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March 22, 2023

The Talbot Spy

The nonprofit e-newspaper for the Talbot County Community

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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.”

Maryland Approves Expansion of Eastern Shore Poultry Plant Despite Pollution History

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Maryland state regulators have approved expansion of a controversial poultry rendering plant on the Eastern Shore that just four months ago settled lawsuits accusing it of polluting a Chesapeake Bay tributary for years.

The state Department of the Environment in late December renewed the discharge permit for the Valley Proteins Inc. rendering plant at Linkwood. The permit will allow a nearly four-fold increase in the amount of wastewater the facility can release into the Transquaking River, a nutrient-impaired Bay tributary in Dorchester County.

MDE spokesman Jay Apperson said the permit imposes “substantial reductions” in pollution levels in the discharges. Regulators have added more conditions beyond what had been initially proposed in 2021 in response to public comments, he said, including requiring more monitoring and adequate staffing of the company’s wastewater treatment operation.

Environmental activists, though, complained that MDE, in approving this permit, has put the company’s needs ahead of restoring water quality in the Transquaking.

“There may be some improvement here, but not enough,” said Fred Pomeroy, an oyster farmer who is president of Dorchester Citizens for Planned Growth.  He said MDE was “blatantly wrong” to let Valley Proteins increase its maximum daily discharge from 150,000 gallons to 575,000 gallons, given the chronic pollution problems at the Linkwood plant. “They have not earned a fourfold increase,” he said.

Neighbors and environmental groups have complained for years about the Valley Proteins facility, which takes up to 4 million pounds of chicken entrails and feathers daily from poultry processing plants and renders them into pet food.

They also faulted the state for failing to address multiple violations at the plant over the past decade and for letting it continue to operate with an outdated wastewater treatment system under a discharge permit that expired in 2006. Those permits are supposed to be reviewed and updated every 5 years, but MDE had a backlog last year this time of nearly 200 so-called “zombie” permits.

The state and environmental groups sued the company in February 2022 after one organization, ShoreRivers, captured drone images showing a discolored discharge coming from Valley Proteins’ outfall into a waterway leading to the Transquaking. The visual evidence prompted MDE to inspect and briefly shut down the plant after finding more violations.

The company settled those lawsuits in a Sept. 12 consent decree, in which it promised to fix wastewater treatment violations and curb polluted runoff from the site. It also agreed to pay a $540,000 penalty to the state, plus another $160,000 to the environmental groups for water quality monitoring and restoration.

In a 2021 public hearing and through dozens of written comments, critics called for MDE to impose more stringent limits on the plant and not let it expand until it shows it can meet them. To their disappointment, MDE did not set any such conditions.

“There’s no stopgap or check in place where if noncompliance continues, should they still be allowed to increase their flow?” said Matt Pluta, director of riverkeeper programs at ShoreRivers.

MDE had put out a press release in September 2021 announcing its tentative decision to renew Valley Proteins’ permit with stricter discharge limits. The agency let its final decision be known by posting a pair of legal notices in the local Dorchester County newspaper earlier this month.

In a lengthy written response to public comments, MDE said the company’s request to expand met state regulations. The plant will have to meet “substantially stricter” pollution limits in its discharge following a three-year “compliance period,” during which it is expected to upgrade its treatment system. After that, MDE said the company may increase its discharge.

Doug Myers, senior Maryland scientist with the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, said MDE had “thrown a bone or two” to critics in its final permit, notably by requiring fish-sustaining oxygen levels to be higher in the plant’s discharge. But other limits the company must meet are largely unchanged from what they had been in the old permit, he contended.

MDE’s permit does propose to lower overall nutrient discharges after the first three years.

Once the plant’s treatment system is upgraded, its annual discharge limits will be 44% lower for nitrogen and 79% lower for phosphorus, according to MDE. Those two nutrients are generally responsible for algae blooms, oxygen depletion and fish kills in the Bay and its tributaries.

The Transquaking, like most Bay tributaries, suffers from excessive nutrient levels, mainly from runoff or seepage from farmland. The Valley Proteins discharge flows downstream into a dammed stretch of the river known as Higgins Millpond.  Locals say the poorly flushed impoundment suffers from poor water quality, diminished fish and outbreaks of toxic blue-green algae, which have poisoned family pets and led to no-swimming warnings.

MDE said it was taking a closer look at water quality in the millpond and would modify the Valley Proteins permit if its assessment indicated tighter discharge limits are warranted. But it said its modeling at this time indicates the pond would be impaired even if the rendering plant wasn’t there.

Suann Guthrie, spokesperson for Darling Ingredients, the Texas-based company that bought Valley Proteins last year, said: “We are committed to continuing to work closely with the Maryland Department of Environment to ensure the Linkwood facility is in full compliance with all relevant rules and regulations.”

Pomeroy, the Dorchester group president, said the Transquaking is hurt not only by Valley Proteins’ discharges but also by the spreading of semi-solid sludge from the plant’s treatment system on nearby farm fields. One day last year, he said, “truck after truck” was spreading the material across a field close to the river while it was raining, conditions that make it likely to become runoff.

The MDE permit does say the company must report where its sludge shipments go and specifies that the nutrient-rich material must be applied “appropriately” so rain won’t wash it into nearby streams.  But ShoreRivers’ Pluta said that provision is toothless because MDE does not regulate the use of sludge on farm fields.

Environmental groups said they were weighing legal action to challenge the permit. Beyond that, they said, they hope the new administration of Gov. Wes Moore follows through on a campaign pledge to beef up enforcement at MDE.  In the budget he presented Jan. 20, Moore proposed adding 67 new positions at MDE to deal with wastewater and drinking water permitting and oversight.

The Lakeside Reset Resolution Failure and the Future of Development: A Chat with Talbot Councilman Pete Lesher

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It was clear on Tuesday evening that Talbot County Council member Pete Lesher was speaking with a heavy heart when he made it know that he would not be proposing the Talbot Integrity Project’s (TIP) draft resolution to “reset” the new Trappe housing development known as Lakeside.

Noting that the Maryland Department of the Environment’s final approval for Lakeside’s first 400 homes on November 1 was granted just a few days before election day, he regretfully stated that this permit made the “Reset Resolution” obsolete. In short, the train had already left the station for the housing development’s first phase, having had the original approval of the County’s planning commission and the Talbot County Council in the last term setting the stage of MDE’s decision to permit construction.

While disappointing in the decision, Lesher has decided not to propose the TIP-approved motion.

In his Spy interview yesterday, Councilmember Lesher explains in detail the circumstances that led to this decision and his plans for protecting Talbot County from out-of-scale development projects in the future, including presumably Lakeside’s Phase II plans to construct more homes beyond the 400 units covered by their current permit.

This video is approximately ten minutes in length.

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.

MDE Gives Lakeside in Trappe a Limited Permit to Move Forward

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The Maryland Department of the Environment released its decision regarding the Lakeside housing development discharge permit on Friday afternoon. The MDE ruling considerably limits the project to 100,000 gallons of wastewater per day. The developer had asked for 540,000 gallons per day.

The dramatic reduction by the MDE was a result of the agency’s review of recent data and public comments opposed to the original request.

Organizations such as ShoreRivers and the Chesapeake Bay Foundation expressed mixed responses to the MDE’s permit approval.

CBG’s Eastern Shore Director Alan Girard commented that the “MDE should be given credit for significantly scaling back this permit that posed tremendous risk to water quality on the Eastern Shore.” He added however that the CBF,  “remain concerned about the potential precedent this could set by allowing a development to bypass Bay cleanup requirements through spray irrigation on farm fields.”

ShoreRivers’ Matt Pluta added, “as we told MDE in our initial comments, spray irrigation is not an adequate means of disposing wastewater without polluting the river. The intention of these permits is for wastewater sprayed onto fields to be absorbed by crops, but much of the nutrients end up percolating into our groundwater instead.”

At the time of this article, the Lakeside project’s attorney, Ryan D. Showalter, has not issued the developer’s reaction to the MDE decision.

The decision can be read here.

Oceanographer Mike Sieracki Joins UMCES as Horn Point Laboratory Director

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Dr. Michael (Mike) Sieracki has been selected as the new director of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science’s (UMCES) Horn Point Laboratory in Cambridge, Maryland. A leading oceanographer, Sieracki takes the helm from longtime director Mike Roman, who is stepping down after 20 years to continue his ocean research as a faculty member. Sieracki will be officially joining UMCES on November 14.

“I am impressed by his technical expertise, mentoring experience, and deep commitment to issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion when he served in his leadership role at the National Science Foundation,” said University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science President Peter Goodwin. “He will be a wonderful director that will truly advance both Horn Point Laboratory and UMCES.”

Sieracki has been the lead program director for the biological oceanography program at the National Science Foundation since 2010. Previously, he was a senior research scientist at the Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences in Maine, where he served as acting director, directed the J. J. MacIsaac Flow Cytometry Facility, and studied microbial plankton ecology, including the phytoplankton spring bloom and harmful algal blooms.

Horn Point Laboratory Director Mike Sieracki (Photo courtesy University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science/Joao Coimbra)

He invented automated microscope systems for analyzing microplankton populations in the oceans and innovated single cell genomics methods for characterizing individual marine microbes. He has participated in over 25 research cruises with over 180 days at sea, including serving on the coordinator team of the Tara Oceans Expedition to map the biodiversity of plankton in the world’s oceans. He has taught courses around the world and has over 60 published scientific papers.

“I am really excited to get started as director at UMCES’ Horn Point Laboratory, which has excellent scientists and staff and a great reputation,” said incoming Horn Point Laboratory Director Mike Sieracki. “Their strong tradition of doing excellent education and research that informs policy and practice is needed now more than ever to tackle the great challenges now facing us from our local communities to global societies.”

Sieracki holds a Ph.D. in biological oceanography and an M.S. in Microbiology from the University of Rhode Island, and a B.A. in biological sciences from the University of Delaware.

With research programs spanning from the estuarine waters of the Chesapeake Bay to the open waters of the world’s oceans, UMCES is a national leader in applying environmental research and discovery to solve society’s most pressing environmental problems. At its Horn Point Laboratory, located on more than 800 acres on the banks of the Choptank River on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, scientists are widely respected for their interdisciplinary programs in oceanography, water quality, restoration of seagrasses, marshes and shellfish and for expertise in ecosystem modeling.

UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND CENTER FOR ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE

The University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science (UMCES) is a leading research and educational institution working to understand and manage the world’s resources. From a network of laboratories spanning from the Appalachian Mountains to the Atlantic Ocean, UMCES 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