Maryland's top government officials are working hard to plant the seeds of a robust oyster aquaculture industry. But the bureaucratic hurdles applicants need to clear when applying for permits to lease the Chesapeake's bottom seem to be multiplying faster than the shellfish.
Update:
Senior Maryland Department of Natural resources officials had a meeting with the Army Corps of Engineers the last week in January and agreed that a draft general permit would go out for public comment on Valentine's Day. The ideal is that the permit will be in place by May 1, according to DNR assistant secretary Frank Dawson. Bob Orth, of VIMS, was at the meeting as well, and Dawson said the National Marine Fisheries Service has a "significantly greater appreciation" for Orth's work than before, when they questioned how comprehensive it was. ...
Related News:
VMRC to set aside 1,000 acres of prime water bottom for aquaculture
At the end of last September, federal agencies were touting a federal Bay action plan that called for a record $491 million in spending on a host of Chesapeake activities this year.
And just a few months ago, many Bay advocates were still hopeful Congress would pass legislation that would strengthen federal authority over the Bay cleanup and pledge to provide billions of dollars more to control pollution from stormwater and other sources of pollution in future years.
Ultimately, Congress failed to pass any Bay legislation and has not yet passed final appropriations for 2011. Instead of new authority or more money, budget cuts and oversight hearings on existing regulations are more likely. ...
Bills that would restrict the nutrient content of fertilizer applied to lawns will be considered in Maryland, Virginia and Pennsylvania legislatures this year as part of strategies aimed at reigning in all sources of nutrient pollution.
The measures are being championed by members of the Chesapeake Bay Commission. They would restrict the display of fertilizer containing phosphorous, which could only be sold for newly established lawns, or lawns where soil tests showed phosphorus was needed. Nitrogen concentrations in fertilizers would also be limited and no de-icing agents containing fertilizer could be sold. ...
Plunging temperatures seem to have triggered the deaths of about 2 million fish in Maryland's portion of the Chesapeake Bay in an unusually large winter fish kill.
Fish kills were reported in late December and early January from the Chesapeake Bay Bridge to Tangier Sound, including sites along Poplar and Kent Islands, Calvert County and the Honga River in Dorchester County.
Most of the dead were juvenile spot, 3-6 inches in length.
Spokesman Jay Apperson of the Maryland Department of the Environment said that cold water was the likely cause of the kill. Preliminary study shows that water quality data in the area was acceptable. Further analysis of water quality data and fish tissue is expected in February. ...
President Obama signed a new law in January that will require federal agencies to pay stormwater fees set by local governments. The law will provide an additional $2.6 million per year for reducing polluted stormwater runoff in the District of Columbia.
The federal government had refused to pay the District's fee even as federally driven mandates to clean up the Chesapeake Bay have spurred hotly contested rate hikes for sewage and stormwater management elsewhere in the region.
The bipartisan bill that passed in December ends a debate that U.S. Sen. Benjamin Cardin, D-MD, called "a fundamental issue of equity." ...
Baltimore City has one of the highest homicide rates in the country, widespread poverty, a record number of abandoned homes and a shrinking tax base. With so many stresses, it's no wonder the city's environmental woes have long gotten short shrift.
For decades, sewage spills have dumped millions of gallons of sewage into the Jones Falls, Herring Run and the Gwynns Falls. So much trash floods the Patapsco River's branches that the streams can look like landfills after a rain. Even the Inner Harbor ...
More than 250 scientists, environmentalists, activists and policy makers attended the Washington, DC, event, and they wanted to hear how the EPA planned to withstand the legal challenges that are surely coming in the face of the most comprehensive Chesapeake Bay cleanup plan ever attempted.
Environmental activists have long anticipated the Total Maximum Daily Load, also known as the "pollution diet." They have maintained that states need clear limits on how much pollution can enter each of the Bay's 92 designated waterways and should face clear consequences if they exceed their limits. ...
Karl Blankenship
January 01, 2011
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