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September 29, 2022

The Talbot Spy

The nonprofit e-newspaper for the Talbot County Community

Ecosystem Eco Lead

Regulators Ease Shutdown Order on Troubled Md. Poultry Rendering Plant

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Maryland regulators have let a problem-plagued Eastern Shore poultry rendering plant resume operations two days after ordering it shut down because of pollution violations and potential wastewater releases.

Valley Proteins Inc. reached an agreement on Dec. 23 with the Maryland Department of the Environment that allowed it to restart its Linkwood plant but extends for now a ban on discharging any of its wastewater into a tributary of the Transquaking River.

Instead, the interim consent order signed by the MDE and the Winchester, VA-based company requires it to continue pumping wastewater from on-site lagoons and hauling it elsewhere to be treated. It also mandates lowering levels in the impoundments over the next 20 days to reduce the risks of leaks or overflows.

Under the order, Valley Proteins can only resume discharging wastewater to the Transquaking, a Chesapeake Bay tributary, after it has reduced lagoon levels sufficiently and can comply with pollution limits in its permit. It must notify the MDE two hours before resuming discharges and upon any other changes in its treatment operations.

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

The rendering plant is the river’s largest single source of nutrient pollution, which fuels algae blooms and reduces oxygen levels in the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries below what’s healthy for fish and other aquatic animals.

Mike Smith, the company’s vice chairman, said that partial rendering operations resumed the night of Dec. 23 and that work is under way to repair and restart the wastewater treatment system at the plant.

“Once the system kicks in and treats our water properly, we will discharge again,” he said by email, adding that the company would then also “begin to run again at full production.”

The MDE had ordered Valley Proteins to suspend operations at the Linkwood facility two days earlier, on Dec. 21, after a series of inspections from Dec. 10 through Dec. 20 found multiple violations, including an illegal discharge into a holding pond, discharges of sludge and inadequately treated wastewater into a stream leading to the Transquaking and leaks and overflows from treatment tanks.

Regulators had directed the company earlier to stop discharging wastewater until its treatment system could meet pollution limits in its permit. The Dec. 21 order to suspend operations was prompted by the MDE inspector finding the company’s wastewater lagoons were nearly full.

The MDE’s inspections were triggered by drone images provided to the agency on Dec. 10 by ShoreRivers, a coalition of Eastern Shore riverkeeper organizations, which showed a discolored discharge from the rendering plant’s wastewater outfall.

Earlier this year, ShoreRivers, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation and Dorchester Citizens for Planned Growth notified Valley Proteins they intended to sue over pollution violations at the Linkwood plant, including repeatedly exceeding discharge limits on fecal coliform bacteria, nitrogen, phosphorus and ammonia.

The plant has been operating on an outdated discharge permit since 2006, and in September the MDE proposed new limits that would require upgrading the company’s wastewater treatment system. The state had at one time offered to provide nearly $13 million in public funds to pay for that upgrade, but lawmakers cut the amount in half. The MDE subsequently withdrew the offer and vowed to take enforcement action after finding more pollution violations there. That new permit is still pending.

In the Dec. 23 interim consent order, the MDE directs the company to hire an outside engineer and submit a plan within 100 days for improving the Linkwood facility’s wastewater treatment system. The company agreed to pay fines of $250 per day per violation if it fails to comply with any of the order’s terms.

By Timothy B. Wheeler

Md. Orders Linkwood Chicken Rendering Plant Shut Down for Corrective Actions

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Maryland regulators have ordered a shutdown of a problem-plagued Eastern Shore chicken rendering plant after a tip from an environmental group led them to discover a batch of new pollution violations there.

The Maryland Department of the Environment on Dec. 21 directed Valley Proteins Inc. to cease operations at its facility in Linkwood in Dorchester County until it can meet its wastewater discharge permit limits and reduce the risk of overflows from its storage lagoons. The MDE threatened to fine or suspend the plant’s permit altogether if it failed to comply with prescribed corrective actions.

Michael A. Smith, vice chairman of the Winchester, VA, based company, said it had agreed to a temporary shutdown until it can lower the levels of its storage lagoons and meet permit requirements.

“We are working cooperatively with MDE to resolve the issue as quickly as possible,” Smith said.

The shutdown order comes after a series of MDE inspections this month found multiple problems at the facility. According to MDE inspection reports, those included an illegal discharge into a holding pond, discharges of sludge and inadequately treated wastewater into a stream leading to the Transquaking River, and leaks and overflows from treatment tanks.

At Valley Proteins’ poultry rendering plant, workers clean up sludge that was discovered in a stream leading to the Transquaking River. (MD Department of the Environment)

The inspections were triggered by drone images provided by ShoreRivers, a coalition of Eastern Shore riverkeeper organizations, showing a grayish discharge from the rendering plant’s wastewater outfall, according to a letter MDE Secretary Ben Grumbles wrote to a Valley Proteins executive.

Choptank Riverkeeper Matt Pluta, a member of ShoreRivers staff, said that while doing aerial surveillance on Dec. 10, he saw “a large, discolored discharge” coming from the Linkwood facility and flowing downstream toward the Transquaking.

The MDE inspected the plant later the same day and reported it found acidic, inadequately treated wastewater being released into a stream, chlorine-treated wastewater leaking onto the ground, and foam and wastewater overflowing from another treatment tank.

The following week, more MDE inspections found waste sludge in a stream outfall leading to the Transquaking, continuing improper discharges both to the stream and onto the ground and inadequate cleanup of earlier detected leaks, spills and overflows. The MDE also found raw chicken waste on the ground. Regulators ordered the plant to cease discharges until the wastewater could be treated sufficiently to meet its permit limits.

“Chemical spills, tanks are overflowing, illegal discharges coming from all over the treatment process. It’s an absolute mess,” Pluta said of the conditions described in the inspection reports.

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

The Transquaking, which flows into Fishing Bay, a Chesapeake Bay tributary, has been classified for more than two decades as impaired by nutrient pollution. The rendering plant is the river’s largest single source of such pollution, which fuels algae blooms and reduces oxygen levels in the water below what’s healthy for fish and other aquatic animals.

In his Dec. 16 letter to the company, the MDE’s Grumbles called the Linkwood plant’s operations “unacceptable.” He said the company’s recent compliance record “indicates a pattern of improper operations and poor decision-making regarding water pollution and air emissions issues.”

Another follow-up inspection on Dec. 20 found evidence of more sludge having been discharged in recent days, despite cleanups of earlier releases and leaks. The inspector also found that the plant had stopped discharging and its wastewater lagoons were filling up, despite some of the wastewater being trucked away. That prompted the shutdown order.

Valley Proteins’ Smith said the company is complying.

“We have a plan in place to move as much of our incoming supply to other [renderers] and or landfills in the short term,” he said by email. The company also has arranged, he said, to lower the levels in its storage lagoons by trucking “treated clarified water” from them to an unnamed local wastewater plant.

Sludge from the Valley Proteins chicken rendering plant in Linkwood, MD, fouls a stream leading to the Transquaking River. (MD Department of the Environment)

“We have seen our system improve over the last few days and anticipate being able to operate shortly,” he concluded.

MDE spokesman Jay Apperson said Valley Proteins is putting together a plan for returning to operation, but he said the company’s plan would have to persuade the MDE that it will comply with its discharge limits and other permit requirements.

In April, Pluta’s ShoreRivers group joined with the Chesapeake Bay Foundation and Dorchester Citizens for Planned Growth to threaten a lawsuit against the company, accusing it of repeatedly exceeding discharge limits on pollutants such as fecal coliform bacteria, nitrogen, phosphorus and ammonia.

Grayish liquid on the ground that, according to an MDE inspector, leaked from a chlorine treatment chamber at Valley Proteins’ wastewater treatment plant. (MD Department of the Environment)

The plant has been operating on an outdated discharge permit since 2006, and neighbors and environmental groups have been calling on the MDE to impose tighter requirements. Meanwhile, in 2014, the company applied for state approval to nearly quadruple its wastewater output, from 150,000 gallons to 575,000 gallons daily.

In September, the MDE released a new draft permit that would tighten limits on what the company could discharge. State regulators set caps on discharges of nitrogen and phosphorus that would require the company to upgrade its wastewater treatment facility, even if it did not expand operations.

State regulators also vowed to seek “a significant financial penalty” as well as corrective actions for a series of water and air pollution violations it had documented at the Shore facility.

That represented a shift in the MDE’s approach to the rendering plant. Earlier this year, the department had planned to provide Valley Proteins nearly $13 million to upgrade the wastewater treatment system at its Linkwood facility. Some lawmakers objected to giving public funds to a private company with a history of discharge violations, and the legislature limited such grants to half of any projected cost. After finding more violations at the plant, the MDE subsequently withdrew the grant offer.

Critics of the plant welcomed the MDE’s pledge to take enforcement action. But at hearings in October and November, they demanded that the state put more teeth in the plant’s discharge permit. They called for independent monitoring of its discharges, curbs on any planned increase in the rendering plant’s operations until it corrects all deficiencies and the MDE pledges to fine and take enforcement action for any future violations.

Pluta said the latest developments add to his concerns about the rendering facility and about the state’s ability to oversee it.

“We recognize that there’s a need for this type of operation,” he said, “but if you can’t operate within the guidelines of the law, of your permit, then you shouldn’t be able to operate at all.”

Pluta also questioned whether the MDE has enough staff and resources to ensure compliance, noting that the MDE only discovered problems there after he reported seeing a suspicious discharge.

“They’ve been inspecting monthly and didn’t come up with all this stuff,” he said.

The public comment period on Valley Proteins’ draft permit, which was extended for 60 days, remains open until Jan. 14, 2022.

MDE spokesman Jay Apperson said department officials will consider all comments received in making a final decision on the company’s permit application.

But Apperson also released a statement from the MDE secretary, saying, “We are much more focused on enforcement and correcting any ongoing violations before taking any actions on a draft permit.”

By Timothy B. Wheeler

Post Report: Growth Okayed to Save Trappe Could Destroy Talbot’s Rural Nature Instead, Some Say

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The Lakeside/Trappe East residential and commercial project on the northeast side of Trappe was billed as a way to save the financially struggling town, The Washington Post reported Monday afternoon.

But some opponents fear the 2,501-home development, which could quintuple the town’s population, will change Talbot County’s rural character and caution that its wastewater treatment system could cause environmental problems.

After 45 Years, CBF’s Longtime Leader Reflects on the Chesapeake Bay at a Crossroads

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Will Baker never intended to become an environmental activist. He studied art in college and planned to become an architect, like his older brother. Then, one hot summer day in 1976, while he was up in a tree pruning it for a little cash, the homeowner walked outside with an iced tea in hand, looked up and asked, “Will, would you like to save the Bay?”

“And I said, ‘Yes, Mr. Semans, that would be fine,’” Baker recalled. “And he said, ‘Come into the house and talk to me when you’re finished.’”

Truman Semans, a Baltimore investment executive, was on the board of trustees of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, then a small environmental nonprofit with a catchy slogan, “Save the Bay.” It was founded in 1967 by a group of well-heeled Maryland businessmen worried that pollution from industry, development and population growth would ruin the sailing, hunting and fishing they enjoyed in their spare time.

Semans sent Baker to Annapolis to see the foundation’s executive director for a job. He started as an office assistant whose duties included running out at lunchtime to pick up sandwiches.

Now, 45 years later, Baker, who recently turned 68, is retiring from CBF at the end of December after four decades as its leader, a tenure virtually unmatched in the nonprofit world. Over that time, the organization has grown into a regional environmental powerhouse, with a staff of 210 and about 300,000 members.

“It’s become a huge, impactful enterprise, and it was really built by Will Baker,” said Brian Frosh, Maryland’s attorney general who earlier served 28 years as a state lawmaker and one of the legislature’s leading environmental advocates.

“Everything that I worked on, and everything that was accomplished in the area of the environment while I was in the General Assembly,” Frosh said, “had the fingerprints of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation on it.”

Over the decades, CBF has helped to push through a series of laws — mainly in Maryland and Virginia— to protect wetlands and forests, require farmers to limit fertilizer use and curb waterfront development. It has advocated for tighter catch limits on the Bay’s striped bass, oysters, crabs and menhaden, while pressing for increased state and federal funding to upgrade sewage treatment plants and pay farmers to limit runoff from their fields. It has sued polluting industries and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to enforce the Clean Water Act, and it has taught legions of youngsters and adults about the Bay.

Through it all, Will Baker has been there, insisting with seemingly inexhaustible enthusiasm that the Bay can be saved and, lately, that this is its best and maybe last chance, if only political leaders can muster the will.

Yet after all this time, the Bay is still not saved. In some important ways, it’s in better shape than it was 45 years ago. But it’s not back to anything like the natural bounty that English explorer John Smith found in the early 1600s.

The Bay restoration effort is at a crossroads, some say. The Bay watershed states, District of Columbia and federal government have failed three times to achieve cleanup goals they set for themselves, and they’re falling short as the 2025 deadline looms for their latest effort. An internal review by the state-federal Bay Program earlier this year warned that the region will likely fail to achieve seven restoration outcomes by the 2025 deadline. Among the efforts in deep trouble is CBF’s main focus, reducing nutrient pollution.

CBF, too, is at a crossroads, facing a generational change in its leadership at a time when environmental groups are reckoning with a legacy of White privilege and the need to diversify their makeup and broaden their mission to address the disparate impacts of pollution.

On-the-job training

That CBF would even survive, much less grow, was by no means assured when Baker took the helm in 1981. He’d been on staff barely five years when the board made him interim executive director while it searched for a new leader. After a few months, Baker decided to make a bid for the job himself. He got the nod, though some on the board wanted someone with more experience. At the time, Baker said, he had no particular environmental awareness or training for taking over a nonprofit like CBF.

“I learned on the job,” he said.

He had to learn quickly. When he took the reins, CBF was in dire straits, he said, with “a huge deficit.” Over the years, both Baker and CBF have become prolific fundraisers. Its 2020 annual report lists $38 million in revenues, more than 80% from membership contributions, gifts and grants. It boasts endowments totaling $46 million and net assets of around $120 million, according to its financial statements.

Such fundraising prowess has allowed CBF to expand its activities and establish a presence in Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania and the District of Columbia. It’s also underwritten construction of its LEED platinum headquarters overlooking the Bay in Annapolis and a similarly green education center near the Lynnhaven Inlet in Virginia Beach.

CBF president Will Baker participates in 2012 Bayfest, celebrating CBF’s members. (Janice Wagner Photography/CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Education has been a big part of CBF’s work since its early days, when Arthur Sherwood bought a workboat, then a fleet of canoes to get schoolchildren out on the Bay so they could learn to love it. By CBF’s count, more than 1.5 million students, teachers and other adults have passed through the 15 education centers the group established in Maryland, Virginia and Pennsylvania.

He said he’s been told by many people now in government, business and academia that their interest in the environment was first sparked by going on a CBF field trip.

Baker calls CBF’s education program its “best long-term investment in the future of the Bay.”

Choosing its battles

CBF’s other core activities have been lobbying for environmental protections and litigating to punish polluters or stop harmful projects.

In the early 1970s, it successfully argued that the Calvert Cliffs nuclear power plant in Maryland shouldn’t get licensed without a federally mandated review of the facility’s environmental impacts. The foundation also sued to block an oil refinery in Hampton Roads VA, and it went after big industrial corporations like Bethlehem Steel, Gwaltney of Smithfield and Phillip Morris for violating federal and state pollution laws.

CBF has also deployed staff to lobby state legislators and members of Congress for more funding for Bay restoration, and it has pressed the case for imposing enforceable pollution reduction targets on the states through the EPA-imposed cleanup plan CBF now dubs the Clean Water Blueprint. More recently, CBF has branched out into restoring vital Bay resources that have been lost, including streamside forests, wetlands and oysters.

Baker acknowledged that he is frustrated that the Bay isn’t closer to recovery. Some Bay advocates are suggesting that it’s time to publicly acknowledge the restoration effort is going to come up short again and begin discussing a new agreement to carry on beyond 2025.

“We’ve got to look at new tools and ways of doing things,” said Roy Hoagland, who spent 22 years on CBF’s staff, seven of it as vice president for environmental protection and restoration. He and others suggest the restoration effort needs to “broaden back out” from its focus on nutrient pollution to attack other largely unaddressed problems, like climate change, growth and toxic contaminants.

But Baker contends that admitting failure now would be a “huge mistake, because to say that takes all the pressure off.”

Instead, CBF has again gone to court, joining with three Bay states and the District of Columbia last year in suing the EPA for not taking more aggressive action to make Pennsylvania do its part to clean up the Bay.

“We’re not giving up,” he said. “Every month, [meeting the 2025 goal is] less likely, but there’s no reason to give up and to say, ‘Let’s just start thinking about moving the goalposts again.’ I’m so sick of that, you know?”

The biggest challenge to fulfilling the Bay cleanup, Baker contends, has been Pennsylvania. The state’s House of Representatives has repeatedly balked at proposals for raising revenues to pay farmers to install runoff-limiting practices on their fields and feedlots. Baker calls the Pennsylvania House “as fiscally conservative as any legislative body I’ve ever worked with.”

CBF also has scrapped with commercial fishing interests as it pressed for tighter controls on harvests of striped bass, blue crabs, oysters and menhaden. Its advocacy in the 1990s for tighter limits on crabbing angered watermen, who erected a billboard on Smith Island criticizing CBF. A storage building CBF owned there was torched amid the controversy.

Conflicts with watermen have continued, at least in Maryland, where CBF successfully lobbied state lawmakers against reopening some of the state’s oyster sanctuaries for commercial harvest. CBF also pressed for legislation requiring scientific and consensus-based management of oysters to identify and curb overharvesting. That earned the group a public rebuke from Gov. Larry Hogan, who promised to look out for watermen when he was first elected in 2014.

Yet some environmentalists, particularly in Maryland, contend that CBF has gone easy on the agricultural industry, even though farm runoff is the leading source of nutrients fouling the Bay.

“What we have tried to do that some of our colleague organizations haven’t always bought in on is we have tried to get funding for agriculture,” Baker countered. CBF has “raised millions of dollars to put best management practices on farmland. And to do that you have to gain the trust of the farmer to go in and start working with him.”

Will Baker, retiring president of CBF, walks near the organization’s Annapolis headquarters with incoming president Hilary Harp Falk. Photo by Dave Harp, Bay Journal

Rethink and retool?

A growing number of Bay advocates say CBF, like many organizations of its kind, needs to address the lack of diversity within its ranks and focus more on environmental inequities. Communities of color will continue to disproportionally suffer from environmental health hazards if advocacy groups fail to call attention to it, they say.

Patuxent Riverkeeper Fred Tutman, a vocal CBF critic, contends the foundation’s size and reliance on corporate financial support keep it from pursuing the social justice needed to address environmental inequities.

“I think it has its heart in the right place,” he said, “but no concept of the stakes on the ground … If you want to clean up the Bay, you have to right some wrongs.”

Baker counters such criticism by pointing out that CBF has hired an attorney to focus on environmental justice cases. But CBF’s top management is all White, and its staff is nearly 90% White. Only 4% of the staff identify as Black. The board of trustees is more diverse, with 19% of its members identifying as Black.

“Our numbers are not where we want them to be,” Baker acknowledged. “We’re working like crazy,” he added, to create a more diverse and inclusive workforce.

Andres Jimenez, executive director of Green 2.0, a group that monitors diversity at nonprofit organizations, said that CBF is at least acknowledging it has a problem.

“Could they be doing better? Yes,” Jimenez said. “Could they be working faster? Yes.” But he credited CBF and Baker with being up front about the problem and seeking his advice and help in addressing it.

Change of command

On Jan. 2, CBF will have a new leader. Hillary Harp Falk, announced as Baker’s successor in late October, interned at CBF and after college worked for three years teaching students about the Bay at CBF’s Port Isabel Island center. Her budding career in conservation then took her to the National Wildlife Federation, where she advanced to become chief program officer. (She is the daughter of Bay Journal staff photographer Dave Harp.)

Many say she’s a good choice to build on what Baker accomplished and take it in new directions.

“She’s a coalition builder, a very strong communicator,” said Ann Swanson, executive director of the Chesapeake Bay Commission and a former CBF staffer. “In hiring Hillary, they’ve reached another generation that was really raised understanding more about diversity, equity and inclusion … and the strength of power sharing.” Whether she can woo the big donors Baker did remains to be seen, Swanson said.

Baker said that he’s doing more fundraising in his final weeks to ensure his successor can start out on a firm financial footing.

After New Year’s Day, Baker said, he plans to “sleep, read a book, you know, smell the roses.” He said his wife once told him he’s a workaholic, which he acknowledges with some chagrin. “I’ve got a couple of things on the drawing board,” he said, but he wasn’t ready to share them just yet.

Looking back, the only regret he was willing to share is that the job he signed up for is not finished. He recalled running into former Maryland Gov. William Donald Schaefer in downtown Annapolis shortly after the governor left office in 1995. After exchanging pleasantries, Baker said he was walking away when Schaefer called out to him. “‘I thought it would be easier,’” Baker heard him say. ‘I said, ‘Governor, what was that?’ He said, ‘Saving the Bay.’”

By Timothy B. Wheeler

Federalsburg Steel Company to Make Components for Wind Energy Turbines

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Maryland’s offshore wind economy is developing at an accelerated pace.

The latest evidence was an announcement Thursday that Ørsted Offshore North America, one of two companies that are expected to build wind energy projects off the coast of Ocean City, reached a $70 million agreement with a steel company in Federalsburg to fabricate steel for turbine components.

The components would be used on turbines for Ørsted’s proposed Skipjack wind development, which is likely to be built off Ocean City, and for two of the company’s projects off the New Jersey coast. They would also be used for a proposed second wind energy development off the coast of Maryland, which is currently being vetted by the state Public Service Commission.

Gov. Lawrence J. Hogan Jr. (R) and a host of other state and local officials, business leaders and environmental groups, were on hand for the announcement at the Crystal Steel Fabricators Inc. plant in an industrial park near Marshyhope Creek in Federalsburg. Hogan called it “an exciting day.”

“Ørsted is a cutting-edge company that has made it their mission to create a world that runs on green energy, and they are progressing toward that goal by continuing to invest in Maryland,” he said. “I am confident our state will continue to be a prime location for offshore wind development, and I want to thank both Ørsted and Crystal Steel for playing a key role.”

This is just the latest announcement about Maryland businesses that are poised to benefit from the fledgling offshore wind industry. Earlier this month, Ørsted announced that it would build a $20 million emissions-free offshore wind operations and maintenance facility on Harbor Road in West Ocean City. And in August, the second company to gain state approval to build a wind energy development in federal waters off Ocean City, US Wind, made a splashy announcement that it would expand operations in Maryland and open its own steel plant at the Tradepoint Atlantic industrial development in Baltimore County.

The Tradepoint Atlantic blueprint, to a great degree, depends on US Wind’s expansion plans being approved by local, state and federal regulators — a process that could take years. In an act of subtle gamesmanship, Ørsted executives boast that their project in Federalsburg can begin immediately, and in fact, Hogan and his Commerce secretary, Kelly M. Schulz, both joked Thursday that they would try to exit the plant quickly so as not to impede progress.

The agreement signed between Ørsted and Crystal Steel means the steel company will be able to hire up to 50 new workers — machine operators, welders and steel fitters — which would increase its workforce in Federalsburg by about one-third and pay “substantial wages,” according to William Lo, president and CEO of the minority-owned company.

Before announcing the deal, Hogan and other dignitaries toured the Crystal Steel facility, seeing where different phases of component work would take place. Later, two welders symbolically fused the corporate logos of the two companies together onto a steel map of Maryland.

Steel beams at the Crystal Steel Fabricators Inc. facility in Federalsburg. Photo by Josh Kurtz, Maryland Matters

Local officials said that the steel plant, located in one of several industrial parks that are popping up in the mainly agricultural Eastern Shore, are injecting much-needed financial capital into the area and are a major source of job growth.

“You wouldn’t believe all the activity that’s going on over here,” Del. John F. “Johnny” Mautz IV (R-Middle Shore) said in an interview.

State Sen. Adelaide C. Eckardt (R-Middle Shore) referred to several companies in the area as “family,” and welcomed Ørsted as “our new family.”

In contrast to the Tradepoint Atlantic event at Sparrows Point, an iconic former industrial area along the Baltimore County waterfront, which also included Hogan and other dignitaries, an environmental leader was invited to speak in Federalsburg on Thursday.

Kim Coble, executive director of the Maryland League of Conservation Voters, noted that her organization works to hold elected officials accountable, but said it was fitting that she could offer praise and congratulations for Thursday’s announcement. “We have a lot to celebrate.”

Coble said that in addition to the boost the Ørsted-Crystal Steel agreement gives to Maryland’s clean energy goals, she was also pleased that Ørsted is planning to build the first zero-emissions maintenance facility in West Ocean City and is adding air filtration technologies to the Crystal Steel plant to protect workers.

Both Ørsted and US Wind are awaiting final federal government OK for their projects off Maryland’s coast — though their approval seems almost inevitable, given the Biden administration’s push to exponentially increase the number of clean energy projects being built across the nation. Earlier this week, U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said the administration aims to offer leases for offshore wind energy development everywhere off the U.S. coast by 2025.

In 2017, US Wind and Ørsted were granted leases from the Maryland Public Service Commission, which is serving as the agent for the federal government, for the first phase of the Interior Department’s lease areas off the coast. Earlier this year, the two companies applied to win the contract for another lease area near Ocean City. The PSC has promised to decide on the bids by mid-December.

Last month, Ørsted filed a complaint with the PSC seeking to disqualify US Wind for the second phase of leasing, questioning the timing of when US Wind would begin utilizing clean energy credits from the state. But last week, the PSC rejected the Ørsted complaint, concluding “it would be inappropriate to grant [Ørsted’s] Motion to Disqualify at this time.”

Nancy Sopko, director of external affairs for US Wind, said an independent consultant for the state has determined that the company’s project off the Ocean City coast was best equipped to protect ratepayers and would cost less than its rival’s.

Both companies hope to have the first phases of their Maryland projects running by the middle of this decade.

State elected officials and business leaders are largely committed to boosting the offshore wind industry in Maryland. Opposition remains in Ocean City, where some political leaders, business owners and real estate agents believe the presence of wind turbines a dozen miles or more from the beach resort could hurt the tourism industry and depress housing values.

By Josh Kurtz

Talbot Planning Commission Will Discuss Resolution 281 at Thursday Night Meeting

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The county planning commission heard public comments Wednesday morning on Resolution 281 and will discuss Thursday night what actions, if any, it will take on the matter.

Resolution 281 amended Talbot County’s water and sewer plan to:

• reclassify and remap certain areas of the Lakeside/Trappe East property from W-2 to W-1 and from S-2 to S-1. (W-1 is immediate priority status for water; S-1 is immediate priority status for sewer.)

• add the Trappe East water and sewer systems to the list of capital improvement projects.

The commission’s agenda for Wednesday described the issue as “Discussion of Planning Commission’s previous certification of consistency with the Talbot County Comprehensive Plan with respect to Resolution 281 and possible recommendations and/or other actions, including undo, consider, reconsider, rescind or amend the previous certification.”

After hearing Wednesday morning from environmental groups and attorneys for a neighboring property owner, the developer, and the Town of Trappe, among others, Talbot County Planning Commission Chairman Phil “Chip” Councell asked for another meeting to be scheduled for the planning commission to consider the comments and discuss its course of action.

Councell asked for that meeting to be held before Tuesday, when the county council will hold a public hearing on Resolution 308, which would rescind adoption of Resolution 281. Resolution 308 was introduced by Council Vice President Pete Lesher, the sole council member to vote last year against Resolution 281.

Resolution 281 had been introduced Dec. 17, 2019, by Talbot County Councilmen Chuck Callahan, Frank Divilio, and Corey Pack, with public hearings held Feb. 11, 2020, and July 21, 2020.

The Talbot County Planning Commission considered the resolution in January, May, and June 2020, and voted 3-2 that an amended resolution was consistent with the comprehensive plan.

The county council voted 4-1 on Aug. 11, 2020, to approve the resolution as amended, sending the matter to the Maryland Department of the Environment for its approval, which the state agency subsequently granted. Councilwoman Laura Price joined Callahan, Divilio, and Pack in voting in favor of Resolution 281.

Earlier this year, petitioners asked the county council to rescind Resolution 281, claiming the county council and the planning commission were not provided with full information last year and noting that the discharge permit for the wastewater treatment plant that will serve Lakeside has been sent back to the state environment department for additional public comment and a public hearing.

Md. Park Leaders Tell Lawmakers State Parks Are Severely Understaffed and Underfunded

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Maryland state parks desperately need a boost in funding to hire more permanent staff and update old infrastructure if they want to meet growing demands for park access, state park leaders told lawmakers on Tuesday.

Due to years of low funding and understaffing, park rangers in state parks are overburdened and need support, state park leaders said.

For instance, it took 500 hours for staff to remove nearly 10,000 pounds of trash along a half-mile stretch of the Gunpowder River in Gunpowder Falls State Park in Baltimore County last summer, Dean Hughes, president of the Maryland Rangers Association, told the State Park Investment Commission Tuesday.

“We’re seeing how the sheer number of people is causing irreparable damage to sensitive environments,” he said.

State parks also are losing some of their rangers, who work at or near state minimum wage ($11.75), to the private sector and parks in Anne Arundel, Howard and Baltimore counties which offer better wages, Hughes said.

Although some park rangers do leave state parks to work for county parks, most of the time they think, “this is just not worth it,” said Chris Czarra, a park ranger at Patapsco Valley State Park and a member of Maryland Professional Employees Council Local 6197.

Czarra said that park rangers want yearly wage increases and to be recognized as first responders since they are trained to provide some of the same emergency services that emergency medical technicians and police provide.

“Every day, you don’t know what you’re going to be dealing with and your plans are always being upended by circumstances in the park,” he said.

To meet growing demands, new state parks have opened but without additional permanent staff, Hughes said.

For example, Wolf Den Run State Park in Garrett County opened in 2019 but is managed by the same staff responsible for Herrington Manor and Swallow Falls State Park.

And if a park ranger is on sick leave, there is no trained staff person to substitute, Czarra said.

Meanwhile, park visitors increased during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Unrealistic workloads and low wages make a career within the park service an unattractive option to future stewards, Hughes said.

“The current trajectory of our state parks is simply not sustainable, and we’re in desperate need of a major investment to meet our state’s growing demand for outdoor recreation,” Hughes said.

There is also a disparity between the resources of state parks and national parks. Assateague State Park only has 10 permanent employees, but Assateague Island National Seashore has 50 permanent employees and, with seasonal staff, twice as many on hand in summer, Hughes said.

With an annual operating budget of around $50 million for Maryland state parks and with 21 million visitors last year, spending around $2 per visitor is not enough, Hughes said.

Mel Poole, president of Friends of Maryland State Parks, a volunteer organization, recommends that the state park system add at least 100 permanent staff positions to address the pre-pandemic visitation levels alone.

Poole also estimated a backlog of $100-million worth of maintenance work that was delayed and must be addressed in next year’s budget.

Park rangers want funding to upgrade bathrooms, sewage treatment systems and replace out-of-date maintenance equipment. Some is so outdated that it costs more to pay rangers overtime to repair it than it would to buy new equipment, Czarra said.

Funding is even more dire for local park systems, especially in Baltimore, said Frank Lance, president of the Parks and People Foundation, a non-profit that seeks to improve the quality of life in Baltimore by increasing access to green space.

Lance said he regularly meets with the director of Baltimore City Recreation and Parks Department to figure out how to make a difference in disenfranchised communities. “But from a funding source, we’re trying to make bricks without straw,” he said.

Joel Dunn, president of the nonprofit Chesapeake Conservancy, also recommended that the state develop a long-term capital budget plan separate from Program Open Space, which is run by the Maryland Department of Natural Resources and provides financial assistance to local governments to support recreational land and open space areas.

The federal Great American Outdoors Act that passed last year allocates $900 million annually to the Land and Water Conservation Fund and provides up to $9.5 billion over five years to address the maintenance backlog at national parks. Dunn suggested that lawmakers could follow this national funding model for Maryland state parks.

Hughes said he would like to see the State Park Investment Commission bring about progressive policies for state parks as the Kirwan Commission did for education with its landmark Blueprint for Maryland’s Future.

By Elizabeth Shwe

New Hearings Set on Trappe East Development

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Maryland residents concerned about the water-quality impacts of a large housing and commercial development on the Eastern Shore have three new opportunities in October to share their opinions with decision makers.

The Maryland Department of the Environment has scheduled a public hearing Oct. 28 on its plan to permit treated wastewater from a planned development in Trappe, called Trappe East, to be sprayed on nearby farm fields. It will be held in person at the Talbot County Community Center​​ and Curling Rink, at 10028 Ocean Gateway in Easton.

Talbot County’s council and planning commission, meanwhile, plan to hold hearings of their own before the MDE session to revisit their 2020 votes in support of the project.

The MDE had issued a groundwater discharge permit in December 2020 for the proposed community of 2,501 homes and apartments plus a shopping center, to be built on an 860-acre tract annexed nearly two decades ago by the town of Trappe. Earlier this year, though, a Talbot County judge ordered the department to give the public another opportunity to comment on the permit because of changes made in it before being issued.

The MDE’s newly proposed permit — unchanged since its original issuance — would allow the developer to eventually spray an average of 540,000 gallons of wastewater daily on grassy fields. It must be treated using enhanced nutrient removal to lower the levels of nitrogen and phosphorus. A lagoon is also required to store wastewater for up to 75 days during winter and when it’s raining or too windy to spray.

Neighboring residents and environmental groups have questioned the MDE’s assurances that the nutrients and other contaminants in the wastewater would be soaked up by the grass in the fields. They fear it could seep into groundwater or run off into nearby Miles Creek, a tributary of the Choptank River.

In addition to in-person comments at the hearing, the MDE will consider written comments submitted by Nov. 5. Those should be emailed to mary.dewa@maryland.gov or mailed to Mary De​la Onyemaechi, Chief, Groundwater Discharge Permits Division, Maryland Department of the Environment, Water and Science Administration, 1800 Washington Blvd., Baltimore, Maryland 21230-1708.

Project opponents have gathered about 200 signatures on a petition calling on the Talbot County Council to rescind its 2020 resolution in support of the development. The resolution amended the county’s water and sewer plan to include the Trappe East development, which effectively cleared the way for the MDE to issue its permit.

Opponents say the council should withdraw its backing, particularly because of changes the developer has made since then in how development’s wastewater will be handled. The first 89 homes in the development, already under construction, are to have their sewage piped to Trappe’s wastewater treatment plant. That plant discharges into LaTrappe Creek, a Choptank River tributary already impaired by excessive nutrient pollution.

When the Talbot County Planning Commission meets at 9 a.m. on Oct. 6, it will discuss whether to rescind its 3 to 2 vote in 2020 recommending that the council support the Lakeside project. The county council hearing takes place at 6:30 p.m. Oct. 12.

By Timothy B. Wheeler

Ocean City Officials Make Last-Ditch Effort on Offshore Wind, But They’re Outnumbered at Hearing

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Ocean City leaders used a public hearing Tuesday night on proposals to expand offshore wind-generated electricity production along Maryland’s coast for a last-ditch attempt to push the proposed turbine installations farther out to sea.

But they found themselves badly outnumbered during a three-hour virtual hearing of the Maryland Public Service Commission (PSC) on two companies’ bids for the next phase of offshore wind energy development in the state: About three-quarters of the people testifying favored expanding the lease area in federal waters.

Two energy companies, Ørsted and US Wind, are awaiting final U.S. government approval to build the first phase of Maryland’s offshore wind development off the coast of Ocean City. But even before the Interior Department’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management weighs in, state officials are seeking bidders for the second phase of wind development; both US Wind and Ørsted are interested in winning that contract as well.

But even as wind energy installations seem likely to appear up and down the Atlantic coast over the next decade, some Ocean City political and business leaders continue to insist that giant turbines located 12-20 miles offshore will damage views from the shore, jeopardizing tourism, real estate values and the local economy.

State Sen. Mary Beth Carozza (R-Lower Shore) urged the PSC to “preserve and protect the Ocean City way of life.”

“We support clean energy in Maryland, including offshore wind, but we stand in opposition to the size and location of the turbines,” she said.

The simple solution, Carozza and other officials argued, is to push the wind energy projects farther offshore, noting that similar moves are being made in other East Coast states. But designated federal lease areas off the coast of Maryland and Delaware only go so far, meaning moving them farther offshore isn’t practical.

Ocean City Mayor Rick Meehan said he did not know why, with the federal approval process for the first phase of the development moving so slowly, the PSC seemed so eager to award a lease for the second phase.

“Why would the PSC rush to [approve another lease] with so many unanswered questions?” he asked, adding that the impacts of the wind turbines on the Ocean City economy would be “irreversible.”

“We can’t rely on [the wind energy companies] to protect the future of Ocean City,” Meehan said.

Danny Robinson, an Ocean City restaurant owner, laid out his opposition in more dramatic terms. He said he informally polls his customers and hasn’t found a single one who favors the wind projects.

“I understand that we in this little community are the only thing standing between the big wind cartel and billions of dollars in government subsidies,” Robinson said, calling the projects “a plunder of our resources” rather than “a solution for climate change.”

“I don’t want to have to explain to my grandchildren what a sunrise used to look like in Ocean City, Maryland,” he said.

But dozens of people testified in favor of the expansion plans, saying that Ocean City might cease to exist altogether if renewable power projects aren’t advanced aggressively.

“The fact of the matter is, if we don’t act now, there will be no Ocean City,” said Cindy Dillon, a resident of Ocean Pines.

Kathy Phillips, director of the Assateague Coastal Trust, said the current debate over offshore wind reminds her of the furor in Ocean City over beach replenishment in the 1980’s, when some residents feared that higher dunes would block views from low-level condominiums. Instead, she said, they have become natural treasures that attract red foxes and other wildlife.

“Twenty years from now, our offshore wind farms will be claimed proudly by new residents and tourists,” Phillips predicted.

Representatives from labor unions, regional business organizations, Baltimore County government and the Tradepoint Atlantic industrial development near Dundalk touted the economic development benefits of offshore wind and said the projects would provide thousands of construction jobs in Maryland and hundreds of maintenance jobs in the Ocean City area. In August, US Wind announced ambitious plans to establish a manufacturing operation and steel plant at Tradepoint Atlantic, the site of a former Bethlehem Steel factory.

The Public Service Commission will hold a second virtual hearing on the two wind companies’ bids to expand offshore wind on Thursday at 6 p.m. The commission will take written testimony on the proposals until Nov. 19. The agency has promised to make a decision on the bids by Dec. 18.

By Josh Kurtz

Md. Moves to Curb Water Pollution from Linkwood Chicken Rendering Plant

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After years of complaints from its neighbors, state regulators have ordered a poultry rendering plant on Maryland’s Eastern Shore to curtail its pollution of a Chesapeake Bay tributary and say they will crack down on environmental violations there.

The Maryland Department of the Environment last week released a new draft wastewater permit for the Valley Proteins Inc. facility in Linkwood that would tighten limits on what it now releases after treatment into the Transquaking River.

“Our proposed actions mean cleaner water and a healthier watershed, with greater accountability for environmental violations,” MDE Secretary Ben Grumbles said in a Sept. 15 press release. The release said the agency would seek a “significant financial penalty” as well as corrective actions for a series of alleged water and air pollution violations at the plant.

Environmental activists welcomed the MDE’s announcement, but said it was long overdue.

“It’s good to see some movement to protect water quality,” said Matt Pluta, head of Riverkeeper programs for the nonprofit group ShoreRivers. “This is what we expected from them all along.”

Local residents and environmental activists have complained for years that the state hasn’t taken steps needed to improve water quality in the Transquaking, which flows through Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge before emptying into Fishing Bay and then the Chesapeake Bay just above Tangier Sound.

The headwaters of the Transquaking River flow near the Valley Proteins chicken rendering facility. Photo by Dave Harp, Bay Journal

The river has been classified for more than 20 years as impaired by nutrient pollution. The rendering plant is the river’s largest single source of such pollution, which fuels algae blooms and reduces oxygen levels in the water below what’s healthy for fish and other aquatic animals.

The state has allowed the facility to operate under a discharge permit that expired in 2006, despite a federal law requiring such permits be renewed every five years. Pluta called it the oldest “zombie,” or expired, permit in Maryland. “MDE has let it continue operating without updated [pollution] controls for 15 years,” he said.

In April, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, ShoreRivers and Dorchester Citizens for Planned Growth jointly notified Valley Proteins that they intended to sue it for violating the federal Clean Water Act by repeatedly exceeding permit limits on its discharge of pollutants such as fecal coliform, nitrogen, phosphorus and ammonia.

The plant takes up to 4 million pounds of chicken entrails and feathers daily from poultry processing plants, according to MDE documents, and renders them into pet food. It’s currently permitted to discharge up to 150,000 gallons of treated wastewater daily, and it uses an air scrubber to control odors.

In the draft permit, the MDE has set caps on how much nitrogen and phosphorus the plant can discharge, regardless of volume. Those caps represent a 43% and 79% reduction from what is permitted now. To stay within those limits, the plant will have to upgrade its treatment, even at the current maximum discharge volume of 150,000 gallons per day.

But in 2014, the company sought state approval to increase its maximum allowable discharge to 575,000 gallons daily in order to expand production. Local residents and environmental groups objected, arguing that the facility already was polluting the water, and the issue has been unresolved until now.

Earlier this year, the MDE disclosed in budget documents that it intended to give Valley Proteins a $13 million state grant to help upgrade its treatment facility so it could reduce its nutrient discharge while expanding operations. The grant would have covered more than 80% of the estimated cost of the overhaul. It would have been the first such grant to a private company from the state’s Bay Restoration Fund, which has been used primarily to upgrade municipal sewage systems.

MDE officials contended that the grant was warranted because it would help the plant achieve enhanced nutrient removal in its wastewater treatment operation, the same standard applied to large municipal sewage plants. But the General Assembly cut the allowable grant amount to $7.6 million after critics contended that the private company based in Winchester, Va., could afford to pick up a larger share of the tab.

Now, though, amid allegations of pollution violations at the plant, the MDE has decided not to provide the grant to Valley Proteins.

“The company has a lot of explaining to do, and the competition for [Bay Restoration Fund] dollars among other applicants is continuing to grow,” Grumbles said in a statement emailed in response to queries.

The draft permit would give the company the option in the next few years to boost its wastewater output to accommodate increased production. But it would still have to adhere to the annual caps set on the amounts of nitrogen and phosphorus it can discharge. That would necessitate upgrades completely at the company’s own expense.

With the state grant off the table, Michael A. Smith, Valley Proteins vice chairman, indicated that the company would forego the overhaul the MDE says it would need to expand operations.

Instead, Smith said, the company plans to make less costly upgrades, which should be enough to meet the new nutrient limits with its current volume discharge.

“So there will be capital improvements but not to the magnitude it could have been had the funding come through,” Smith said.

Activists said they are guardedly optimistic but intend to keep pressing the MDE on tightening the permit.

“With an upgraded plant, we can expect lower levels of nutrients and [other] pollution,” ShoreRivers’ Pluta said. “We can only hope,” he added, that the plant does what’s needed to achieve enhanced nutrient removal.

Fred Pomeroy, president of Dorchester Citizens for Planned Growth, said he was pleased after years of advocacy to “finally get affirmation from MDE that the longstanding pollution issues will be addressed in the Transquaking River.”

And Alan Girard, Eastern Shore director for the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, said activists were encouraged by the MDE’s announcement “after more than a decade of inaction. However, appropriate actions must be taken in response to the company’s repeated violations of the current permit and to ensure there is a commitment from Valley Proteins to comply with new pollution limits.”

The company has been fined a total of $5,000 over the last five years, according to a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency database. In the April notice of their intent to sue, the environmental groups said that public reports the company submits to state and federal regulators show the plant has repeatedly exceeded its discharge limits in recent years.

The groups also suggested that high nitrate levels found in monitoring wells may be from water leaking into groundwater from two wastewater storage lagoons on the property. They further alleged that the company hasn’t properly documented the tons of poultry waste sludge that is hauled away from the plant.

In its press release, the MDE said its investigators have found multiple infractions from July 2018 to the present. MDE spokesman Jay Apperson said those include exceeding currently permitted limits on several pollutants, plus an unauthorized discharge of only partially treated waste.

Also, in response to odor complaints, an MDE inspector visited the plant in August and cited it for an air pollution violation after finding fault with the operations and monitoring of its emission scrubber.

The draft permit includes updated groundwater monitoring requirements that the MDE said could provide more information about potential sources of pollution. It also contains more requirements for proper sludge management and reporting on its disposal.

“We are working with the facility, citizens and advocacy groups to ensure environmental progress using our regulatory enforcement tools,” the MDE’s Grumbles said.

The MDE has scheduled a virtual public hearing for 5 p.m. Oct. 20, with an in-person hearing at a date and place to be determined. To register for the virtual hearing, go here. The department will accept written comments on the draft permit if submitted by Dec. 15. For more information, go here, here and here.

By Tim Wheeler and  Jeremy Cox