Eco Lead Archives - Talbot Spy

FEMA Cancels $1 Billion for Flood Prevention Projects in Chesapeake Bay Region

May 20, 2025 by Bay Journal

As Crisfield Mayor Darlene Taylor sees it, the low-lying Maryland town has no future unless it can hold back rising water. Computer models suggest that the adjacent Chesapeake Bay could get high enough by 2050 to trigger daily floods that are deep enough to stall cars on roads.

Hope arrived in the form of a federal grant program under the Federal Emergency Management Agency, created during the first Trump administration. The Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) program helped rural communities like hers to invest in massive projects to fight disaster threats, ranging from wildfires to floods.

Crisfield officially got word from FEMA last July that it had secured $36 million from the program to launch the first phase of its massive flood-protection initiative. “Everything had lined up and everything was in place for this to be a highly successful project,” Taylor said.

A lot has changed since then. Trump returned to office in January, vowing to drastically shrink the size of the federal government. In a terse April 4 press statement, FEMA announced it was pulling the plug on the disaster-preparedness funding, not just for Crisfield but for all applicants and grantees, calling it “wasteful and ineffective,” though without citing evidence to support those claims.

The administration announced that any undistributed funds from the program’s inaugural year, 2020, through 2023 would be returned to the Disaster Relief Fund or the U.S. Treasury. The agency also canceled the 2024 funding opportunity, just days before the application deadline for that year’s $750 million allocation.

The reversal has left hundreds of communities nationwide scrambling to find alternative sources for the billions of dollars they had been promised. Among the six states and the District of Columbia in the Chesapeake Bay watershed, BRIC grants had been on track to disburse nearly $1 billion across about 350 applications, according to a Bay Journal analysis of FEMA’s database.

Among the region’s losses: $32 million to restore wetlands along the Patapsco River’s Middle Branch near Baltimore; $2.7 million to acquire 21 flood-prone properties in Scranton, PA; and $20 million toward finishing a floodwall in DC around the Blue Plains Advanced Wastewater Treatment Plant, the largest sewage plant in the Bay watershed.

And, of course, there’s Crisfield. With an annual budget of just $4 million, the town of 2,500 residents can’t afford to fight sea level rise without financial help from beyond its borders, Taylor said.

“We’re pretty much devastated,” she added. “Without this, we know that we will be in a really bad position to protect our citizens, protect our property, protect our community and really protect our way of life.”

Wasteful?

The FEMA announcement described the program as “more concerned with political agendas than helping Americans affected by natural disasters.” Many experts contend the opposite is true.

Recent studies suggest that investments in flood hazard mitigation yield a return of up to $8 in benefits for every $1 spent, according to the Association of State Floodplain Managers. Chad Berginnis, the association’s executive director, acknowledged that the BRIC program had flaws, but said it was making important strides in warding off disasters.

“I don’t [doubt that we] have debt issues in this country, but I take very strong exception to the FEMA press release that characterizes this program as wasteful and ineffective,” he said. “Those are just flat-out lies.”

Berginnis said he largely agreed with the findings of a recent Republican-led task force’s report, which called for reforming the BRIC program. The 61-page report offered a broad range of recommendations to improve the nation’s overall disaster response and preparedness efforts.

Among them: creating a pathway for smaller communities to obtain BRIC grants, so they don’t have to compete against “coastal elites” who have access to caravans of consultants and grant writers. During the 2023 grant year alone, about 75% of the program’s funding benefitted such “high capacity” applicants, according to the report.

But the report was notable also for what it didn’t say, Berginnis pointed out. It didn’t say anything about getting rid of BRIC.

‘The water doesn’t care’

The BRIC program was established by Congress through the Disaster Recovery Reform Act of 2018, which Trump signed into law in October of that year. Beginning in 2020, applicants could receive up to $50 million for projects designed to help communities reduce their exposure to catastrophes.

Such “pre-disaster” funding, backers say, is necessary now more than ever with climate change exacerbating a variety of threats and driving up the costs of “post-disaster” spending.

The abrupt cancellation of the program has drawn strong criticism, especially from Democratic lawmakers.

“When we talk about government cuts to environmental programs, I will caution that rising seas don’t care who is in the White House,” said Rep. Sarah Elfreth, a Maryland Democrat. “The water doesn’t care how a small town that experiences 90 days of flooding or more a year voted in the last election. Flooding will continue to devastate communities, even if the president does not believe in climate change.”

Some Republicans, while supportive of Trump in general, appeared to be quietly working to get the president to change his mind and restore at least some funding.

“We were made aware of this cancellation in funds and are reaching out to the appropriate federal agencies for a better understanding of this decision,” U.S. Rep. Andy Harris’s office told the Bay Journal in a statement. Harris, Maryland’s only Republican congressman, chairs the conservative House Freedom Caucus, and his district includes Crisfield.

His office noted that Harris had written a letter in support of Crisfield when the community was applying for BRIC funding. Harris remains “supportive of the city’s need to become more safe, resilient and prosperous by reducing the negative impacts of flooding,” according to the statement.

Because of the sluggish manner in which FEMA disburses funding, some of the grants now being cancelled date back to the program’s inaugural year in 2020. In many cases, communities have already expended millions of their own dollars designing, engineering and permitting projects that now may never see the light of day, Berginnis said.

For multiphase projects, FEMA said its regional offices will work with applicants on previously obligated projects to determine what it called the “best path forward,” adding that “this may include ending the project after the completion of Phase 1 or at another appropriate stopping point.”

In the April 16 FEMA memo, the administration also justified BRIC by pointing to its purported failure to produce “concrete results” and the distribution of the “majority of funding … to only a few states.”

Community impacts

From small-town mayors to state emergency management coordinators, officials have reacted to the administration’s action with shock and disbelief.

“I don’t know what facts they are looking at to call this [program] wasteful,” said Maryland Secretary of Emergency Management Russell Strickland. “I know of nothing in Maryland that I would call wasteful.”

His agency estimates that communities across the state stand to lose more than $80 million across 26 applications that were in FEMA’s approval pipeline. The impact remains “undetermined” for $8.7 million that was allocated to 17 projects but hadn’t been spent as of the April 4 announcement.

Meanwhile, 31 Maryland-based applications for the 2024 funding year were dropped. Those $70 million in requests would have included $36 million for the second phase of Crisfield’s flood project and $16 million for a long-planned effort to fight frequent flooding in Cambridge, another Eastern Shore community struggling to transition its economy from seafood to tourism.

“We’re in a holding patten now,” Strickland said, adding that he hopes Congress and the administration work together to create a replacement for BRIC. He also is waiting to see whether Maryland and other states take legal action to overturn the decision.

The South Baltimore Gateway Partnership, along with other partners, has raised $67 million to restore the first phase of what will ultimately be 11 miles of the shoreline along the Middle Branch of the Patapsco River. BRIC funding accounted for about $32 million of that total. About $5 million has been used for designing the project, but the rest stands to be clawed back, said Brad Rogers, the partnership’s executive director.

So, Rogers said, the wetlands to be added along the shore by MedStar Harbor Hospital will be scaled back from 12.3 acres to 8 acres. And instead of simultaneously launching another project at the BGE Spring Gardens campus in Ridgely’s Cove, that phase will be delayed until more funds are raised.

“We are saddened that the federal construction funds won’t be available going forward, but we are confident this will still be a terrific project,” Rogers said. “We’re not being deterred. We’re just moving forward on a slightly different timeline.”

In Virginia, the affected projects included $12 million to upgrade Richmond’s water treatment plant and $24 million to repair and modernize Portsmouth’s Lake Meade Dam, which holds back the city’s main drinking water reservoir.

In Pennsylvania, outcry followed the cancellation of FEMA’s $2.5 million award to the city of Scranton to acquire 21 flood-prone properties and demolish 18 homes standing on them. The properties were set to be repurposed into infrastructure to help prevent future flooding, city officials say.

“You have people that are in limbo,” Scranton Mayor Paige Cognetti said. “Going forward, we are always going to have natural disasters. It’s absolutely untenable that cities and municipalities won’t have access to federal dollars to fend off and prevent [them] but also prepare [for them].”

Many of the places impacted by the program’s cancellation abound with Republican voters. For example, in Crisfield’s main voting precinct, Trump won a 56% margin of victory in last November’s election.

Plans there call for installing a tidal flood barrier that will surround most of the city as well as adding sewers, pump stations, water-retention facilities, tide gates and wetlands. The goal is to ensure protection from up to 5 feet of flooding above ground level — akin to the inundation from Superstorm Sandy in 2012.

Several residents recently completed coursework in a “resilience academy” program, hosted by the city and several partners. As part of their final project, three younger residents — all under 20 years old — pitched a plan to share knowledge with a “sister city” facing similar flooding issues.

“I live in this area,” said Emily Napier, indicating a point on the map near downtown, “and we flood on a daily basis.”

Dennis Marshall was on hand to collect his wife’s certificate in her absence. He owns a vacation rental in town that he says could benefit from the project.

“People come down here, and if they have to wear boots, they aren’t coming back,” he said. But Marshall added he is far from confident that the flood project, if built, would deliver the results it promises. “If it works, it’s fine,” he noted. “That’s the problem.”

Does he regret voting for Trump now that the Republican president has nixed the city’s massive windfall? “I think if he did it, he did it for a reason,” said Marshall, clad in a black Trump T-shirt.

Barbara Mete, another enrollee in the three-month resilience academy, moved to Crisfield about six years ago after retiring from a job in New York. She hoped the course would give her a deeper appreciation for her new home and the estuary at its doorstep. In the wake of the loss of funding, she is deeply concerned about her community’s future, she said.

Her message to Trump and FEMA? “Please think about the people who live here and the children that will come after your administration,” Mete said. “Nature is the key. If we take care of her, she will take care of us.”

By Jeremy Cox, Bay Journal

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

Intense Maryland Energy Debates in Annapolis Fill a Single Afternoon

February 7, 2025 by Maryland Matters

For the last few years, the nuclear energy industry has stood on the precipice of the Maryland energy policy debate, waiting for its close-up.

Industry leaders and their lobbyists have repeatedly talked about how important nuclear is to the state’s power portfolio. They have implied, without saying so outright, that nuclear, which accounts for 40% of the energy generated in the state, and 80% of its carbon-free energy, ought to get greater recognition from Maryland policymakers — along with state subsidies.

On Thursday, the head of the industry’s national trade association, the Nuclear Energy Institute, got more than an hour in the House Economic Matters Committee to boast about nuclear’s potential, as state lawmakers wrestle with an energy shortage, spiking prices, clean energy goals and climate mandates.

“The value of nuclear is you get all of this very reliable, clean power,” Maria Korsnick, the NEI CEO, testified. She later told lawmakers, “The point of my being here is to be helpful to you.”

The Calvert Cliffs nuclear plant in Southern Maryland has been a workhorse for five decades and is likely to be relicensed for several more decades sometime in the 2030s. But scientists and engineers are also developing more compact nuclear technologies that don’t require so much space and water to operate, which are often called small modular reactors (SMR).

A package of bills from legislative leaders designed to generate more energy in Maryland and reduce ratepayer costs, includes giving nuclear energy “tier 1” status, making it eligible for certain state clean energy subsidies. But House Economic Matters Chair C.T. Wilson (D-Charles), an architect of the just-introduced measures, said he invited NEI to speak to his committee not to hype nuclear power, but to inject a dose of reality, because the newer technologies still won’t be ready for several years.

“It’s a reminder to people it’s not a magic word,” Wilson said in an interview. “It’s got to be planned. It’s much more challenging than saying the word ‘SMR.’ It wasn’t to sell it.”

The nuclear briefing was part of a long day of hearings in the Economic Matters Committee on hot energy topics. The panel also heard testimony on legislation that would scale back a controversial natural gas infrastructure program, and on a massive bill to promote the generation of clean energy in Maryland.

In a way, it was a microcosm of the energy debates that will dominate the rest of the General Assembly session in a single afternoon.

A range of Maryland policymakers believe nuclear needs to become a bigger part of the state’s clean energy portfolio, especially as other technologies like solar and wind struggle to fully realize their potential.

“Nuclear has the opportunity to play — or to be — part of the solutions, like never before,” Korsnick told Economic Matters Committee members Thursday.

She laid out some of the new technologies that are being developed, answered questions about nuclear plant safety and security, the disposition of nuclear waste, the nuclear workforce, and steps states are taking to incentivize nuclear energy. Korsnick did not come with a specific ask of lawmakers, but did say that states and local communities are increasingly embracing nuclear power, where once they feared and shunned it.

“When I say nuclear is going to be thriving, it’s not because we’re pushing for it, it’s because people are pulling for it,” she said.

Boosting nuclear energy is part of the bill that the committee heard later in the day, the Abundant Affordable Clean Energy – Procurement and Development Act, sponsored by Del. Lorig Charkoudian (D-Montgomery). That bill would ease state regulatory hurdles for relicensing the Calvert Cliffs plant in the 2030’s (though the federal government takes the lead in that process).

Charkoudian’s bill also seeks to boost battery storage in the state, taking energy generated during off-peak hours and holding it in reserve for when there’s greater consumer demand. It would also ensure that whatever electric power is generated from offshore wind in federal waters off the coast of Ocean City remains in Maryland, and it would seek to dedicate a greater portion of state energy taxes assessed on data centers to more relief for utility ratepayers.

Charkoudian conceded the complexity of her legislation, and said tweaks and amendments are still being made.

“When you have a hundred different agencies and stakeholders and people working on a bill, it’s never going to be perfect,” she said.

But most of the individuals who testified on the bill were generally supportive, though Frederick Hoover, chair of the Maryland Public Service Commission, which regulates utilities, warned it could lead to more battles over where to site clean energy installations in the state.

Ambitious as Charkoudian’s bill is, it may be subsumed by the forthcoming debate over the House and Senate leaders’ legislative package on energy, and Thursday’s hearing on the bill was remarkably speedy, all things considered.

In fact, the hearing about the other bill on the committee’s docket, to place limitations on the state’s STRIDE program to repair and improve natural gas infrastructure, was far lengthier and more contentious. The bill, from Del. Elizabeth Embry (D-Baltimore City), would require gas companies to focus on safety when making upgrades to gas pipelines and other infrastructure.

The STRIDE law, which took effect in 2013, provides incentives to gas utilities to make a range of infrastructure improvements, which are paid for with fees on ratepayers’ gas bills. But with utility bills rising, critics of STRIDE have argued that gas companies are pushing forward on infrastructure work that may not be necessary, adding needless costs to consumers’ bills — especially as the state looks to move away from fossil fuels.

“Utilities generate higher profits by spending extra money with the government’s approval,” said David Lapp, who heads the Maryland Office of People’s Counsel, which represents consumers’ interests on utility matters.

Proponents of the legislation said it would emphasize community safety while saving ratepayers money.

“This bill does not repeal STRIDE,” Embry told her colleagues Thursday. “It’s a modest bill. It makes modest changes to the current law.”

But gas companies — and some Republicans on the committee — made the opposite argument, and the Republicans also suggested that Embry’s bill, as the state pushes to meet strict climate mandates, is secretly designed to kill off the natural gas industry.

Mark Case, a vice president at Baltimore Gas & Electric, warned that limiting the program — and the surcharges — could hinder the gas companies’ ability to replace aging industry that could pose a danger to communities. He said that since the inception of STRIDE, the company has typically replaced about 42 miles of pipe a year.

“These are not 5-year-old pipes where we’re going in and saying, ‘let’s go replace them.’”

Washington Gas lobbyists came with Cynthia Quarterman, who was the administrator of the federal Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration under former President Barack Obama. She said Maryland must “stay the course [with STRIDE] to catch up to other states” and that upgrading gas pipelines is “of the utmost importance.”

But Laurel Peltier, who assists low-income ratepayers through her work for AARP, told Maryland Matters that the STRIDE program has become perverted.

“The issue with gas delivery and STRIDE overall is, ratepayers have become ATMs and gas utilities have their PINs,” she said.

By Josh Kurtz

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Md. leads in carbon emissions reductions – Maryland Matters

November 18, 2024 by Maryland Matters

Here’s some rare good news for Marylanders on climate change: A new analysis of federal government data found that Maryland led the way when it came to states reducing greenhouse gas emissions over a 17-year period.

Maryland cut carbon emissions by 36% between 2005 and 2022 and by 42% per capita, according to the report released this week by Environment America Research & Policy Center.

The center, part of Environment America, a national network of 30 state environmental groups that includes Maryland PIRG, took data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on greenhouse gas emissions across the nation and used the numbers to evaluate the states’ performance reducing carbon pollution.

While Maryland saw emissions reductions in most sectors, the building sector continues to lag — a fact reinforced by another environmental study that was released this week.

Nationally, the United States reduced its overall greenhouse gas emissions by 15% and its per capita emissions by 25% — though the report found significant variations in emissions trends by state for the 2005-2022 period. Maryland was the top state in reducing emissions of planet-warming greenhouse gases, followed by the District of Columbia, Maine, New Hampshire and Georgia.

While 44 states reduced their carbon emissions over the 17 years, Mississippi, Texas, Nebraska, South Dakota, Idaho and North Dakota saw increases, largely attributable to increased oil and gas production in those states. Every state but North Dakota decreased their emissions on a per capita basis.

Ferguson seeks to remove incinerators from state’s renewable energy subsidy program

Emily Scarr, senior adviser with the Maryland Public Interest Research Group (PIRG) Foundation, attributed the state’s strong showing to durable state policies and its participation in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), a consortium of Northeastern and mid-Atlantic states that have worked together to cut coal plant emissions. Collectively, the initial 10 RGGI states (excluding Pennsylvania) cut pollution from power plants by 50% from 2005 to 2023, with much of that reduction resulting from the closure of coal-fired power plants.

“Our progress in reducing greenhouse gas emissions shows that state and regional policies and actions can make a difference,” Scarr said. “Improving the efficiency of our homes, retiring coal plants, and making cars that pollute less all contributed to the decline we’ve seen.”

According to the analysis, Maryland has reduced its emissions in the electric power sector, industrial sector, agricultural sector, transportation sector and residential sector. The largest decrease was in the electric power sector, cutting emissions by 66% between 2005 and 2022. Maryland has seen several coal plants shuttered while others are scheduled to do so; states that still produce a significant amount of their electricity using coal and gas saw fewer reductions and have high per capita emissions.

As of 2022, Maryland saw only a 4% reduction in emissions from the residential sector, however, leaving significant room for improvement. And the only sector that has seen an increase in emissions in Maryland is the commercial buildings sector, which saw a 23% rise in emissions. In 2022, the majority of carbon emissions from the commercial sector was from burning fossil fuels for heat and hot water in commercial buildings.

The latter finding was echoed in a newly released study commissioned by the Sierra Club, which found that buildings play an unexpectedly large role in contributing to dangerous levels of smog pollution.

Smog pollution, otherwise known as ground-level ozone, is a major public health issue in Maryland, with approximately 5.1 million Marylanders living in areas with unsafe levels of smog. Smog can cause chronic respiratory illnesses, asthma attacks, bronchitis, and premature death, and it’s a particular problem in the state’s more urban areas.

While heavy-duty vehicles and power plants contribute to smog, the Sierra Club study, conducted by Sonoma Technology, found that gas-burning appliances in buildings, like water heaters, play an increasing part in contributing to smog pollution.

Maryland is in the process of implementing Building Energy Performance Standards (BEPS) as required under the Climate Solutions Now Act of 2022. The standards apply to large buildings in the state, including commercial buildings, with a goal of achieving zero net direct greenhouse gas emissions by 2040.

But the Sierra Club and other environmental groups have argued that Maryland can reduce its smog problem by requiring buildings to replace dirty gas-burning equipment with clean, efficient electric equipment, such as efficient heat pumps.

“Maryland can take action to reduce pollution from the building sector by adopting policies that promote clean, energy-efficient electric equipment in buildings,” said Josh Tulkin, director of the Sierra Club Maryland Chapter. “Such policies would significantly improve public health and help Maryland meet its climate goals.”

The release of the two studies comes as Maryland scrambles to meet its goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 60% by 2031 and having a carbon-neutral economy by 2040. The state’s plans to implement ambitious climate programs and promote the use of clean energy could be stymied by their high price tag: A study released late last year by the Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE) estimated that it would cost the state about $10 billion to achieve all its climate goals — at a time when the state’s revenue estimates are gloomy.

World leaders are meeting this week and next in Azerbaijan for the annual United Nations climate conference, amid fears that President-elect Donald Trump will pull the U.S. from its previous international climate commitments and try to dismantle many of President Joe Biden’s climate and clean-energy initiatives. MDE Secretary Serena McIlwain is attending the conference, as she did last year.

by Josh Kurtz, Maryland Matters
November 15, 2024

Maryland Matters is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Maryland Matters maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Steve Crane for questions: [email protected]. Follow Maryland Matters on Facebook and X.

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

Maryland Levies Fines on Perdue, Valley Proteins for Environmental Violations

August 21, 2024 by Bay Journal

The Perdue AgriBusiness soybean processing plant in Salisbury, MD, added machinery without a permit, leading to more air pollution, according to the Maryland Department of the Environment.

Two major agricultural companies ramped up operations recently on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, and the environment paid a price, according to the Maryland Department of the Environment.

One case involves the agency’s second-largest cash penalty in its history while the other has reopened a long-running pollution saga that local environmentalists hoped had been resolved.

Perdue’s plant, situated a couple blocks away from its parent company’s headquarters, extracts the oil from soybeans to be used in cooking, among other uses.

Perdue applied for a permit in 2017 but withdrew the application the following year after MDE indicated it would require additional review. The company went ahead anyway with the installation of the new machinery in September 2017, followed by a second round in May 2019, according to the settlement agreement.

After the plant’s expansion, the hexane emissions, state officials say, exceeded the 40-ton annual threshold to be considered a new “major source” of pollution, MDE alleged. Hexane is a volatile organic compound, a major ingredient in ground-level ozone that can worsen an array of breathing problems from asthma to emphysema, experts say.

MDE records show annual VOC emissions increased at the facility by 28% from 2017 to 2019, from 246 tons to 315 tons.

“Everyone must follow the rules which are in place to keep Marylanders safe. When Perdue failed to comply, it was the community who suffered the undue burden, so there must be meaningful penalties,” said Attorney General Anthony Brown. “I am glad that Perdue has accepted responsibility and will be investing in the surrounding neighborhoods moving forward.”

The settlement calls for Perdue to pay an $8 million fine to the state. The only larger civil penalty in MDE’s history was the $29 million settlement in 2018 with Volkswagen over the auto manufacturer’s installation of “defeat devices” on certain vehicles, aimed at circumventing emissions tests.

Perdue also must install $3.5 million in pollution-reduction measures at the plant, including electrifying diesel-fired equipment, and contribute $400,000 to Salisbury for a tree planting campaign in areas with poor canopy coverage.

In separate press statements, the two sides left a muddled picture about when and how the problem came to light. MDE’s legal complaint says that agency staff and Perdue representatives “met at various times” to discuss the cause of the emission increases. It wasn’t until correspondence on April 11, 2022, however, that Perdue “finally admitted” it had installed the equipment without a permit, MDE alleged in a legal complaint.

Meanwhile, Perdue spokeswoman Kate Shaw said in a statement that “The discrepancy was discovered in May of 2020, as part of our air permit renewal process.” Her statement doesn’t indicate who discovered the discrepancy or whether state inspectors were aware of it at the time. She added, “We take full accountability for what occurred. The individuals who did not reapply for the permit are no longer with the company.”

When asked for clarification via email, Bill See, another Perdue spokesman, replied, “Our original statement stands on its own.”

In a separate case, MDE charges that Darling Ingredients, owner of the Valley Proteins poultry rendering plant in Dorchester County, has violated its October 2022 consent decree. Under that settlement, Darling Ingredients agreed to pay $540,000 to the state while fixing wastewater and stormwater problems at the troubled plant.

“I would say this facility is in no better shape than it was in 2021 when we filed the lawsuit,” said Matt Pluta, the Choptank Riverkeeper and director of riverkeeper programs at ShoreRivers, one of the environmental groups whose lawsuit triggered the decree. “In fact, it’s probably gotten worse.”

A few months after the settlement was signed, MDE renewed the plant’s discharge permit, allowing a nearly four-fold increase in the amount of wastewater it can release into the Transquaking River, a nutrient-impaired Chesapeake Bay tributary. Environmentalists had pushed MDE to impose tougher limits and not let the company expand until showing it could meet them, but the agency didn’t do so.

Problems have piled up since that approval. MDE inspectors say they uncovered 51 violations of the decree’s requirement to maintain at least 2 feet of freeboard – the distance from the surface of the wastewater to the top of the holding pits. In May, MDE announced plans to fine Darling $15,000.

The Texas-based company formally contested the fine, arguing that all the exceedances fell under an exception in the decree for lagoon levels to rise because of heavy rainfall.

MDE also contends that the plant has been hauling away production waste from the lagoons without going through the complete treatment process. Farmers use the material, known as “dissolved air flotation,” to fertilize their fields. But in adjoining Caroline County, the practice has sparked an outcry from neighbors about foul odors and prompted county commissioners to enact a moratorium on its storage.

Darling representatives have told the state they believe their current permit allows the hauling to continue. Ongoing upgrades to the wastewater treatment plant, required as part of the 2022 decree, will substantially reduce, if not eliminate, such hauling, they say.

“We have responded to the MDE and share its commitment to resolving this issue through the established MDE process,” Darling spokeswoman Jillian Fleming said in a statement.

The agency notified Darling in June that it was referring the hauling matter along with other recent violations to the state Attorney General’s Office.

By Jeremy Cox

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

Bay Climate Adaptation: The TNC Guide in Finding the Money for Major Infrastructure Change

August 12, 2024 by Henley Moore

A few months ago, The Nature Conservancy released a report that could solve one of the major obstacles facing climate adaptation: finding the money to do things.

Many towns, particularly on the Eastern Shore, are facing an increasingly long list of infrastructure projects, but funding those expensive undertakings has become harder. That’s where TNC’s report, SEAFARE, could make a huge difference to those municipalities.

Through workshops with various stakeholders, including local residents, environmental justice leaders, and government officials, the report identifies barriers like complicated funding processes. It provides a toolkit to help decision-makers improve access to those dollars.

The Spy’s Dave Wheelan spoke to Human Sharif, TNC’s climate adaptation manager, to understand more.

This video is approximately five minutes in length. For more information about this report please go here.

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Mid-Shore Arts Plein Air Easton and ESLC Pair Up to Promote Land Conservation

July 19, 2024 by Steve Parks

Painting by Russell Jewell

Plein Air Easton introduced a new collaboration during its just-concluded 20th anniversary festival with the Eastern Shore Land Conservancy. This invitational for past and current PAE artists was intended to connect art to the cause of – guess what? – land conservation.

Eighteen artists participated in the exhibit that ran through the end of the Plein Air fest on July 20. The show and sale at ESLC headquarters on Washington Street was mounted, in part, by way of a grant by Bruce Wiltsie, who has partnered with the Avalon Foundation since the start of Plein Air Easton. He has just been inducted into the PAE Hall of Fame for, as the event program stated, “years of support for the many ways that art can underscore the vital importance of conservation of our land and the beauty that surrounds us.”

The participating artists were Jill Basham, Tim Beall, Zufar Bikbov, Hiu Lai Chong, Lisa Egeli, Martin Geiger, Stephen Griffin, Joe Gyurcsak, Charlie Hunter, Debra Huse, Russell Jewell, Mick McAndrews, Charles Newman, Daniel Robbins, Mark Shasha, John Brandon Sills, Mary Veiga and Stewart White.

Some of the paintings are along the lines of what you may have viewed (or purchased) at the festival, including Debra Huse’s lavish brushstroke-textured “Historic Beauty” of trees bending over river’s edge and pointing toward a puff-clouded sky. But several others reminded me personally of the farm I was raised on in the ’50s and ’60s on Dutchman’s Lane, virtually next door to where I live now in Easton Club East. One-hundred acres of that farm are being developed into a Four Seasons 55-and-up community. (Full disclosure: My parents sold the farm in the ’70s.)

I remember a time when much of the waterfront acreage in Talbot County was tilled as farmland harvested for corn, wheat, rye and soybeans. Most of that land is now occupied by grand waterview estates, many like the ones hosting the annual “Meet the Artists” party which opens Plein Air Easton. I have no quarrel with that as those former agricultural fields with a view – maybe even a beach – were not much more accessible to trespassers than these myriad private waterfront properties, now best seen by boat or by rare – but often generous – invitation.

The paintings that resonated most with me depicted farm scenes that are still integral to Talbot County’s rural character. John Brandon Sills’ “Sunset, Yorktown Farm” for one, arrays a planted field in the fading evening light. Another, from the same 500-acre Talbot County farm, features a large harvesting combine like the one I was not allowed to operate as a boy but occasionally perched upon when my father was done or when it was parked in a shed – just like the one in Russell Jewell’s “Deep Breath & Swallows.” Can’t figure the title to that one, priced at $1,900. Other paintings in the show fetched up to $3,000.

Proceeds from the sale go to the artists and to Plein Air Easton, care of the Avalon Foundation. ESLC plans to use the paintings or copies of them as future educational tools.

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Wild-Caught Chesapeake Blue Catfish Phenomenon Booming: Thank Goodness

June 20, 2024 by Dennis Forney

Horacio Savala oversees the fileting and packaging operation for Tilghman Island Seafood’s blue catfish processing facility. Quality control is paramount with the fish on ice from the time they leave the water until placed on the fileting table.

Buena Vista Seafood in San Francisco deals in high-end seafood from all around the world. European blue lobsters, Kambatia Reef Fish from Kenya, California Purple Urchins, and Icelandic Arctic Cod, to name a few.

Now, the company has added wild-caught Chesapeake Blue Catfish to its list of offerings.

“Chesapeake blue catfish check all the boxes,” says Polly Legendre, who’s involved in sales and operations for Buena Vista.

“They’re a great tasting fish, clean and neutral with a nice flake. They’re also an affordable dinner fish whether for white tablecloth restaurants or for the family table. That’s very important in the current state of the nation.”

Legendre said the blue cats check the sustainability box because they’re an invasive species, ”insanely prolific in terms of reproduction. Targeting them for harvest will help ease the toll they’re taking on the rockfish and blue crab populations, both iconic value species that have built the Chesapeake reputation. Tilghman Island Seafood’s processing capacity and dedication to quality control give their filets a long shelf life and are the reason we can get them from the East Coast to the West Coast in great condition. So they’re a sustainable and reliable fishery.

“Finally, and very important,” said Legendre, is the positive social impact for the Chesapeake’s fishing community. “While addressing a real environmental problem, the growing blue catfish industry is also benefiting ice providers, truck drivers, cutters and packagers in the processing facility, and providing a new opportunity for watermen feeling pressure from fewer crabs and rockfish.”

That’s particularly notable, she said, in an era when watermen, here and in other parts of the country, are suffering from more and more restrictions on their harvesting. “This blue cat fishery is adding quota and volume to fisheries, allowing fishermen to catch with abandon. That’s positive for the industry.”

Good diet = Good fish

Unlike other species of bottom-dwelling catfish, blue catfish feed throughout the water column. That diet of other fish, crabs, clams and even rockfish eggs foraged from grasses in spawning grounds, no doubt contributes to the attractive flavor profile that differentiates them from other catfish.

On Tuesday this week, Tilghman Island Seafood Company air-shipped 400 pounds of fresh blue catfish filets westward to Buena Vista, just the latest in many shipments. That’s only a sliver of the estimated 100,000 pounds of fish Tilghman Island is now processing each week for its retail, restaurant and institutional customers such as schools and food banks.

All of those thousands of pounds of fish have been on ice from the time they have been pulled from the Bay’s waters. Tilghman Island Seafood president and owner Nick Hargrove set that water-to-ice standard early on.

Tilghman Island Seafood Vice President Norm McCowan and Office Manager Becky Miller with some of the packaging used to ship orders from coast to coast. Dennis Forney Photos.

He provides insulated composite vats filled with ice for the fishermen and truckers who catch the fish and transport them to the Tilghman processing facility, beside the island’s drawbridge over Knapp’s Narrows. “Keeping the fish on ice throughout the process has become second nature to everyone. Quality is critical to the marketing of them as Wild Caught Chesapeake Blue Catfish. They have to be marketed that way.”

In the past few weeks, Hargrove has flown twice to Boston for, first, a fisheries conference, and then last week to follow up on more potential new business. “We have to have sales,” he said. “I already had a military customer. More may be on the way. You can’t produce 20,000 pounds a day if you have no customers. All of it is wild caught and sustainable. Can’t emphasize how important that is.”

While Hargrove is off cultivating new customers, or out on local waters placing spat on shell for his oyster leasing operations, Vice President Norm McCowan manages Tilghman Island Seafood company. “Nick is a great spokesman with great vision,” said McCowan, “and because he’s a waterman himself, he knows the other watermen and how important the seafood industry is to the region.”

McCowan said Hargrove gets calls almost every day from fishermen wanting to sell blue cats, while he and office manager Becky Miller handle shipments, processing and packaging. “We send out samples every day to restaurants and other seafood distributors like Buena Vista. We are meeting the demand for the market we’re creating but we know our potential market is much larger than just state and local. Texas, for example, is the largest catfish-eating state so we know we need to penetrate the South with our product.”

Exponential growth

The Tilghman operation is a busy place, with trucks always coming and going–coming with iced fish and leaving with more vats filled with ice for the next catch.

“We’re growing exponentially,” said McCowan “Eighty percent of our sales are frozen, with 20 percent going to the fresh market, locally and across Maryland and as far away is San Francisco. But the catfish problem in the Bay is huge. Like Nick says, we have to eat our way out if it. We have to take out 15 million pounds of fish a year just to keep up with the current balance. We’ve processed a half million pounds of fish in the past two months–2.4 million pounds since we started a year and a half ago or so. A guy is coming in today with 2,400 pounds of fish. At 60 to 70 cents a pound, that’s a nice check for him.”

At 30 percent yield, those 2,400 pounds of fish will produce about 800 pounds of filets.

The numbers keep coming. Hargrove said it’s estimated that the total blue catfish biomass in the Chesapeake is about 150,000 tons, or 300 million pounds. In Virginia’s James River, where the blue catfish were first introduced as a recreational species in the 1970s, Hargrove said it’s estimated they now represent 80 to 90 percent of the river’s entire biomass. “I’ve seen as much as 200,000 pounds come out of the Potomac in one day,” said Hargrove. “With each fish producing up to 20,000 offspring a year, they’re not going anywhere. We’re never getting rid of them.”

According to a Department of Natural resources press release, Maryland’s watermen harvested 609,525 pounds of blue catfish in 2013. By 2023, that number had jumped to 4.2 million pounds and is still rising.

With the help of Maryland’s two US Senators, Ben Cardin and Chris Van Hollen, and First District Congressman Andy Harris, more than $3 million in federal money has been allocated to stimulate blue catfish processing facilities like Tilghman Island Seafood which is currently Maryland’s only United States Department of Agriculture-certified processing facility.

Hargrove said he is interested in expanding to another facility in Talbot County, preferably on Tilghman Island. “This is where we want to be,” said Hargrove. He said he would also be interested in adding an automatic fileting machine to his operation if he would qualify for grant money to help with the million-dollar expenditure. “It’s a lot of money but it would enable us to process four or five times as much fish as we do now. I can’t wait for that though. We have to keep operating and expanding as we are now.”

He said if he were able to get an automatic machine, current cutters could be redeployed downstream in the operation for other aspects such as portioning, creating more of the popular blue catfish nuggets, packaging and shipping.

Harris said he is also working with at least two other parties on the Eastern Shore who are interested in becoming blue catfish processors.

Big buy from USDA?

Meanwhile, at the federal delegation’s urging, the USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service has recently advertised draft specifications allowing it to purchase wild-caught blue catfish filets for national-level institutions, including school systems, penitentiaries, and military installations.

The USDA requires a federal inspector to be onsite at facilities such as Tilghman Island Seafood whenever it is processing fish, to guarantee its safety and quality. Catfish are the only category of fish for which the government’s most rigorous inspections are required. Up until now, according to Harris, and due to lobbying pressure from southern, farm-raised catfish producers, the AMS could only buy farm-raised catfish.

The new draft specifications allowing the government purchase of wild-caught catfish are in a comment period before final distribution to potential bidders.

“The good news is they buy by the truckload,” said McCowan. “That’s about 38,000 pounds, which we can do.”

“This would be a big deal for the industry,” said Hargrove. “Eight months ago when the AMS announced plans to purchase farm-raised catfish for its programs, it was for 800,000 pounds of filets. This time around we’ll try to get into it. We’ll bid.”

He said there’s another plus for wild caught blue catfish. According to a recent Virginia Tech study he said, the heart-healthy omega-3 oil levels–found in many fish–are several times higher in blue cats than in farm-raised catfish.

Hargrove noted that Tilghman Island Seafood has recently been certified for exporting overseas to Poland and Asia.

“There’s definitely room for growth in blue cats,” he said.

Buena Vista’s Legendre will be traveling this week from San Francisco to Tilghman Island for further reviewing, videoing, and discussions with Hargrove and his crew as she continues her plans for ramping up sales of blue catfish west of the Mississippi.

To say she’s excited about the prospects is an understatement.

“I want to sell in Las Vegas and Los Angeles, Portland and Seattle and San Diego. The fish and its quality are important to the California chefs but they’re also concerned about the sustainability, the problems associated with invasive species, and helping the fishing communities. We need to let the nation and world know that in this case harvesting this resource is solving more problems than it is causing. I want to get chefs on some of the cooking shows talking about the virtues of Wild Caught Chesapeake Blue Catfish.”

Upward trajectory comes to mind.

“It’s hold on to your hat with this one,” said Hargrove. “This is still just the beginning.”

Dennis Forney has been a publisher, journalist and columnist on the Delmarva Peninsula since 1972. He writes from his home on Grace Creek in Bozman.

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

Blue Crab Populations are Down, But Experts are Not Worried

June 7, 2024 by Maryland Matters

The number of blue crabs in the Chesapeake Bay is down slightly from last year, to 317 million, but researchers said the numbers are manageable and they see “no serious reason for concern.”

The population estimates come from the annual winter dredge survey released last month by the Maryland Department of Natural Resources and the Virginia Institute of Marine Science. It estimated that the overall number of crabs this year is down from the 323 million estimated in 2023.

The decrease was due to a drop in the number of adult crabs, which fell from 207 million in 2023 to 179 million this year. But adult populations are still within a range researchers consider safe.

Although the population of juvenile crabs continued to rise in recent years, it still remains below average.

Romuald Lipcius, a VIMS researcher who helped conduct the survey, pointed to the juvenile and female crab populations as points of focus.

“The number that we saw this year for the females was just below the average … it’s remaining at what I would consider to be at an average level,” said Lipscius, who is also a professor of marine biology at William and Mary University. “Not the safest level, but it’s no serious reason for concern.

First Baby Eagles Hatch on Reborn Chesapeake Island

June 5, 2024 by Bay Journal

Some eagle-eyed wildlife biologists have made a surprising discovery at Poplar Island.

That’s the island in Maryland’s portion of the Chesapeake Bay that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Maryland Port Authority have been rebuilding over the last 25 years. What was once almost entirely open water is now more than 1,700 acres of rock-ringed land.

One of the primary aims behind creating the island was to reestablish some of the habitat that waterfowl and shorebirds have lost around the Chesapeake to rising seas, erosion and shoreline development. According to the latest count, about 40 different bird species have successfully nested on Poplar and produced young.

But one iconic species wasn’t among them — until now.

A federal wildlife official attached purple bands on the legs of two newly hatched eagles on Maryland’s Poplar Island in May 2024 to help identify them later. Photo by Craig Koppie/U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service

On May 2 this year, a veteran U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service scientist named Craig Koppie shimmied up a cottonwood tree on a spit of higher terrain on the north side of the island. He peered down into a stick-laden nest known to have been built by bald eagles the previous fall. Inside were a pair of newly hatched eaglets — a male and a female.

“It’s that quote where ‘If you build it, they will come,’” said Peter McGowan, a Fish and Wildlife biologist who has been involved in the Poplar project since the mid-1990s. “If you have this nice habitat, things will move in, and they will move in quick. You never know what’s going to show up, and that’s one of the great parts of the job.”

McGowan said he isn’t surprised that eagles would nest on the island. He thought it would only be a matter of time. Still, the dynamics behind the island’s reconstruction didn’t make it a likely candidate to host eagles.

The original Poplar Island once sprawled across more than 1,100 acres a few miles west of Tilghman Island on the Eastern Shore. At its height, Poplar was home to a population of about 100 people. There were several farms, a school, a church, a post office and a sawmill.

Like dozens of other low-lying islands around the Chesapeake Bay, though, Poplar was washing away. By the 1920s, the last of its residents had fled to higher ground. By the late 1990s, only a few acres of land remained.

Enter the Paul S. Sarbanes Ecosystem Restoration Project. Named after the U.S. senator from Maryland who championed the effort, the project is rebuilding the island using mud dredged up from Baltimore’s shipping channels to keep its port open to navigation.

The first mud delivery came in 2001, and the last is expected to arrive in the mid-2030s.

To make the island as hospitable as possible for water-loving birds, engineers designed Poplar to poke only slightly above the surrounding tide. The landscape is largely given over to marshes and mudflats. The only trees planted so far have been a handful in a small test plot.

That doesn’t bode well for eagles, who generally seek out trees as their nesting spots. But nature appears to have intervened on their behalf, McGowan said.

The cottonwood tree that harbors the young eagles sprang up on its own. It’s part of a clutch of trees on about an acre’s worth of slightly higher ground surrounded by marsh. Despite the harsh environment, some have grown more than 60 feet tall, McGowan estimates.

Eagles have been spotted flying overhead and hunting around Poplar since the earliest days of its restoration, he noted. A stone’s throw away from Poplar lies tree-lined Coaches Island and its cache of four eagle nests (two of which are active).

But McGowan and his colleagues had to wait about 20 years into the project before they noticed the first signs that eagles were trying to nest on Poplar. It started with a pair of eagles’ effort to build a nest on the metal grate top of a water-control structure in 2020.

“Obviously, it wasn’t the best place for an eagle to nest,” he said.

The nest didn’t last. A second attempt atop a spillway the following year also failed. Then, the scientists noticed a mound of sticks growing larger in a cottonwood tree where a crow’s nest had been. It was too big for the supporting branches and eventually tumbled out of the tree.

Another nest in the same tree started taking shape last fall. McGowan can’t say for sure whether its builders are the same eagles that had enlarged the crow’s nest, but he suspects they are. This time, the nest was more centered over the trunk and less likely to fall.

By March, the amount of time the eagles spent perched on the nest suggested that there were eggs inside of it. Koppie’s climb in May confirmed the presence of two eaglets. Before descending, he attached purple bands on their legs, identifying one bird as “09/E” and the other as “10/E.”

Disaster nearly struck toward the end of May when a strong storm knocked the nest out of the tree. Biologists quickly reconstructed a new nest on a nearby pole and put the eaglets in it. Soon, their parents were back to taking care of them, McGowan said.

The young birds will probably take wing by June, McGowan said. Will their parents try again in the future? McGowan is optimistic that they will.

“That’s a good place to raise a family,” he said. “So, they should come back next year and in following years.”

By Jeremy Cox

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

Report dolphin sightings with Chesapeake Dolphin Watch and help scientists with Chesapeake Bay research

May 7, 2024 by University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science

Dolphins in the Miles River photo by Susan Hale for UMCES

Thousands of residents and visitors with their eyes on the water have helped scientists understand when bottlenose dolphins are visiting the Chesapeake Bay. Are you ready to be one of them?

Dolphin in South River. Photo submitted to Chesapeake DolphinWatch by Stephanie Westrick. (University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science)

Researchers at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science’s (UMCES) Chesapeake Biological Laboratory launched the Chesapeake DolphinWatch App in 2017 to get real-time reports of dolphin sightings on the largest estuary in the United States. Since then, scientists have received over 7,000 reports of dolphin sightings—submitted by over 14,600 registered app users—to help track the patterns of dolphin visits to the bay. Nearly 1,500 sightings were reported last year alone.

“We are about to begin our eighth year of leveraging citizen scientists to understand the biology and ecology of bottlenose dolphins in the Chesapeake Bay,” said UMCES Professor Tom Miller, who now leads the program created by Helen Bailey. “Chesapeake DolphinWatch uses underwater microphones called hydrophones to listen for dolphin sounds and relies on citizen scientists to report their sightings of dolphins when they are out on the water.“

The Chesapeake DolphinWatch app was created to allow people who are already enjoying the Chesapeake Bay to report sightings of dolphins, including the time, date, GPS location, number of animals observed, and pictures and video of the animals throughout the bay, creating an unprecedented observation network.

“Not only can users see their sightings, but they can also see the sightings of other users,” said Miller. “This means that if you are looking for dolphins, Chesapeake DolphinWatch can guide you to where they were last seen near your location. However, it is important that you keep a safe and respectful distance from these charismatic animals.”

Chesapeake DolphinWatch

In 2015, bottlenose dolphins were thought to be only occasional visitors to the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries, but after placing underwater microphones in the Patuxent River, scientists discovered there were more frequent detections than they had expected. This discovery sparked interest by researchers who were curious to know just how often dolphins were visiting the bay and where they were venturing. After launching the app and listening underwater for dolphins, UMCES researchers discovered there were more consistent sightings and detections over a broader area than they had expected.

“We know from the sounds we hear underwater that dolphins are actively feeding during much of their time in the Chesapeake Bay,” said Miller. “DolphinWatchers have uploaded photos of very young dolphins accompanying their mothers during this time, showing that dolphins use the bay as a nursery.”

Results have shown the distribution of dolphins in the Chesapeake Bay to be seasonal. Dolphins are present in the extreme lower bay near Norfolk, Va. all year. As the waters warm in late spring and fish reproduce, the dolphins begin to occur further and further north in the bay. From May to September, dolphins are regularly seen north of the Bay Bridge in the upper bay. DolphinWatchers are reporting sightings from Norfolk, Va. to Havre de Grace, Md. by July.

Chesapeake DolphinWatch researchers collect, analyze and synthesize the data to advance our understanding of how bottlenose dolphins use the bay. Researchers verify as many sightings as possible each year with photo verification, or a written description of the encounter and will contact users by email with questions, or issues with their sightings. This verification process allows researchers to use the data in scientific analyses to understand how dolphins are using the bay.

Visit www.umces.edu/dophinwatch for details. Follow Chesapeake DolphinWatch on Facebook @Chesapeake DolphinWatch, or Instagram @dolphinwatch_cb, for postings about sightings and information about dolphins together with interactive quizzes and polls.

The program is made possible by the Chesapeake Biological Laboratory and the Chesapeake Bay Trust, and benefits from generous support from the JES Avanti Foundation and from DolphinWatchers themselves. Contact Tom Miller at [email protected] to find out more about supporting the program.

Located where the Patuxent River meets the Chesapeake Bay, the oldest publicly supported marine laboratory on the East Coast is a national leader in research on fisheries, estuarine ecology, environmental chemistry and toxicology research of the Chesapeake Bay and aquatic ecosystem around the globe.

UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND CENTER FOR ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE

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

FOR PHOTOS AND VIDEOS:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1cEBl1dw9OD6XDVxZpY0kRH-avVbOR-HN?usp=sharing

https://www.umces.edu/dolphinwatch/photos

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

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