November 5th, 5:30 pm – midnight
Riverkeeper office: 18600 Queen Anne Road; Upper Marlboro, MD 20774

Fairhaven School: 17800 Queen Anne Road; Upper Marlboro, MD 20774

Come party under the stars on one of our county’s few remaining working farms with four non-profit groups that stand together for change, community and sustainability: Patuxent Riverkeeper, Prince George’s Sierra Club, Eco-City Farms and Fairhaven School.

Pre-Party Meeting: It can never be all play and no work: Sierra Club is having a general membership meeting at 3:30 pm before the evening party. The meeting will be at Fairhaven School: 17800 Queen Anne Road, Upper Marlboro, MD 20774

Film at Fairhaven: The film du jour is “Pig Business” a documentary the business practices of global agri-business in Europe (and here) that destroy local agriculture, while polluting the air and water. The movie will start at 6:00.

Beer and Dine: After the movie we will head back to the farm (appr. 7:00) where we will be grilling all natural sausage.  Bring a dish to share along with your plate, utensils, your favorite beverage and a folding chair. Spirit provided courtesy of Killarney House Restaurant

Tunes: Bring a musical instrument if you want to jam with the group.

Kayak Auction:  Riverkeeper will be auction off four of our used kayaks this Fall. The on-line auctions are listed on EBAY and end on November 9, 2010

Follow these links for more information on how to bid on kayaks:

Dirigo 140:

Tandem Kayak:

Dirigo 106:

Dirigo 140:

Landmark Decision Sets Statewide Precedent for Maryland Citizen Groups

OCTOBER 2, 2011 (UPPER MARLBORO, MD) — In a recent 5-2 decision, Maryland’s highest court upheld judicial standing for a member of a local environmental group contesting a wetlands permit awarded to developers of a shopping mall. The case— “Patuxent Riverkeeper v. Maryland Department of the Environment” — is the first test of a rule passed by the Maryland General Assembly in 2010 concerning standing (i.e., the  right to initiate a lawsuit) for citizen and organizations in state courts.

The non-profit group claimed victory in the case of a controversial and contested state-issued wetland permit located at Woodmore Town Centre shopping mall in Prince George’s County. Patuxent Riverkeeper initiated the lawsuit on behalf of David Linthicum, a Riverkeeper member since 2004. The plaintiff was concerned about adverse environmental effects of a road crossing that disrupted the river flow upstream of his commercial and recreational interests.

“Although this historic decision does not guarantee that everybody who wants to challenge a state permit can get standing, it will at least eliminate many of the frustrating  loopholes our adversaries have exploited to deny us a day in court, “ states Patuxent Riverkeeper Fred Tutman. “Most important, our victory creates a climate where the state and the pemittees will labor to write much better permits in order avoid legitimate challenges.”

As a case of first impression in Maryland, this decision by the Maryland Court of Appeals sets forth refreshed tests to be used in all state courts to determine standing for would-be plaintiffs. Although courts have the authority to weigh a variety of factors top determine who has standing, this case provides landmark guidance in several areas  by clarifying that

• the court is to look at adverse effects to the plaintiff’s interest in the affected water body instead of actual injury to that water body,
• the court’s authority is to consider aesthetic and recreational interests asserted by the plaintiff as  bona fide for the purposes of determining standing.

Woodmore Town Center, located in Prince George’s next to the Capitol Beltway, is a 247-acre mixed use development. The developers sought a non-tidal wetlands permit to permanently disturb less than an acre of marshland to build a bridge or box culvert access road from State Route #202 in Glenarden . The access road of this development crosses a headwaters stream on Western Branch of the Patuxent River.

Patuxent Riverkeeper offered comments and the later challenged the permit in circuit court,  where it was denied standing to pursue the case based on its member, Linthicum. Unable to get standing to put the concerns raised by its member before a trial judge, Riverkeeper petitioned the Maryland Court of Appeals, which granted certiorari and heard oral arguments in the case in June of 2011.

Linthicum, who lives on the banks of the Patuxent River, frequently paddles downstream of the affected site, draws and sells tourism maps of the Patuxent and its tributaries and is closely involved with stewardship for the river.

“Citizens and community groups frequently encounter barriers to standing as one of the greatest impediments for obtaining justice for their environmental concerns,“  according to Tutman.  “Opponents often raise concerns about the reasonableness of environmentalist claims, whether they are directly affected or injured by the construction projects, too far downstream, within sight and sound or adjacent to the offending projects and a host of other roadblocks usually designed to dispose of environmental cases before they can be tried on their merits.”

Prior to 2010 rules change, state permit challenges were tried in agency-run administrative proceedings.   Citizen interests and organizations on their own typically could not get standing. The 2010 changes in standing  aimed to make it easier for citizens to appeal permit challenges directly to the circuit courts.

About Patuxent Riverkeeper: The sole purpose of the Patuxent Riverkeeper is to protect, restore, and advocate for clean water in the Patuxent River and its connected ecosystem. The Riverkeeper patrols the river, investigates and resolves water quality and pollution complaints, launches and manages restoration projects, raises awareness about the river and its problems and work toward better enforcement of current laws and better laws to protect the river. The group is a nonprofit watershed advocacy organization affiliated with the Waterkeeper Alliance in New York, an umbrella group that licenses and links Waterkeepers internationally.

About the Patuxent River: The Patuxent River drainage area covers 930 square miles overall and runs north to south for 110 linear miles through seven Maryland counties, terminating at the Chesapeake Bay. The Patuxent is the longest and deepest intrastate river in Maryland, ranging from ankle wading depths, down to more than 180 feet.

For more information contact:

Frederick L. Tutman

Patuxent Riverkeeper

301-249-8200, ext. 7

Fred@paxriverkeeper.org

www.paxriverkeeper.org

Annapolis, MD May 19, 2011 – A flotilla of small craft landed at the City Dock in Annapolis on Thursday, bringing with them citizen groups demanding that Maryland state legislators deliver leadership, action and results on the cleanup of the state’s major rivers and coasts, and Chesapeake Bay.

Eighteen affiliated Chesapeake Waterkeeper groups, made up of concerned citizens, including farmers, watermen, business owners and families from throughout the Chesapeake Bay region, charged that the state legislature had deferred critical environmental work and failed to address the state’s mounting water pollution problems.

“At a time when the need for environmental leadership has never been greater, Marylanders were forced to suffer through a ‘do-nothing’ state legislature,” said Fred Tutman, the Patuxent Riverkeeper. “All of us have a responsibility not to let history repeat itself.”

“Today, we are calling on the Statehouse and on the public to re-focus and re-energize and address the environmental problems that threaten the long term sustainability of our environment and our way of life,” said Kathy Phillips, Assateague Coastkeeper. “With the clock ticking and water quality rapidly declining, the lost economic value, jobs and quality of life present real suffering for people and communities.”

Unsatisfied with the inaction of the most recent General Assembly, the flotilla arrived at City Dock at 1:00 p.m to insist that lawmakers make good on campaign promises to clean up our waterways. Concerned Marylanders joined the Waterkeepers at the event, demanding that elected leaders act during the next session. The flotilla was comprised of Waterkeepers and their boats, a symbol of the ever-vigilant presence that Waterkeepers provide throughout their individual watersheds.

“Waterkeepers and the people of Maryland whom we represent decry our State Legislature’s failure to live up to promises made by its constituent lawmakers,” said Drew Koslow, The Choptank Riverkeeper. “Maryland sets the tone for Chesapeake Bay cleanup, and so Maryland’s inaction calls into serious question the credibility and sincerity of our elected officials, particularly because it will now be much more difficult for Maryland to meet the Bay Pollution Diet set by EPA for the Bay States.”

Thursday’s protesters are concerned in particular with the Chesapeake Bay, which is in precipitous decline, with increasing dead zones. Few if any of the rivers and creeks draining into the bay have managed to achieve a scorecard grade that rises above a “D” from the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Studies. The Maryland Coastal Bays Program, an EPA National Estuary Program, has not been able to issue a grade above “C+” for the Coastal Bays on the Eastern Shore. The Legislature is tasked with passing laws that curb pollution from sources such as pesticides, agricultural runoff including arsenic in chicken manure, natural gas fracking, plastic bags, problems associated with smart growth, and the increasing problem of stormwater runoff.

“The District of Columbia is doing its part to control plastic bags in the river by passing a Bag Bill,” said Dottie Yunger, the Anacostia Riverkeeper. “With eighty percent of the Anacostia Watershed in Maryland, what will it take to get Maryland to do its part? We will never get a healthy Bay until all local jurisdictions take action.”

Waterkeepers are local grassroots clean water advocacy organizations made up of concerned citizens and local residents. One of the most important bodies of water in the US from the standpoint of economics and diversity of life, Chesapeake Bay has a concentration of Waterkeepers, most of whom patrol a tributary that drains into the bay. The local Waterkeeper movement features people working in Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, Pennsylvania and the District of Columbia, and has emerged as the eyes, ears and voices of waterways and communities that are struggling to turn the tide of the continuing decline of the waters they patrol.

“In the end, this is not about whether our elected officials have a good environmental score card or whether they have great intentions for the environment, but instead whether or not they have the political will to bring about a new and better day for the Chesapeake and Coastal Bays,” said Carolyn Lott, a member of the Assateague Coastal Trust. “Our waterways are screaming out loud that they are dying. Our local Waterkeepers will continue to be the voice for our waterways and our communities.”

You can hear audio clips from the press conference by clicking on the following programs:

The Waterkeepers Chesapeake include: Anacostia Riverkeeper (82), Assateague Coastkeeper (75), Baltimore Harbor Waterkeeper, Chester Riverkeeper (78), Choptank Riverkeeper (75), Gunpowder Riverkeeper, Lower Susquehanna Riverkeeper (75), Lower James Riverkeeper, Miles-Wye Riverkeeper (73), Patuxent Riverkeeper (74), Potomac Riverkeeper, Sassafras Riverkeeper, Severn Riverkeeper (72), Shenandoah Riverkeeper, South Riverkeeper (70), Upper James Riverkeeper, VA Eastern Shorekeeper, West RhodeRiverkeeper.

# # #

Media Contact:

Fred Tutman; Patuxent Riverkeeper; 301-249-8200 ext. 7

Kathy Phillips; Assateague Coastkeeper; 443-235-2014

August 24, 2010

Over the past several months, environmentalists in the Chesapeake Bay region have been closely watching the Chesapeake Clean Water and Ecosystem Restoration Act of 2009, introduced by Sen. Benjamin L. Cardin of Maryland. The Cardin bill, as it is commonly known, is being offered as a way to clean up a watershed that has suffered for decades from industrial abuse and political ineptitude. It is being touted by some as the last great chance to save the bay.

Unfortunately, in its current form, this bill will end up doing more harm than good.

As written, the bill weakens the Clean Water Act, the one tool that we know can help us clean up our impaired waterways. Indeed, several of the bill’s provisions undermine the act’s very foundations. For example, for the first time since the Clean Water Act was passed in 1972, states would be allowed to exempt point source polluters from permitting requirements. The bill also creates a shield against the act’s enforcement for the agriculture industry, the biggest single pollution source in the bay watershed.

Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of the bill is a market-based trading scheme that allows polluters to generate and sell nutrient and sediment pollution credits to other polluters. This pollution trading system will, according to its supporters, bring a much-needed level of “flexibility” to pollution control and result in a cleaner bay by 2025.

But is “flexibility” really what’s driving this market approach? The Delmarva Poultry Institute’s June 2010 newsletter, Timely Topics, applauds nutrient trading as “a program [that] has been created to help farmers earn money while providing polluters with the opportunity to increase their pollution to the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries.” Finally, some honesty about what nutrient trading is really all about — some polluters making more money while other polluters get to make more pollution. It’s a win-win … for polluters.

Many supporters of the bill claim that an inadequate Clean Water Act is to blame for repeated bay cleanup failures. However, that law is not the problem. The reason why the bay isn’t clean today is because of a decades-long lack of political will at both the state and federal level. It’s due to the failure of bay state environmental agencies to establish enforceable pollution limits on most of their nutrient-impaired waterways. It’s because political officials won’t stand up to some of the biggest polluters, and refuse to direct their agencies to fulfill their missions and enforce current law. It’s because nearly every bay state has allowed developers, counties and cities to short-circuit any meaningful controls on urban/suburban runoff. It’s because state legislators spend more time running interference for industry than protecting citizens who rely on healthy waterways. And it’s because the EPA continues to allow bay states to treat clean water like it’s an option instead of a basic, legally protected right.

The Clean Water Act, as currently written, contains all the tools necessary to clean up the bay — without bringing the market into it. There are protective point source permitting programs, incentives for non-point-source controls, requirements to attain water quality standards that allow state government to force polluters to reduce pollution. And when states fail to protect water resources, as the bay states have, it allows the EPA to step in and strip away the state’s delegated authority and administer the act itself. The CWA has been used by Waterkeepers and governments to clean up waterways across the country through state and federal resolve, industry compliance, citizen oversight and diligent enforcement.

To get a clean and healthy bay, we don’t need a new bill — we need to enforce the current law. Keep trying to reinvent the wheel to hide the real reasons for the dismal failure in the Chesapeake, and in 2025 we will still be sitting in a boat in the middle of a heavily polluted bay. Strip the Clean Water Act of its power, and we’ll be there — without a paddle.

Eliza Steinmeier is the Baltimore Harbor Waterkeeper. Her e-mail is eliza@harborwaterkeeper.org. Michael Helfrich is the Lower Susquehanna Riverkeeper. His e-mail is lowsusriver@hotmail.com.

One advantage of the so called “compromise” or weakening of the stormwater regulations that that has been unsaid in most of the trite explanations being sent around to irate environmentalists by “apologists” is that it also allows legislators to appease the maximum number of constituents without appearing polarized. The legislators covet both the support of builders and also environmental voters in an election year. The political theater merges the varied needs of many interest groups. Everybody has a different agenda and nobody gets anything done unless they both give and get a little. It is a perverse and cynical system that rewards people of both good faith and bad by giving them all an incentive to cooperate in some instances with passing bad laws just so we can at times pass some good ones too. As voters and citizens, we need to do better than this antiquated system. Legislators who care nothing about one set of laws will stonewall or withhold their support for the sole reason that they can use good law as a bargaining chip in order to get bad ones passed. And vice versa. They will exchange their support or withhold it in order to get something else passed that was what they or their supporters really cared about. I consider this morally bankrupt because it is a form of horse trading in which the public interest is an afterthought or perhaps only one if not the last factor considered in many of these transactions. With 2400+ laws to review in a session, some legislators eventually find themselves in a haze where all laws look alike to them. The real question they ask themselves is can I trade my support or withhold it in such a way for me to advance my agenda, stay elected or please my constituents? It is the way things are done, and a politician who does not play by such rules risk being ineffective or not staying in office. All of them do this to some extent and all have very different thresholds for what they are willing to compromise and how far they will either reach or stoop on any given day or any given piece of legislation in order to stay in the game. They all must give a little in order to get a little.

The problem with Stormwater was that the builders successfully confused the issue by distorting what was sacrificed. Worse, it remains unclear what if anything the environment obtained in the transaction.There is still confusion from many on these points and this was deliberate by those primarily seeking to rollback the stormwater laws. In sum, the emergency regulations provided an extension of time for builders to use outmoded and weaker environmental laws for an unspecified number of projects and also an opportunity to give local jurisdictions more time and loopholes to craft waivers for projects that they insisted (but never really documented) deserved an extension of time or a waiver. It was second bite at the apple for business interests who had failed previously to win these things during the 2+ year MDE promulgation process and who had already had considerable time to stack and front load a huge number of projects into various pipelines prior to the May 4th deadline they had known about for a long while. Frankly, it was and resulted in an extension for those who were already on extension. It was also obvious from the start that the Stormwater Act was the “lady or the tiger” in this session. The opponents and proponents represented two extremes; those who want the Bay cleaned up and those whose “jobs” plainly rely to some extent on wrecking the existing laws that represent business as usual.

Elected officials risked alienating either of the two extremes. The original Holmes Bill was so extreme it was not likely to pass in its original form. Its sponsor had to have known this and so he stacked it with so much stuff that he was prepared to accept compromise in order to get at least some of what he really wanted all along. Then (according to them) like a knight on a white horse, a group of “leading environmentalists” joined forces willingly with other legislators who similarly either brokered or originated a weakening that appeased the builders (we’ll never know which and it probably does not matter which based on the end result). These retail compromisers (retail by implication because each had a figurative self interested price tag for their own participation) packaged the ultimate weakening that allowed the politicians to appear to be both supporting the builders and the environmentalists at the same time. A magic pill to dispense with a massive election year headache. I believe this was the true reason so many legislators were so eager to embrace emergency regulations. It was an elegant deal. It even came with a blue chip assurance from an environmental score card group that assured them that a vote for the compromise would not count against their environmental scorecard. Who wouldn’t take such a deal? It was a sweetie.

The artful explanation now being sent around by legislators who voted for the emergency regs generally champion not the merits of the emergency regulations but instead applauds the spirit and principles of “compromise” as a virtue. It validates a system that sometime gives up a lot in order to appear to be fair and equitable for the environment when really on this occasion it was dealing with a business conspiracy that hired expensive and morally bankrupt lobbyists to help vanquish some deadlines, and weaken some environmental protections that were inconvenient and that the builders had failed to torpedo even after about two years of public promulgation procedures and public review. It clouded both our minds and the waters of our Bay with much that was not said about the true effects of the compromise. And it found a wall of support in Annapolis because the common interests of all concerned favored getting re-elected (or looking heroic, or protecting their base of power etc) more than holding the line for protection of the environment. The questions now should not be posed to those legislators who supported the compromise. The real questions should be asked of those legislators who did not! These answers would undoubtedly be far more instructive than the present form letters being sent out to rationalize why a deal was needed at all. There was not much wrong with leaving the stormwater act alone really. It was just that without some form of rollback, the political marketplace had little to sell or transact. Without a fake threat and an even more fake appearance of needed compromise, the only interest group that was in a position to win, was the ecology of the Bay. Most understood this, including those of us fighting to protect the 2007 Act. Most elected officials had to have grasped that this bizarre transaction was a safe gambit or maybe even inevitable one but it conveniently came with the blue chip, full faith and credit of the “leading” environmental groups. Once the stormwater deal faced opposition from a second environmental lobby, those who made the deal were fighting not just for the environment but also to protect their authority to credibly make such deals on behalf of the environment in the future. In truth they often seemed to be fighting less for the Bay and more to defend their wheeling and dealing ways and to discredit those who had the effect of challenging their authority to “lead” on behalf of the environmental movement. In the aftermath, there is a bonafide question that should be answered about exactly who the environmental leaders involved with the negotiations were leading other than themselves?

Several legislators who are usually good on the environment voted for the emergency regs. This has further confused some voters. But remember, that the building was on fire and some of these people climbed out of the best window or loophole available to them under the circumstances in order to protect themselves from getting burned politically. Others did not. Some believed that since compromise was probably inevitable as a way of life and politics that this one was the very best we and the environment could get–even while it was also the best deal that developer’s money could buy. For the purposes of an environmental or legislative endorsement, I think it is more gray than black and white. One would have to look more closely at a particular legislator’s motives and circumstances to get the full story.

We hope this helps.

A stick coated with mud and oil from Swanson Creek

Casi (kc) Callaway
Executive Director & Baykeeper
Mobile Baykeeper
300 Dauphin Street, Suite 200
Mobile, AL 36602

Nearly 200 Waterkeepers defend the world’s waters. Our Gulf Waterkeepers are the first line of defense during the ongoing Gulf disaster. Their incredible knowledge of the marshes, wetlands, beaches, and inner-coastal waters make them invaluable first responders. Their commitment makes them critical and effective community leaders. The wealth of scientific, legal and political knowledge and experience our Waterkeepers possess make them true voices of the people and of the environment on which they depend. And their dedication to a full recovery is unmatched. The Gulf Waterkeepers need your help. Please support them by donating, and together, we can Save Our Gulf. Donate and Help Save Our Gulf