Ecosystem

Kent Conservation and Preservation Alliance: Just Say Maybe No Data Centers on Farmland

May 21, 2020 by Dave Wheelan 1 Comment

Over the years, the Spy has interviewed Janet Christensen-Lewis, Judy Gifford, and Liz Watson many times on Kent County land use issues. From solar farms to wind turbines, these board members of the Kent Conservation and Preservation Alliance have been remarkably successful in their arguments against these alternative energy solutions to protect the county’s rare agricultural landscapes.

And this time, they are raising the flag of grave concern about the prospects of ag land being converted into data centers. As the need grows for large internet storage facilities, as well as the open space needed to accommodate them, the Kent Conservation and Preservation Alliance will be making it very clear at the next Kent County Commissioners meeting (conference phone call) that approval of that use would have dire consequences.

The Spy Zoomed with Janet, Judy, and Liz earlier today to get their point of view.

This video is approximately twelve minutes in length. The County Commissioners hearing on this bill Tuesday May 26 at 10 am. The number to call for the hearing is 1-872-239-8359 ID#615 347 570. Written testimony will be accepted until noon on May 22. Email kentcounty@kentgov.org.

Saving the Choptank…and the Bay? By Al Hammond

May 18, 2020 by Al Hammond Leave a Comment

It’s no secret that the health of the Chesapeake Bay ecosystem and its valuable blue crab and striped bass fisheries have been under threat from the region’s growing population and expanding economic activity. But a recent ShoreRivers report on improving water quality in some parts of the Eastern Shore of Maryland seems to suggest a positive trend. This is a story about actions leading to that trend, in which a U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) laboratory located in Oxford, Maryland, has played a key role.

Agricultural land use dominates some parts of the Choptank watershed and is a major source of sediment and fertilizer runoff that contributes to poor water quality which may harm economically important fisheries. Source: NOAA

The seriousness of the environmental threat to the Bay’s fisheries was confirmed by a 2015 NOAA scientific study and a number of earlier studies that documented impaired water quality and poor biological health. A primary cause of the degradation, the studies found, was transformation of the natural landscape by agricultural activity and urbanization in ways that increased runoff into streams and rivers: runoff of sediment, nutrients such as fertilizers, and chemical and bacterial pollutants. The result is murky water, reduced underwater vegetation, and declining numbers of fish, crabs, and oysters coupled with increased levels of bacteria, fish disease, and fish parasites. The pattern of degradation seemed to track the types of predominant local land use, whether urban, agricultural, or forest.

NOAA scientists from Cooperative Oxford Laboratory pull a seine net in fish community composition sampling for the Tred Avon River ecological assessment. Source: NOAA

Since 1983, the Chesapeake Bay Program has been working to improve the Bay. The latest agreement, signed in 2014 by six states, the District of Columbia and the EPA on behalf of seven federal agencies, committed to achieving a long list of measurable outcomes and improvements. Included in these are water quality targets to reduce sediment and nutrient runoff and to restore native oyster habitat and populations in 10 tributaries, 5 in Maryland and 5 in Virginia, by 2025. (Oysters filter and thus help clean the water).

Also in 2014, NOAA designated the Choptank River—the longest and largest river that empties into the bay and a key blue crab producer—a habitat focus area. As part of the overall Choptank effort, NOAA initiated a detailed scientific assessment of one of the river’s tributaries—the Tred Avon River that flows from Easton to where it empties into the larger Choptank near Oxford.

The study—conducted by NOAA’s Cooperative Oxford Laboratory—was a massive effort. Dr. Shawn McLaughlin, who directed the research, says it involved repeated sampling and data collection: “For three years we conducted daily, weekly, or monthly field trips to river sites in eight Tred Avon sub-watersheds spanning forested areas, agricultural lands, and urban areas.” The scientists measured water clarity and dissolved oxygen levels, concentrations of nitrogen and other nutrients, the presence of underwater vegetation, and numbers and types of fish and their health—including seasonal patterns. The resulting 2018 report documents the impacts of different land use patterns on water quality and fisheries health and suggests management practices that could help mitigate damage and restore ecological condition. The findings include:

Urban areas such as Easton, with their abundance of paved surfaces, are a major source of runoff, leading to higher levels of chemical contaminants, nutrients, and fecal bacteria as well as low dissolved oxygen levels in nearby bottom waters and the absence of many fish species during high summer temperatures.
Agricultural areas also showed high levels of nutrients and poor water clarity (which affects underwater vegetation that provides shelter and food for fish).
Watersheds dominated by forests had relatively good water quality and abundant fish and shellfish species.

The report pointed out the need for continuing efforts to reduce nutrient and sediment runoff across the entire ecosystem and the importance of preserving critical habitats for fish and shellfish, especially in spawning areas such as the Choptank. It also calls for innovative management approaches such as planting or restoring oyster beds and setting thresholds for land development.

Concurrent with the research, as part of the overall Choptank effort, NOAA’s Chesapeake Bay Office initiated an effort to coordinate local organizations with similar goals to achieve more than would be feasible if they acted alone. While this “collective impact” strategy had proven itself at community-scale, attempting it on a much larger scale was a novel approach for NOAA. An experienced environmental consultant was hired to stimulate and coordinate local action by working with local governments, non-profit organizations, philanthropic donors, and other stakeholders such as ShoreRivers.

Sampling water quality as part of the Tred Avon Assessment. Source: NOAA

The consultant, Joanna Ogburn, brought many groups together and created Envision The Choptank (envisionthechoptank.org), a partnership focused on pairing the scientific findings with local knowledge and local actors to find collaborative solutions. It used preliminary data from the NOAA Tred Avon study along with other Chesapeake Bay Program studies and data to guide pilot projects, get people excited about what was happening, and promote best practices among county officials, farmers and individual homeowners. The organization also hired coordinators to work with landowners 1-to-1, raised funds to provide incentives, and linked landowners to technical assistance. The Envision partner organizations have helped to engage many different entities, share tools and information and ideas, and coordinate strategies and funding efforts.

The effort has paid off. It enabled McLaughlin and her research team to meet with local, state and federal officials to share the evidence connecting land use to the condition of the aquatic ecosystem. It brought the laboratory together with Easton officials, Talbot county government and public works representatives, and ShoreRivers to discuss ways to “green” the proposed Port Street development in Easton by minimizing additional impervious surfaces that would intensify runoff. Envision partners also identified two stream restoration projects within the urban area and provided the Town of Easton with a small grant to design the projects, which led to a larger state grant to fully fund the work.

In another example, Envision partners engaged residential landowners to reduce storm water drainage. Using locations in the lower Choptank that the Oxford data showed regularly had low water quality, they got the Nature Conservancy to do digital map studies to determine the lands draining to those locations, then invited all the relevant landowners to workshops. There they taught residential homeowners how to build rain gardens and other techniques that improve water quality and the attractiveness of their properties. Envision partners have used the same strategy to identify agricultural landowners that are significant sources of runoff, so that they can reach out to them.

More than 35 organizations are now involved with Envision the Choptank, which is now expanding its efforts across the entire Choptank ecosystem. It organized a $1 million grant from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation to engage, incentivize, and work with farmers in creating buffers and other strategies to manage runoff. Joanna Ogburn comments that “This grant is helping us launch a new wave of interventions. We’ve been able to build financial incentive programs to overcome the challenges landowners and farmers face in implementing restoration practices. We’re hoping to engage landowners in the Choptank watershed in creating buffers, wetland restoration, and drainage ditch management practices, ultimately restoring 230 acres.” And, as the latest ShoreRivers report suggests, these actions—at state and county and local levels—are beginning to show results.

It’s clear that the research and the scientific data it produced were critical in persuading both public officials and individual farmers and homeowners to get involved and take action. But it’s also clear that communication efforts and coalition building to find and implement local solutions were equally important—and that the Cooperative Oxford Laboratory played a central role in both. Suzanne Skelley, director of the lab, noted “Using research results to inform decision-making, especially to improve ecosystem condition while enhancing community resilience, is a core mission of the Lab and of NOAA.” The winning formula for saving the Choptank, and perhaps the broader Chesapeake Bay ecosystem, seems to be: science + communication/engagement + local action.

Al Hammond was trained as a scientist (Stanford, Harvard) but became a distinguished science journalist, reporting for Science (a leading scientific journal) and many other technical and popular magazines and on a daily radio program for CBS. He subsequently founded and served as editor-in-chief for 4 national science-related publications as well as editor-in-chief for the United Nation’s bi-annual environmental report. More recently, he has written, edited, or contributed to many national assessments of scientific research for federal science agencies. Dr. Hammond makes his home in Chestertown on Maryland’s Eastern Shore.

After Coronavirus: Chesapeake College’s Cliff Coppersmith

May 4, 2020 by Dave Wheelan Leave a Comment

For a variety of interesting reasons, Chesapeake College’s Cliff Coppersmith was extraordinarily well prepared for COVID-19. The first being that he had done a significant amount of scholarship work during his academic career, including a considerable emphasis on how pandemic illness wiped out close to 90% of Native Americans in the 17th Century. Coupled with a military intelligence background and the fact that many of his wife’s family was living in Italy in the early developing stages of the coronavirus crisis, Dr. Coppersmith uniquely qualified to take action in his leadership position at the Wye Mills community college for the Mid-Shore.

In our interview, Dr. Coppersmith outlines what his school has taken during Maryland’s stay-at-home order, how the College’s operating budget looks like going into summer classes, and his forecast on how Chesapeake might open back up in the fall.

This video is approximately ten minutes in length. For more information about Chesapeake College please go here.

Long-running Chesapeake Crab Study Threatened with Shutdown

May 1, 2020 by Bay Journal Leave a Comment

One of the longest-running scientific investigations of the Chesapeake Bay is in danger of shutting down permanently.

The Morgan State University blue crab monitoring survey has persisted for 50 years through two institutions, three financial sponsors and the evolution from paper to digital tabulation. But its funding dried up this year, and the deep financial downturn triggered by the coronavirus has cast doubt on finding an alternative source.

“Normally, we’d be getting the crab survey ready, but that’s not happening this year unfortunately,” said Tom Ihde, the fisheries ecologist at Morgan State who currently helms the study.

The coronavirus has grounded environmental research across the Chesapeake region and around the globe. Some studies are impossible to carry out without violating social-distancing protocols. Others suffered human resource shortages when university graduate students were sent home. And the future funding picture is hazy at best.

Amid this crisis within a crisis, the Morgan State crab study stands out. Its ills predate the pandemic, putting it in a tougher spot than most of the other suspended work. Meanwhile, what hangs in the balance isn’t a few months of datasets but rather a decades-long crusade that helped fishery managers resurrect the iconic species after years of decline.

Ihde said he has been trying to find other avenues to finance the work. The prospects didn’t look good before the coronavirus emerged, he said. Now, they look even worse.

“These long-term surveys are notoriously hard to keep funded, and it’s not cheap to get boats on the water or to pay for gear and staff time,” Ihde said. “We’re trying to find other ways of funding. I’ve tried quite a few, but there’s no success yet.”

The research historically has cost about $50,000 a year to conduct.

Stanley Nwakamma, an intern at Morgan State University’s Patuxent Environmental and Aquatic Research Laboratory, hoists a crab pot in 2018 while working on the facility’s long-running blue crab survey. Photo courtesy of Morgan State University

The protocol has changed little from the beginning. Once a month from June to early November, when crabs are most active, Ihde and his team bait 30 crab pots with menhaden and drop them into the Bay along the western shore in southern Maryland. The pots are divided among offshore sites near Kenwood Beach, Rocky Point and Calvert Cliffs.

The researchers return in their boat 24 hours later to record how many they caught, the size of the crustaceans and the characteristics of the water.

The study got under way in 1968. It grew out of researchers’ and environmentalists’ concerns about how a new nuclear power plant, which was then nearly a decade from opening at Calvert Cliffs, would affect crabs with its discharges of heated water.

The scientist selected to lead the study was fresh from receiving his master’s degree in biological sciences from the University of Delaware. George Abbe became the first employee of the Academy of Natural Sciences’ Estuarine Research Center on the Patuxent River.

Over the next 40 years, Abbe produced a wealth of publications — more than 150, including his oyster research and other topics. But the crab study was his obsession, colleagues say.

The crab survey would soon move beyond its initial parochial goal — the heated water turned out to be a non-factor. Along the way, the survey shaped science’s evolving understanding of the Bay’s crabs.

Sandra Shumway, a marine scientist with the University of Connecticut who knew Abbe through academic conferences and followed his work closely, called him a visionary for developing a study that stood the test of time.

“Long-term data sets are rare,” she said. “It’s only by having that long, broad picture that you really understand what the population is doing.”

In the 1990s, Abbe was one of the first scientists to warn that the once-abundant species was dwindling in the Bay. His work showed that fishermen were taking too many crabs just over the legal size limit instead of waiting for them to grow mature enough to reproduce, a phenomenon known as “growth overfishing.”

“He rang the warning bell very loudly and clearly,” Ihde said.

Abbe’s research helped inform the U.S. Commerce Department’s decision in 2008 to declare the Chesapeake crab fishery a disaster, Ihde said. The designation made watermen eligible for $75 million in federal aid. It also prompted fishery managers in Maryland and Virginia to enact harvest restrictions that have been widely credited with helping to drive the population up 60% to 594 million crabs as of 2019.

The study has weathered several changes in recent years.

In 2004, the Academy transferred the research center that housed Abbe’s work to Morgan State. Funding for the study began with Baltimore Gas & Electric, the nuclear plant’s original owner. After 15 years, it moved to the Maryland Department of Natural Resources for 30 years. The state money stopped flowing in 2011; there was no funding and no surveying for the next two years.

Abbe continued working and studying the Bay’s shellfish until shortly before his death in August 2013 at the age of 69.

Dominion Energy, which operates a liquefied natural gas plant in the area, stepped up and voluntarily funded the work from 2014 through last year. This year’s stoppage initially stemmed from a mix-up between Morgan State and Dominion over the application deadline for the funds, each side confirmed.

But the coronavirus has forced the energy company to reshuffle its priorities.

“We have halted all expenditures companywide for the foreseeable future,” said George Anas, Dominion’s external affairs manager. “It’s not that we don’t care any less [about the crab survey]. We have enjoyed working with them, and we look down the road hoping we can do some more.”

Maryland’s DNR has no plans to fund the study, agency spokesman Gregg Bortz said.

The state has conducted its own annual crab survey in conjunction with the Virginia Institute of Marine Science since 1990. It uses dredges to collect crabs during the winter.

Bortz added that the agency’s scientists prefer their method for assessing the population size because it analyzes many locations around the Bay and catches crabs of all sizes. In contrast, the Morgan State study focuses on one area and can only capture crabs that are at least a year old.

The director of what is now known as the Patuxent Environmental and Aquatic Research Laboratory insists the study can still be valuable to the state’s fishery monitoring. “Our survey can do different things and fill in some gaps,” Scott Knoche said.

For example, because it looks at female crab movements in the fall, the study can be used to predict reproduction levels for the next spring, Ihde said.

Tom Miller, a crab specialist who directs the Chesapeake Biological Laboratory at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, said the winter dredge survey supplies the best overall snapshot of the blue crab population. He helps author the annual study.

The Morgan State survey may no longer be as vital for fishery managers as it once was, but it is still useful for spotting long-range trends, Miller said.

“What’s important about it is you conduct it the same way,” he said. “If you see crabs are less abundant than they were in this pot survey, because the methods are the same, that should be a reliable indicator of changes in the overall crab population.”

Last year, the center’s staff converted decades of Abbe’s handwritten notes to digital records. Ihde has begun analyzing the voluminous dataset and hopes to dig up findings that persuade some entity to fund future field work.

A long-term study can survive a year or two without collecting new data, Ihde said. But if the delay goes on much longer, it seriously compromises the survey’s ongoing usefulness to fellow researchers and fishery managers.

“Long-term surveys like this are absolutely critical when it comes to trying to understand population changes over time, especially when the system itself is changing,” Ihde said, referring to the way climate change has led to warmer winters and shorter periods of dormancy for crabs. “It’s easy to lose sight of what things should be like. Fifty years is well beyond most people’s professional career memory.”

By Jeremy Cox

Fighting a Trump Rollback of Bay Protection with CBF’s Alan Girard and ShoreRivers’ Jeff Horstman

April 30, 2020 by Dave Wheelan 2 Comments

With an avalanche of news related to the coronavirus saturating media these days, it is not surprising that several of President Donald Trump’s rollbacks of Obama-era environmental protection policies have escaped the notice of the general public.

That was the recent case with the Trump administration’s move in the last month to throw out the Obama-era Clean Water Rule, which provided robust protections for wetlands and seasonal streams under the Clean Water Act. In its place, many experts believe, is a dangerously weaker version.

Two organizations that did, however, take notice was the Chesapeake Bay Foundation and ShoreRivers. Even as COVID-19 disrupts the work of both groups, they have teamed up to sue the Trump administration. This week they formally filed with the District Court for the District of Maryland, Northern Division, to prohibit what they consider to be a dangerous and unwarranted redefinition of water systems. They contend this new language will strip critical protections for wetlands and streams across the Bay’s 64,000 square-mile watershed.

Yesterday, the Spy talked with Alan Girard, Chesapeake Bay Foundation’s Eastern Shore director, and Jeff Horstman, ShoreRivers’ executive director, to get a much more clear understanding of what’s at stake, and what will be lost if this new Trump definition is adopted.

This video is approximately six minutes in length. For more information about the Chesapeake Bay Foundation please go here. For ShoreRivers please go here.

CBF and ShoreRivers Sue Trump Administration on Clean Water Rule

April 23, 2020 by Spy Desk Leave a Comment

The Chesapeake Bay Foundation (CBF) and ShoreRivers plan to sue the Trump administration for repealing the Obama-era Clean Water Rule, which provided robust protections for wetlands and seasonal streams under the Clean Water Act, and replacing it with the dangerously weaker version published in the Federal Register today.

The new definition of Waters of the United States (WOTUS) ignores the scientific underpinnings of the 2015 Clean Water Rule and jettisons vital protections for wetlands and streams across the Bay’s 64,000 square-mile watershed. It will do the most damage in Delaware, the District of Columbia, and West Virginia, which rely entirely on federal law to protect their local waters. In Delaware alone, it would allow the destruction of nearly 200,000 acres of wetlands.

The new WOTUS rule will also be harmful in Maryland, Pennsylvania, New York, and Virginia, despite those states’ additional state water protection programs, because their programs all have gaps the new rule will exacerbate. In Maryland, nontidal wetlands could lose protections, as could Pennsylvania streams that flow only in response to precipitation, known as seasonal streams. Thousands of Delmarva Bays, wetlands unique to the Delmarva Peninsula, are directly at risk as well.

As natural filters, wetlands play a crucial role helping the six watershed states and the District meet their targets for reducing nitrogen, phosphorus, and sediment pollution entering the Bay and its tributaries by the 2025 deadline set by the Chesapeake Clean Water Blueprint.

Wetlands soak up excess water from the more frequent and intense storms and floods caused by climate change, which regularly batter the watershed’s farms, low-lying coastal communities, and rapidly disappearing Bay islands. Wetlands also protect and recharge drinking water supplies.

By providing irreplaceable habitat for fish, native wildlife, and migratory birds, wetlands support the region’s $65 billion outdoor recreation industry and the more than half a million jobs it provides.

In response to publication of the new WOTUS rule, Jon Mueller, CBF’s Vice President of Litigation, said:

“The Trump administration’s new WOTUS rule is an astounding attack on the Clean Water Act and another egregious example of its destructive disregard for science. By slashing the number of waterways in the watershed protected from pollution under the Clean Water Act, this damaging rule puts the entire cleanup effort in jeopardy. 

“Wetlands are vital to the health and resilience of the Chesapeake Bay and the 111,000 miles of local creeks, streams, and rivers from Cooperstown, NY, to Virginia Beach that feed into it. They are also critical to the region’s $65 billion outdoor recreation industry and the more than half a million jobs it supports. 

“The stakes are too high to allow this dangerous rule to stand. CBF has worked tirelessly for years to protect the Clean Water Rule and prevent a weaker version from replacing it. We will be just as relentless as we take our fight to protect the Clean Water Act and the watershed’s wetlands to court.”  

Jeff Horstman, Executive Director of ShoreRivers, said:

“Vast areas of streams and wetlands on the Delmarva will lose vital protections if this irresponsible regulatory roll back is permitted. By repealing the Clean Water Rule, the current administration is allowing more pollution to enter our iconic rivers and Bay, which are beginning to show signs of improvement after decades of work. We cannot allow this progress to be reversed, we must stand up for science and challenge this assault on our right to have clean water.

“It is a fact that polluted rivers will cost us more in the end than any short-term economic gain garnered from allowing industries to pollute. We must stop the cycle of allowing short term economic interests and corporate greed to destroy our natural resources.”

For more than half a century, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation has led a landmark effort to save the Chesapeake Bay—a national treasure on which the health and wellbeing of nearly 20 million people and 3,600 species of plants and animals depend. Grounded in science and focused on local waterways, we educate tens of thousands of people each year, advocate for better public policy, hold governments and polluters accountable, and perform essential hands-on restoration.

ShoreRivers protects and restores Maryland’s Eastern Shore waterways through science-based advocacy, restoration, and education. Our Riverkeepers monitor water quality, advocate for clean water laws, and work with local governments to enforce existing laws. Our Education team provides critical environmental programming to public school students and teachers across four counties. And our Agriculture & Restoration team specializes in implementing innovative, effective practices that improve both environmental health and farm productivity. Through all our programs, ShoreRivers works across the Delmarva to increase awareness of pollution problems and to inspire action to achieve healthy waterways.

Coronavirus Closes Bay Region Beaches, Some Park Facilities

April 1, 2020 by Bay Journal Leave a Comment

The coronavirus pandemic that’s keeping many people inside across the Chesapeake Bay watershed is also limiting some outdoor recreational opportunities — closing campgrounds, playgrounds, public beaches and some parks. In Maryland, it’s also putting a crimp in boating.

Authorities issued stay-at-home orders in Maryland, Virginia, Delaware, the District of Columbia, New York and West Virginia. In Pennsylvania, a growing number of counties joined their ranks. But such decrees still allow ample opportunities for getting outside to hike, bike, jog, fish or hunt — or just take in a little fresh air and nature. Following is a state-by-state rundown.

Maryland

The stay-at-home order issued March 30 by Gov. Larry Hogan specifically permits “outdoor exercise activities, such as walking, hiking, running, or biking,” as long as people maintain a 6-foot separation from each other.

But recreational boating is not permitted. That’s a bitter pill in a state with more than 200,000 registered power- and sailboats. Boaters took to social media to complain, and at least one started an online petition asking Hogan to lift the ban. One signer argued that boating is “good for mental health,” while others maintained it fit the spirit of “social distancing.”

Amid a flurry of questions, the state Department of Natural Resources issued new guidelines on Tuesday that say “limited” hunting and recreational fishing are permitted, including by boat, if pursued to obtain food. That prompted at least one boater to suggest he’d be sure to have a fishing rod aboard.

The DNR also specified that kayaking and paddle boarding are acceptable forms of outdoor exercise, if practiced with proper separation. Though not specifically mentioned in DNR guidance, canoeing is also permitted, according to DNR spokesman Gregg Bortz, providing that whoever else is in the canoe is someone you’re living with.

Delaware

Delaware’s state parks remain open with their fees waived, but its state-operated beaches are closed for all but exercise and surf-fishing under Gov. Jim Carney’s stay-at-home orders.

Those parks were all but shuttered to out-of-state visitors. A week after Carney ordered anyone coming into Delaware to self-quarantine for 14 days, he extended the policy March 30 to apply to those heading into the state to fish, hunt or visit a park.

Playgrounds have been closed in parks throughout the region to prevent the spread of the new coronavirus. Photo by Jeremy Cox/Bay Journal News Service

Surf-fishing, an activity known for packing beaches during warm weather, is limited to people fishing from vehicles with a cap of two people from the same household. Vehicles must be parked at least 20 yards apart, according to the Department of Natural Resource and Environmental Control.

“This change is designed to allow a source of food and a bit of safely distant recreation, but it is not intended to allow the normal type of surf-fishing we see with groups of people engaged in non-fishing activities. The beaches are still not a place for numbers of people engaged in social activities,” DNREC Secretary Shawn Garvin said.

All state parks playgrounds, campsites and park offices are closed. Any visitors must practice social distancing. Upstate trout season remains open in seven designated streams.

Pennsylvania

Thirty-three counties are under stay-at-home orders, but residents are still permitted to engage in outdoor activities such as walking, hiking or running, as long as they keep their distance from others.

State parks and state forests remain open but all facilities, such as rest rooms, pavilions, and campgrounds, are closed. For details and updates, go here.

The Fish and Boat Commission did delay the early start of trout season in Southeastern Pennsylvania to coincide with an April 18 opening day in the rest of the state. Stream stocking was accelerated, without the assistance of volunteers. For more info, go here.

Virginia

Gov. Ralph Northam ordered all Virginians to stay home but included “engaging in outdoor activities, including for exercise,” among the exceptions. He didn’t address boating, but said generally that individuals using outdoor spaces, “whether on land or on water,” must stay at least 6 feet away from each other, unless the others are family or household members or caretakers.

Virginia state parks have closed visitor centers, cabins, campgrounds and restrooms, but trails and outdoor spaces are still open for day use. For details, see here.

Northam also declared a moratorium on most private campground reservations and closed all public beaches except for exercising and fishing. For more info, go here.

District of Columbia

As in neighboring states, District residents have been ordered to stay home, unless they have some “essential” purpose. They may venture out to engage in “certain authorized recreational activities.” The list includes: “walking, hiking, running, dog-walking, biking, rollerblading, scootering, skateboarding, playing tennis, golfing, gardening, and other activities where all participants comply with social distancing requirements and there is no person-to-person contact.” It’s unclear whether fishing or any type of boating is acceptable.

New York

With a statewide stay-at-home order, New York park officials encouraged people to get outdoors but to #RecreateLocal.

The Department of Environmental Conservation created the hashtag in a campaign urging people to keep visits short and not travel too far from home. “To keep these places safe and healthy for everyone, we need to adjust the ways we enjoy our parks,” State Parks Commissioner Erik Kulleseid said.

Like other states, New York has waived fees at state parks but closed playgrounds, canceled all public programs and shuttered nature centers and other facilities. All state-operated campgrounds are closed through at least April 30; anyone with a reservation in the meantime is being given refunds. For more info, go here.

The state urged people to keep their distance from each other while outdoors and avoid group activities, such as basketball and football. If crowds are forming at a park, people should go somewhere else, officials said. Fishing and boating were allowed, but officials urged boaters to stay at least six feet from each other.

West Virginia

As in other states, Gov. Jim Justice’s stay-at-home order specifically allows walking, hiking, biking, jogging and just being “in nature for exercise,” with proper separation from others.

All state campgrounds are closed through April 30. All restrooms are closed, and all events canceled.

Day-use areas, such as hiking trails and fishing lakes, continue to be open for public use. The state has waived fishing license fees through April 24 for state residents. Under Justice’s order, no outdoor gatherings could exceed 10 people and they must stay at least 6 feet apart. Justice also closed private campgrounds to out-of-state travelers.

National parks

National parks remain mostly open, but they are coming under increasing pressure to close after reporting that seven employees have confirmed cases of the coronavirus.

The Park Service has closed popular parks such as Great Smoky Mountains, Yellowstone and Grand Teton, plus dozens of other sites to reduce risks of spreading illness. But many more remain open, and the government has waived entrance fees.

The chair of the Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks, Phil Francis, wrote Interior Secretary David Bernhardt on Tuesday urging him to close the parks to protect employees and help slow the spread of COVID-19.

With 54 sites in the Chesapeake Bay watershed, the National Park Service says it is modifying operations on a park-by-park basis during the pandemic. It is basing those decision on guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as well as state and local health authorities, officials said.

Among the sites closed in the Bay watershed are Fort McHenry in Baltimore, the Washington Monument in the District of Columbia and the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad National Historical Park on Maryland’s Eastern Shore.

At other sites, parks have suspended visitor services, with exceptions for law enforcement and trash removal.

Among the changes announced in the Bay region’s national parks:

• The Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park in Virginia canceled its Illumination of the Fredericksburg National Cemetery scheduled over Memorial Day weekend. The event typically draws 4,000-9,000 visitors a year. The parks also curtailed services to only those considered essential.

• National parks in the greater Washington area remain open but most indoors facilities, roads, playgrounds and other facilities are closed. In the District’s popular Rock Creek Park, four iconic park fountains are closed.

• At the Gettysburg National Military Park in Pennsylvania, all non-life sustaining operations are shut down, including restrooms, museum and observation towers.

• The Shenandoah National Park in Virginia remains open but has closed several popular trails and parking lots because they were attracting large crowds. The annual openings of its lodges had been delayed until May 21.

Appalachian Trail

Trailhead facilities and other access points to the Appalachian National Scenic Trail have been shut down in the George Washington and Jefferson National Forests in Virginia to prevent groups from congregating.

After multiple sections of the popular footpath from Maine to Georgia drew large crowds in late March, the Appalachian Trail Conservancy issued an appeal to hikers to stay away until the risks of spreading COVID-19 to others has reduced significantly.

National forests

National forests remain open, but many campgrounds and facilities are closed. The George Washington and Jefferson Forests in Virginia are still open for “dispersed camping and other activities that support social distancing and small groups,” according to a Forest Service release. For details on what’s open where, go here.

By Timothy B. Wheeler, Jeremy Cox, and Ad Crable.

Climate Study Predicts Heavier Rains, Deeper Floodwaters on Eastern Shore

March 14, 2020 by Bay Journal Leave a Comment

Climate change will fuel heavier downpours and deeper floodwaters on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, according to one of the first detailed looks at changing rainfall patterns at the local level in the mid-Atlantic.

The new report, a collaboration between the University of Maryland and Eastern Shore Land Conservancy, estimates rainfall totals and intensity for five towns on the Mid and Upper shores. It predicts that by the 2040s, a 100-year storm will dump an additional 0.5-inch to 1.5-inches of rainfall over 24 hours, depending on the location.

That might not sound like much of a difference. But when it comes to planning for new roads, drainage ditches and other types of infrastructure, it is, said Jim Bass, manager of the conservancy’s coastal resilience program.

Jim Bass, of the Eastern Shore Land Conservancy’s coastal resilience program, stands in the rain at the conservancy’s office in Easton, MD. He said that the rural towns represented in a new Eastern Shore study face a bigger challenge, than most because their public works staffs and budgets are smaller than most of their counterparts. Photo by Dave Harp/Bay Journal News Service

“This was a great opportunity to bring some specificity to this phenomenon that everyone agrees is going on,” he said. “You can’t plan for what you don’t know.”

Many coastal communities across the country are struggling to get ready for rising seas, greater storm frequency and other climate-related impacts. The rural towns represented in the Eastern Shore study face a bigger challenge, Bass said, because their public works staffs and budgets are smaller than most of their counterparts.

In anticipation, his organization formed the Eastern Shore Climate Adaptation Partnership in 2016. The network’s six participating counties and three municipalities work to share costs and resources as they plan for climate change. Their goal, according to the partnership’s website, is to create “America’s Most Resilient Region.”

The rainfall study, funded by a $60,000 grant from the New York-based Rauch Foundation, brings a level of scientific understanding to those communities that many larger cities still don’t have, its backers say.

Climate scientists typically use broad brush strokes when predicting rainfall patterns decades into the future, said Kaye Brubaker, a University of Maryland researcher who co-authored the report. Even with the aid of supercomputers, they can only pin down results to square-shaped blobs with boundary lines stretching more than 30 miles apart.

Brubaker and her team took just such information from the North American Regional Climate Change Assessment Program and used a statistical process called “downscaling” to make forecasts at a more-precise scale.

“It’s almost like zooming in onto an image,” she said. “As you zoom out, you see very coarse pixels, and when you zoom in the pixels get finer and finer.”

The study forecasts rainfall for the period between 2041 and 2070, assuming a scenario in which relatively little is done to combat global greenhouse gas emissions. For a 100-year storm — the sort with a 1% chance of occurring during any given year — the study foresees the following rainfall totals over a 24-hour period:

• Elkton: 9.3 inches (1.6 inches greater than the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration currently charts for such storms in that community)
• Denton: 9.9 inches (1.2 inches greater)
• Cambridge: 10.1 inches (1 inch greater)
• Easton: 10 inches (1 inch greater)
• Centreville: 9.2 inches (0.5-inch greater)

Brubaker said the labels used to describe storms can be misleading. A 100-year storm can strike more than once every 100 years; to say it only has a 1% chance of arising per year is better, but it’s still possible for such ferocious storms to pop up once every few years or even within days of each other.

“It’s like you’re rolling a 100-sided die. Your probability of coming up with a 1 is one in 100. But there is a possibility that you could roll it two times in a row and a 1 would come up,” Brubaker said.

Those labels, though, are critical for engineers trying to decide how high to build bridges and how wide to dig stormwater ponds. If the calculations for a newly constructed highway don’t account for the shifting definition of a 100-year storm, it may be in danger of flooding more often in the future, Brubaker said.

“If the rain falls slowly, it can trickle off somewhere,” she said. But “if the rain falls intensely very fast, where’s it going to go? It’s going to pile up in your pipes and on your street.”

Another symptom of climate change — rising seas — could complicate things for local planners, Brubaker said. If coastal areas become inundated by higher tides, it will be more difficult for rainfall-driven flooding to drain away.

Brian Lightner, the zoning administrator for Cecil County in the state’s northeast corner, said the new rainfall totals will help his department develop even more localized computer models, which he hopes to use to plan stormwater projects.

“Local governments are always thinking about where we can do stormwater retrofits,” he said. “With our flood vulnerabilities being predicted, [we’ll be] looking where we can try to do some restoration to reduce some of that impact.”

Climate scientists generally agree that rainfall will continue increasing in the Chesapeake Bay region, but projections at the local level have only begun to trickle in. The Maryland Commission on Climate Change said in a 2008 report, for example, that winter rainfall amounts could increase up to 12% by 2090, but that information applied statewide.

A 2015 analysis compiled for the District of Columbia’s Department of Energy and Environment looked at a variety of storm scenarios, finding greater intensity and frequency with each. For instance, it showed that the number of days per year with 1 inch of rainfall would increase from an average of 10 to 13 by the 2080s.

In Virginia Beach, a 2018 study suggested that 100-year storms would typically produce 13.3 inches of rainfall over the span of 24 hours by 2075, up from the historical average of 9.4 inches. Such results prompted the report’s author, the Dewberry consulting firm, to recommend that the city increase rainfall intensities by 20% in its design calculations.

In its report, the Eastern Shore Land Conservancy lays out several policy recommendations of its own, emphasizing the use of “green infrastructure,” such as rain gardens and wetlands, to absorb additional water.

It is the second climate change report produced by the organization in as many years. Its sea-level rise study last year estimated a 6-foot increase on the Shore, a swell that would put nearly 6,000 buildings at risk of becoming flooded.

Brubaker said that her use of a higher-emissions scenario was a feature of the study, not a fault. It is better to plan for a worse scenario and wind up with dry roads than to hope for the best and end up under water, she said.

“I think we all need to pay attention to what we’re doing to the planet,” she added. “This [analysis] is a hint of what global-scale change might be bringing to our neighborhood.”

By Jeremy Cox

Shore Ecosystem: A Chat on Eco-Resilience with QAC’s Amy Moredock

March 10, 2020 by Dave Wheelan Leave a Comment

The word “resilience” has many meanings in today’s contemporary society but it is particularly useful when defining an Eastern Shore county’s preparation for the sometimes catastrophic impacts of 100-year-old storms and sea surges.

Amy Moredock would know. With only two years of experience as Kent County’s planning officer when Hurricane Isabel hit Rock Hall in 2003, Amy saw first hand the devastating results of these events, but also how important is for local governments to anticipate their impact on the most basic of services and commerce.

Now the principal planner for Queen Anne’s County Planning and Zoning, Amy talks about that experience and the importance of a coordinated strategy, including her work with the Eastern Shore Climate Adaptation Partnership, to, as a dictionary would define it, as increasing our region’s ecosystem “capacity to recover quickly from difficulties.”

This video is approximately nine minutes in length. For more information about the Eastern Shore Climate Adaptation Partnership please go here, and for Queen Anne’s County Planning and Zoning please go here.

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