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EPA issues rules to 'finish the job' of cleaning U.S. waters
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Status of Chemical Contaminant Effects on Living Resources in the Chesapeake Bay’s Tidal Rivers
MD Senate rejects Ehrlich’s nomination for environmental secretary
After more than two hours of passionate—sometimes angry—partisan debate, the Maryland Senate rejected Gov. Robert Ehrlich’s nomination of Lynn Buhl to head the state’s Department of the Environment.
The nomination was defeated March 11 in a 26-21 vote. All 14 Republicans and seven Democrats supported the nomination of the former midlevel manager in the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, while 26 Democrats voted against it, questioning her qualifications for the position.
It was the first time the Senate had rejected a governor’s choice of a cabinet nominee. A coalition of environmental groups two weeks earlier had asked Ehrlich to withdraw Buhl’s nomination, saying she has “no experience advocating for environmental protection.”
During the Senate debate, Sen. Brian Frosh, D-Montgomery, spoke out about the reputation of Michigan’s environmental department, in which Buhl served under then-Gov. John Engler.
Frosh said the DEQ saw its mission as serving big businesses rather than protecting the environment and the well-being of Michigan’s citizens. Frosh reminded senators that when he asked Buhl during a committee hearing if there were any policies of the DEQ that she disagreed with, she replied “not that I recall.”
Frosh compared that to interviewing a baby sitter whose past employer was The Addams Family, and asking “when you worked for The Addams Family, did you notice anything strange about them? And she says, ‘No, I didn’t notice anything strange about The Addams Family.’”
Republican leaders called Buhl “eminently qualified” and accused Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller, D-Calvert, of coercing undecided, moderate Democrats to vote against her.
Ehrlich pledged to find a role for Buhl in his administration. The former lawyer for the federal Environmental Protection Agency and DaimlerChrysler Corp., immediately left town for a few days after watching the vote from the Senate's second floor gallery. She released a brief statement expressing her disappointment and thanking Ehrlich for his support.
Technically, she is still acting secretary of the environment and could continue to serve in that capacity, said Ehrlich spokesman Paul Schurick. If she chooses to step down, Kendl Philbrick, a former Lockheed Martin attorney appointed to be Buhl’s deputy, will be acting secretary.
Schurick said the administration had no plans of nominating someone else to become secretary before the end of the legislative session next month. “I don’t think there’s a person in the world who would put themselves through this process,” he said.
Ehrlich has said repeatedly that he wants to foster a friendlier atmosphere for businesses in Maryland and fashion a department of the environment that is not “in permanent ‘gotcha’ mode” with violators of regulations.
EPA livestock rules challenged
Environmental groups are mounting a legal challenge to the Bush administration’s new rules to reduce runoff from large livestock operations, charging it does too little to protect water quality.
The Sierra Club, Natural Resources Defense Council and the Waterkeeper Alliance say the rule gave large “confined animal feeding operations” too much power in writing plans about how to manage animal manure, and shields farms from liability for damage caused by animal waste pollution.
“These new regulations maintain ‘business as usual’ for corporate agriculture and leave thousands of American communities unprotected against pollution from livestock factories,” said Robert Kennedy Jr., president of the Waterkeeper Alliance.
Under rules announced in December, the EPA would require about 15,500 of the nation’s largest livestock operations to get discharge permits and implement plans governing how manure is used as fertilizer. Only about 4,500 of the nation’s 238,000 animal feeding operations have such permits today. [See “New rules seek to curb runoff from animal farms,” January-February 2003.]
The rule expands the scope of federal regulations far beyond what had been previously required by including large poultry producers and for the first time requiring that all large livestock operations develop nutrient management plants to help ensure manure is not overapplied.
But the rules, in a number of respects, were weaker than those the agency had originally proposed two years earlier.
Industry groups, including the American Farm Bureau Federation and the National Chicken Council have filed their own challenges to the rule.
In its suit, the farm bureau questioned the EPA’s authority to require pollution permits without proof of a problem, and whether it could claim jurisdiction over fields where animal feeding did not occur.
The EPA contends its rule will reduce by one-third the pollution from animal feedlots, which is a major source of nutrient pollution to the Chesapeake and other waterways. It said the rules would affect 60 percent of the 500 million tons of manure generated annually at feedlots.
Fisheries service director fired
Maryland Fisheries Director Eric Schwaab was dismissed in March. Environmental groups and people who worked with him during his 20 years with the Department of Natural Resources said his departure will be a loss for the agency.
“We’re a little bewildered that he would be fired so abruptly,” said Sue Brown, director of the Maryland League of Conservation Voters. “Eric is one of the most experienced and highly respected natural resource officials in the state.”
Schwaab, 42, had a long career in the agency, where he was first hired as a Maryland Natural Resources Police officer. He later served as a ranger at Gunpowder State Park before he was promoted to management positions at Deep Creek Lake and for the park system. In 1992, he was appointed director of the Forest Service. He became director of the fisheries service four years ago.
“Normally, these are the sorts of people you want to keep,” said former DNR Secretary John Griffin. “I feel very badly for him, and I feel, certainly, a sense of loss for the agency.”
The administration earlier fired four top DNR officials on the governor’s inauguration day: Deputy Secretary Karen White and assistant secretaries Sumita Chaudhuri, Verna Harrison and Carolyn Watson.
Pentagon chiefs told to seek exemptions to environmental laws
The Pentagon’s No. 2 official has ordered military service chiefs to provide examples in which President Bush could cite national security and exempt defense facilities from certain environmental laws.
The move follows the Bush administration’s requests, made in the name of military training, that Congress ease laws governing endangered species, marine mammals and air and water quality at defense facilities.
Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz suggested that the Pentagon should consider reversing its “past restraint” against having the president invoke national security exemption provisions available in some environmental laws. He said those exemptions have never been used.
The military is the largest owner of property bordering the Chesapeake Bay, with 66 installations covering 360,000 acres of land in the watershed
In a March 7 memo to the chiefs of the Army, Navy and Air Force, Wolfowitz said, “It is time for us to give greater consideration to requesting such exemptions” in cases where the laws threaten military training and readiness.
Jeff Ruch, executive director of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, an advocacy group that made the memo available, said pushing for the exemptions would lessen public scrutiny. “If the president invokes it, there’s no way to challenge it or subject it to a review,” he said.
Pentagon spokesman Glenn Flood said the memo is authentic but noted that for the department “to use those exemptions, it’s got to be a dire, critical situation.”
Congress rejected most of the military’s requests for changes in environmental laws last year. Legislators approved a temporary waiver in a law protecting migratory birds and eased requirements for land conservation and the transfer of surplus property.
Pentagon officials still want Congress to grant a three-year grace period from air pollution laws affecting new weaponry and less restrictive requirements for protecting endangered species and for preventing the “harassment” of marine mammals.
Engineers to study ailing lighthouse
The Army is joining the fight to save an endangered lighthouse in Virginia’s portion of the Chesapeake Bay.
New Point Comfort Lighthouse has been included in a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers study of the shoreline erosion along the Bay, said U.S. Rep. Jo Ann Davis, R-VA.
“The study will enable the Corps to study the feasibility of various efforts to preserve this historical Mathews County treasure,” Davis said in a statement.
First illuminated in 1805, the lighthouse was placed last year on the Preservation Alliance of Virginia’s most-endangered list.
The 58-foot-tall sandstone tower at the entrance to Mobjack Bay has weathered storms and erosion for nearly two centuries. It once occupied an island of about 250 acres, but much of the island was washed away in a 1933 hurricane.
A rampart of granite boulders surrounds the lighthouse island. Last year, the General Assembly budgeted $56,742 to develop a master plan for saving the lighthouse and opening it to the public.
A local group called the New Point Lighthouse Preservation Task Force is overseeing the work. Its chairman, Earl Soles Jr., welcomed the federal government’s interest.
He said the group’s initial priority is to halt the erosion of the land under the lighthouse. Sand is washing away from the protective boulders. Once the ground is secured, then work can begin on the lighthouse, Soles said.
