With the stroke of a pen, Maryland's youth are about to be recruited to help restore the Chesapeake Bay and learn some job skills - thanks to the perhaps-unwitting generosity of the state's electric utility customers.
Gov. Martin O'Malley signed a batch of natural resources bills into law at the State House on Tuesday, including one to create the Chesapeake Conservation Corps. Championed by Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller, the corps would be formed to get young adults involved in helping the bay -- doing things like planting trees, helping schools become greener or performing energy conservation projects for local government. In the process, corps members are to learn skills that should help them land "green" jobs.
The state already has two similar outdoorsy youth armies - the Civic Justice Corps and the Maryland Conservation Corps. As an example of the kind of work they've been doing, in 1995, conservation corps members (pictured above) helped build a bridge across Deep Creek as part of the Lower Susquehanna Greenway Trail. The new bay-oriented corps "builds upon" those older environmental service programs, according to a press release. The corps would be overseen by the Chesapeake Bay Trust, yet another state entity that funds environmental stewardship projects in communities across Maryland.
What the release doesn't spell out is where the money would come from to set up the new corps. The law diverts $250,000 a year from a fund the state has to evaluate the environmental impacts associated with building new power plants in Maryland. That fund is maintained via a 10- to 20-cents monthly surcharge on every residential electricity customer's bill.
The bay can use all the help it can get, of course, and young people could use a helping hand acquiring job skills and experience in today's rough economy. But at a time when new nuclear, solar and wind energy projects are being pushed in the state - not to mention offshore - one wonders if Peter is not paying Paul. Will the Department of Natural Resources power-plant research program be left with enough funds to give all these new energy ventures the careful vetting they need to avoid unanticipated environmental problems they might cause in years to come?
(1995 Baltimore Sun photo by Algerina Perna)