Perfecting Pervious Pavements

Impervious surfaces are among the most important combatants to the health of the Chesapeake Bay, gathering and flushing point source pollution from the entire watershed into the Bay. Urbanization is the greatest engine behind the increase in impervious surfaces (more people = more roads, more houses, more lifeless inner-city baseball fields) and, at the rate the American population is currently growing, won’t likely  help the Bay any time soon.

So it’s no wonder  that environmentalists are showing keen interest in a new kind of porous concrete  known as PERVIOUS (a.k.a. NOT impervious) pavement. As the lady in blue demonstrates in this video, the pervious pavement may help trees in proximity to paved areas “breathe” ……………

But what we care about is this: the potential capability to slash point source runoff by, essentially, chopping apart these massive drainage and runoff systems throughout urban areas within the watershed. I think this video of 1,500 gallons of water being dumped in a matter of five minutes through a pad of this stuff will say more, by itself, than I could (WARNING: May be unsuitable for H2O conservationists).

This concept of increased pervious surfaces in urban areas is not only relevant to watershed natives either; California is seeking similar cures to mudslides and erosion, both of which this pavement could dent due to its ability to allow small plants (and roots) to survive beneath the surface.

I will look further into this technology as we go along, as well as how expensive it would be to replace the impervious surfaces within the watershed.

Chadwick the Crab and Lessons in Chesapeake Conservation

Cooped up inside my house as nearly 30 inches of snow piled high outside my window and in need of a distraction, I began sifting through boxes of childhood keepsakes. And in a stack of my favorite books, I found one that brought back  my earliest memories of the Chesapeake Bay.

Alongside the usual classics, such as Curious George and Winnie the Pooh, sat Chadwick the Crab by Priscilla Cummings. A series four picture books, illustrated by A.R. Cohen, follow the blue crab, Chadwick, and his life in the Chesapeake. Chadwick and his friends, other animals native to the Bay, opened their home up to me in a way I had never before experienced. I knew the Chesapeake as a place for fun – boating, swimming, splashing around. But I did not understand its larger importance to our area, environmentally and culturally, until Chadwick.

I read, enraptured, as the charismatic crab fought the “garplegrungen” (pollution) threatening the Bay, and later campaigned to save his endangered friend Hester, the Delmarva fox squirrel. Along the way, I learned my first lessons about the Bay’s fragile health and the push for conservation. All this came flooding back as I flipped through the aging pages.

Chadwick, since his first book came out in 1986, has brought the Chesapeake to life for thousands of children, and, at least for me, cemented a lifelong relationship with the Bay. In recognition of this, the Association for Childhood Education International named Annapolis-based Cummings the Celebrated Maryland Author in 2001, citing her “outstanding contributions to the field of children’s literature and ecology.”

That’s high honors for one blue crab. Still, despite Chadwick’s valiant efforts, the Bay’s health is still in jeopardy – including its blue crab population. But we should take a page from Chadwick’s book and keep fighting, no matter the odds. And local literature can and should be a part of that battle. Books, as Chadwick the Crab shows, can connect readers, young and old, to the Chesapeake, and bring fresh awareness to conservation efforts. With the help of Chadwick and others, a whole new audience can help save the Bay.

D.C. Taxes Plastic Bags to Help Curtail Pollution

The District of Columbia, in an effort to, among several things, help alleviate pollution in the Chesapeake Bay,  has enacted a 5-cent tax on stores selling food and alcohol for each plastic bag they distribute to customers.

The idea of a “bag tax” is nothing new; Ireland enacted one recently. But Washington is one of a select few American cities to levy a tax on plastic bags, and it is among the toughest such measures in the country, according to The Washington Post.

Only certain establishments will be subjected to the tax after the expiration of a 30-day grace period.

The Post says that up to $10 million will be raised through the tax over the next four years, with the funds going to unspecified environmental initiatives.

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, Americans consume 380 million plastic bags per year and just under 5% of them are recycled or even recyclable. Bags do not decompose for hundreds of years and most of them find their way toward damage.

In the Chesapeake Bay watershed, plastic bags could find their way into rivers and streams which could take them into the bay itself. D.C. officials were particularly concerned, according to the Post, about reports showing plastic bags account for a significant amount of pollution in the Anacostia River.

Maryland Takes on Oyster Poachers

Two more watermen have had their licenses suspended for improper oyster harvesting in the Chesapeake Bay and local tributaries.

The poaching incident comes on the heels of tightened oyster regulations that have many watermen worried. The stricter laws, passed last year by the Maryland legislature, are designed to more carefully oversee harvesting by increasing penalties on those who violate harvesting regulations.

Now with poaching on the rise, the Maryland Department of Natural Resources has stepped up enforcement and is trying to catch those who are doing such things as catching undersized oysters or harvesting during prohibited hours.

This is the second time in less than a month that DNR has used its regulations to suspend the licenses of watermen. DNR is allowed to suspend a license in cases where the public health, safety or welfare are at stake and emergency action is required.

DNR police are setting their own shifts to catch the illegal harvesters, who typically work overnight. In addition, DNR is employing a multi-million dollar network of surveillance equipment, including camera and radar devices, to monitor popular oyster areas.

Poaching Rises as Catches Shrink

I learned what a “poacher” was when I was younger and my parents would take me to the Chesapeake Bay to go crabbing. I would always ask why we couldn’t just take some of the crabs from the various crab pots we would see scattered all over the bay. My parents explained that we would be “poaching”.

Poachers are not only people who take other’s crabs, oysters and fish, but also those who fish to sell without a license, harvest seafood that isn’t at proper size or otherwise violate fishing regulations.

Currently, many watermen are reporting that poachers are after the Chesapeake Bay’s oysters since they are getting scarce. Maryland has recognized this problem and is stepping up efforts to punish poachers. During the 2009 General Assembly session, Maryland Gov. Martin  O’Malley signed three laws to help deter poaching. These included allowing the Department of Natural Resources to suspend commercial licenses of fishermen convicted of poaching and increasing the fine for those convicted.

Many still argue that penalties can be stricter and hope that this year more laws will be passed to protect oysters.

It is sad to think that people have to resort to poaching. Even when oysters and crabs were plentiful in the Chesapeake Bay, people still took illegally. And now with catches dwindling and the economy reeling from recession, it should come as no surprise that the number of poachers would increase.

Can Oysters Save the Chesapeake?

There was a time when oysters were plentiful and cheap. The Chesapeake Bay abounded in oysters. Today the oyster population is down to about 1% of what it was about 100 years ago.

Oyster lovers and farmers say the way back to oyster heaven — and to clean up the Bay — is to commercially grow the oysters in aquaculture farms in the Bay. Oysters act as natural filters, and can clean hundreds of gallons of water a day.

A recent article in the Economist points out that researchers at the University of Southern California have been experimenting with oyster hybrids that can generate large quantities of eggs — oyster farms need tens of billions of eggs in order to operate commercially.

The researchers, led by Dennis Hedgecock, have been crossing relatively “puny” breeds with each other to ensure healthy and rapid growing oysters. The problem has been that crossing two puny breeds only worked for one generation — constantly regenerating the hybrid did not prove possible.

To get around this, Hedgecock and his colleagues created two hybrids, then crossed those – essentially creating a two-stage crossbreed – and it worked. The result: large, fast-growing and tasty oysters.

There is still more work to be done — researchers are now working at the genome level to see what genes work on size and growth — but if it works, it could be a boon to the Bay, and to oyster-lovers.

There are a number of oyster farmers around the Bay already who could benefit. Richard Pelz’s Circle C Oyster Ranch in St. Jerome, Maryland is one of the farmers who insists that the oysters he grows already are doing their part to clean up the Bay, and he has been doing his own research.

Pelz has been working several different genetic lines chosen for growth rate, disease resistance and shape and bred them to create the  Lineback©. This oyster can be taken from spawn to market in less than 18 months – whereas wild oysters — preferred by the Watermen — can take twice as long.

Road Salt and the Chesapeake Bay

The Chesapeake Bay area is experiencing its second major snowstorm this winter, and it’s only the start of February. With each snow, crews around the state are forced to treat roads and sidewalks with salt and chemicals. But when the snow begins to melt these substances can end up going into the Chesapeake Bay.

Many articles have examined this issue but one in particular, “Snow, Road Salt, and the Chesapeake Bay,” by Tom Schueler from the Center for Watershed Protection, is rather informative. It explains that the natural salt in the bay is different from the salt used on roads because the latter salt has chloride and other elements in it that can have a negative impact on the environment.

A main concern of many environmentalists of this “snow runoff” is how it is affecting aquatic life and the treasured seafood of the bay. Chloride can be very harmful to aquatic life, but as Schueler points out, there has not been enough testing on this topic specifically in the Chesapeake Bay. In Canada, however, they have “designated road salt as an environmental toxin.”

Perhaps next year, environmentalists will think about asking for legislation regulating salt use or ways of helping prevent runoff into the bay.

O’Malley Receives Md. League of Conservation Voters Endorsement

Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley recently picked up an early endorsement for his 2010 reelection campaign from the Maryland League of Conservation Voters. The group cited his record on climate change, the Chesapeake Bay and other environmental issues.

Cindy Schwartz , the organization’s director Cindy Schwartz told the Baltimore Sun, “It seemed clear to us that no one was going to run with a better environmental record.”

With the November election still many months away, it’s early in the political season, and it will be interesting to see how all the candidates tackle the issue of the Chesapeake Bay’s health.

Billions have been spent on the restoration of the Chesapeake Bay over the course of 26 years, and the bay doesn’t appear to be any cleaner today than it was when the clean-up started.

Now with state budgets reeling from the recession, some people have argued that more attention and money should be placed on job creation and strengthening the economy than on the Chesapeake Bay. Under pressure from environmentalists and the federal government, the bay watershed states are making an effort accelerate the process of reaching the Chesapeake Bay’s restoration goals by 2020.

Yet environmentalists have argued that stricter laws and regulation are needed to improve the Bay’s health.

Is there a candidate out there who would create such laws?

What do you think? Will O’Malley’s environmental record be enough to re-elect him this year? Is the Chesapeake Bay too high on his agenda?

New Jobs v. Bay Cleanup: Md. Builders Poll Shows Conflict

A January 2010 poll conducted on behalf of the Maryland State Builders Association asked 816 registered voters whether Governor Martin O’Malley should give higher priority to creating jobs or reducing pollution in the Chesapeake Bay.

Seventy-seven percent of respondents said they believe O’Malley should be taking steps to create jobs and improve the state’s economy, while 15 percent of respondents answered that it was more important for the governor to take strides toward reducing pollution in the Bay.  Eight percent of those polled had no answer.

Fifty-five percent of respondents said Maryland should wait for better economic conditions before enacting new Bay cleanup and restoration initiatives, while 31 percent of respondents believe new regulations should be enacted today.

In response to this poll, The Chesapeake Bay Foundation wrote on the organization’s blog that the poll “creates a false conflict between a clean environment and a healthy economy.

“In fact, reducing pollution in the Chesapeake Bay improves the state’s economy. Clean water is vital to the seafood industry in Maryland, among many other sectors,” the foundation said.

An interesting part of the poll asked what voters thought most negatively impacts the Bay. Forty-seven percent of respondents said runoff from agricultural fertilizers harms the Bay the most. Eighteen percent said home lawn treatments had the most adverse effect on the Bay, while 15 percent believe that commercial construction is the cause for most of the Bay’s decline. Five percent said home construction was the cause, while three percent attributed recreational and commercial boat use as the reason for the Bay’s poor health.

What should O’Malley’s priorities be this year? What do you think some of the biggest players in Bay contamination are, and how can they be better managed?

Md. Plan Takes Aim at Soil Erosion

The Maryland Department of the Environment is revising its regulations for sediment and soil erosion control. The review began in 2009 and the draft of the “2010 Maryland Standards and Specifications for Soil Erosion and Sediment Control,” will be implemented on May 30, 2010.

As development continues along the rivers and streams that feed into the Chesapeake, there is less natural filtration of rainwater. Soil and vegetation that once absorbed excess rainwater are covered by infrastToructure (such as roads and houses) or damaged by agricultural use. Consequently, polluted water makes its way freely into rivers, and eventually to the bay. Sediment, particles of dirt that travel in stormwater, collect on river bottoms and cloud streams. These bits of soil also contain nitrogen and phosphorus from fertilizers that cause oxygen depleting algae blooms in waterways.

The draft is over three hundred pages long. It presents planning and design principles and sets grading requirements to prevent erosion during construction. It also offers guidelines for sediment filtration, erosion control, and water removal.

For a full version of the draft and more information about stormwater, visit the Maryland Department of the Environment’s stormwater management program online.

Allison Frick