environmental politics

EPA's Chesapeake Bay 'pollution diet' is under attack from some attorneys general who ought to be cheering its success

State regulatory agency not doing enough to guard against polluted runoff

Columbia chemical maker W.R. Grace is about to go where it hasn't been for nearly 13 years: out of bankruptcy court.

The return of Carnival Pride to Baltimore offers a valuable lesson in economic growth and environmental protection

Carnival Cruise Lines announced on Thursday that it will be returning its Pride cruise liner to the port of Baltimore in March, after new technologies helped it meet federal environmental regulations that threatened to drive up costs.

Environmentalists are slamming a new draft Chesapeake Bay restoration agreement for failing to address toxic pollution or even mention climate change as a complicating factor in the three-decade effort to revive the ailing estuary.

Two companies have agreed to pay a $5,000 penalty for hazardous-waste violations at an East Baltimore metal plating facility, the Environmental Protection Agency announced Wednesday.

The Howard County Watershed Stewards Academy — which just graduated its first class two months ago — is currently recruiting for a second class of volunteers interested in learning how to improve the water quality of local streams and rivers, which ultimately impact the bay's health.

Across Maryland and the country, more federal employees are teleworking from home than ever, according to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

Md. leads the region in reducing stormwater runoff

Nitrogen pollution from Maryland sewage plants and industries increased in 2012, partially undermining gains the state has made in prior years in cleaning up the Chesapeake Bay, the Environmental Integrity Project reported Thursday. The Washington-based group noted that the state's facilities collectively discharged more than 300,000 pounds of hte bay-fouling nutrient that year than they were legally permitted to do.

A pipe at the Canal Creek Groundwater Treatment Plant at the Edgewood Area of Aberdeen Proving Ground burst early Monday morning because of cold temperatures, sending about 29,000 gallons of untreated groundwater into a nearby storm drain, APG officials reported Tuesday.

The Environmental Protection Agency moved Friday to reduce harmful air pollution from woodstoves and heaters. The phase-in of new emission standards was welcomed by Maryland officials, who had joined with six other states in October to sue the agency for inaction on updating regulations last issued in 1988.

Environmental activists warn that construction of a 21-mile natural gas pipeline through northern Baltimore and Harford counties could affect the region's drinking-water system, as the $180 million project would cut across more than three dozen streams that feed into Loch Raven Reservoir.

Federally funded efforts to curtail farm pollution of the Chesapeake Bay are falling seriously short, and recent spending cuts by Congress cast doubt on the efforts' ultimate success, an environmental group said Monday.

Sen. Ben Cardin and Rep. Jim Moran pledge to protect the Endangered Species Act, which turns 40 on Saturday.

The last year saw progressive politics ascendant in Maryland — and a growing backlash.

Maryland officials have decided to give 540 "concentrated animal feeding operations" (CAFOs) — industrial-style chicken farms mostly — a free ride, waiving more than $400,000 in legally mandated fees this year alone.

Leadership, more than any other factor, shapes how federal employees view their workplaces, says Max Stier, president and CEO of the Partnership for Public Service.

Thirty years after signing the first Chesapeake Bay Agreement, solemnly pledging to stem the flow of pollutants and bring the bay into compliance with the Clean Water Act, we still have not achieved that goal.

Environmental groups had challenged legality of market-based cleanup

The controversy over exporting liquefied natural gas via the Chesapeake Bay has become an issue in the race for Maryland's State House, at least among the Democratic candidates for governor.Saying the environmental costs are too high, Montgomery County Del. Heather Mizeur announced Friday that she opposes a bid by Dominion, a Virginia-based energy company, to export LNG through a terminal it owns at Cove Point in Calvert County.

New phosphorous rules not ready for prime time

Even a favorable Supreme Court decision in EPA case likely won't go far enough to protect Maryland and other East Coast states from upwind air polluters

Maryland joined seven other Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states Monday in asking for federal help to curb air pollution from beyond their borders, saying their residents' health and their economies are being hurt by smog-forming emissions from the Midwest and South.

Maryland joined seven other Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states Monday in asking for federal help to curb air pollution from outside their borders, saying emissions from the Midwest and South are hurting their residents' health and their economies.

Harbor Point will be built safely without further studies

Layering on another environmental impact statement to the Cove Point LNG export proposal — potentially adding significant delays and expense so soon after another impact statement has been completed — is like asking a driver to begin with a learner's permit every time the license is renewed.

Additional studies of the Harbor Point area in Baltimore are needed to reduce what can best be defined as an unacceptable level of uncertainty about the safety of a proposed development project there.

President Barack Obama has nominated a Towson resident and Johns Hopkins professor to lead research and development at the Environmental Protection Agency — an appointment likely to stir controversy among senators concerned about the agency's reach.

Amid an outcry from Maryland farmers, state officials pulled back again Friday from a new regulation aimed at cleaning up the Chesapeake Bay by restricting the use of animal manure to fertilize crops.

There is too much uncertainty about Maryland's finances to endorse even a small increase in the borrowing limit next year.

Liquefied natural gas exporting would be good for Maryland's economy and the environment.

The developer planning to build a new waterfront headquarters for Exelon Corp. on the site of a former chromium processing plant assured Fells Point area residents Thursday night the Harbor Point project could be built safely without releasing the highly contaminated soil and ground water entombed beneath the site.

A public meeting tonight (Thursday) will give Baltimore residents a chance to ask questions about environmental safeguards for developing Harbor Point, a former factory site in Fells Point where toxic chromium remains entombed underground.

Sherwin-Williams is one of a handful of companies that have signed on to spruce up their properties in industrial South Baltimore, part of a new initiative to enlist businesses, nonprofits and government agencies there in helping to boost the city's anemic tree canopy, attract more wildlife and restore its degraded urban waters.

A Harford County farmer who has worked to ensure his descendants and descendants of other local farmers carry on the practice was named the 2013 Farmer of the Year by the members of the Harford County Farm Bureau.

Maryland point guard Varun Ram used to get stares from opposing guards who thought they could dominate him on the court. When he played at River Hill in Clarksville and with a Howard County-based Amateur Athletic Union team, Ram said few opponents would take him or his teams seriously.

The Chesapeake Bay's cleanup may be delayed "several decades" by the slow pace at which farm pollution is being flushed from ground water on the Delmarva Peninsula, a new study says. The research by the U.S. Geological Survey also suggests pollution control efforts on Eastern Shore farms may need to be increased in order to achieve hoped-for water quality improvements.

Reducing air pollution has given an unexpectedly big boost to long-running efforts to clean up the Chesapeake Bay, a new study finds. Resarchers at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science determined that nitrogen pollution in nine mostly forested Appalachian rivers and streams has declined in tandem with government-mandated air pollution reductions for power plants and motor vehicles.

Turning up the heat on local politicians over an unpopular stormwater fee, Maryland officials have warned Carroll County that it faces fines of up to $10,000 per day for refusing to impose the mandatory pollution cleanup charge, and cautioned two other counties they could be next.

Harford County could face stiff fines and other enforcement actions from the state and federal governments if county officials repeal a local stormwater management fee, also known as the "rain tax," the state government's top environmental official warned Harford officials last month.