Bay Daily

Runoff Problems Right Here, Right Now

One of the Chesapeake Bay region’s biggest water pollution problems – and one that is getting worse, not better – is stormwater runoff. That’s the water that rushes off buildings, streets, parking lots, and lawns after a rainfall, washing dirt, chemicals, fertilizer, and bacteria into our waterways.

This polluted runoff causes all sorts of problems for streams, critters, and people – erosion, silting, litter, oxygen-depleted “dead zones,” fish and shellfish kills, flooding, human health threats, to name a few.

Some timely examples:

Video Illustrates Job Creation From Chesapeake Bay Cleanup

Check out this CBF video that provides specific examples of jobs created from environmental regulations and the Chesapeake Bay cleanup effort.

Water Pollution Regulations Produce Benefit-to-Cost Ratio of 4 to 1

The myth that environmental regulations are bad for the economy has been disproven in the past, including by a Chesapeake Bay Foundation report “Debunking the ‘Job Killer’ Myth.” 

But the "job killer" rhetoric keeps rising from the grave.  And so it is reassuring to see yet another comprehensive report drive a stake into the heart of this myth.

A recent White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) report to Congress concludes that federal water pollution control regulations over the last decade have produced up to four times more in economic, health, and environmental benefits as the costs.

From October 1, 2002, to September 30, 2012, EPA’s Office of Water created five new regulations that imposed costs on business of up to $800 million, according to the report.  But these rules resulted in benefits of up to $3.6 billion, according to the OMB report.

PA Should Say No to Pollution Credit Trading Scheme

Pennsylvania:  Don’t fall for the questionable pollution trading scheme being proposed in new state legislation.  You could derail the state’s efforts to reduce water pollution, and gamble away the health of the Susquehanna and other rivers and streams you love.

Yesterday, the Pennsylvania Senate Agriculture and Rural Affairs Committee voted 8-3 to endorse Senate Bill 994, which its sponsors call the Major Watershed Improvement Act.  Next will come a vote by the full Senate before moving on to the House.  Supporters of the legislation claim that it is an innovative way to combine pollution credit trading with new manure treatment technology to reduce agricultural runoff pollution.

But in reality, there are other proven, cost-effective practices to reduce agricultural pollution, practices that the scientific and policy communities have endorsed for years and that need funding. Senate Bill 994 would supplant tax payers’ dollars, diverting from proven strategies to technologies that are far more costly.

In other words, the bill would waste scarce taxpayer money that would better be spent on traditional pollution control practices on farms, such as fencing cattle out of streams and planting buffer strips of trees and vegetation along streams. 

Pennsylvania should not pay more to get less cleanup of pollution. But that is exactly what would happen if Senate Bill 994 were to become law.

Like Watching Ospreys? Make It a Science

You may have read in Bay Daily about the Chesapeake Conservancy’s Osprey Cam, a live, real-time webcast from a camera hovering over the nest of Tom and Audrey, a Maryland osprey pair. It’s a very cool, non-invasive way to watch the family life of some of the most spectacular birds in the world nesting right here in the Chesapeake Bay region.

And if watching Osprey Cam inspires you to learn more -- and do more -- about these fascinating Chesapeake Bay “fish hawks,” here’s the perfect opportunity: OspreyWatch.

Throwing Pennies to Protest Stormwater Fee

Frederick County has decided to launch a penny protest of Maryland’s new stormwater pollution control law. Sadly, the protest will prove costly to county residents over the long term, in  contaminated streams, flooded basements, lost recreational opportunities, and reduced property values.

Forced by a 2012 state law that requires the state’s 10 largest jurisdictions to create stormwater control fees, the Frederick County Board of Commissioners recently decided to start charging eligible properties one cent per year.  That will generate a grand total of $487.81 for the county annually -– hardly enough to meet its legal obligations to clean up its own local streams and protect the health of its citizens from water pollution.

Blaine Young, President of the Frederick County Board of Commissioners, said of the stormwater fee mandate: “It’s absolutely absurd.”

Not really. Residients in Frederick County, as well as across the Chesapeake Bay region, want to fish, swim, and wade in local streams that are now polluted by stormwater.  Investments in modern stormwater pollution control systems help people enjoy their streams more, and can prevent fish kills, which have hurt the Monocacy River in Frederick County.  But investments, of course, require money.

Lack of Inspectors Leads to Stormwater System Failures

Why do Maryland counties need stormwater pollution control fees?  The new fees are required by a 2012 state law meant to protect the Chesapeake Bay from toxic runoff from parking lots, roads, and developments.

But beyond this legal mandate –- which the state’s nine largest counties and Baltimore City must follow by July 1 -– there is also a lesser-known consideration.  Some counties lack not only the physical  infrastructure to  control stormwater; they also lack the staff to inspect the filtration systems and make sure they are maintained and function.

Anne Arundel County is a good example.  State law requires the county to inspect each of its more than 11,000 stormwater control systems at least once every three years.  But the county has been failing to meet that requirement for at least a decade, according to a report from the Environmental Protection Agency.  Two years ago, EPA fined the county $75,100 for “failing to conduct preventative maintenance inspections” as required in the state’s stormwater control permit for the county.

How did the county find itself in this position?

“Unfortunately, back in 2001, the county executive made the decision to reduce the stormwater inspection staff from seven full-time inspectors to one, which is what it remains today,” said Richard Klein, (above) former director of a stream protection program at the Maryland Department of Natural Resources who now directs an environmental consulting firm called Community and Environmental Defense Services.

“One inspector can visit about 1,000 of these sites in a year,” Klein said, during a recent tour of stormwater control systems in Anne Arundel County. “There are 11,000 of these in Anne Arundel County. So what we are seeing is the result of a stormwater inspection staff that is severely understaffed.”

Records Show 161 Cases of Well Contamination by Drilling in PA

The gas drilling industry has long contended that it poses little threat to drinking water –- and that environmentalists and local residents who complain about problems with their tap water are making things up.

As it turns out, there was real substance to the complaints.

A newspaper in the heart of the Pennsylvania’s Marcellus shale drilling zone, the (Scranton) Times-Tribune, in 2011 filed a public information request under the state’s “Right to Know” law with the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, asking for records concerning  drinking water contamination by gas drilling.

About a year later, after a court battle, the paper received from the state agency more than 1,000 documents. Here is what the Times Tribune reported about the documents:

“State environmental regulators determined that oil and gas development damaged the water supplies for at least 161 Pennsylvania homes, farms, churches and businesses between 2008 and the fall of 2012, according to…letters and enforcement orders written by Department of Environmental Protection officials.”

Get Hooked on Osprey TV

Want to see a real reality TV show?  Enjoy nature on live video feed.  Check out the osprey nest cam being webcast by the Chesapeake Conservancy.  Click here to view.

Saving the Bay, Kid-Style

Bay Daily frequently talks about the Chesapeake Bay Clean Water Blueprint, the federal-state plan to restore the Bay and its rivers and streams. My colleague Tom Pelton and I often write about what federal, state, and local governments, businesses, conservation groups, and individual citizens are doing to implement the Blueprint by reducing pollution.

But take a look at what some of the region’s young people are doing to help move the Bay Blueprint along. Herewith a small sampling of recent student conservation efforts:

• Seventh-graders at Fredericksburg (Va.) Academy created a rain garden of native plants to capture and filter runoff water coming off school sidewalks. After being inspired by a school field trip to the Chesapeake Bay, the students designed and planted the garden to help protect the Rappahannock River, a major Chesapeake Bay tributary. Here’s what some of the students told the Free Lance-Star newspaper this week: