Federation Blog

Over the course of the past several years, Anne Arundel County Department of Public Works has been at the forefront of developing a plan to clean up local waters.  During the past year, Anne Arundel was one of two "pilot counties" (the other being Caroline) who shared their lessons learned with other counties around the state as they too developed their plans.

The plan focuses on tackling the three major sources of pollutants in Anne Arundel County: Wastewater treatment plants, septic systems, and urban stormwater.  I encourage you to check it out.

Anne Arundel County's Final Phase 2 Watershed Implementation Plan (WIP) [PDF]

Core Strategy Maps for each of the assessed watersheds in the County can be found here.

• South River Map [PDF]

Every year it happens.  Initially, I was shocked.  Now, like clockwork, every spring I fully expect to get the call from some concerned citizen that local wildlife has gotten out of control and needs to be exterminated.  Our Riverkeeper has been asked, or in some cases told, to kill a vast swath of fauna, from osprey and cow-nosed rays to muskrats and beavers, for reasons ranging from their perceived threat to small children to minor property damage.  Needless to say, she’s never acted on those requests.  And, it’s for a good reason.  To the extent that those creatures remain here at all, or in some cases, are making a comeback, it should be cause for celebration, not an opportunity to purge the river of its last vestiges of wild-ness. In many cases, their roles as keystone organisms in the ecosystem are critical to the river’s recovery.

Recently, in a local publication, the question was posed as to whether a nearby environmental restoration project, the Edgewater Elementary schoolyard wetland, was an “eyesore or resource.”  Besides the fact that, depending upon one’s aesthetic preferences, the two descriptions aren’t mutually exclusive, there can be little doubt that the project has, by its intended goals, been a success.  The University of Maryland has been studying a number of similar restoration sites throughout the county for the past several years and has found that they significantly reduce both nutrients (in particular, nitrogen) and sediment to the downstream resource.    This means that by trapping and processing pollution in these constructed wetland systems, and allowing those nutrients to be taken up by the plants and other organisms that inhabit them (e.g., fish, frogs, turtles, and yes, even snakes), our rivers and the Bay are kept healthier.  In the case of the Edgewater Elementary project, which is in a high-profile, well-traveled location along Mayo Road, it does tend to collect the trash that drivers carelessly toss out their window, or that washes off the nearly 90 acres of surrounding neighborhood.  But that trash would be in Warehouse Creek, the South River, the Chesapeake Bay, and eventually, the Atlantic Ocean if it wasn’t trapped there, where it can easily be cleaned up.  Just because trash is out of sight doesn’t mean it should be out of mind. 

As a result of the way we have used the land around the Bay for the past several hundred years, the South River has been devoid of underwater grasses for the better part of the last decade.  Nevertheless, it’s still always interesting to hear the stories of people in their 50s and 60s recounting tales from their childhood of having been paid a quarter or two to help tear up the grasses that were once so abundant they fouled the propellers of local watercraft.  More ominous stories abound as well, detailing the widespread application of herbicides to eradicate the grasses we now so desperately wish could thrive in our rivers.  It gives one pause to think that we could easily slip back into those “bad old days” when the grasses do eventually bounce back.

“Save the Bay” has become nearly an unofficial state motto in Maryland, as well it should.  A great many of us choose to reside in the “land of pleasant living” precisely because of the majesty of the Chesapeake Bay and the wonder that surrounds it.  It’s important for us to recognize that if we’re going to restore the Chesapeake Bay and the South River that it is not going to be a sterile, manicured menagerie that will be constantly under our absolute control.  It’s going to be wild, surprising, unpredictable, and sometimes messy, as so often the most wonderful things in life are.   

Most of the time when we think of turkeys, visions of golden brown gobblers on the Thanksgiving table come to mind.  It wasn't until a few years ago when I came across a female turkey and several young walking along Patuxent River Road that it occurred to me that turkeys, other than perhaps the farm-raised variety, still existed between Washington, DC and Annapolis.  Turns out it's true, native, wild turkeys (Meleagris gallopavo silvestris) appear to be making something of a comeback in the region.

Just recently, I received word that wild turkeys had been spotted up near Bacon Ridge Branch, one of the headwaters of the South River.  These birds, unlike their domesticated cousins, are quite bright and are accomplished fliers, staying beneath the forest canopy and perching in branches to avoid predators. 

Recall, this is the bird that held such a revered place in American history that Ben Franklin had originally suggested it as the national bird.   If you happen to be hiking through the woods in the area, or driving along Chesterfield Road, be sure to keep your eyes peeled for these waddling wildfowl.

Much of the current thinking about the health of the Chesapeake Bay and its rivers centers on the way that the land around them - their watersheds - are used.  For instance, is the landscape dominated by agriculture and forest or perhaps by roads and suburban development?  Based on these contemporary land uses and a variety of scientific assumptions, models have been created to estimate pollution loads to various waterways, and to drive the restoration strategies for restoring their health.  

So, on the eastern shore of Maryland, where various agricultural land uses such as row crops and the poultry industry pre-dominate, strategies generally focus on maximizing soil conservation practices, like cover crops and forested buffers, and reducing fertilizer loads.  On the western shore, which was once heavily agricultural, but is now primarily urban and suburban development, the problems are attributed largely to “stormwater,” a catch-all term intended to cover anything associated with the runoff of rain from the developed landscape.    Both sets of assumptions seem intuitively true and have a straightforward appeal:  “We do X and Y happens.”   The trouble is, as is so often the case, the world is more complicated than that.

Research coming out of Franklin & Marshall University over the past several years has taken to examining the way that historical land use, primarily agriculture and land clearing, has both shaped our contemporary sense of what healthy streams and creeks look like, but also how they function.  Their research has focused primarily on mill dams throughout the mid-Atlantic, and looking at how sediment released through historical land use built up behind those dams in stream valleys across the region, and is now being exported downstream.   Even where mill dams were not present – and they occurred in significant numbers in Anne Arundel County – the stream valleys are covered in several feet of historical sediment which continues to make its way to tidewater.    

The researchers from Franklin & Marshall issued the following stark statement in the conclusion to a 2011 publication[1]: “incised, post-dam breach streams and fine-grained banks in the mid-Atlantic region are anthropogenic in origin, and the causes of both the accumulation of sediment in valleys and subsequent incision and erosion are not directly related to modern upland land use or cover. Conceptual and computer models that link channel condition and sediment yield exclusively with contemporaneous upland land use, sediment supply and runoff are incomplete because anthropogenic forcing has impacted valley bottom, not only upland, boundary conditions, and has done so for centuries.”

What this means in plain English is that, in many respects, we are still paying for the ways that our predecessors used the land that we currently live on for the past several centuries.  This is not to absolve current generations of taking responsibility for the problem – if not us, who?  If not now, when? – but instead to emphasize that what we do today has long lasting effects and that in order to best restore the health of our waterways, we need to first truly understand what is making them sick.

Perhaps you’ve heard it said that in Chinese, the character for “crisis” is the same as the one for “opportunity”.  I know I have.  A quick search of the internet, that great dasher of self-delusion, suggests that this assertion was probably wishful thinking guided by a poor translation. Nonetheless, I think there’s a great deal of merit to the idea of embracing turbulent times as a vehicle for positive change.   And, there’s little question we’re living in turbulent times. 

In the midst of a recession, with high unemployment rates and low consumer confidence, I think it’s easy for legislators to put their environmental concerns on the back burner, to focus on ways to create jobs, or to try to find ways to ease people’s economic burden.  This old way of thinking – that economic prosperity can be exclusive of environmental sustainability – is actually what has gotten us into our current position: a Bay on life support, a climate out of control, and an economy where the best jobs we create are far from our shores.

The truth is that the economy and our environment are intertwined – especially in Maryland, where the Chesapeake Bay is an enormous economic engine.  We are putting the pieces in place NOW, to make Maryland a leading innovator in the emerging green economy as well as a leader in improving environmental health. 

For several years, Maryland has been a member of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI for short), and has collected revenues, a share of which are targeted at energy efficiency and conservation programs.   These are dollars aimed at reducing our reliance on coal and natural gas, and other polluting sources of energy by employing contractors to go into the homes of low and middle income individuals, install insulation, new windows and doors, and energy efficient appliances.    This is the kind of program that creates installation jobs that can’t be shipped offshore, manufacturing jobs across multiple sectors, and helps drive down electricity rates for everyone in the state.  This is but one instance where our economic goals are perfectly aligned with our environmental ones.   Another is the case of promoting renewable energy, like offshore wind.    By beginning to harness the natural wind resource off the coast of the Atlantic, we can decrease our reliance on fossil fuels, create jobs in the manufacturing and installation of turbines, and set the example for states throughout the region.  

But what about the cost?  Much is made in the popular media of the “subsidies” that renewable energies receive, and it’s popular in some circles to ridicule government support of solar or wind energy, but I ask you: what is the “subsidy” that each of us grants the coal industry every time that the top is blown off another mountain in West Virginia, or a stream is filled with toxic sludge in Kentucky, or a landfill is plugged with heavy metal-laden fly ash in Crofton?   What is the subsidy that the taxpayers of Pennsylvania provide to the natural gas companies each time the poisonous wastewater from hydraulic fracturing operations is discharged into their rivers and streams?   We’ve all been paying those subsidies since time immemorial.  If we’re going to talk about costs, let’s talk about the TRUE costs of these methods, including their environmental impacts.  It’s time we finally start subsidizing activities that benefit us, and that improve our quality of life without at the same time deteriorating the quality of those living at the site of extraction. 

To my mind, there is no bigger crisis, or opportunity, than the current condition of the Chesapeake Bay.  Popular accounts might lead you to believe that the Bay’s health is the product of 40 or 50 years of rough use and a few nasty hurricanes.  The truth is, we find ourselves with our current opportunity because of over 350 years of intensive use and abuse.    The feds have given us 15 years to get things back on track, the Governor has shortened that time frame to 10.  I would hate for him to think that I don’t appreciate his optimism, but with that ambitious goal comes a vastly shortened time line.   By the State’s own estimates, we need to invest something on the order of $1 billion per year, for the next decade, into on-the-ground practices that are going to improve the water quality of our streams, creeks, and rivers.   From what I can tell, the current statewide expenditures for this effort are a small fraction of that amount, and constantly under threat.   We need to ensure, starting this year, that we have the revenue streams in place to guarantee that our wastewater treatment plant upgrades across the state can occur without delay, and that each county in the state has a dedicated funding source in place to repair the damage that uncontrolled stormwater runoff has wreaked from western Maryland to the eastern shore and everywhere in between.  Think about it, a billion dollars a year for the Bay.  How many engineering, design, and construction jobs, as well as jobs in the resource conservation, aquaculture, and tourism industry do you think that translates into? 

We’re in the midst of a crisis, of that there’s no doubt, and we have the opportunity to choose one of two paths: doing things the way we’ve always done them and praying for a different result, or embracing clean energy, a clean Bay, and a healthy environment as the roadmap to a healthy economy.   I think you know which path you’ll find me on.  I hope you’ll join me. 

The video below was put together by the Alliance for Sustainable Communities to highlight an innovative stormwater/shoreline project on the banks of the Magothy River.  Additional details about the Alliance can be found here: http://www.beinginplace.org/

When Maryland turned in its roadmap for cleaning up the Chesapeake to the federal government early in December, many of us held out considerable hope that it would not only detail strategies for how we, collectively, are going to clean up our portion of the Bay’s pollutants, but also clearly articulate the ways that the state would finance this multi-billion dollar initiative.    Unfortunately, what was presented to EPA was more deferral and delay and not the leadership we had hoped for.

Maryland has set an ambitious deadline of 2020 – five years before it is required to do so – for having all of the practices in place in order to achieve Bay clean-up.   The Watershed Implementation Plan (WIP) submitted on December 3^rd, estimates that meeting the implementation of 70% of these practices by 2017 could cost as much as $10 billion statewide.    The bulk of these costs fall into three primary areas: First, the continued upgrade of wastewater treatment plants, conversion of conventional septics, and enhancement of wastewater infrastructure (approximately $ 5 billion); second, the repair or restoration of stormwater related damage throughout the state (approximately $ 4 billion); and third, the upgrade of coal-fired power plants to reduce airborne nutrient pollution (between $1.8 and 3 billion).   These numbers add up quickly and can become staggering when taken as a whole, particularly when these estimates appear pretty rosy in comparison to some locally-derived figures. 

However, that’s no reason for delay, quite the contrary.  For, if legislators in Maryland had gotten serious about this effort almost 40 years ago, when the Clean Water Act went into effect,  we could have spent around $25 million/year and now be looking at a clean Chesapeake Bay.  Instead, in addition to the $1.2 billion structural deficit the State faces, it now also faces a $1.4 billion environmental deficit each year through 2017, and according to the WIP, appears to have chosen to punt on doing anything substantial in 2011. 

The environmental community and a number of other stakeholders stand united in asking both the administration and the legislature to step up to marshal the necessary resources to get this Bay clean-up effort underway now.  That will involve increasing the Bay Restoration Fee – the so-called “Flush Tax” – so that wastewater treatment plants statewide can continue being upgraded in a timely and efficient fashion.   It will also involve requiring local governments to put in place “stormwater utilities”, dedicated funding sources, based on impervious surface fees, that each jurisdiction can use to repair and restore the damage that has occurred to the streams, creeks, and rivers feeding the Bay.   Each of these revenue sources will help create new, “green” jobs throughout the state, and will clean up local waterways in addition to the Chesapeake.

If the State and local governments fail to start taking the necessary steps to clean up the Bay, as they have done for decades, they risk fines and penalties, and EPA could potentially require “backstop” measures that could have serious impacts on growth and development for years to come.    In a year of many difficult decisions, starting to get serious about the clean-up of the Chesapeake Bay should be an easy one.  Let’s see some leadership.  Let’s stop talking about clean water and start fighting for it.

Just this morning, driving by the Bay, I saw my first tundra swans (Cygnus columbianus) of the season.   Unlike the non-native, invasive mute swans (Cygnus olor), easily identified by their orange bills, the tundra swans migrate each year, and, believe it or not, they come to the Chesapeake in the winter for the warm weather.    These majestic birds breed in the arctic and sub-arctic tundra and then fly south for the winter, into our relatively balmy Bay.  Keep your eyes peeled for these winter visitors, and if you happen to spot them, listen closely for their eerily beautiful vocalizations.

Driving up Muddy Creek Road this morning, stopped, waiting for the light at 214 to turn green, I noticed a healthy stand of trumpet vine (Campsis radicans) in bloom.  Its bright orange flowers are showy are hard to miss, but looking a little more closely, I saw two hummingbirds (I think they were ruby-throated (Archilochus colubris)) flitting in and out of the blossoms, sipping their nectar.

It's rare enough to see one hummingbird, but to see two together is quite a treat.  If you've got trumpet vine growing up a nearby trellis or tree, keep your eyes peeled and you may spy one of these little marvels yourself.

It's rare that you'll hear me touting the virtues of invasive plants.  Very rare. But during this time of year, I'm willing to make one exception.  In late June or early July, the wineberries (Rubus phoenicolasius) are out in full force, and if you can find them when they're ripe, they're an exquisite, locally-grown, organic (most likely) treat.

Whether popping them in your mouth by the handful, or putting them on top of an ice cream sundae, these deep red berries are sweet relief in the dog days of summer. As a rule, the darker the berries, the riper (and sweeter) they are.  

Wineberry bushes are often found at the edge of disturbed forests, or along road edges where they haven't been completely shaded out.   A visit to one of our local parks late last week confirmed that now is the time to go out and start harvesting if you're a fan of these juicy treats.

Eating the berries yourself has the added environmental benefit of keeping those seed-laden morsels from wildlife who have helped to spread the invasive plant far and wide through their droppings.

 Disclaimer: Before you eat any wild fruits or berries, please make sure that you have properly identified them.   It is possible to get sick (or worse) from eating poisonous plant parts.