And we should really be focused on our biggest challenges and our biggest opportunities, which means a lot more thinking about agriculture and soil health.

One of our challenges is that we have really defined the Bay cleanup based on nitrogen, phosphorus and sediment. Now we have an opportunity to look more broadly at a number of other issues. As we are updating the Chesapeake Bay Watershed Agreement, that’s a huge opportunity to look past nitrogen, phosphorus and sediment into other issues and really redefine what it means to save the Bay.

By Tim Wheeler

State Lawmakers want Local Governments to Prepare Climate Crisis Plans

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As state agencies begin implementing the ambitious Climate Solutions Now Act of 2022, which confronts the effects of global warming in multiple ways, two lawmakers are back with a bill they floated last year to require counties to put together a climate crisis plan, outlining how they’d prepare for and respond to emergencies.

Advocates for the bill say it’s even more necessary now that the statewide law is in effect and argue that the legislation dovetails with provisions of Climate Solutions Now.

“This is just an opportunity to ensure that our local communities participate in the much broader requirements laid out in the climate bill,” said Sen. Ben Kramer (D-Montgomery), who is sponsoring  the local climate crisis plan mandate in the Senate.

But while the legislation has been embraced by environmental groups, it’s facing stiff resistance from the Maryland Association of Counties (MACo) — and the often-combative Kramer is engaging in a war of words with the large and venerable organization that represents the state’s 23 counties and Baltimore.

“There is an element of ‘the sky is falling’ with the bill opponents, with those who are going to cry that implementation of this bill is going to cost zillions of dollars,” Kramer said during a hearing Thursday of the Senate Committee on Education, Energy and the Environment. “There’s nothing in the bill that says [the counties] have to implement anything. They just have to plan and make estimates for what those costs are going to be.”

The bill would require all 23 counties and the city of Baltimore to prepare a climate crisis plan and submit it to the Maryland Department of the Environment for review by June 1, 2024.

The legislation lays out 15 criteria for local officials to consider in their analysis, including how to increase the county’s use of renewable energy across multiple sectors; how to decrease greenhouse gas emissions; preparing an inventory of the infrastructure that’s most vulnerable to climate destruction; establishing adaptation strategies; and estimating the cost for all the necessary policy changes and preparations.

The upside, Kramer said, is that each jurisdiction can design its own crisis preparation and adaptation plan without adopting a “one-size-fits-all solution,” while at the same time gearing up for certain mandates laid out in the broader climate legislation.

“In Allegany and Garrett [counties], coastal flooding is not an issue,” Kramer said. “But ski resorts that bring in all the revenue and attract the people to come in have to worry about the lack of snowfall. The idea here is each jurisdiction has a role to play in addressing the climate crisis.”

The bill’s House sponsor, Del. David Fraser-Hidalgo (D-Montgomery), said the legislation merely asks every jurisdiction to prepare for the worst.

“Whatever you’re doing in your life, it’s always better to have a plan and never need to use the plan than it is to be caught in a situation where you’re panicked because you’ve never actually thought about what you need to do and then you’re caught flat-footed,” he said.

The bill, Fraser-Hidalgo added, asks local leaders to contemplate questions like, “What do you do with increased water? What do you do with increased heat? What do you do with all the issues associated with climate change?”

But MACo and lawmakers from smaller jurisdictions are sounding the alarm about the potential costs — even of preparing a study.

“There’s a big difference between the bigger counties and the smaller counties,” said Sen. Mary Beth Carozza (R-Lower Shore). “This is a tremendous lift for smaller counties.”

Carozza said that when she saw that the estimated cost of preparing a climate crisis plan could be about $500,000 for smaller counties, “I almost fell out of my seat.” (Larger counties have estimated greater costs.)

Kramer replied that local governments should have the in-house expertise to prepare the climate plans.

“Nothing says you have to go out there and hire high-priced consultants,” he said.

Dominic Butchko, an associate policy director at MACo, addressing Kramer’s complaints about MACo’s opposition to the bill, said he was glad Kramer read the organization’s written testimony before Thursday’s hearings, but observed, “I also wish the bill sponsor had read the fiscal note.”

Butchko said that while MACo supported the intent of the legislation, “there are three reasons why this bill is bad: [it’s] duplicative, excessive and wasteful.”

Butchko said the bill tries to do too much when the correct approach should be breaking the building blocks for fighting climate change into smaller chunks.

“You don’t put it in a 1,000-page Harry Potter book,” he said.

Kramer called MACo’s arguments “misleading and disingenuous.”

Because every piece of legislation in Annapolis regarding energy and climate impacts different industries, representatives of these industries are out in force to testify. Owners of heating oil and gas companies testified against the measure Thursday. At the same time, representatives of a bioenergy company are seeking to be included in the bill, asking that their energy source be considered part of the low-carbon solutions that the legislation envisions.

Jamie DeMarco, the federal policy director at the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, one of the environmental groups supporting the legislation, said the bill simply asks local governments to think differently about the climate crisis.

“It’s always easiest to keep doing what you’ve always done,” he said. He urged lawmakers not to succumb to “the power of inertia.”

Chesapeake Bay Foundation Grades Chesapeake’s health a D-plus, Again

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Low winter light filters through a marsh near the Chesapeake Bay. Photo by Dave Harp

The ecological health of the nation’s largest estuary remains stuck at a low level, according to the Chesapeake Bay Foundation.

The Annapolis, MD-based environmental group graded the Bay’s overall vitality a D+, the same lackluster mark it got in 2020.

In a note introducing its biennial State of the Bay report, CBF President & CEO Hilary Harp Falk said it “shows there is still a long way to go to create a watershed that works for all of us.”

CBF said that 7 of the 13 pollution, fisheries and habitat indicators it tracks remained unchanged, while three improved and three worsened.

The amount of water-fouling nitrogen and phosphorus flowing into the Bay in 2022 from its major rivers was below the 10-year average, CBF acknowledged. But the past two years saw no real progress in water quality, it said.  While phosphorus levels improved a bit, already poor water clarity declined, and nitrogen pollution stayed unchanged.

The nutrients nitrogen and phosphorus feed algae blooms that reduce water clarity and deplete the water of oxygen when they decompose, causing the Bay’s “dead zone.” The federal-state Chesapeake Bay Program has been struggling for decades to restore water quality, but recently acknowledged it was likely to miss a self-imposed 2025 deadline for reaching pollution reduction goals set in 2010.

The group’s assessments are a blend of science and policy, scoring not just the condition of the Bay and its resources but also the federal and state efforts to restore it.

“The state of the Bay is at a precipice,” said Beth McGee, CBF’s director of science and agricultural policy. “We need to accelerate our efforts at reducing farm pollution to ensure the watershed-wide restoration effort is successful.”

Falk noted that much of the water quality gains to date came from upgrading wastewater treatment plants. To make further progress, she said, increased efforts are needed to reduce pollution from farms — especially in Pennsylvania — and to curb urban and suburban stormwater runoff.

In one of the few bits of good news, CBF upgraded the status of the Bay’s oyster population, citing record reproduction in both Maryland and Virginia in 2020 and 2021. But the group still didn’t give the keystone species a passing grade, saying more is needed to end overfishing and restore lost reef habitat.

CBF’s assessment of striped bass ticked up a point, crediting states with tightening catch limits enough to rebuild its population from dangerously low levels seen just a few years ago.

CBF downgraded the status of blue crabs more than any other Bay health indicator, though, citing the 2022 survey estimating the population at its lowest level in 33 years. Fishery managers in Maryland and Virginia tightened catch limits in response.

As for key Bay habitats, CBF rated conditions of underwater grasses, forest buffers and wetlands unchanged from 2020. But it downgraded slightly the status of “resource lands” — forests, natural open areas and farmland. It cited aerial surveys estimating that 95,000 acres of farms and forests had been lost to development across the Bay watershed over a five-year period ending in 2018.

“While we’ve made significant progress,” Falk said, “far too much pollution still reaches our waterways and climate change is making matters worse.”

Still, the CBF president saw reason for optimism.

“The good news is that the Bay is remarkably resilient and there is tremendous energy around the table,” Falk said. “With many new leaders taking charge — EPA administrators, governors, legislators, and within environmental organizations — we have an opportunity to prove that restoring clean water is possible.”

By Timothy B. Wheeler

Conowingo Dam License Invalidated by Appeals Court

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By John Domen

A federal appeals court vacated a 50-year operating license for Constellation Energy‘s Conowingo Dam, which sits on the Susquehanna River, the Chesapeake Bay’s largest source of fresh water.

The judges ruled that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission violated the federal Clean Water Act in giving the permit, after the state of Maryland and Constellation agreed to scrap a water quality certification process it had originally issued.

That prompted a coalition of environmental groups to file a lawsuit.

“It means that the state of Maryland has to take a serious look at its responsibilities under the Clean Water Act and make sure that it puts conditions on the water quality certification that protect clean water while the dam continues to operate,” said Allison Prost, the vice president of environmental protection and restoration with the Chesapeake Bay Foundation. The CBF was one of the groups involved in the lawsuit.

“A private company benefits from that water source (the Susquehanna) and therefore have a responsibility to make sure that they are not increasing the pollution loads downstream, that they are meeting water quality standards,” said Prost. “We do think that the dam operators have a responsibility. We did not think that the settlement agreement that the state of Maryland entered into was protective of water quality.”

Prost said the new settlement would have waived the right to require water quality certification, and waived the right to require pollution limits from the dam in the future.

“In our opinion the dam operator was getting off with continuing pollution when everyone else is trying to do more to clean up the Susquehanna and the bay,” she said.

Several calls to Constellation and messages left through multiple social media channels went unanswered. The Maryland Attorney General’s Office, which represented the state in the litigation, said it would not comment.

The invalidation of the federal license for the dam sends the matter back to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for further proceedings.

For now, Conowingo Dam will be required to operate on an annual license, instead of one that runs for 50 years, until Maryland finishes another water quality certification process.

The water quality certificate issued in 2018 included conditions requiring Constellation to reduce the amount of nitrogen and phosphorous discharged through the dam, improve fish and eel passage upstream, along with other actions. Maryland agreed to scrap those requirements after Constellation pushed back on them, though other environmental groups are challenging some of those conditions too, saying those don’t go far enough. But with the new agreement in place, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission issued an operating license good for 50 years.

Environmental groups then sued, saying the state wasn’t legally allowed to waive the original 2018 certification, under the terms of the Clean Water Act. The appeals court panel agreed, and vacated the 50-year license. Judge David Tatel wrote in the ruling that doing so “will allow completion of the administrative and judicial review that was interrupted by the settlement agreement. That review could result in either (1) the invalidation of Maryland’s 2018 certification, which would require Constellation to request a new certification, or (2) the validation of the 2018 certification, which would require FERC to issue a license incorporating the conditions contained in therein.”

Tatel concluded by saying that either one of those results would be in compliance with the federal Clean Water Act.

By John Domen WTOP News

Hogan Pausing MD Participation in Multi-state Alliance for Strict Vehicle Emissions Standards

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The Hogan administration is pausing the state’s participation in a multi-state alliance that requires new vehicles sold in Maryland to meet the same emissions standards as those sold in California, a state official said Monday.

The administration’s decision was revealed Monday morning at a meeting of the Air Quality Control Advisory Council, which advises the Maryland Department of the Environment on proposed air quality rules and regulations and evaluates legislation proposed by the General Assembly and state agencies.

Although the emissions standards weren’t on the agenda, an environmentalist asked an official of MDE during the online meeting whether the Hogan administration planned to follow California’s newly-adopted, more stringent emissions standards. The official, Chris Hoagland, director of Air and Radiation at MDE, said Gov. Larry Hogan (R) did not plan to sign an order adopting the so-called Advanced Clean Cars II regulation.

Lindsey Mendelson, the transportation policy specialist at the Maryland chapter of the Sierra Club who raised the question at the air quality council meeting, said she was “very disappointed” by the administration’s decision.

“It’s low-hanging fruit,” she said. “There’s absolutely no reason that the governor shouldn’t follow the law.”

Maryland has followed California’s emissions guidelines for new cars and light trucks since 2007 — an arrangement that began for 2011 model year cars and trucks. In all, 14 states have been using California regulations, rather than weaker federal rules, as a yardstick for vehicle emissions for several years.

But the original agreement is expiring, and states have been weighing whether to re-up for California’s new, tougher standards, which require vehicle manufacturers to sell an increasing percentage of new zero-emission passenger cars and light-duty trucks in model years 2026 through 2035. The current arrangement runs through the model 2025 year.

The regulation — which aligns with legislation passed by the Maryland General Assembly earlier this year — requires states to allow only new zero-emissions vehicles to be sold after 2035.

The Hogan administration had to decide by the end of this year whether to follow California’s new Advanced Clean Cars II regulation, which was adopted by California’s powerful Air Quality Board in August. Delaware, Massachusetts, New York, Oregon, Vermont, and Washington state have already signed on.

With the Hogan administration opting out, Gov.-elect Wes Moore (D) will have to decide next year whether to bring the state back into the consortium. But even if he does, model year 2027 vehicles sold in the state will have weaker emissions standards than those sold in the states that agree to abide by the California model, because auto manufacturers require a two-year notice of a state’s emissions rules. States that follow the California plan will be required to ensure that at least 43% of the new cars and light-duty trucks sold in model year 2027 are zero emissions or plugged-in hybrids.

The Hogan administration offered no public explanation for why the state won’t follow California’s more stringent standards. The decision contradicts a recommendation from the Maryland Climate Change Commission, which Hogan’s Environment secretary, Horacio Tablada, co-chairs.

Earlier this fall, House Environment and Transportation Committee Chair Kumar Barve (D-Montgomery), along with the chair of that panel’s Motor Vehicle and Transportation subcommittee, Del. David Fraser-Hidalgo (D-Montgomery), and Del. Marc Korman (D-Montgomery), chair of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Transportation and the Environment, wrote to Hogan, calling the adoption of the Advanced Clean Cars II regulation “our best opportunity to date to significantly mitigate the nation’s leading source of dangerous air and climate pollutants and reduce the State’s reliance on costly, volatile fossil fuels.”

“The ACC II rule in Maryland will further incentivize car manufacturers to accelerate production of pollution-free cars and, ultimately, get more of them into frontline communities,” the lawmakers wrote. “This will be an important step in reducing the costly health impacts of noxious emissions.”

Peter Kitzmiller, president of the Maryland Auto Dealers Association, said Monday that auto manufacturers and dealers are already preparing for the transition to zero-emissions vehicles, regardless of the state’s emissions rules for new cars and light trucks. Currently, about 3.5% of the vehicles on the road in Maryland emit zero emissions, he said.

“The manufactures are spending tens of billions of dollars and the dealers are spending millions of dollars in infrastructure to get ready for this,” Kitzmiller said. “This is obviously the way the market is going to go. Are we going to get there as quickly as some of the regulations require us to? I don’t know.”

This summer, when California announced its latest stringent regulations for emissions of new vehicles, several auto manufacturers applauded them, saying they provided certainty and stability for the industry. A Ford Motor Company executive called it “a landmark standard,” and reiterated the company’s commitment to building zero-emissions vehicles.

The Hogan administration’s plan not to adopt the new California regulation is reminiscent of its decision two years ago to decline to formally join the Transportation and Climate Initiative (TCI), a collaborative effort of mid-Atlantic and Northeastern states to set up a carbon “cap-and-invest” model to transportation emissions — even though Maryland officials had been part of the initial planning for the regional alliance.

Moore, who takes office on Jan. 18, has promised a robust climate agenda, but has offered few specifics. His transition team’s climate policy committee is holding a virtual town hall meeting on Tuesday evening. Leaders of the Air Quality Control Advisory Council have promised to put the California emissions regulations on the agenda for its next meeting in March.

By Josh Kurtz

It Actually Might Happen: Jim Lighthizer on a Chesapeake Bay National Recreation Area

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Almost five decades ago, Jim Lighthizer, who ran for the Maryland House of Delegates in 1978, began pitching the idea that the Chesapeake Bay region needed to be considered a national recreational area. As the land and water conservation movement took off in the 1970s and 80s, smart politicians, agency heads, and NGO leaders began to advocate for these special designations for environmental reasons but also to help the cause of economic development. Lighthizer thought Maryland should get on that train.

According to Wikipedia, these unique sites would be “a protected area in the United States established by an Act of Congress to preserve enhanced recreational opportunities in places with significant natural and scenic resources.” and that the designation of a “Recreation Area” had roots as far back as the 1920s. But the first significant one came in 1947 when the Boulder Dam Recreation Area was renamed Lake Mead National Recreation Area in southeastern Nevada and northwestern Arizona. And since that time, some 40 areas have been approved by Congress.

Sometimes, the grim reality of government legislation is that things move slowly on this kind of initiative. Still, to Jim Lighhizer’s great joy and relief, Sen. Chris Van Hollen and Rep. John Sarbanes have just announced they would be introducing legislation in the next Congress to incorporate the Bay into the nation’s park system of national recreation areas. Beyond the prestige that comes with this voluntary status, it is easing the way for steady federal funding to conserve the body of water, promote tourism, and expand public access within its 64,000 square miles of watershed.

Last week, the Spy’s Dave Wheelan and WHCP’s Kevin Diaz sat down with Jim, (who know lives in Dorchester County) who continued to lead this charge as Anne Arundel County Executive, to learn more about its history and what this might mean for our unique region.

This video is approximately six minutes in length. For more information about the proposed Chesapeake Bay National Recreation Area please go here.

Our Debt to Naturalist Jan Reese by Matt LaMotte

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“Man must be forever be on the alert and looking always at what is to be seen,” wrote one of America’s most famous naturalists, Henry David Thoreau, more than a century ago. But these words still hold true for today’s naturalists, conservationists and environmental scientists. And, certainly they apply to Jan Reese, a lifetime student of the Chesapeake Bay’s natural resources. 

Born and raised on Tilghman Island, Maryland, in the 1930’s and 1940’s, Reese, who now lives in nearby St. Michaels, became interested in the ecology of the Chesapeake Bay at an early age. He spent his youth observing, cataloging and preserving all kinds of Bay area plants, animals, and numerous other forms of wildlife. Inspired and mentored by St. Michael’s High School teacher Richard Kleen, he eventually focused his interests on birds. 

This was the early 1950’s and the environmental movement had yet to take hold. Non-profit organizations such as the Chesapeake Bay Foundation and government bureaus like the Environmental Protection Agency had yet to be established. During the early 1960s, Reese expanded a project he’d begun on his own that focused on monitoring and cataloging the reproductive success of ospreys, aiding in national studies of these migratory birds. He spent two decades on the Chesapeake Bay researching and contributing to national and international studies on the causes of the decline of these fish-eating birds.

“From declining fish populations to the effects of the pesticide DDT on their breeding and nesting success, ospreys, in many ways, reflected the environmental malaise on the Bay,” Reese said. Expanding his efforts beyond preserving osprey nests on channel markers and buoys, he and Donald Merritt installed over 200 osprey platforms in local Bay tributaries. His research and field work helped to preserve and expand protection for the species. His dogged, selfless pursuit of preserving natural habitat inspired those who worked with him on this ground-breaking fieldwork. Several of his associates later pursued their own environmental passions and became leading researchers involved with plants, marine invertebrates, habitat preservation, environmental education, birds and other biological organisms. 

Reese studied many other species incidentally encountered while carrying out Osprey studies (e.g., Mallard ducks, Snowy and Cattle Egrets, Great Blue and Green Herons, Common and Forester’s Terns, Barn Owls, Barn Swallows, Red-wing Blackbirds). Included among this menagerie were European Mute Swans. While attractive to humans, these large birds are a non-native, feral species in the Chesapeake Bay region, and they were interfering with native species like breeding ducks and wintering swans and geese, as well as some species of shorebirds, especially in their nesting habitats on the Bay. By the early 21st century, the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, in part by using Reese’s research data, instituted a plan to manage and reduce the Mute Swan population on the Chesapeake and its tributaries.

The election of Ronald Reagan in 1980 brought about a sea-change in the United States Government’s funding for environmental issues. Many programs of the Fish and Wildlife Service, the Environmental Protection Agency and other parts of the U.S. Interior Department – whose prior focus had been on determining the cause of decline in habitat quality and wildlife — were diminished and/or defunded. In the course of this downsizing, Reese’s cooperation and collaboration with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service came to an end. The balance of the 1980’s was spent without much field research or any supportive agency affiliation, so he mostly worked in construction. 

Volunteering to lead plant and wildlife outings during this decade also played an important role In Reese’s life. This included organizations such as The Nature Conservancy, The Sierra Club, The Smithsonian Associates, Maryland Ornithological Society, regional bird clubs, and other scholarly venues.  According to friend and life-long birder, Jeff Effinger, early morning or sunset bird walk with Reese was not to be missed. “Jan brought so much joy and enthusiasm to our birding trips,” said Effinger. “We always finished these trips knowing a lot more than when we started.”

During this time, Reese also was befriended during this time by a local farming family. Ed and Esther Burns, well-known plant and bird carvers who exhibited their painted wooden craft at the annual Waterfowl Festival in Easton, Maryland, and similar venues around the country. The Burns encouraged him to join them in their former turkey house, which they had converted into a studio for working, marketing, and teaching others how to carve and paint.. Reese said “his knowledge of many bird species form, structure and anatomical proportions aided his carving education from Ed while it was more a matter of learning from Ester how to accurately paint the carvings”.  Making swift progress, he began entering his carvings in various competitions, where he garnered praise and success and quickly moved up to compete in the professional class where annually during the late-1980s – early-1990s he won blue ribbons at the World Competition held each April at the Ocean City Convention Center in Maryland and was subsequently invited to exhibit his carvings at prestigious venues like The Southeast Wildlife Exposition in Charleston, South Carolina, as well as the Easton Waterfowl Festival.  

In the late 1980’s, with passage of Chesapeake Bay Critical Areas, Federal and State Wetland, and Forest Conservation Legislation Reese’s career took an unexpected turn when a regional engineering firm approached him about a job as an environmental consultant on their team. Since no one on their staff was familiar with the particulars about tidal lines, what was wetland and what was upland, or one tree species from another, all the while having to comply with the new environmental regulations in designing their customers’ proposed projects, it was a logical hire. 

Thanks to his knowledge of plants, wildlife and environmental issues in and around the Chesapeake Bay, Reese was hired in 1990 as a staff environmentalist. “Working in the field fit well with my qualifications and passion,” he recalls. “Completing field work and writing up evaluation reports came naturally to me.” However, an economic recession in 1992 hit the construction and civil engineering industries very hard and Reese was out of a job with no other prospects for employment. 

Now in his late 50’s, with little hope of being hired by anyone for any skilled position, he struck out on his own as an independent environmental consultant. The economy turned around by 1994 and Reese’ former employer became his best customer for over a decade. 

Another economic recession hit in 2008, with the construction/civil engineering professions being hard hit again, leaving Reese with only contracts outside those industries, like The Nature Conservancy, and various municipal, county, state and federal government agencies, which were not dramatically impacted by the recession. One of those contracts was with the Maryland Department of Transportation, Maryland Port Authority and the 5th District, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers restoration project at Poplar Island in Chesapeake Bay a few miles northwest of Tilghman’s Island where he had been working since 2001. He found this a particularly interesting contract since, nearly 50 years ago, when it was a natural island before eroding away into the Chesapeake Bay, he had studied Ospreys there and was very familiar with its natural ecology.

Reese has had an affiliation with the Maryland Ornithological Society and its local Talbot County Chapter for over 60 years. Through decades the relationship has been beneficial to each party with financial compensation for expendable equipment of some research projects in exchange for volunteer lectures, leader of various types of wildlife outings, physical labor, professional consultation, advice and lead on some organization sanctuary projects. The state organization has recognized him with various awards through the decades while the local chapter recently awarded Reese a Lifetime Achievement Award for his invaluable leadership and service. 

Unfortunately, in 2014, a change in his health resulted in Reese no longer being able to do field work, forcing him to give up employment. He continues to cooperate and consult with other researchers on many scientific research projects, compile and analyze decades of collected data, and write scientific papers for publication. 

Researcher, habitat and wildlife preservationist, naturalist and environmentalist, Jan Reese has proven himself to be a dedicated advocate for the protection and preservation of the Chesapeake Bay. “There are few places around the world with as much natural beauty and diversity as the Bay,” he said. “I hope that, in some small way, I’ve helped preserve that legacy.”   

Matt LaMotte is is member of the Chesapeake Bay Environmental Center in Queenstown, MD. The author wishes to thank Terry Allen,Wayne Bell, Jeff Effinger, George Fenwick, Steve Hamblin, Donald “Mutt” Merritt and others, named and unnamed, who supported Jan along the way on his journey.

 

Mid-Shore Stewardship: ShoreRivers and Galena Elementary School 

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The preservation and revitalization of the Eastern Shore’s vast system of waterways requires a commitment to environmental stewardship and an effort to teach future generations to care for the world that sustains us.

Since 2017 and the merging of the Chester River Association, (CRA), Midshore Riverkeeper Conservancy (MRC), and Sassafras River Association (SRA) into ShoreRivers, the organization has worked to protect and restore the quality of our unique and interlaced river networks while collaborating with farmers to help reduce the agricultural runoff that pollutes waterways.

Another of ShoreRivers’ forward-planning initiatives is its Environmental Education program serving over 2,500 3rd grade and high school biology students every year in Dorchester, Talbot, Queen Anne’s, and Kent county schools.

Recently, ShoreRivers continued their long-term partnership with Galena Elementary School to introduce Pre-K through 5th graders to environmental stewardship by planting 26 trees along a walking path behind the school. The walking path was a previous ShoreRivers and Galena Elementary School project. Eventually the area will also be used for outdoor classes.

Galena Elementary School Principal Becky Yoder and ShoreRivers Education Director Gutierrez Finley met with the Spy to talk about the event and their ongoing collaboration.

This video is approximately three minutes in length. More about ShoreRivers may be found here.

 

Climate Funding could Suffer in the Farm bill under GOP Control of Congress

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Republicans who may take control of Congress in this election have not been very specific about many policy goals — but the farm bill is an exception.

Members of the GOP in the U.S. House and Senate are sending strong signals they want to strip climate funding from the massive legislation in 2023 if they take control. That would thwart farmland conservation advocates, who had hoped to make it one of the most significant investments ever made for climate-smart practices on American farmland.

Both House and Senate GOP members of the agriculture panels sent letters to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack in late October asking for justification for the administration’s recent investment in “climate-smart agriculture,” and protesting what they said was a lack of consultation with Congress.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack had announced in September $2.8 billion for research and pilot projects to support climate-friendly food production. The agency plans to announce a second group of “climate-smart commodities” projects later this year.

Sen. John Boozman of Arkansas, the top-ranking Republican on the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry, asked Vilsack on Oct. 27 for a report on the department’s rationale for its spending.

And a group of House Republicans said Congress should have been consulted before launching the climate program “in this difficult farm economy when so many are struggling with rising input costs, drought, and an ongoing supply chain crisis.”

“We are dismayed at the lack of transparency and congressional consultation throughout the development of this process,” Rep. Dan Newhouse, R-Wash., and Rep. Andy Harris, R-Md., wrote in an Oct. 28 letter along with eight other Republicans from the Congressional Western Caucus, a group of lawmakers that purports to be a “voice for rural America.”

If Republicans take control of the House, and Harris is re-elected, he is in line to become chair of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies — a prominent post that would make him one of the House’s powerful appropriations “cardinals.”

Every five years

Lawmakers must rewrite the sweeping farm bill every five years to set both policy and funding levels for farm, food and conservation programs. The next farm bill needs to be authorized by September 2023.

Both agriculture and environmental advocacy groups have geared up for this next farm bill to potentially have a significant section for “climate-smart” farm practices, such as funding for farmers to plant trees and cover crops, use less water or leave soil un-tilled.

If so, it could be the first farm bill in more than 30 years to explicitly address climate change. The Biden administration has come out in support of such practices — notably using a general fund designated for farm support to finance new research on farmland climate mitigation.

Agriculture Committee members tout the bipartisan process they use to write the farm bill, but the question of how much focus to put on climate change is one that clearly already is dividing on party lines.

The Republican Study Committee, whose members make up 80 percent of all Republican members of Congress, proposed drastic cuts for the farm bill in the draft budget it released as a “Blueprint to Save America.” It rejects investment in a “radical climate agenda’ and outlines a plan to defund farm bill conservation programs that pay farmers to retire environmentally sensitive croplands.

And a major dispute centers around the Inflation Reduction Act that Congress passed in August. It has a slate of programs to address climate change, including more than $20 billion for climate investments on farmland. Congress could fold that into the next farm bill for unprecedented farmland conservation spending.

The Inflation Reduction Act would provide about a 47 percent increase over previous farm bill levels, according to an analysis from the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.

But the top Republicans on both the House and Senate Agriculture Committees have said they may forego additional investment in climate provisions.

Boozman categorized the funding for agriculture climate programs as “misplaced priorities” and has said it could undermine the farm bill process.

“It unilaterally creates a multi-billion-dollar slush fund for farm bill priorities shared by the president and his allies,” Boozman said in remarks on the Senate floor in August.

“We have a storied history of working together at the Agriculture Committee… unfortunately with this decision the majority has changed that dynamic…they have undermined one of the last successful bipartisan processes remaining in the Senate,” Boozman said.

Similarly, on the House side, Pennsylvania Republican Glenn Thompson, the top Republican on the House Agriculture Committee, said at a hearing last month that the IRA funding “endangered the bipartisan support” for the farm bill conservation title. Thompson could take over as chairman of the House Agriculture Committee if Republicans win a majority in the House.

“I will not sit idly by as we let decades of real bipartisan progress be turned on its head to satisfy people that at their core think agriculture is a blight on the landscape,” Thompson told other members of the committee. “I have been leaning into the climate discussion, but I will not have us suddenly incorporate buzzwords like regenerative agriculture into the Farm Bill or overemphasize climate.”

“I don’t feel bound by the amount of funding or the specific program allocation passed in the partisan IRA bill. I am especially worried about earmarking all the new money just for climate, rather than letting the locally led process work,” Thompson said.

‘Climate-smart’ agriculture

The pushback from Republicans comes as support for “climate-smart” practices has gained unprecedented momentum in the agriculture community.

“There’s a lot of opportunity for making the next farm bill into a climate farm bill. There’s a lot of momentum,” said Anne Schechinger, Midwest director for the Environmental Working Group.

A group of over 150 progressive, agriculture and environmental groups are pushing for the next farm bill to invest in research, technical assistance and financial incentives to help farmers and ranchers reduce emissions. In a letter to President Joe Biden in September they called on the administration to “meet the climate crisis head on” in the next farm bill.

Supporters include state farm cooperatives, community farm groups and environmental groups, including Environmental Working Group.

But it’s not only environmental groups that are pushing for new research and investment in climate-smart practices.

Major farm groups have also come out in support of investment in voluntary climate initiatives for farmers — part of a gradual shift over the years. In previous farm bill or climate debates, some farming and agribusiness groups resisted climate programs for fear it would lead to too many regulations on farmland.

But in the past two years, major farm groups formed a “food and agriculture climate alliance” to make recommendations for climate policy.

It includes the National Farmers Union, American Farm Bureau Federation, Environmental Defense Fund and trade groups representing sugar, cotton, corn and rice growers.

The National Farmers Union included climate change programs in its “days of advocacy” last year, when farmers came to Washington, D.C. to ask lawmakers for support. And the more conservative American Farm Bureau Federation has come full force behind climate-smart solutions for farmers.

Because of this momentum, some experts think the next farm bill will move toward more investment in climate programs regardless of the party with the gavel — they just might not do so as explicitly if Republicans take control.

“Who knows what phrase the farm bill might ultimately decide to use, but I think it is inevitable, regardless of who is in charge, that this farm bill will tackle climate change more directly,” said Ferd Hoefner,  a Washington, D.C.-based consultant on farm and food policy who has worked on nine previous farm bills.

1990 farm bill

The only farm bill to previously explicitly fund “climate change” was the 1990 farm bill, which had a “Global Climate Change” title drafted in response to the devastating 1988 droughts.

While other farm bills have not mentioned climate change, the conservation title includes billions of dollars for programs that pay farmers to rest sensitive acreage, preserve wildlife habitat or make environmental improvements to working lands.

“We might not necessarily see the word ‘climate’ show up as much in the farm bill if Republicans do take over, but a lot of these conservation programs are really supported by both parties,” said Schechinger.

But Schechinger says USDA needs to do a better job of investing conservation money in practices that are good for the climate. Some programs, like cover crops, have a beneficial effect.

But other practices that the farm bill pays for, like lagoons for animal manure, can actually increase carbon emissions from farms. Nationwide, USDA spent $174 million on animal waste storage facilities since 2017, as part of the Environmental Quality Incentives Program, according to EWG’s analysis of federal data.

“We are spending millions of dollars on some of these practices that are actually bad for climate change, that actually increase emissions,” said Schechinger.

The group wants the next farm bill to increase cost share and prioritization for climate-smart practices to encourage more farmers to take on practices that reduce emissions.