Baltimore’s Department of Public Works says about 4.1 million gallons of a sewage and rainwater mix was released into the Jones Falls on Monday, as heavy rain inundated the sewer system. The largest release was more than 3.7 million gallons in the area of the 400 block of E. Preston St. About 400,000...
The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, a power plant emissions-capping program that includes Maryland, has generated $4 billion in net economic activity, even accounting for the costs it has added to electricity, a study has found.
A study of 20 years of precipitation, pollution and water quality data has traced degradation of Baltimore's Gwynns Falls to frequent sewage leaks, and some environmental improvements to projects to clean up or reduce stormwater runoff.
About 2.5 million cubic yards of mud, silt, sand and other material will be dredged from the Cape Henry Channel at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay near Norfolk, Va. — an approach that’s used by shipping lines to reach the port of Baltimore — according to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Great...
A challenging General Assembly session for environmental groups ended with the failure of two key proposals — one to measure the loss of Maryland forests and another to end green-energy subsidies for a Baltimore trash incinerator. Neither bill came up for votes in the state Senate on Monday, the...
A freshwater mussel that's found in the nation's mid-Atlantic region, including Maryland, will soon be listed as "threatened" under the Endangered Species Act. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said the listing will take effect in May for the yellow lance mussel. The species can be found in Maryland's...
The Maryland Senate voted Friday to strip a Baltimore trash incinerator and similar facilities of a state “green energy” label that qualified them for millions of dollars in subsidies paid for by electricity customers over the past seven years. A day earlier, senators cited a recent Baltimore Sun...
For the month of April, Eli Pousson is inviting people around the state to join his bliss through an effort he’s dubbed the #30daysofpickinguplitter challenge. Every day, he posts a photo of his trash haul to Twitter and Instagram, and encourages others to do the same.
The Hogan administration is joining several other states in opposing President Donald Trump’s move to relax vehicle emissions standards. Ben Grumbles, the state’s secretary of the environment, signed a letter this week expressing “deep concern” that the federal government could weaken the standards...
Spring breakers usually get their hands on oysters while slurping them down aboard cruise ships or beach-side restaurants. For about 100 college students across the nation, spring break involved some different hands-on oyster experiences. The Chesapeake Bay Foundation is in its 10th year of hosting...
Baltimore public works officials will announce a plan Monday to use a new form of financing to help pay for $10 million in green infrastructure projects designed to reduce water pollution from stormwater runoff.
Maryland regulators will allow a Canadian energy company to route a controversial natural gas pipeline through the state and beneath the Potomac River, but will subject the project to safeguards they say will protect the river and groundwater. The state’s decision was announced Friday, the deadline...
The characteristics of a good tennis ball are pretty simple: yellow, fuzzy and bouncy. But what happens to tennis balls when they fall flat? In Howard County, Bureau Chief for Parks and Program Services John Marshall said that while a few may be found on the bottom of chair legs or in dogs’ jaws,...
Environmentalists presented the Maryland General Assembly with two options this year: Double the state’s renewable energy requirement to supplying half of the electricity Marylanders use, or go even further and aim to eliminate all dependence on fossil fuels. Lawmakers in the House of Delegates...
Efforts continue at Conowingo Dam to remove the unusually large river debris field that has piled up this winter behind the Harford County side of the dam. The collection of wood, plastic, metal and other detritus coming down the Susquehanna River from the north is the most in 20 years, according...
Five people were arrested on the Maryland State House steps Wednesday during a sit-in to protest a natural gas pipeline proposed to run beneath the Potomac River. The protesters were blocking the main entrance to the State House, calling on Gov. Larry Hogan to block the project and end his support...
Fearful that President Donald Trump’s environmental regulators weren’t taking action against a harmful pesticide, Maryland lawmakers vowed to step in this year by proposing a state ban on the chemical. But then along came the spotted lanternfly — that terrifying invasive species that sucks the...
Just as Baltimore approved a ban on polystyrene foam food containers, a General Assembly proposal to prohibit the materials from restaurants and schools across Maryland appears in peril. A House of Delegates committee voted it down Friday, and a Senate panel raised concerns about it Tuesday. The...
A Maryland House of Delegates committee on Friday rejected a proposal that called for prohibiting wind farms from being built within 30 miles of Ocean City’s coast, a blow to the resort town’s effort to preserve beach vistas. But town officials aren’t done fighting. Ocean City officials have said...
This winter’s ever-changing weather sent “massive amounts” of trees, limbs and trash downstream, creating a large debris field along the Lower Susquehanna River near Conowingo Dam, an advocate for the river said. Ted Evgeniadis, the Lower Susquehanna Riverkeeper, said a confluence of events caused...
A year after facing criticism for the firing of a longtime state crab scientist, Gov. Larry Hogan is again being accused of placing politics above science in the management of Chesapeake Bay fisheries. Last month, the Hogan administration declined to reappoint two watermen to a state panel that...
Researchers say Chesapeake Bay cleanup initiatives have triggered a major resurgence of the underwater grasses that are at the center of the estuary's fragile food web. Scientists from across Maryland and Virginia say that from 1984 to 2014, concentrations of nitrogen in the bay fell by 23 percent...
The Environmental Protection Agency has overturned a decision to cut federal grant funding for the Bay Journal after an outcry from advocates who said it raised questions about the Trump administration’s commitment to Chesapeake Bay restoration.
A year after Maryland banned the controversial natural gas harvesting technique known as fracking, Gov. Larry Hogan is pushing to connect more homes in the state to gas lines, sparking a new battle over the fuel. Hogan, who signed last year’s law, wants to require a Canadian energy company to invest...
A new partnership of 20 organizations has set a new goal for themselves, adding 10 billion — with a “B” — oysters into the Chesapeake Bay by 2025. The announcement Monday was part of ongoing efforts to improve the Chesapeake Bay’s health. Oysters are a natural filter for the bay, but populations...
A proposal to build hundreds of waterfront homes and condos on Kent Island faced two decades of delays over concerns that it would disrupt fragile marshes. And now, less than five months after construction finally began, opponents say those fears are coming true. Heavy rains washed a massive plume...
The same day protesters circled the governor's mansion in opposition to a gas pipeline proposed to run beneath the Potomac River, Maryland officials asked the Army Corps of Engineers not to give the project a permit until a state review is completed. Maryland Department of the Environment Secretary...
As Washington lawmakers work on a deal to fund the federal government, Gov. Larry Hogan has asked U.S. Senate leaders to kill a House proposal to strip the Environmental Protection Agency of its authority in Chesapeake Bay cleanup work.
They say it never rains but it pours, and in Baltimore, every time it pours, raw sewage is released into the waterways. On Sunday, around 5.7 million gallons of wastewater mixed with rainwater poured into the Jones Falls, and 36,000 gallons overflowed into the Western Run, according to the Baltimore...
For a second consecutive year, President Donald Trump is trying to drastically reduce or eliminate federal support of cleanups for iconic U.S. waterways including the Great Lakes and Chesapeake Bay. Trump's proposed 2019 budget for the Environmental Protection Agency released Monday would cut funding...
A Baltimore City Council committee voted Tuesday morning to advance a ban on polystyrene foam food and drink containers, setting up the environmental measure for likely final passage in coming weeks. The idea of a ban has been considered before but failed to advance. The current version waited...
Environmentalists and lawmakers are hoping to revise the Maryland Forest Conservation Act this year because they say over the past 17 years, it has failed to protect the state's largest, densest and most ecologically valuable woods.
Under legislation proposed in the General Assembly, the Maryland Department of the Environment would begin testing air quality in communities with large concentrations of chicken farms. Farmers say such testing is unnecessary because they haven't observed any negative health effects.
The University of Maryland's College Park campus is about to get greener. The university awarded a $21.5 million contract to Baltimore-based Constellation for a series of building upgrades that will improve energy efficiency and save the university money. “Constellation is proud to support the...
A dead goose fell from the sky Thursday and knocked a waterfowl hunter unconscious. Robert Meilhammer, a 51-year-old resident of Crapo in Dorchester County, was hunting as part of a larger party near the Miles River around 5 p.m. when a flock of geese flew overhead. The group fired on birds. One...
The Great Backyard Bird Count is just around the corner, and Woody Merkle is hoping to motivate nature lovers to take part in this global citizen-science project. The mammoth effort to create a detailed snapshot of the world’s bird population will take place for four days starting Feb. 16, and...
Gov. Larry Hogan has proposed legislation that would cut fees and offer new financial assistance for some Marylanders whose homes are connected to septic systems. The measure would reward residents who pay to upgrade their septic systems with new technology that reduces the amount of nitrogen,...
On any given winter weekend, visitors who peer across the frozen harbors of the Chesapeake Bay might think they are seeing a mirage. Beyond the snowflakes and ice around the water’s edge is a spectacle: people dressed for snow skiing, out on sailboats, whipping through steel-colored waves and around...
Baltimore’s spending panel awarded a three-year, $15 million contract for thousands of solar-powered trash cans to a Korean company on Wednesday, rejecting a protest by a losing bidder. The contract calls for Ecube Labs Co. to install 4,500 of the cans across the city in three stages, starting...
Gov. Larry Hogan and six other governors of Atlantic states have asked the federal government to be excluded from the Trump administration’s off-shore drilling expansion. The bipartisan group of governors wrote to Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke this week asking for the same exemption granted to...
After President Donald Trump’s administration said this fall it would repeal a set of goals to cut power plant emissions across the country, Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh asked the EPA to hold a hearing on the potential impacts of that decision in the state. The Environmental Protection...
Seven months after a bipartisan group of governors formed the U.S. Climate Alliance in support of the Paris climate accord — and after he previously questioned the purpose of the group — Gov. Larry Hogan said Maryland will join, after all. The alliance formed in June in response to President Donald...
The State House in Annapolis enshrines tradition, so the abrupt disappearance of the trees flanking its entrance provided a jarring welcome to lawmakers returning here Wednesday. Freshly cut stumps stood where a dozen trees used to line Lawyers Mall. “My heart broke when I noticed,” said Del. Eric...
Gov. Larry Hogan’s administration has formally lodged its opposition to the Environmental Protection Agency’s planned repeal of an Obama-era program to reduce pollution that comes from power plants. In a letter, Maryland Department of the Environment Secretary Ben Grumbles told EPA Administrator...
The ice-breaking buoy tender John C. Widener carved its way through Annapolis Harbor on Monday, sending 3-inch chunks of ice clattering across the calm, solid surface in its wake. As the region endured one of its longest stretches of sub-freezing temperatures in decades, plunging into the single...