Yesterday, I went on a cruise of the West and Rhode rivers in Maryland to celebrate the release of Prof. Howard Ernst's new book, Fight for the Chesapeake Bay.
Below is a brief excerpt from a conversation with Howard I recorded on the boat. He reveals how he answered a question you wish didn't need asking -- What's cleaner: used toilet water or the Chesapeake Bay? Watch it:
In his book, Ernst explains why after 25 years and $6 billion dollars the Bay is worse than ever. Worse, in some cases, than your toilet (particularly after it rains).
One reason is that there has been a failure to create real enforceable standards for water quality across all the states in the Chesapeake Bay watershed, which includes not just Maryland and Virginia but also Delaware, New York, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia.
That could change soon, thanks to a bill introduced last week by Sen. Ben Cardin and Congressman Elijah Cummings. The bill, called "The Chesapeake Bay Clean Water and Ecosystem Restoration Act," would require all states to bring the pollution they contribute to the Bay under acceptable levels, called the Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL), by 2025. States that fail to do so would be subject to substantial penalties, including loss of federal funds by the EPA.
This is the kind of bold action necessary to turn the Bay around.
You can contact your members of Congress and urge them to support the bill now.
You can contact me at judd@juddlegum.com or connect with my campaign for State Delegate in Maryland at JuddLegum.com.
Follow Judd Legum on Twitter: www.twitter.com/juddlegum
Chesapeake Bay Program - A Watershed Partnership
Chesapeake Bay Gateways Network (U.S. National Park Service)
Chesapeake Bay Foundation : Chesapeake Bay Foundation News and ...
land are cleared and locked-up to provide transportation corridors, removing these acres from constructive uses. As the corridors are widened and speed limits increase, it increases land development pressures and traffic congestion. Urban sprawl is rapidly spreading as more and more people move into the countryside to “get away from it all” while still commuting to nearby cities to work, shop, go to school and recreate. In the city, much of the land is devoted to streets and parking lots, rather than livable, walkable places for people to enjoy. Our quality of life declines as more green spaces are covered with concrete. Environmental Impacts of Transportation
Lost Farmland --- As more homes and businesses are built further afield, they chew-up and isolate farmlands at a rapid pace. Many thousands of acres of fertile farmland are lost forever under concrete, barren median strips and suburban lawns."
http://www.cwac.net/transportation/index.html
Many cities and suburbs experience a heat island effect, where the temperature increases in the area due to the increase in the amount of asphalt and buildings. In some areas, this increase in temperature could be as much as 7 degrees F.
It has become evident that the amount of environmental problems caused by urban sprawl is significant. Urban areas cannot continue to grow without sparking an environmental crisis beyond repair. Solutions to these problems must be explored and enacted through careful planning."
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/195211/the_environmental_impact_of_urban_sprawl_pg2_pg2.html?cat=47
http://www.sprawlcity.org/
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2002/11oct_sprawl.htm
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/07/opinion/07tue2.html
http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?id=h-763
http://www.cwac.net/landuse/index.html
In the Chesapeake watershed, land conversion is key. The six-state, 64,000 square-mile watershed that drains rainfall into the Bay brings runoff from new construction sites, homes, shopping centers and high rises — not to mention industry, logging, agriculture and other uses.
Urban sprawl can cause special problems, since urban-suburban development often results in large amounts of impervious surface — gathering rain from rooftops, parking lots, driveways and walkways, and sending it in concentrated conduits toward the Bay's tributaries."
http://www.mdsg.umd.edu/issues/watersheds/growth/
Everyday the two legged future friars of America create more waste than all of the daily human excrement created in New York City, Atlanta, Chicago and Boston. Runoff into the Chesapeake Bay from the poultry farms and the farm field where tons of the waste has been used as fertilizer, has had the unintended consequence of fertilizing Chesapeake Bay with phophorous and nitrogen. Trace amounts of arsenic and other heavy metals leached from the chicken waste are also added to the pollution dilution process in the bay.
Perdue needs to be responsible for the waste in the contract process. I have called the EPA and other agencies including Perdue with a possible solution, but I have yet to receive a return phone call.
I believe the farmers would gladly take on the waste if they could get financial assistance with the small biomass plants and be allowed to sell the electricity into the grid at market rates as a new revenue stream for their farms. The manure in this scenario would become a commodity more valuable in the biomass power plants than as a methane producer in the farm fields or as an unintended fertilizer in the bay. By builidng the power plants on or near every farm, the oil consumed to transport it away would be greatly reduced.
If people would stop for a moment and consider simple non-invasive solultions that create profit incentives for those most in need of it, then we would not have dead or dying bays.
1200 sq miles of quality farmland have been paved over for single dwelling homes
But go ahead blame it on the chickens and the farmers.
trust me it is dead. Gabillions of dollars would never clean it up. Population growth in the watershed guarantees death. Plus how many people really care, Out of the population in the watershed who really gives a doo? Me and 100 others. I like reading about efforts to try but ................