Underwater grasses, otherwise known as Submerged Aquatic Vegetation (SAV), are vital to the health of the Chesapeake Bay. The grasses provide habitat for fish and crabs, oxygenate the water, filter sediment, absorb nutrients, and protect shorelines. These grasses are so valuable that the Chesapeake Bay Program has prioritized restoring them to 185,000 acres from their current 104,900 acres Bay-wide.

Underwater grasses are vulnerable to the hydraulic escalator clam dredge. This dredge uses hydraulic jets to cut into the bottom sediment and access buried clams, and in the process scours trenches along the river bottom, kicks up sediment plumes that cloud the water, and tears up our essential grass beds. Even dredging in a seemingly grassless area of river bottom can be harmful, as it can destroy any dormant seed bank buried in the sediment.

According to studies by the Maryland Department of Natural Resources (DNR), “the direct impact of dredging in seagrasses is catastrophic.” The hydraulic clam dredge, which is banned in Maryland Coastal Bays, suppresses seed germination, restricts or completely inhibits growth, and completely uproots underwater grasses. Also according to DNR, “because of their importance, the restoration of bay grasses in the Chesapeake and Coastal Bays is a priority for the department as well as the other Bay partners.”

In an effort to protect grasses from clam harvesting activities, DNR delineates SAV Protection Zones that prohibit clamming activity within grass beds. Currently, the Department updates these zones every three years based on annual fly-over data from the Virginia Institute of Marine Science. Updated zones are due this year. The problem with this process is that when grasses start growing in new areas they can be vulnerable to dredge activities for up to three years until the Department delineates the next Protection Zones.

Claiborne, Maryland is a prime example of how the current three-year update process is failing to protect our natural resources. The cove by the public boat landing is a prime clamming location and currently has no SAV Protection Zones. According to the Virginia Institute for Marine Science, on which DNR bases their Protection Zones, this cove has had significant acreage of underwater grasses since 2014. However, DNR did not delineate SAV Protection Zones in the area for the 2016 update. While we wait for the updated 2019 zones, this area continues to be harvested almost daily.

To address this issue, ShoreRivers introduced a bill in the 2019 Maryland legislative session that would require the Protection Zones to be updated annually. However, we withdrew our bill after DNR indicated they would revise their protocols to enhance protections. We are disappointed that, six months later, we continue to wait for DNR’s promised enhancements while Maryland SAV Protection Zones continue to fail in achieving their original intent of protecting and restoring underwater grasses.

The current process of identifying and delineating SAV Protection Zones every three years is ineffective and inadequate. These zones should be updated annually to adequately protect new, recovering, and expanding grass beds. It is a waste of both natural and personnel resources to put protections in place after a grass bed has been dredged in. If we are going to meet our goal of increasing SAV acreage, we need to protect grasses both during peak bloom and during dormancy, when they do not show up on aerial maps. It’s time for DNR to walk the walk for grass protection.

Elle Bassett
Miles- Wye Riverkeeper
ShoreRivers

ShoreRivers anticipates the release of 2019 Protection Zones this summer, which will include a 90-day public comment period. We urge our members, advocates, and supporters to advocate that the Department adequately protect our underwater grasses from the hydraulic clam dredge. We are working to better map grass beds on the Eastern Shore and document clamming activity within these beds. We must hold DNR accountable to their job of protecting our natural resources. Continue to alert your Riverkeepers of any activity on your river by calling 443.385.0511 or emailing info@shorerivers.org.

 

1st District Representative, Andy Harris, voted against the bi-partisan, healthcare bill H.R. 3253 (5 Republicans and 4 Democrat co-sponsors). This bill — the Empowering Beneficiaries, Ensuring Access, and Strengthening Accountability Act of 2019 — would extend a number of provisions within the Medicaid program that serve to make the program more effective.

This bill would extend the Money Follows the Person Rebalancing Demonstration (MFP), which helps states rebalance their Medicaid long-term care systems by transitioning people with chronic conditions and disabilities into community-based care, through FY 2024. In addition, this bill would clarify that state Medicaid fraud and abuse control units are authorized to investigate abuse and neglect of Medicaid patients in board and care facilities, as well as patients receiving Medicaid-funded care in non-institutional settings.

Additionally, this bill would extend spousal impoverishment protections for seniors who receive long-term care in their homes or community settings through March 31, 2024.
Finally, this bill would; extend the Community Mental Health Services Demonstration Program thru 2021, fund the Medicaid Improvement Fund, and prohibit drug manufacturers from blending drug prices, a practice which lowers rebates to consumers.

The vote was 371 YEA, and 46 NAY. Harris voted NAY.

For more information on H.R. 3253 go here

Christopher Koch
Easton

If you strike the king, you must kill him.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1843; also attributed to Niccolo Machiavelli

There can be no doubt that Donald J. Trump is unqualified by character and temperament to be President of the United States. There is little doubt, based on his words and actions in public – at rallies, on television, on twitter and elsewhere – that he has committed offenses that might properly be defined as “high crimes and misdemeanors” – a quaint constitutional phrase that has no precise definition.  The report of the Special Counsel, Robert S. Mueller, has documented these words and actions in excruciatingly painful detail.

Many of his 2016 campaign staff and members of his administration have been indicted and some have been convicted of various felonies, including   perjury, violations of campaign finance laws, receiving and using information stolen from US intelligence agencies by foreign operatives, and meeting with agents of foreign, perhaps hostile, governments. Investigations continue into his personal and corporate finances and it is possible that additional evidence of serious crimes may be disclosed when this financial information becomes available.  Congress should continue vigorously to pursue these investigations.

What shall be done? The Department of Justice has a policy of long-standing, to which Robert Mueller adhered, that a President cannot be indicted or tried for a federal crime. This policy does not have a basis in federal law nor has it been tested in a court, but it remains the policy. It might be tested. But according to this policy the only constitutional remedy for a felonious President is impeachment. The twenty-fifth amendment provides a different remedy for a President who is judged, by his or her own administration, to be incompetent due to physical, mental or emotional disability.

The founders wisely made impeachment an extremely difficult and therefore rarely attempted process. They clearly did not want the President to be removed for “mal-administration” – i.e. disagreement by Congress with his or her governmental policies

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said a few months ago that impeachment should be based on overwhelming evidence, irrefutable facts, and bipartisan consensus. I agree with her.  In the current circumstances that would imply a large, bipartisan, majority in the House of Representatives and a necessarily bi-partisan 2/3 majority in the Senate. A partisan vote of impeachment in the House followed by a partisan acquittal in the Senate would not remove the President, it would result in further rancorous division in the country, and it would enable the President and his supporters to claim – without cause – that he had been “vindicated.”  

Twice in our nation’s history the House of Representatives has impeached the President and a trial has been conducted in the Senate. In 1867 President Andrew Johnson was acquitted by one vote, decisively cast by Senator Edmund G. Ross of Kansas who believed that the President should not be removed for purely political disagreement. Ross gained a place in John F. Kennedy’s Profiles in Courage for that vote. In 1998 President Bill Clinton was impeached by the House on a narrowly partisan vote; the vote in the Senate to convict – again, narrowly partisan – failed to attain even a simple majority. In 1974 President Richard Nixon, sensing that there was a bipartisan consensus for his impeachment, resigned from the Presidency rather than face impeachment.  

In the current situation, the bipartisan consensus that impeachment requires may be attained as investigations continue. In the meantime, the majority in the House of Representatives is not helpless. There are several proposals – short of a vote of impeachment – that have been suggested. They should be explored and debated. But in my opinion impeachment by the House of Representatives should await a bipartisan consensus – or be postponed until the people’s vote in November, 2020.

If you strike the king, you must kill him.

John T. Ames
Chestertown

 

We are all familiar with the old adage “If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it probably is a duck.”  That is not particularly sage advice when observing the odd duck known as the Clean Chesapeake Coalition (CCC).

The CCC name looks environmental and it quacks a mission statement that sounds environmental, but it looks more like an anti-environmental hog lining up at the Kent County budget trough.  Like a hog, the CCC stirs up a lot of mud and makes a great deal of unintelligible noise, but its real talent is spending our money to lobby against reasonable Watershed Improvement Plans that are designed to protect the Bay.  I do not think the majority of Kent County citizens want that.  The same could be said for the taxpayers of Carroll, Dorchester, Cecil, Queen Anne’s, and Caroline Counties which comprise the remainder of this “Dirty Half Dozen”.

This particular hog is the pet of Commissioner Fithian, who is also the Chair of the CCC.  In past County administrations, the CCC, a pig in  duck’s clothing, had pulled the wool (feathers?) over the eyes of the remaining Commissioners, and was invited to the trough where it rooted up $159,000 in Kent County taxpayer money.  For 2020 they have their snouts out for an additional $17,000.  This is no miniature pig.  The CCC has been at the troughs of 5 additional counties for a grand total of nearly $1,000,000.

There is no way to duck the issue.  An individual (including an elected official) does not need a financial interest in an organization to be in a position where a conflict of interest may arise.  If you are a member of two different organizations, and you are making decisions in one organization that favorably affect a second organization, you have an apparent conflict of interest.  It is generally advised that even the appearance of a conflict of interest be avoided.  Is Commissioner Fithian acting in the best interests of his constituents or of the CCC?  We just don’t know.

With the election of two new Commissioners last fall, one of whom I believe has some agricultural experience, there was some faint hope that the CCC would be recognized for the hog it really is, but alas, this does not appear to be the case, and the Kent County budget, as approved, contains additional CCC funding.  This is even after concerned citizens requested a hearing be held to determine whether CCC has provided any benefits to the County.  No such hearing was held.  Neither did Commissioner Fithian recuse himself from voting on the budget.

But then again, the CCC appears to be a “stealth pig” in the FY2020 Budget.  In previous years, there was a line item for the CCC, but the FY2020 budget has it buried in a line called “Other Conservation of Natural Resources”.  Why?

In the generally transparent briefing given on the budget on June 4, 2019, there was a discussion (slide 17) of increases in the recurring expense category “Allocations”.  This increase totaled about $67,000, but in slide 20, near the bottom was a nearly unreadable line (in the printed version) showing an INCREASE of $8,000 for the CCC.  I suspect that may be on top of the $9,000 they were allocated in FY2019.  In reality, in FY2019 CCC received $17,000, because the Maryland Waterman’s Association turned back $8,000, which was passed along to the CCC.  Do we know a Commissioner that has close ties to both the MWA and CCC?

I know $17,000 is not a significant part of the County’s $50,000,000 budget.  But it is interesting to see the County raising the income tax, while poor-mouthing its way around its embarrassingly low contribution to Kent County Public Schools, as well as declining to provide tax relief for the residents of Chestertown and Rock Hall for County services they are taxed for, but do not receive.  Curiously, the Commissioners find the money to not only continue to feed the CCC hog, but to actually increase its allocation.  In 2018 Wicomico County saw the light and deleted all CCC funding from its $148,000,000 budget as part of cost-cutting measures.

I am old enough to remember Groucho Marx and the quiz show “You Bet Your Life”.  When a contestant said the “secret word” a duck would drop down with a cash prize.  In the Kent County version of the game, called “You Bet Your Tax Dollars”, when the host, Ronnie, says the secret word (I wish the rest of us knew what it was), a feathered pig drops down, and the CCC gets $17,000.

For the record, I do not have school-aged children, nor do I live in Chestertown borough or Rock Hall.

William Herb
Chestertown

Projections for sea level rise over the next two decades indicate that Rock Hall is the most economically vulnerable in Kent County. According to the Army Corps of Engineers, sea level rise in Rock Hall – known for its waterman heritage and as a relaxing destination for eastern shore tourists — will increase by over 6 inches in the next 15 years. This map shows us that most of Rock Hall Ave up to N. Hawthorne Ave. will be underwater in 2034. This estimate does not include rain from strong storms such as Hurricane Isabel.

Why? The level of heat trapping gases in our atmosphere now (C02 among them, caused by the burning of fossil fuels) are warming our earth, and that is causing severe changes to our climate globally which is affecting us locally. A group of volunteer international scientists making up the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change delivered a report which recommends a 50% reduction of greenhouse gases in 12 years to avoid the demise of civilization as we know it. This may sound extreme, but there is a scientific consensus according to NASA: 97% of scientists are convinced, global warming is real, caused by an increase in greenhouse gases, and human activity is causing this increase.

It has gotten to the point where we can already see it happening around us. Data scientists from First Street Foundation and Columbia University have done peer-reviewed housing market research and found coastal properties in Maryland are losing $555.7 million in relative appreciation, a decrease in property value due to shore line erosion.

We are volunteering for Citizens’ Climate Lobby (CCL) because this climate crisis is the biggest challenge facing humanity today. CCL Chestertown and Kent and Queen Anne’s Indivisible are co-hosting a public panel discussion on June 1, at the Kent County Public Library from 12:30- 2:30 pm in Chestertown. It will focus on proposed Federal legislation and other solutions in order to help Kent County citizens understand what they can do to act on this problem.

For example, there is a bipartisan bill which has been introduced in the House of Representatives called the Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act which places an increasing fee at the point of fossil fuel extraction and returns all revenue neutrally back to households. It does not take money from government nor does it give money to government.
This market signal should create an innovative environment to find alternative energy sources. Both Democrat and Republican leaders support this kind of legislation as an immediate way to reduce the carbon emissions that are changing our climate. The bottom line is, we need to tell our members of Congress what we think should be done about this crisis.

The Climate Leadership Council has put out a statement signed by 3,000 US Economists including four former Chairs of the Federal Reserve who support this kind of legislation. One of those economists, Dr. Adalbert Meyer, Associate Professor of Economics and Chair of the Department of Economics at Washington College will be on the panel for our discussion.

Additional local perspectives will be provided by Greg Farley, the Director of Sustainability at Washington College; Nick DiPasquale, the Policy Advisor for Shore Rivers; and Scott Budden, President of Orchard Point Oysters Co. We will also be looking at other proposals such as the Healthy Families and Security Act of 2019, introduced by Senator Van Hollen; and the Clean Energy for America Act, co-sponsored by Senator Ben Cardin. A representative from Congressman Andy Harris’s office will be at the event to listen and learn.

The panel is free and open to the public. We hope you will join us for this robust discussion to develop the political will we need to change the tides of our future.

Hope Clark, Chestertown
Cora Dickson, Rock Hall

Dave Wheelan, founder and publisher of The Talbot and Chestertown Spy was criticized this week on social media for publishing a piece by David Montgomery, the contents of which offended many people, including us. Rather than respond to Montgomery directly through The Spy’s comments section, some contributors vilified Dave Wheelan publicly. We find such action highly questionable. Challenging Montgomery is reasonable, in fact appropriate, but castigating the publisher of a sound publication which provides a forum for news and opinions is misguided. Social media provides a welcome opportunity for all of us to express our opinions protected by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, but it is not a substitute for good journalism. We support The Spy publications, the founder and publisher and the exercise of rights to free speech.

Charity and civility go hand in hand. In today’s caustic and fractionated environment when words are weaponized through all forms of media, it’s particularly important for us to be mindful and gracious. In the face of opinions we oppose and even find offensive or hurtful, we can still be charitable. We can also choose not to engage, but if we choose discourse over silence, let us be respectful and civil with a tone that engenders positive feelings, not one driven by fear and antagonism.

Richard Marks and Amy Haines

Dear David,

I had no idea that you would have such an emotional reaction to my POV on the Colorado shootings, and had I known I would without hesitation have chosen a different topic. But having written it without such knowledge, I stand behind what I wrote, and I have added links to studies supporting my views. Perhaps your feelings have prevented you from reading what I actually wrote, and led you to paraphrase my article in a misleading way. You claim I stated “that one of the murderers, who had been questioning his gender identity at the time of the crime, was the result of our society ‘brainwashing teens into gender dysphoria.’” Only the last 5 words are mine.

If you are implying that I think all teens confused about their gender are potential mass murderers, I am offended more by your lack of respect for my intelligence than anything else. Having expressed my outrage more than once at suggestions that all “white nationalists” are mass murderers, I am not likely to make the same mistake in causality myself.

Do I think that the massive propaganda machine legitimizing the desire to change sex is harmful, and that it added to the impulses that made this boy and girl into killers? Indeed, I do. Capable researchers have published studies that reveal a link between peer and social media pressure and gender dysphoria. That is a matter of fact to be discussed not suppressed.

You clearly disagree with me that great harm is done by teaching that changing one’s physical sex is healthy and therapeutic. That is no reason to prevent me from offering my opinion, which has its own scientific support, any more than you would prevent me from stating my opinion that the scientific basis for claims of imminent climate catastrophe is weak.

Moreover, I never said or thought that the shooters were themselves evil, for their gender confusion or for their murderous intentions. That is not for me to judge.

What I actually wrote is: “The clear evil is in the politicians, “educators,” fashionable psychologists and institutions that are brainwashing teens into gender dysphoria. Teenagers, confused by hormones, immaturity and no doubt family and social pain, are being told that their all too common emotional distress comes from being the wrong sex and that they can solve their problems by changing their dress, bathroom access or biology. It doesn’t work, and creates the even worse problems seen in this event.” By deleting my column, you made it impossible for readers to judge my meaning for themselves.

What I identified as evil are the institutions telling teens that their wishes to have been born with a different biology are healthy and need to be fulfilled. I am convinced that adding the suggestion that “you are the wrong sex” to the sometimes overwhelming stress of puberty and the mismatched timing of hormonal and intellectual development can make life more than a teen can handle. Some choose suicide, many suffer impaired mental health, and in this case two chose mass murder. Perhaps if I had written that rather than the shorter “creates the even worse problems seen in this event” you would have understood me better.

What I find most strange is where you draw the line on what is permissible speech. I’m sorry, this is not even close to “shouting fire in a crowded theater.” In Canada or the Netherlands, I realize, I could be put in jail for “hate speech” for writing this column. That is one reason why I am so thankful to live in the USA.

You say that my words were doing harm. In my opinion, being silent on the tragic consequences of driving our youth into confusion about gender also does immense harm. The question is not what is comfortable but what is true. Though truth may be one, agreement on what is true only comes from listening to statements that cause discomfort. Your and some readers’ attacks on me certainly hurt my feelings, but the reassurance of others that my column was reasonable comforted me.

Your standard seems to be the same “safe space” guarantee that has become notorious on campuses. Perhaps you should add a “trigger warning” to my Points of View. I have become accustomed to prejudice based on my race, gender and age, to insults directed at my religion, and to lies about what I have said and done. I did not and do not expect protection from any of this. Why do we accept the idea that some are so privileged that they should hear nothing but praise?

I am also distressed and puzzled, not for myself but for the readers of the Spy, by your statements about what the Spy supports. Do you mean to say that after suggesting I write about candidate Buttigieg’s appeal to Christianity to support his homosexual lifestyle, you would censor me if I stated my belief that marriage is an institution (or sacrament) ordained by God to unite a man and a woman for life? That is what is said in the Catechism of the Catholic Church and was the universal teaching of Christian churches for almost two thousand years, but it is also termed hate speech in many venues. You should clarify where censorship starts in the Spy.

Unless you do intend to silence all views but your own on these issues and to leave standing the regrettable charge that I am a purveyor of hate speech, I hope you will publish this response to your attacks on me in full.

Respectfully,

David Montgomery

Del. Jay Jacobs did set the record straight with regard to his War on Shore report description. He couldn’t have said it better. Some background is necessary. The Oyster Futures Workgroup was assembled from diverse cultural stakeholders. To which Chesapeake Bay Foundation (CBF) was a participant. The OFG reviewed scientific models and made policy recommendations to the MDDNR with regard to the Choptank River complex. MDDNR accepted those recommendations.

This past legislature session saw CBF sponsoring a bill HB-298 that cut the knees off this groups time consuming hard work and rendered their time-consuming hard work useless. As a member of the Oyster Advisory Commission (OAC) CBF sponsored legislation each of the last 3 years that went behind the back of this culturally diverse group. Simply put, CBF felt it can act on its own, because it does not have control this multi stakeholder group created to advise on complex oyster issues.

The oyster mega-sanctuary network was sold to the seafood industry as a cure all. These sanctuaries would act as breeder reactors, naturally producing vast number of larvae that would spill over repopulate the oyster bars throughout the bay. Ten years later we have not seen any hard-scientific evidence of a signal or trigger that this phenomenon ever took place.

If CBF really wants to support Maryland’s oyster harvesting heritage then they should stop engaging in activities that promote the singling out of a culture and class of people for perpetual persecution.

Jim Mullin
Maryland Oystermen’s Association