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Clean water advocates could hit mother lode with mine ruling
Water demands may leave rivers high and dry
Most streams, many wetlands could lose protection
Virginia, Maryland feuding over water pipe, Potomac mud
Authorities in Virginia want to install a new pipe in the Potomac River to supply residents with clearer water, but Maryland, which owns the middle of the river, is opposed to the project.
Through a 367-year-old land grant, Maryland owns the riverbed, its boundary extending all the way to the Virginia shore. Maryland officials have refused to issue the Fairfax County Water Authority a permit for the project, which would involve damming the river and dynamiting the riverbed.
The water authority spends $1 million a year to strain thick, brown sediment out of the water that flows into the intake pipe along the Potomac shoreline, just inside Loudoun County. The area is opposite Maryland’s Montgomery County.
In search of clearer water, the authority wants to build a new intake extending closer to the middle of the river.
Maryland critics — including environmentalists, canoeists and state environmental officials — argue that Virginia created the runoff problems through overdevelopment and lax regulation upstream. “Uncontrolled and unmanaged development is grinding up the fields and woods of Loudoun County as it has done with Fairfax County,” said Sen. Christopher Van Hollen Jr., D-Montgomery. He co-sponsored a bill to block the pipeline project.
Critics in Maryland contend that Virginia could solve its dirty intake water problem by slowing development and controlling erosion in its watershed. They see the proposed intake pipe not only as unsightly, but also as fueling more rampant growth.
Fairfax officials call their state’s land-use record “exemplary,” saying it compares favorably to Maryland’s.
The Fairfax Water Authority supplies water to about 1.2 million people in Fairfax, Alexandria, Dale City, Prince William, Loudoun, Dulles Airport and Fort Belvoir.
Development is not the main source of turbid water, the authority says, arguing that controlling growth is not the utility’s responsibility.
But water suppliers across the country are increasingly being drawn into the development debate, as environmental groups target suburban sprawl as the new major threat.
The Fairfax Water Authority is proposing a new, $6.6 million, 725-foot intake to be built next to the existing one. Plans call for the pipe to be partially buried in the riverbed, 2 1_2 feet below the river’s historic-low-flow level. Opponents, who fear an eyesore, remain skeptical.
“That river is a national treasure, like the Statue of Liberty or the Washington Monument — why should we take risks with it?” said Delegate Jean Cryor, R-Montgomery.
Virginia officials insist that to safeguard public health, they need the new intake now. Their studies have shown that water drawn from midstream will be less likely to carry oil from an upstream spill or parasites.
The battle may wind up in court as well as the state legislature. The Maryland Department of the Environment has denied Fairfax’s 1996 request for permission to extend the pipe, a denial the company has appealed.
Poultry industry to fight MD plan
The poultry industry has vowed to fight a plan by Maryland officials to make poultry companies — instead of chicken farmers — responsible for disposing of the birds’ manure.
Environmentalists and federal regulators like the plan, saying it’s a major step toward eradicating farm pollution and a possible threat to the health of the Bay.
“That’s an important milestone,” said Charles Fox, EPA assistant administrator for the Office of Water. “Maryland is recognizing that both the company and the chicken grower have to be part of the solution.”
Chicken companies say the policy would put them at a competitive disadvantage. They say the state lacks the legal authority to impose such a change.
The way it works now, chicken growers working under contract with poultry companies such as Tyson Foods and Perdue Farms are responsible for disposing of manure. Although some farmers value the manure as fertilizer, others must scramble for ways to dispose of it.
West Virginia Attorney General Darrell McGraw has sued a Hardy County chicken processor claiming its contracts with growers are unfair. The lawsuit against Wampler Foods Inc. and WLR Foods Inc. says the companies should take a larger role in helping farmers dispose of chicken manure.
As state and federal regulators have tightened environmental rules, manure has become more of a liability.
Maryland Secretary of the Environment Jane Nishida said the state plans to include manure disposal provisions in permits for all poultry processing plants as they come up for renewal. Three facilities have such permits in Maryland: the Showell plant, Tyson’s slaughtering plant in Berlin, and one operated by Allen Family Foods in Cordova.
George Watts, president of the National Chicken Council, a trade group based in Washington, said Maryland’s approach is wrong. He called it “punitive” and said it would discourage farmers from voluntarily making changes.
However, environmentalists praised the plan. “This is the right thing to do to solve a major industrial problem on the Delmarva peninsula,” said Thomas V. Grasso, Maryland executive director of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation.
VA to require developers to document vegetation
Developers who cut down too many trees in Virginia’s most populous county may be going out on a limb. The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors wants to save as much greenery as possible.
The board voted in March to require developers to document the location, type and condition of all trees, shrubs and other plants on properties before digging them up or cutting them down.
“Rather than laying out the development and then saying,‘Oops, we put this house where the best tree is,’ this will increase the likelihood that the developer and the county staff can design a better project, taking trees into account,” said supervisor Stuart Mendelsohn.
Under Virginia law, localities cannot force a developer to save trees. But Fairfax officials hope the documentation requirement will encourage builders to voluntarily limit the impact of construction on greenery.
Under the rules, which take effect July 1, a developer will have to catalogue the types of trees and plants on a property and their approximate location, submitting the information to the county along with development plans.
“We want to have the applicants send out someone with expertise in the area to look at the site before they do their design,” said Cecilia Lammers, chief of the county’s Urban Forestry Department. “That’s the real crux of this. .... The hope is they will take a closer look at what’s there.”
Builders and developers said they fear the new requirement will add to the cost of their projects but will try to cooperate. Neighboring Prince William and Loudoun counties require developers to provide general descriptions of plant life on properties. But the Fairfax policy is more detailed.
Worth noting:
- PCB Advisory. Maryland and Virginia environmental officials warned that catfish, eels and carp from a 38-mile stretch of the Potomac River below Washington, D.C. may be contaminated with potentially cancer-causing PCBs, and cautioned people to limit their consumption of the fish. Environmental officials have yet to pinpoint the source of the pollution and said they are most concerned about people who rely on fish from the area as part of a regular diet.
- Delmarva Farmland Shrinks. Maryland’s Eastern Shore lost 2 percent of its farmland between 1992 and 1997, twice the statewide rate. Overall, the 1997 Census of Agriculture showed that Maryland had 68,601 fewer acres of farmland and 953 fewer farms — a 1 percent drop in acreage. During the period, the number of farms in the nine Eastern Shore counties dropped from 2,304 to 2,149. “The acreage of prime farmland sprouting houses every year on the Mid-Shore is significant,” said Rob Etgen, executive director of the Eastern Shore Land Conservancy. “But even more damaging is that each time a subdivision occurs in a farming area, every neighboring farm is impacted. People love to look at a farm next door, but they don’t like the animal smells, the late night harvesting or the tractor blocking traffic.”
- Chicken Waste Tax Break. The Senate’s top tax law writer wants to give chicken manure a tax break. Senate Finance Committee Chair William Roth, R-DE, introduced legislation to amend the Internal Revenue Code to make electric plants fueled by chicken droppings eligible for the same tax credits enjoyed by windmills and other alternative energy sources. Roth’s bill would give power plants that burn chicken droppings a 1.7-cent-per-kilowatt hour tax credit. “As the amount of chickens we produce as a nation has grown, so too has the need to find a creative means for disposing of poultry manure,” he said.
- Keystone Helpers. Volunteers contributed 354,000 hours of time in Pennsylvania’s state parks, forests and field offices last year as part of the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources’ Conservation Volunteer program. Since the program was launched in 1997, volunteers logged about 675,000 hours helping to build trails, clean up debris and trash, serve as hosts or educators, conduct scientific research, and perform other natural resources volunteer work. DCNR plans to generate 500,000 volunteer hours a year by 2000.
- Boost for Blackwater. The Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge on Maryland’s Eastern Shore is about to get 1,000 acres bigger. Maryland Sens. Paul Sarbanes and Barbara Mikulski recently announced that $1.3 million was made available from the Migratory Bird Conservation Fund to purchase an area of forested wetlands interspersed with tidal waters, ponds and marshes. The refuge is one of the primary wintering areas for Canadian geese along the Atlantic Flyway and is habitat for the Delmarva fox squirrel, the bald eagle and migratory birds.
