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March 4, 2021

The Talbot Spy

The nonprofit e-newspaper for the Talbot County Community

Ecosystem Eco Notes

Enviro Congressional Scorecard: Good Grades for Dems, a Zero for Rep. Harris

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The League of Conservation Voters released its annual congressional scorecard Thursday, and the Maryland delegation lined up about as expected:

Six House Democrats — Reps. Steny H. Hoyer, Kweisi Mfume, Jamie B. Raskin, C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger, John P. Sarbanes and David J. Trone — received perfect 100% scores. Rep. Anthony G. Brown (D) got 95% on the scorecard, and the state’s two senators, Benjamin L. Cardin and Chris Van Hollen, both Democrats, scored 92% grades.

Rep. Andy Harris

The lone Republican in Maryland’s congressional delegation, Rep. Andrew P. Harris, got a zero.

Harris’ lifetime score from LCV is 3%, while the Democrats’ range from 82% (Hoyer) to 99% (Raskin).

“President Biden has wasted no time putting climate at the top of his agenda to protect our future,” Maryland LCV’s executive director, Kim Coble, said in a statement. “Thankfully we have representatives who have stood up for Maryland’s values and put our future first. But Representative Andy Harris continues to side with corporate polluters over Maryland’s health and environment.”

According to LCV, the scores were tabulated using 21 House votes that advanced pro-environmental and pro-democracy bills, provisions, and government funding. In the Senate, for the fourth year in a row, the majority of the 13 scored votes were based on nominations both to the federal bench and the Trump administration.

The scorecard also includes votes on removing public monuments to racism and policing and criminal justice reform. LCV leaders say racism and environmental justice issues are increasingly intertwined.

Nationally, the U.S. Senate, which was under Republican control in 2020, had a 46% score from LCV. The House, which was in Democratic hands, scored 59% collectively.

“In an incredibly difficult and unprecedented year and with the most anti-environmental president ever, pro-environment members of the 116th Congress paved the way for transformational action on climate and environmental justice,” said LCV Senior Vice President of Government Affairs Tiernan Sittenfeld.

By Josh Kurtz

Environmental Concern Joins Global Wetlands Celebration

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The professionals at Environmental Concern work every day to advance wetland restoration and education in the Chesapeake Bay watershed. One of the many ways they do this is by raising awareness of the importance of wetlands for water quality and natural habitat within the watershed community.

On February 2nd, Environmental Concern (EC) joined more than two thousand Wetlands of International Importance in 171 countries as well as National Parks, National Wildlife Refuges, Wetland Centers and environmental facilities across the US to celebrate World Wetlands Day.

World Wetlands Day commemorates the signing of the Convention on Wetlands on February 2, 1971, in Ramsar, Iran. The Convention on Wetlands is a global treaty supporting the conservation and wise use of wetlands, and the designation of ‘Wetlands of International Importance’ (“Ramsar Sites”). The Sites are recognized for rare and unique habitat, wildlife, and biological diversity. The United States has designated forty-one Ramsar Sites since 1986, covering more than five million acres of wetland habitat.

Photo: Front row – Chris Blizzard, Connor Burton, Chris Oakes, Marcia Pradines (refuge manager), Ashley Roe, Suzanne Pittenger-Slear (EC president); Back row – Lyndsey Pollock, John Sandkuhler, Sam Eisenhower, Joe Miller, Nick Sparacino, Anne Sindermann, Josie Aikey and Gene Slear.

The World Wetland Theme this year is Inseparable: Wetlands, Water and Life, which shines a spotlight on wetlands as a source of freshwater and encourages actions to restore wetlands.

“We are fortunate to have a Ramsar site here on Maryland’s eastern shore,” said EC president Suzanne Pittenger-Slear. The Chesapeake Bay Estuarine Complex, which includes Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge, was designated as a ‘Wetland of International Importance’ in 1986. The refuge consists of more than 30,000 acres of tidal marsh, loblolly pine forests, and freshwater wetlands, and serves as an essential stopover for migrating and wintering waterfowl. The Wildlife Drive, which includes access to four trails, is open daily from sunrise to sunset. “The winter season offers amazing views of the vast wetland ecosystems and natural habitats,” said Pittenger-Slear. Learn about the importance of wetlands by planning a family outing to Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge this month (check website for hours of operation). World Wetlands Day events continue through the month of February. The US activities are posted here:https://www.worldwetlandsday.org/events.

Each year, Pittenger-Slearcoordinates an annual trip to Blackwater NWRon World Wetlands Day with Refuge Manager, Marcia Pradines. This year, Pradines greeted 15 members of EC’s staff in front of the refuge Visitor’s Center before they started their journey on the four-mile Wildlife Drive. Pradines reported that just after sunrise, the refuge staff counted over twelve thousand snow geese (Chen caerulescens), three white pelicans (Pelecanuserythrorhynchos), and two hundred tundra swans (Cygnus columbiannus). Watching the white pelicans resting along the shoreline on the Blackwater River was an amazing sight. The group also observed two adult eagles in a nest in a loblolly pine tree (Pinustaeda) near the Wildlife Drive. “We were all so excited to see the majestic eagles in their natural habitat,” said Pittenger-Slear. The refuge is the center of the largest density of breeding bald eagles on the east coast, north of Florida.

The trip offered EC staff the opportunity to see firsthand the impact of their work for wetlands. Whether working in the nursery growing thousands of native plants, getting wet and muddy restoring living shorelines, or organizing events to educate the community –they all left the refuge with a heightened awareness of the significance of their work and the understanding that their work serves a broader purpose that goes far beyond the borders of EC’s campus.

For more information about World Wetlands Day, visit: www.worldwetlandsday.org. Free posters and activities are available to download from the site.

Environmental Concern is a 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation established in 1972 to promote public understanding and stewardship of wetlands with the goal of improving water quality and enhancing nature’s habitat. For the last 49 years, Environmental Concern has been working to restore the Bay…one wetland at a time.

Conservation Group Study Questions Need for Extra Bay Bridge Span

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But AKRF called the state’s analysis into question.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Decision to delay bridge study raises questions 

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

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

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

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

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

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

An MdTA spokesman declined to explain the inconsistency.

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

Queen Anne’s County Commissioner James Moran (R)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

By Bruce DePuyt

Bay Foundation Challenges Wastewater Permit for Lakeside Development in Trappe

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The Chesapeake Bay Foundation (CBF) filed a lawsuit against the Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE) contesting the legality of the wastewater discharge permit it issued for Lakeside at Trappe. ShoreRivers also is challenging the discharge permit.

The permit, which MDE approved in December, allows the proposed 2,500 home and commercial development in Talbot County to use spray irrigation over farm fields to dispose of treated wastewater, CBF said in a press release.

Under the permit the development can spray up to 540,000 gallons of treated wastewater per day over the fields. The treated wastewater must contain no more than 3 mg/L of nitrogen and 0.3 mg/L of phosphorus on average before being applied to the fields.

While this is the standard for wastewater plants disposing of treated wastewater, the current assumption for wastewater disposed onto fields — as is proposed in this project — is no net pollutants once it leaves the field, according to CBF. Nitrogen and phosphorus from treated wastewater can fuel harmful algal blooms in local rivers, streams, and the Chesapeake Bay that create oxygen-deprived dead zones inhospitable to marine life.

In a press release, CBF outlined two primary concerns related to this method of wastewater disposal.

The first is that the department did not fully account for the connection between groundwater and surface water. Multiple studies have shown that even under the best conditions, nutrient pollutants applied to agricultural land can reach nearby streams through shallow aquifers under farm fields.

However, MDE asserted, without sufficient evidence, that the nitrogen and phosphorus in the wastewater will be taken up by crops in the spray field, according to CBF. MDE contends that this will effectively result in “zero net discharge” of pollutants to local waterways, which may enable the development and MDE to bypass requirements to reduce pollutants under the Chesapeake Clean Water Blueprint, also known as the Chesapeake Bay Total Maximum Daily Load.

Neither the department, nor the developer has effectively proven that this plan to dispose wastewater won’t increase pollutants entering the Bay.

The second issue is that MDE did not publish the nutrient management plan for the project during the public comment period. The plan is intended to demonstrate how the proposed development would use specific crops to take up nutrients in the wastewater being sprayed on the field to prevent them from entering nearby waterways.

Instead, MDE accepted the plan after the public comment period was closed and deemed it “satisfactory” without providing the public with an opportunity to weigh in on it, CBF said in a press release.

The development is being built near Miles Creek and the Choptank River. The Lower Choptank River is already impaired by sediments, nutrient pollutants, and fecal coliform in its tidal portions.

“The department’s approval of this wastewater permit sets a risky new precedent enabling large developments to use spray irrigation to bypass Bay pollution reduction requirements,” Alan Girard, CBF’s Maryland Eastern Shore director, said. “We already know legacy pollutants such as fertilizer, manure, and chemicals can seep from the ground via groundwater and flow into nearby streams and creeks. However, by claiming the Bay TMDL that obligates Maryland to reduce pollution is not applicable to wastewater treatment plants that use spray irrigation, the department has basically ignored that fact.

“This appears to circumvent established state policy to manage water quality. The state must account for pollution from septic systems that discharge to groundwater, but by obtaining a state groundwater discharge permit to spray irrigate instead, developers will be able to ignore these limits,” Girard said. “We are deeply disturbed that the department will not close this loophole that allows the state to disregard Bay restoration requirements.

“MDE must also follow its own public notice regulations, which it did not do in this case. While the department did eventually make the nutrient management plan for this project available, it did not do so when the formal public comment period was open as required by law,” he said. “This is unfair to those who could be affected by the pollution that this project could generate, and we are asking the court to recognize this fact. There are substantive issues with the plan and its application here which could have been addressed through the public notice and comment process.”

Petition for Judicial Review 2-1-21

Chesapeake Bay Receives D+ for Second Year in a Row

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

By Elizabeth Shwe

Md. Could Reach Bay Health Goal by 2025, But Success Hinges on Curbing Runoff

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Maryland is on track toward reaching its Chesapeake Bay pollution reduction goals by 2025, but advocates say the state needs to plant more trees to address stormwater runoff from farms and land development. 

The majority of the state’s pollution reduction has come from modifying wastewater treatment plants, while pollution from agriculture and urban and suburban storm water runoff remain relatively high, Alison Prost, vice president of environmental protection & restoration for the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, told members of the House of Delegates Environment & Transportation Committee Thursday. Sixty-four of 67 wastewater treatment plants in Maryland have been upgraded already, she said.

“In the future, we really don’t have a lot more to gain from wastewater treatment. Where the lion share of the opportunity is in agriculture,” Ann Pesiri Swanson, executive director of Chesapeake Bay Commission, told state lawmakers. “Agriculture is very, very challenging, requires a lot of technical assistance and a lot of cost-share as well.”

Agriculture cost-share programs provide federal and state funding to help pay farmers’ costs for installing conservation practices, such as planting forested buffers or fencing livestock out of streams.

In 2010, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency set the Chesapeake Bay Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) pollutant reduction target, which requires six Bay states and the District of Columbia to implement plans that would reduce nitrogen, phosphorus and sediment pollution into the Bay by 2025. The goal is not to have clean water by 2025, but to have all the proper practices that will deliver clean water by 2025.

Between 1985 and 2018, total nutrient pollution in the Bay declined by 83 million pounds. But to reach pollutant reduction goals by 2025, an additional 52 million pounds of pollution must be eliminated, according to Swanson.

Although the Conowingo Dam, a 90-year old hydroelectric dam in the lower Susquehanna River in Maryland, was expected to continue trapping nutrients and sediment behind the dam until 2025, water has been running over the dam and into the Chesapeake Bay, even in low-flow storms, Swanson explained.

That adds 6 million pounds of pollutants. And climate change has added another 5 million pounds.

“This is like new calories coming into the body and you’ve got to incorporate them into your diet,” Swanson said, causing Maryland’s share to reach the 2025 pollutant reduction goal to rise from 6.2 million pounds to 7.5 million pounds.

“The place you’re going to find those additional pounds remain [in] agriculture, storm water, [and] septic because for the most part, we’ve addressed wastewater,” Swanson said.

Sixty percent of future nitrogen reductions planned will come from best management practices, tools that farmers use to reduce soil and fertilizer runoff, such as animal waste management systems and planting more trees as buffers, Swanson said.

Since the Bay states began working toward their own pollution reduction goals, Pennsylvania — home to most of the Susquehanna, which empties into the the Chesapeake at the top of the Bay — has consistently lagged in meeting its goals. That led the Chesapeake Bay Foundation and other organizations to file a complaint in September against the EPA for failing to require Pennsylvania, as well as New York, to develop plans that sufficiently reduce pollution as required by the Chesapeake Clean Water Blueprint.

“Unless Pennsylvania gets on track, we’re going to have a tough time meeting 2025,” Prost said.

Only 30% of Pennsylvania’s state legislators represent jurisdictions in the Bay watershed, and Pennsylvania’s political and philanthropic “power centers” are outside the Bay watershed, Marel King, Pennsylvania director of the Chesapeake Bay Commission, told state lawmakers. The lack of support in Pennsylvania’s legislature explains the consistent lack of funding from that state to restore the Bay’s health.

Advocates also talked about the realities of climate change and impacts it will have on Maryland’s 2025 pollution reduction goals. Warmer water temperatures cause oxygen levels to decrease, which could expand the Bay’s dead zone areas, Prost said.

To start addressing that impact, Maryland’s legislature could push the Maryland Department of the Environment to update its permits to account for climate change. Currently, MDE’s calculations for storm water runoff are based on numbers from 15 years ago, Prost said. As storms are expected to get stronger and cause more flash flooding in the near future, there need to be stronger controls to prevent runoff from construction sites, Prost said.

It is important that the state have a multi-pronged approach and invest in strategies that address climate change, flooding and water quality together, rather than focus on water quality alone, advocates said.

The state should focus on planting trees as part of the climate solutions bill, Prost said. Not only can trees slow and strain storm water runoff into the Chesapeake Bay, but they can also capture and store carbon dioxide, reducing it in the air.

“The reality is for water quality, for climate, for community resilience, trees is where the investment needs to go,” Prost said. “It’ll help us meet our watershed improvement plan goals, and if we invest more in trees it’s going to help us with those additional pounds that Maryland now needs to find related to climate change.”

By Elizabeth Shwe

After Hours of Testimony, Board of Public Works Approves Eastern Shore Pipeline Permit

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The Maryland Board of Public Works on Wednesday unanimously approved a critical permit for a controversial Eastern Shore pipeline project that would extend natural gas to Somerset County, with the University of Maryland Eastern Shore and the Eastern Correctional Institute as its two main beneficiaries.

The wetlands permit for the second part of the pipeline project will go before the Board of Public Works for a vote in the future.

Supporters of the pipeline pointed to the economic injustice that Somerset County has faced for decades as one of the three counties in the state that does not have access to natural gas. The county, which is 41% Black and the poorest county in the state, has lost out on many economic opportunities because of this, local leaders told Board of Public Works members.

“We desperately need this opportunity,” implored Craig Mathies, president of the Somerset County Commissioners. “We’re not looking for a hand-out. We’re just looking for a hand to advance the opportunity for our citizens to become self-sufficient and have a better means of supporting their families and enjoy a better standard of life.”

On the other hand, environmental advocates pointed to the environmental injustice of the pipeline, which will run through majority minority and low-income communities that could be exposed to any detrimental leaks or damages from the pipeline.

Sen. Stephen S. Hershey Jr.

Sen. Stephen S. Hershey Jr. (R-36) pushed back on this claim, arguing that residents may not have been beset with poverty if they had the proper infrastructure critical to economic development.

“Maybe the reason [residents] are poor is because they don’t have the infrastructure in place to bring businesses into Somerset County,” Hershey said in an interview with Maryland Matters. “So let’s look at bringing this type of infrastructure and see if we can create jobs as a result of that and then maybe that’s the best way to lift people out of poverty.”

Currently, the University of Maryland Eastern Shore uses fuel-oil and propane, while the Eastern Correctional Institute burns wood chips, both of which are dirtier sources of energy that natural gas can replace, local advocates emphasized. Not only would natural gas be a more cost-effective energy source, but it would also help reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 38% at UMES and 65% in ECI.

Support of this natural gas pipeline and support for renewable energy sources are not mutually exclusive, local advocates said. Sen. Mary Beth Carozza (R-Somerset), pointed to other alternative energy projects that UMES has invested in, such as a 2.2 mega-watt solar farm that contributes to 12% of the campus’s energy consumption and a geothermal system in two campus buildings.

Lt. Gov. Boyd K. Rutherford (R), who chaired the meeting in place of Gov. Lawrence J. Hogan Jr. (R), also noted that Somerset County also has one of the highest asthma rates in the state, so it would be unjust to deny residents a cleaner energy source and let them continue to breathe dirty air until a renewable energy plan works out.

Opponents further argued that investing in a natural gas infrastructure is a short-sighted decision, predicting that the pipeline would become obsolete within the next decade as the renewable energy industry gains speed.

Even if the use of natural gas does diminish in the next few decades, public officials are nevertheless responsible for helping Somerset County residents grow economically, especially in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, supporters said.

Rutherford highlighted that most of the opponents were from areas of the state that have natural gas and thus were speaking from a point of privilege.

“What a number of these people are doing is denying the choice of the residents and the business…in the poorest community in the state,” Rutherford said. “It goes to the elitism of people who live in an area where they can make choices that are trying to make choices for people who don’t.”

Although Comptroller Peter V.R. Franchot (D) initially lambasted the board’s narrow authority to consider only the impacts on the tidal wetlands that the pipeline would go through, he concluded at the end of three hours of public testimony that requiring a dramatic shift solely to renewable energy may not be productive or fair for Somerset County.

Maryland Comptroller Peter Franchot

“The fact that Somerset County has not had access to natural gas is quite frankly an economic injustice to residents that live there,” Franchot said. He mentioned the Great Bay wind project that was planned for Somerset County in 2014 but failed as it hit political obstacles in the General Assembly.

“The folks in Somerset need something now, not five years from now,” Franchot continued. “I strongly believe that this project will be somewhat of an immediately beneficial help to the environment by lowering emissions from the university and prison significantly, all the while adding only a small amount to the state’s natural gas use.”

State Treasurer Nancy K. Kopp (D) said that the pipeline could be seen as a “bridge” towards renewable energy and should not be used longer than necessary. She highlighted that the state’s goal of at least 40% greenhouse gas emission reduction by 2030 cannot be achieved with natural gas.

Franchot also emphasized that this vote should not be seen as an endorsement for fossil fuels or preclude development of renewable energy in Somerset County. Rather, it is a “temporary measure and must be treated as such.”

By Elizabeth Shwe

Zoning Change Denied for Eastern Shore Salmon Farm

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A Norwegian company’s plans to bring land-based salmon farming to Maryland’s Eastern Shore hit a snag Thursday night when one of the sites it had chosen for raising the commercially valuable fish failed to gain needed local approval.

The Dorchester County Board of Appeals denied AquaCon Maryland LLC a special zoning exception that would have allowed it to build a massive indoor hatchery and fish grow-out facility on a defunct golf course bordering the Choptank River.

The board’s decision came at the end of a 3.5-hour meeting where neighboring residents and others suggested the industrial-scale aquaculture operation would be unsuitable in the still largely rural area just west of Cambridge. Some also voiced concerns that its wastewater discharges, though treated to a high level, might hurt the Choptank River’s water quality, undermining recent signs of improvement.

“Is there a better location?” Choptank Riverkeeper Matt Pluta asked at one point.

The 114-acre site, formerly home to the Cambridge Country Club, is one of four locations AquaCon has selected for its planned facilities on the Shore, each expected to produce up to 15,000 metric tons of salmon annually.

AquaCon had previously declared its plans to build a facility on the outskirts of Federalsburg, a small town in Caroline County on a tributary of the Nanticoke River. The other two sites are in Cambridge and Denton, also in Caroline County, company representatives told the board.

Ryan Showalter, an Easton lawyer representing AquaCon, said it is pursuing multiple sites at the same time with the intent to start construction next year on whichever one first receives regulatory approvals. AquaCon is one of several mostly European companies rushing to build land-based salmon farms in the United States that use new developments in recirculating aquaculture technology.

Showalter touted the economic benefits for largely rural Dorchester County, noting that the company plans to invest $300 million in each facility and that each would create 150 jobs, a number of them high-paying profession and technical positions.

“When constructed, this will be an industry-changing, world-leading facility,” he said.

Bob Rauch, the company’s Easton-based engineering consultant, stressed that each would be an “all-green” facility. Unlike most open-water salmon farming operations in Europe, these fish would be raised indoors in tanks, with nearly all of the water recirculated and filtered to remove waste. They would not be fed antibiotics or be at risk of escape into the wild, two issues with pen-reared fish.

Solar panels would be placed on the rooftop of the massive 27.5-acre buildings to help offset the facilities’ energy needs. The solid waste produced by raising 3 million fish a year would be converted to energy-generating biogas via anaerobic digestion.

Showalter acknowledged that the size of the building — the largest on the Shore — was daunting. But he said the company pledged to plant a thick buffer of trees around it that in about 12 years should have grown tall enough to hide it from view from the road or neighboring properties.

Several of those attending the meeting praised the company’s efforts to minimize environmental impacts, but they voiced concerns about the wastewater it would generate. The facility would use 70,000–80,000 gallons of groundwater daily and pump an equivalent amount of pretreated wastewater to Cambridge’s sewage treatment plant.

The proposed Dorchester facility would also have withdrawn up to 2.3 million gallons of water daily from the Choptank and discharged the same amount back into the river. That water would cycle through tanks where the salmon would be held just before being harvested so they can be purged of naturally occurring microbes that can give their flesh an unappetizing musty odor and taste.

Rauch said the Choptank water would be treated before being returned to the river, with the discharge meeting the state’s limits for nitrogen and phosphorus.

Tom Fisher, a professor at the Horn Point laboratory of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, which is next door to the proposed country club site, expressed some concerns about the potential impact on the lower Choptank. The river is suffering from excess nutrients from agricultural runoff and wastewater, but Fisher said it has shown water quality improvements recently in the wake of an upgrade of the treatment plant in Cambridge.

While the added wastewater coming from the municipal plant and the aquaculture facility’s direct discharge to the river would be treated to reduce nutrient levels, Fisher said he was concerned that the Choptank’s recovery might be undermined by the amounts of nitrogen and phosphorus remaining in those additional discharges.

“Even if there’s a tiny concentration of something in that water, it’s going to contribute to the impairment,” warned Fred Pomeroy of Dorchester Citizens for Planned Growth.

Pomeroy suggested the company focus first on developing its site in Cambridge, which has industrial land in need of redevelopment. Showalter, the company lawyer, said the city site isn’t suitable at this time because it doesn’t have access to the Choptank for purge water. The company is working on a way to eliminate the musty odor in the fish without needing river water, but that’s not ready yet.

Alan Girard of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation questioned how the facility would manage the stormwater runoff coming off the 27.5-acre rooftop. Rauch said the company has at least at least three different approaches in mind, including possibly using the old golf course’s irrigation system to cycle the runoff back into the ground. That portion of the property borders the river, though, where land use is strictly controlled by the state’s Critical Area law, and company representatives said they were still working out how to meet those requirements.

County appeals board members voiced some doubts about the stormwater and the municipal treatment plant’s ability to handle the aquaculture facility’s wastewater, even though company representatives said it had ample capacity to do so.

In the end, though, the appeals board decision seemed influenced most heavily by nearby residents’ complaints about the impacts on their quality of life of such an operation.

“It’s quiet, it’s peaceful, and that’s the way we’d like to keep it,” said David Rineholt, who said he and his wife Kathleen had built a home next to the old country club 25 years ago.

The site is accessed by a narrow two-lane road, which company representatives acknowledged might need some upgrading to handle 30-35 trucks per week. Otherwise, they said, the traffic generated by the 150-person workforce would be roughly equivalent to what the country club had experienced.

“It will tax traffic,” said board member Charles Dayton, Jr., a sentiment echoed by the rest of the board.

He and a couple of other board members seemed to suggest they might reach a different conclusion if presented with additional information and studies to address concerns raised at the meeting.

Afterward, though, AquaCon representatives indicated they wouldn’t try to win the board over but instead focus on getting regulatory approvals to go forward in Federalsburg and Denton.

“We have other sites,” said Showalter. “We redirect.”

By Timothy B. Wheeler

Oyster Farming in Maryland Might Get Harder

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DNR to propose rule that could reduce areas for aquaculture leasing

The Hogan administration is moving to block Maryland oyster farmers from leasing spots in the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries where there’s still a smattering of wild oysters — a step that aquaculture advocates warn will stifle the state’s small but growing industry.

The Department of Natural Resources has announced that it plans to propose a regulation that would enable it to deny a lease application wherever it finds even a very low density of wild oysters on the bottom or when “physical, biological and economic conditions” warrant reserving the area for the public fishery.

The move comes in response to complaints from watermen, who contend that their livelihoods are threatened by having any more potentially productive oystering areas leased to private shellfish cultivation.

“We’ve given up enough bottom already,” Queen Anne’s County waterman Troy Wilkins said at a recent virtual meeting of the DNR Oyster Advisory Commission.

Watermen have long chafed over the state’s move a decade ago to greatly expand its oyster sanctuaries, which put some reefs off-limits to wild harvest. They also have repeatedly protested aquaculture lease applications, citing potential conflicts with crabbing or wild oyster harvests.

DNR officials say they want to establish a process for creating or expanding Public Shellfish Fishery Areas, which are reserved exclusively for wild harvest.

“There are occasions — and they’re rare — when a lease application comes forward, and there are populations of oysters [there that] the fishery has been working on or could be working on,” said Chris Judy, director of the DNR shellfish program.

But oyster farmers contend that the DNR has already been withholding approval or forcing changes to some lease applications when watermen or others object. The rule will only make it easier, they say, for watermen to block them from leasing good spots for cultivating shellfish.

“This is basically a big land grab to the detriment of aquaculture,” said Tal Petty, owner of Hollywood Oyster Co. in St. Mary’s County, where he raises bivalves in cages in a creek off the Patuxent River.

There are already 180,000 acres of the Bay and its tributaries that since 2009 have been officially designated as Public Shellfish Fishery Areas. There are another 110,000 acres that are unclassified but still open to wild harvest.

In comparison, about 325 leases encompassing about 6,500 acres have been issued over the past decade, according to the DNR. A few are used for raising clams or scallops, but the vast majority is for farming oysters. There are about 100 applications pending with the DNR seeking to lease another 2,000 acres. Protests have been filed against awarding about 15 of those pending leases.

Petty, a board member of the East Coast Shellfish Growers Association, said the rule would severely limit the state’s aquaculture industry, which has grown since 2010 and produced about 60,000 bushels of oysters in 2019, according to DNR figures. The wild harvest during the 2018-2019 season was 145,000 bushels, though it nearly doubled in the most recent season ending in March.

“The tragedy is that Maryland is about to significantly reduce the leasable area for aquaculture, using nonscientific methods and measures,” Petty said.

Oyster density debate

DNR officials say they’re not expecting to create vast new areas off-limits to aquaculture but want to correct a regulatory imbalance. Under current rules, oyster farmers may petition to declassify a Public Shellfish Fishery Area so that it can be leased, but there is no comparable procedure for creating new or expanding one.

Judy said the DNR was considering denying a lease application if a survey it conducts finds as few as 5 wild oysters per square meter on the bottom. But watermen have insisted that the threshold for denying a lease be set even lower, to block a lease for a site if there is even one oyster per square meter on the bottom.

Some watermen who use power dredges or patent tongs to harvest oysters contend they can get their limit of 10 to 24 bushels per day, depending on the number of license holders on a boat, even if there are fewer than 5 oysters per square meter on the bottom.

“If you give me 2 or 3 oysters a meter, I’ll put a deck-load on my skipjack,” said Russell Dize, a skipjack captain from Tilghman. Skipjacks, which use sail or motor power to haul dredges, are allowed to harvest up to 100 bushels a day.

Watermen also complain that letting oyster farmers lease areas that already have some wild oysters effectively gives them a windfall, allowing them to make some quick money harvesting and selling those bivalves. But oyster farmers point out that they’re required by state regulations to plant and cultivate far more oysters in the leased area, which requires substantial investment up front in gear and supplies. It takes at least two to three years before they realize any income from raising those planted oysters large enough to harvest.

Two DNR advisory panels dominated by watermen and their supporters have voted to endorse the watermen’s position that leases should be denied if there is even one wild oyster per square meter on the bottom. An aquaculture advisory commission urged the department to set the lease denial threshold much higher, at 25 oysters per square meter.

“It appears to be a one-sided proposal to increase the oyster harvest at the expense of restoration and aquaculture efforts that are helping to bring Maryland’s oysters back,” said Allison Colden, a fisheries scientist with the Chesapeake Bay Foundation.

Though outvoted, several members of the DNR Oyster Advisory Commission argued that the DNR should hold off on the rule and include it as part of a broader effort by the commission to forge a consensus among watermen, oyster farmers and environmentalists over how the state’s oysters ought to be managed.

Tom Miller, director of the Chesapeake Biological Laboratory with the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, questioned the scientific basis for the rule. Miller, a fisheries scientist, said it’s the DNR’s purview to decide where to allow commercial harvest, but he said research shows that oyster populations need to be much denser than even 5 oysters per square meter to be likely to reproduce successfully and sustain themselves.

Ann Swanson, executive director of the Chesapeake Bay Commission, pointed out that experts working to restore the Bay’s severely diminished oyster habitat only consider a reef capable of sustaining itself when it has at least 50 oysters per square meter of varying ages and sizes covering at least 30% of its surface.

Long history of friction

The friction between watermen and oyster farmers in Maryland has a long history.

“Watermen have wanted all of the Bay bottom from the time the first lease law was passed in 1830,” said Don Webster, a Maryland Sea Grant aquaculture specialist and advocate for the industry.

Watermen, who once wielded considerable political clout, succeeded in getting laws passed that from the early 1900s until the early 2000s severely restricted leasing. All a waterman had to do to block a lease then was to swear that he had harvested oysters there sometime in the previous five years.

That changed in 2010, with the passage of a new law that made large areas available for leasing. The Bay’s oyster population had been decimated by then by diseases, overharvesting and habitat loss. A study by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers estimated that there were only 36,000 acres of productive oyster habitat left in Maryland’s portion of the Bay.

State lawmakers decided it was time to encourage aquaculture to take harvest pressure off the struggling oyster population, and they also expanded Maryland’s network of oyster sanctuaries, which now cover about 250,000 acres. Watermen have since complained that the expansion took away many productive harvest areas. Though some may have once brimmed with oysters, a review of DNR data show that only about 10% of the state’s overall wild harvest came from those new sanctuaries in the year before they were set aside.

At the same time it moved to boost aquaculture and enlarge sanctuaries, the DNR also established Public Shellfish Fishery Areas that would be reserved for wild harvest. Those areas encompassed three-quarters of the remaining productive oyster habitat, according to a DNR report.

While harvests have rebounded some in the past decade, they remain well below their historic level, and watermen have pressed to get at least some of the sanctuaries reopened. The DNR in the Hogan administration attempted to do that but was blocked by the legislature amid an outcry from environmentalists.

Oyster farmers say the DNR has been conferring for a year or two with watermen and advocates for waterfront property owners to address their complaints about aquaculture. Meanwhile, they say they have had a harder time getting leases when watermen or property owners object.

JD Blackwell sorts through baby oysters at his aquaculture operation on the Potomac River is St. Mary’s County. Photo by Dave Harp

“DNR has decided to kill oyster aquaculture,” contended JD Blackwell, an oyster farmer who leases sites in St. Mary’s County. “The excitement that existed in 2011 and 2012 to give birth to a new industry is gone. Oyster aquaculture will wither and die from this point forward. Opportunity missed.”

Critics of the rule also say it’s self-defeating for watermen, because a growing number of them are getting into aquaculture to supplement or replace wild harvests.

One of those is Rachel Dean, a Calvert County waterwoman. She applied more than three years ago to lease 26 acres in the Patuxent River to raise oysters on the bottom. At least one waterman and a homeowner objected, she recalled. And when the DNR sampled the bottom there, it found “at least some” oysters on half of the proposed lease site, with an overall density of about 2 bivalves per square meter, according to a 2019 DNR memo.

The memo, signed by the DNR’s Chris Judy, proposed roughly halving the size of the lease to exclude what it called a “functional oyster bar.” Dean said the reduction would diminish the viability of the site for raising oysters, so they resisted it. The application remains on hold, and Dean said the department has not responded when she has asked whether it was formally denying the application.

Neither Judy nor Karl Roscher, head of the DNR’s aquaculture division, responded to requests for interviews or information.

“We’ve got to find a balance,” Dean said, between oyster farming and the wild fishery. “If this regulation goes through,” she added, “there will be no more bottom leases.”

By Timothy B. Wheeler

Senators See New Momentum for Maryland Priorities with Biden in White House

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Buoyed by Joe Biden’s victory in the race for president, Maryland’s U.S. senators on Monday predicted significant progress on a range of issues important to the state.

Speaking to reporters roughly 48 hours after news organizations called the race for the challenger, Sens. Benjamin L. Cardin (D) and Chris Van Hollen (D) said they were elated by Biden’s win over Donald Trump.

Having spent the last four years battling the White House, Democrats in Congress can now shift gears and look for ways to move the country forward, the senators said.

“You’re going to see immediate changes,” said Van Hollen. “Not just in tone and in bringing the country together, which is so important. But very important actions that will positively impact the people of the state of Maryland.”

Cardin and Van Hollen said they are confident that Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala D. Harris — a former senator and a current one — will bring the Trump era’s divineness and rancor to a close.

“I believe that democracy and decency prevailed,” said Cardin.

The men — who, like the nation as a whole, are forced to wait while the battle for control of the Senate rages on — predicted the Democrats’ victory will pay significant dividends for Maryland.

Federal workforce

Cardin and Van Hollen said Trump was wrong to demonize federal workers, many of whom live in Maryland. They also opposed his recent efforts to expand the number of workers who serve at the pleasure of political appointees.

“Maryland has one of the highest concentrations of federal workers in the nation,” said Cardin. “Clearly we’re going to have a president who will stop beating up on the federal workers and recognize that we have to invest in our federal workforce and respect science.”

“We’ve seen a gross politicization of the federal workforce,” added Van Hollen. “We’ve seen a president who thinks that the Justice Department is his own personal, political plaything. We know that with a President Biden we will see respect for the merit-based federal civil service and that will help restore morale to so many of our agencies.”

The fight against COVID-19

When he was chairman of the National Governors Association, Gov. Lawrence J. Hogan Jr. (R) complained that the states were left to fend for themselves on testing, PPE and other issues.

Van Hollen predicted that Biden “will put public health over politics” in the fight against the virus. “We can begin to see the federal government playing a lead role in the COVID response, rather than the Trump administration approach, which has been a dog-eat-dog approach — let every state try to deal with this on its own.”

“It’s going to be night and day,” he added. “We’re going to have a president who respects the science and the scientists, and will put in place a plan that help Maryland.”

The environment and the Bay

President Trump attempted to reduce funding for a key Chesapeake Bay cleanup program, over the objections of leaders from both parties.

Biden will make the environment a priority, Van Hollen and Cardin said.

“Important funding measures — things like the air pollution standards, the California car standards — making sure we deal with methane emissions, all things that are all so very important to protect the Bay, the waters of the U.S.,” will get new life, Van Hollen said. “So we can expect to see dramatic change early on.”

Aid to cities

Trump dumped on “Democrat cities” repeatedly during his four years in office. In Biden, Cardin said, America’s urban areas will again have a partner.

“We’ll have a president who wants to invest in our cities, who really likes cities, and will be much more aggressive in helping cities deal with their problems,” he said. “There’s so many different areas where we can look at funding to help Baltimore. There’s got to be a concerted game plan as to what we’re trying to achieve.”

Van Hollen predicted new investment in the Community Development Block Grants program, the Economic Development Administration and minority business programs at the Department of Commerce, among others.

All of those programs were zeroed-out by the Trump administration,” he said.

New FBI headquarters

When Trump short-circuited the FBI’s years-long effort to move from its crumbling headquarters in Washington, D.C., Democrats accused him of attempting to thwart competition from a potential new Pennsylvania Avenue hotel adjacent to his.

Under Biden, Maryland’s senators predicted, the quest for a more modern and secure FBI headquarters can resume.

“Looking at the next Congress, it’s going to be Team Maryland that’s going to be trying to get that back on track,” Cardin said. “We believe Prince George’s County is where that should be.”

A transition in limbo

The lawmakers said they expect the Biden administration to fight to uphold the Affordable Care Act, take steps to support “Dreamers” and people in the U.S. under the Temporary Protected Status program, promote immigration and gun safety, battle systemic racism and climate change, fund infrastructure resources (particularly for transit projects) and rejoin the Paris Climate Accord and the World Health Organization.

On Monday, Cardin and Van Hollen sent a letter urging General Services Administration Administrator Emily Murphy, who has refused to authorize a Biden presidential transition team, to do so. “We hope you will recognize that every hour between now and Jan. 20, 2021 is critical for the transition team’s preparations for taking on the multiple, pressing challenges our nation faces,” the senators wrote.

Trump has yet to acknowledge Biden’s win and is continuing to contemplate legal challenges in a number of states he lost. Cardin and Van Hollen called his unsubstantiated statements about the election reckless.

“Is it dangerous? The answer is yes,” Cardin said. “What he’s doing is wrong. It’s wrong for our nation. And he should accept the results of this election.”

Van Hollen accused Trump of “spewing out falsehoods.” He said the president’s claims that he won the election are “an outright lie.”

“What President Trump is doing (is) aiding and abetting the enemies of democracy,” he added. “This is very dangerous.”

Like the president, Rep. Andrew P. Harris, the lone Republican in Maryland’s congressional delegation, has made vague claims about voting irregularities. Through a spokesman, he declined an interview request to discuss Biden’s victory.

By Bruce DePuyt and Danielle E. Gaines