It’s a disillusioning experience when people whom you’ve idolized your whole life turn out to be less than idol worthy. It happens way too often.

When I was in middle school, the youthful and vigorous JFK was my hero. I waited in line in front of a drugstore on Gratiot Avenue in Detroit for what seemed like hours just to wave at JFK’s motorcade. A few years ago, I read an article in The Atlantic that detailed some of JFK’s exploits while he was in the White House. It included shocking descriptions of JFK in the White House swimming pool with interns and other White House staff. Sound familiar?

Even before I got to college, I was obsessed with Ernest Hemingway. I read every novel (The Sun Also Rises was my favorite), every short story, and took Hemingway courses in college. The more I learned about Hemingway’s personal life, the more disillusioned I became. I eventually wrote a final paper on how Hemingway never depicted real women—instead, as I recall my description, they were either angels or bitch goddesses. And I used quotes from Catherine Barkley (an angel) in A Farewell to Arms as an example. She said, “I want what you want. There isn’t any me, anymore. Just what you want.”   

When I went to graduate school at Georgetown, I remember my friends and I listing our top 10 movies of all time. Two of mine were Woody Allen films—Annie Hall and Manhattan. I knew the dialogue by heart. Last week, I finished watching the HBO Max documentary Allen vs. Farrow. It’s hard to look at those movies in the same light.  Somehow those innocent and charming scenes with Mariel Hemingway in Manhattan just aren’t that charming anymore.

Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger is on my “top 10 books of all time” list. Last weekend, I read an article by a woman to whom J.D. Salinger wrote love letters. She was 17 and at Yale. He was in his 50’s. She quit college to be with him, chocked everything up. She later discovered that she was only one of many nubile women to whom Salinger wrote. He later discarded her like a used shoe. It took her several years to recover from the trauma. 

I just finished the new biography Eleanor by David Michaelis. It’s beautifully written, well documented and engaging—also long. But it shows a side of FDR—my mother’s hero—that I never knew. He cheated on Eleanor with several other women, was quite the anti-Semite, and had a racist streak as well. I realize these were different times, but Eleanor evolved in ways that FDR never did. 

The list of such disillusionments is long. Having said that, I still think JFK was a great President. He founded the Peace Corps and stood down Khrushchev during the Cuban missile crisis. He also inspired many young people to get involved in public service. Hemingway’s writing remains amazing. He used language in simple uncompromising ways. Few authors come close to mastering such focus on the bare essence of each word. The dialogue in some Woody Allen movies is superb. And something tells me that The Catcher in the Rye will remain an all-time classic for years to come. And despite FDR’s shortcomings, he gave us the New Deal and led us to victory in World War II. That compensates for a lot.

What’s the moral of this tale? Nobody’s perfect. We all disappoint in one way or another. Is it sad when someone we revere turns out to be less than we had hoped? Yes. But can we still appreciate their accomplishments and admire their strengths?  Carl Jung once said, “There is no light without shadow, and no psychic wholeness without imperfection.” Still, somehow, I wish that when temptation knocked, these heroes had chosen to see the light rather than lurk in the shadows. Something to think about. 

Maria Grant was principal- in-charge of the Federal Human Capital practice of an international consulting firm. Since she retired, she has focused on writing, reading, piano, kayaking, nature, gardening, and travel.

“You can just call it ‘The Center’, man.” Mayor Cerino gently corrected me when I properly referenced the Cerino Center, a downtown building named in his honor. This small, humble gesture is emblematic of the Mayor I had the pleasure to serve with for the past 14 months. It is the core of the man I have the privilege to call a friend.

A lot will be said about Mr. Cerino in the coming days, but we must not forget how we got to this moment.

Small town politics is a rough business. We all know this. And those of us who serve in public office put our personal relationships, careers, physical and mental health in peril. We should commend him for openly and forthrightly explaining why he left.

Mr. Cerino exemplified what public service should be: humility in the face of vicious opposition, compassion for those he served, unwavering commitment toward a better future for every resident present and future.

He handled controversy and attacks with dignity and returned callousness with respect. Mr. Cerino may not have agreed with your opinion, but you could count on being heard.

Aside from the Town Charter and Code of Ordinances, there is no manual for how to proceed in public life. You must somehow figure it out while travelling at speed. One must forge a path while navigating personal agendas, age-old rivalries and consuming mountains of information that come from all directions. In my experience, there is precious little help or coaching as you go along.

I was lucky to have Mr. Cerino act as an advisor (dare I say, mentor) to me. He did so in a forthright and fair-minded way by setting aside his own interests to help me, a new council member, understand the depth of whatever issue was at hand. I always left our meetings feeling heard and better informed for knowing his perspective. I look forward to continuing this relationship as he transitions from being our Mayor to private citizen.

His leadership in Chestertown and on the Town Council will be missed.

Tom Herz serves on the Chestertown Town Council representing Ward 2.

I’m trying to find a word that would best describe Trump’s withholding of vital information on the deadliness of the Covid-19 virus. But before I get to that, let’s look at some of his statements:

27 February 2020 (CNN) “It’s going to disappear. One day — it’s like a miracle — it will disappear. And from our shores, we — you know, it could get worse before it gets better. It could maybe go away. We’ll see what happens. Nobody really knows.”

10 March 2020 (CNN) “We’re prepared, and we’re doing a great job with it. And it will go away. Just stay calm. It will go away.”

19 March 2020 (in recorded interview by Bob Woodward): “I wanted to always play it down. I still like playing it down because I don’t want to create a panic” “Now it’s turning out it’s not just old people, Bob. But just today, and yesterday, some startling facts came out. It’s not just old, older,” …”young people, too, plenty of young people.”

30 March 2020 (CNN) “Stay calm. It will go away. You know it — you know it is going away, and it will go away. And we’re going to have a great victory.”

Fact: As of 30 March 2021, 552,000 Americans have died of the Covid-19 virus.

Can you appreciate the irony that the most untruthful president in our history decided, on his own, that Americans could not be trusted with the truth?

But it gets worse. Not only did he downplay the severity of the threat, he exacerbated the problem in showing by example that defenses like mask-wearing and social distancing were unnecessary. Further, anyone in his administration contradicting him would jeopardize their jobs.

Consider the math of virus spread. A linear progression is one that increases at a constant rate, like 1,2,3,4,5, whereas an exponential progression is one that increases at an ever-increasing rate, like 1,2,4,8,16. A virus such as Covid-19 spreads, or can spread given the opportunity, at an exponential rate. Thus, the best time to arrest the rate of spread is as early as possible. This is the most critical time when people need to hear the truth, and this is the time when our president utterly failed us.

How many people could have been saved if our leader had given us credit for intelligence? There’s no way of knowing, but I think any reasonable person can see that it would be a very large number.

How can I characterize the subterfuge that resulted in so many unnecessary deaths?

It’s not homicide because homicide does not have to involve multiple killings.

It’s not genocide, because his killings were not intentional.

Could it be manslaughter, the killing of one or more people without malice aforethought? Perhaps, but if so, what type? It’s not voluntary manslaughter, where the killer is momentarily mentally disturbed; Trump is mentally disturbed all the time. It’s not strictly involuntary manslaughter, where the killings are unintentional. Could it be criminal negligence, allowing killing by willful omission of acting to prevent it? That seems close, but doesn’t exactly fit.

I believe we need a new word for Trump’s actions. It must combine the magnitude of killing with the idiocy behind it. I thought stupogenocide had too many syllables, so I’ll just call it his commission of stupicide.

I am not trying to be funny. I am deadly serious. Of all the presidents I have seen in my 82 years, Trump was the most harmful to our people, our democracy, and (in regard to climate change), our planet.

I hope for accountability in the future.

Bob Moores retired from Black & Decker/DeWalt in 1999 after 36 years. He was the Director of Cordless Product Development at the time. He holds a mechanical engineering degree from Johns Hopkins University.

During the winter months, I live in a Florida community that is touted as a nature preserve. I love seeing birds, alligators, flowers, etc., and biking on miles of secluded paths. That’s the good news. 

The bad news is that it is also a golf community with three courses on-site and two more off-site.  One of these courses is directly behind our house. I have come to hate the game of golf. Here are five reasons why.

Environment. The labor that goes into maintaining golf courses is incredible. To me, it seems like non-stop mowing and watering. Each morning, I hear noise from an endless stream of machines preparing courses for the day’s play. I read that the average golf course takes up 150 acres of land and uses 90 million gallons of water each year (not a typo). There are more than 34,000 golf courses worldwide. More than half of them are in the U.S. Worldwide, golf courses cover more than five million acres of land and use more than 13 trillion gallons of water. The impact of all this water is particularly devastating to dry states such as Nevada and Arizona which have water shortages and require even more water to keep those greens, green.  In addition, most courses are “repaired” every so many years which entails killing the old grass and starting all over again. Consider the herbicides, pesticides and fertilizers used on courses for everyday maintenance, as well as these periodic “refresher” exercises. 

Also, the transformation of farmlands and wetlands into golf courses has altered the ecosystem in significant and damaging ways. It has eliminated indigenous flora and fauna. Environmentalists claim that the large numbers of golf balls found in water are harmful as well. These balls break down into microplastics which are detrimental to water quality and sea life.

Wildlife. Often golf courses were formerly habitats for mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles, butterflies, dragonflies, and plants. Many of these creatures and plants have disappeared. Some wildlife have sought other places to survive. Naturalists claim that golf courses have resulted in fewer birds overall and some have been placed on the endangered list as a result. Also, hikers complain that areas that could have lent themselves to wonderful hiking trails have instead become yet more golf courses off limits to all but an elitist few. 

Time and Money. Next, let’s review the time and money people spend playing golf. The average 18-hole game takes about four hours. Some people in the community where I live play five times a week—sometimes two rounds a day. That could mean 24 hours of game time in a week. Many of these same golfers practice, take lessons, or watch golf on TV after they finish their play. These golfers pay exorbitant prices to become members of the club and then pay fees each time they play. According to the National Golf Foundation, the average price of a round of golf is $61. That does not include the sometimes astronomical fees for joining a club (which can range from $3,000 to well over $150,000) or the cost of clubs, lessons, golf clothes, golf bags, cart rental and tees. 

Conversations. Ok I realize since I’m anti-golf, I don’t find conversations about one’s golf game particularly interesting. But I can’t believe how boring cocktail parties become when the conversation—which it inevitably does—turns to golf. Is there anybody out there who is really interested in exactly what club was used on the sixth hole? Was it a difficult choice? Or whether the 13th green was hard or soft after last week’s rain? 

Waste of Intellectual Resources. I keep thinking about what could happen if we harnessed all this time from ex-CEOs, CFOs, small business owners, etc., who spend half their waking hours on the course. What if even a portion of those hours were used working for Habitat for Humanity, tutoring kids, or working in some fashion to make the world a better place? It seems almost patently immoral for these golfers with impressive careers and valuable experience to spend so much time on the course.  Maybe twice a week would be fine but seriously half your waking hours? 

Please know that I am fully aware that I live in a glass house. I’m sure many would find my excessive reading of novels a complete waste of time. Perhaps they are right. Also, one might correctly ask why I chose to live in a golf community when I hate golf. Good question. I guess the answer is that the nature aspects of the community were such a plus, as well as the beach and other amenities, that they outweighed the focus on golf.   

In summary, given the damage to the environment, wildlife, and the excessive time and money involved, I couldn’t agree more with the saying, “Golf is a good walk spoiled” which has been attributed to Mark Twain and a few others.  

Maria Grant was principal- in-charge of the Federal Human Capital practice of an international consulting firm. Since she retired, she has focused on writing, reading, piano, kayaking, nature, gardening, and travel.

Senator Warnock is the first African-American elected to the US Senate from Georgia and only the second, from a Southern state since Reconstruction. Thus, his presence in the Senate is historic in itself. But, on 3/17/21, he used the occasion of his inaugural speech to argue eloquently for the passage of a pending voting rights bill, the “For the People Act.” The following quotations from his remarks set the tone for today’s and even yesterday’s voting rights debate.

“We are witnessing right now a massive and unabashed assault on voting rights unlike anything we have seen since the Jim Crow era. This is Jim Crow in new clothes.”

Politicians in my home state and all across America, in their craven lust for power, have launched a full-fledged assault on voting rights. They are focused on winning, at any cost, even the cost of the democracy itself. I submit that it is the job of each citizen to stand up for the voting rights of every citizen. And it is the job of this body to do all that it can to defend the viability of our democracy.”

To date multiple bills have been proposed in 28 state legislatures controlled by Republican.

Remembering History in a Chestertown Context:

We know the “For the People Act” is not the first civil rights legislation passed or pending in the US Congress.. Over 56 years ago, after a 54 day Republican filibuster, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was approved by the Senate and signed into law by President Johnson.

But, what about the Civil Rights Act of 1875? it was proposed by Senator Charles Sumner (R-Mass.) in 1870 . Considered a radical by the Democrats because of his strong anti-slavery positions, Sumner introduced his Bill in order to protect by law the now vulnerable Black Americans following the withdrawal of Federal troops from the South. However, It was voted down by the Democrats three times, the last on March 1, 1875.

As originally written, his bill would:

“Secure equal rights in railroads, steamboats, public conveyances,

hotels, licensed theaters, houses of public entertainment, common schools, and institutions of learning authorized by law, church institutions, and cemetery associations incorporated by national or State authority; also on juries in courts, national and State.”

All Chestertown residents know that the building located at 206 South Queen Street was named after Charles Sumner. Sumner Hall, aka GAR Post 228, was founded by African American veterans of the Civil War in the early 20th Century. Partnered with the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C., the renovated structure is one of only two Black GAR Posts left in the United States.

However, more important than the building is the fact Sumner Hall has become widely acclaimed as a vibrant center featuring music, art, poetry, lectures and dance drawn from the rich history of Blacks in America.

If Charles Sumner can be claimed as a harbinger of civil rights law, he may also represent the first Senator viciously assaulted in 1856 in the Senate Chamber A pro-slavery member of the House, Andrew Butler (D-SC) was the assailant.

The Antebellum Period was an earlier phase in US history when deep divisions divided Americans. Those feelings led to Butler’s attack on Sumner and four years later to a 4 year Civil War that claimed 620,000 lives.

Tom Timberman is an Army vet, lawyer, former senior Foreign Service officer, adjunct professor at GWU, and economic development team leader or foreign government advisor in war zones. He is the author of four books, lectures locally, and at US and European universities. He and his wife are 24 year residents of Kent County.

On March 18, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) issued a new operating license for the Conowingo Dam after eight years of lawsuits, court battles, and public outcry. Exelon Corporation, owner and operator of the Conowingo Dam hydroelectric power plant, will hold the new license for the next 50 years. Unfortunately, this license fails to meaningfully address the pollution behind the dam or to hold Exelon accountable for its fair share of mitigating this major threat to the Bay. This is a tragedy for the health of the Chesapeake Bay and our rivers here on Maryland’s Eastern Shore.

In addition to generating hydroelectricity, Conowingo Dam acts as a catchment for everything that flows downriver from New York and Pennsylvania. When the floodgates open, water carries all that trash, debris, nutrient-laden sediment, and toxic substances into the Bay and onto our shorelines. The Eastern Shore bears the brunt of this flow, suffering navigational hazards, shorelines choked with debris, and oyster bars and underwater grass beds smothered with sediment. All of this pollution sets back our progress to achieving a healthier Bay.

The solution to this problem should be twofold: hold New York and Pennsylvania accountable for reducing pollution that flows down the Susquehanna River; and require Exelon to contribute to the cleanup costs made necessary by the dam from which they profit. No one should be allowed to profit from a public natural resource without having to contribute meaningfully to the protection and restoration of that resource. However, that is now exactly what FERC is allowing to happen.

The Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE) determined that Exelon, the most profitable utility company in the country, should be held accountable for $172 million annually for its share of the costs to clean up the pollution behind the dam. Then, MDE inexplicably agreed to the terms of this new operating license, which only require Exelon to contribute $1.22 million per year, or less than 1% of what is needed, from the company to protect the Bay’s health. The brunt of the cleanup costs will now have to be shouldered by Maryland taxpayers.

It is inexcusable that Maryland watermen, boaters, homeowners, and taxpayers have to suffer the consequences of pollution flowing down the Susquehanna, and are now responsible for paying for the cleanup resulting from the dam. MDE and FERC have put the interests of a for-profit company before the welfare of their citizens and the health of a public resource. MDE claimed this was the best they could do, and that “something is better than nothing.” But less than 1% of something is essentially nothing. The March 18 ruling codifies MDE’s dereliction of duty to meaningfully address the issues at Conowingo and adequately protect Maryland’s waterways and communities.

This issue is of utmost importance to Eastern Shore communities. Over the past few years, ShoreRivers has become a leading voice on this issue in the region. The organization has hosted town hall meetings, designed billboards to raise awareness, and worked on legislation at the state and federal levels. This outreach generated thousands of comments and phone calls imploring local, state, and federal agencies to protect citizens’ interests.

ShoreRivers will continue to fight this flawed re-licensing through every avenue at its disposal. The pollution behind the Conowingo Dam poses one of the most significant threats to the Bay’s recovery, to our maritime communities and economy, and to all of the restoration work that Marylanders have worked so hard to implement.

Zack Kelleher
Sassafras Riverkeeper
ShoreRivers

The Talbot County Council must move the Confederate monument from the grounds of the courthouse.

That is a necessary first step toward resolving a controversy that has been facing the council since at least 2015 and to recognize Talbot’s full history, which has included slavery, white supremacy, segregation, and racism.

In the past five years, the county council has voted three times against measures to move the statue dedicated in 1916 to the men from Talbot County who fought against the United States of America in the Civil War:

• in 2015, after a white supremacist killed nine people at an historic African-American church in Charleston, S.C.;
• in 2017, after a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Va., left one counter-protester dead; and
• in 2020, amid the rising calls for racial equality during protests against police brutality against minorities.

One could argue that the issue actually has been broiling since 2004, when the county council narrowly approved the construction of a monument honoring Frederick Douglass.

In what should have been a no-brainer, council members dithered over the best site to honor Douglass as some argued the courthouse lawn was “sacred grounds” upon which only veterans should be remembered.

It also must be noted that the erection of the Douglass statue was to honor Talbot’s greatest native son, not to somehow provide balance to the Confederate monument. Because that is what statues and monuments are for — to honor those represented, not to give viewers a history lesson — despite the arguments across the nation that destroying or moving monuments erases history.

Since the county council voted 3-2 last summer against removing the Confederate monument, a majority of members have declined to meet with the local NAACP chapter and faith leaders to discuss the issue. Despite that, the monument’s removal has been a predominant topic for those calling in to council meetings to offer public comments.

On one side are those who argue that the monument honors those who fought to preserve slavery and white supremacy and should be moved off the courthouse lawn, where it sits in a place of honor just outside the entrance to the Talbot County Circuit Court.

Opponents also argue that having a Confederate battle flag — a symbol of racism and white supremacy — outside the courthouse suggests to African-Americans that they will not get equal justice there.

On the other side are those who argue that the monument honors those who fought against the tyranny of the federal government — particularly in Maryland — during the war and that the monument is history and should remain where it is on public property.

The current debate has pitted cousin against cousin, much like the Civil War divided some families among those who supported and fought for the United States of America and those who supported and fought for the Confederate States of America.

As we discuss the war and the Talbot Confederate monument, we must keep key facts in mind and also acknowledge what we don’t know.

The cause of the Civil War

One of the most important facts we know is that the main cause of the Civil War was slavery.

The Confederacy was formed in order to preserve and extend the institution of African-American chattel slavery. 

There are no ifs, ands, or buts about that fact. The historical record makes it clear. Historians largely agree. Many of the seceding states made it clear in their articles of secession. The Confederacy spelled it out in the Articles of Confederacy and in the “Cornerstone” speech made by the Confederate vice president.

With the election of Abraham Lincoln as president of the United States, the Southern states feared that slavery — the foundation of the region’s economy and its white supremacist society — would be ended.

As a result of that fear, Southern slave-holding states made a violent, unconstitutional attempt to leave the Union.

Why did Talbot’s rebels fight for the Confederacy?

We don’t know.

We do know — based on a review of Census data and war records — that a number of Talbot’s Confederates were slaveholders, with several having connections to Wye House, the plantation that enslaved more than 1,000 people during its peak.

Those enslaved at Wye House included a young Frederick Douglass; former Confederate President Jefferson Davis visited and stayed there in 1867.

he Preserve Talbot History group claims that Talbot’s Confederates were motivated by the unconstitutional wartime actions of Lincoln and his subordinates.

According to that group, Talbot’s Confederates are different from other Confederate soldiers due to what happened in Maryland and the county during the Civil War, including the imprisonment of Confederate sympathizers and the beating and arrest of Talbot’s judge.

But that is just their opinion. There is no evidence as to why a number of Talbot men — far fewer than those who fought for the nation — decided to leave their homes and do battle against the United States.

We do not have their letters or diaries explaining their reasons to join the Confederacy.

But we know from the work of Pulitzer Prize-winning author James McPherson in For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War — based on a review of more than 25,000 personal letters and 250 diaries — that “white supremacy and the right of property in slaves were at the core of the ideology for which Confederate soldiers fought.” (p. 106)

According to Wikipedia, “McPherson states that the Confederates did not discuss the issue of slavery as often as Union soldiers did, because most Confederate soldiers readily accepted as an obvious fact that they were fighting to perpetuate slavery, and thus did not feel a need to debate over it:

“‘[O]nly 20 percent of the sample of 429 Southern soldiers explicitly voiced proslavery convictions in their letters or diaries. As one might expect, a much higher percentage of soldiers from slaveholding families than from nonslaveholding families expressed such a purpose: 33 percent, compared with 12 percent. Ironically, the proportion of Union soldiers who wrote about the slavery question was greater…. There is a ready explanation for this apparent paradox. Emancipation was a salient issue for Union soldiers because it was controversial. Slavery was less salient for most Confederate soldiers because it was not controversial. They took slavery for granted as one of the Southern ‘rights’ and institutions for which they fought, and did not feel compelled to discuss it.‘ — James M. McPherson, For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War (1997), pp. 109–110″

It could be reasonably inferred that Talbot’s slaveholding Confederates fought for the same reason as most Confederates — to preserve slavery.

Failed comparison

One monument supporter even went so far in a call to the county council as to suggest the Confederate monument here is comparable to the preservation of Nazi concentration camps in Germany as a way to preserve history and ensure its atrocities aren’t repeated.

Other monument supporters have made the same ludicrous argument, not understanding or recognizing the difference between a statue meant to honor people and the preservation of sites that remind us of the horrors of the Holocaust.

The Confederate monument does not remind us of the horrific nature of slavery and the tremendous loss of thousands of innocent lives at the hands of white supremacists.

The current monument only serves to honor those men listed on its base, without any historical interpretation of their actions. It is a participation trophy as much as anything.

Unlike other war monuments on the courthouse lawn, which lists the local men who died in those conflicts, the Confederate monument lists the names of anyone with a connection to Talbot County who served in the military of the Confederate States of America. Those names include some men who were born here but had moved away before the war, as well as nearly a dozen men who moved to Talbot County after the war.

Certainly those Confederates from other states were not motivated by the “federal tyranny” in Maryland. They were fighting to maintain slavery.

A more fitting reminder of the evil of slavery — as suggested by Bishop Joel Johnson and others — would be interpretive panels at the site of the Confederate monument detailing the slave auctions that were held there on the courthouse lawn, the families that were torn apart, the thousands of people sent to be enslaved, raped, tortured, and killed.

Rather than honoring the Confederates who were born in Talbot County or moved here after the war with a participation trophy on the courthouse lawn, we need to recognize the full, true history of race relations in the county.

To do so, we must first remove the Confederate monument from the courthouse lawn. Then we can begin discussions on the best way to remember Talbot County’s involvement in the Civil War — and the county’s history of slavery, white supremacy, racism, and segregation.

This commentary was updated on February 27 for clarification. 

John Griep is the public affairs editor for the Spy Newspapers.  A native of Caroline County, John has spent more than 25 years as a reporter and editor covering Talbot County and the Mid-Shore, including county and town governments, courts, police, planning and zoning, business and real estate. He is a graduate of Washington College.

The Norwegian company AquaCon has an enticing economic proposal—invest $300 million in three massive, land-based salmon farms on the Eastern Shore and employ 500 people. The company hopes to produce as much as 45,000 tons of salmon per year.

Proponents argue the project could boost the long-term economic prospects on Maryland’s Eastern Shore.

While that’s important, details about how the company plans to protect the Shore’s sensitive environment and the Chesapeake Bay haven’t been as readily available. That’s concerning. We hope the company will address several important questions surrounding this project at the virtual public hearing for its wastewater permit on May 26, 2021.

At the Chesapeake Bay Foundation (CBF), we believe aquaculture has an important role to play in meeting global food needs. In the U.S., 90% of the seafood consumed is imported, most of it produced by aquaculture overseas. Increasing domestic aquaculture production can help balance this $16.8 billion seafood trade deficit, create jobs, and relieve fishing pressure on wild populations. But it cannot be done at the expense of the health of the Chesapeake Bay.

Most of the current aquaculture operators in the Chesapeake Bay area deal in oysters or clams, a process in which operators buy and raise shellfish in the Bay for sale. These efforts put more water-filtering bivalves in the water, an environmental benefit resulting in cleaner water.

However, the environmental side of finfish aquaculture, including salmon production, is more complicated. Salmon aquaculture is an industry plagued by environmental issues. Even land-based systems, like the one proposed by AquaCon, use large amounts of feed and energy to grow salmon and keep the tanks cool—the water needs to be around 45 degrees for the salmon to survive. The fish also produce significant waste, primarily from fish feces, which fouls the water and must be treated before flowing back into local rivers like the Choptank River and Marshyhope Creek.

AquaCon’s proposal calls for treating waste with an anaerobic digester, pumping wastewater to treatment plants, and using solar panels on the facilities’ roofs to generate energy to chill the water and operate equipment.

This may be better than salmon production facilities that do not use such methods, but we think the company needs to be more specific about how this will work before approvals are granted. Will the withdrawals of water used in production impact species like rockfish and the endangered Atlantic sturgeon that use these areas to spawn? What about the capacity of the treatment plants and local receiving waters to handle the contaminants generated by these facilities?

Salmon require the water to be salty. How will our public wastewater treatment systems handle the salt in the wastewater that’s piped to them? It’s unclear these facilities can meet salinity discharge limits as currently designed.

It’s also unclear if AquaCon can deliver this ambitious proposal. The company hasn’t built any other salmon farms, but is proposing to start with massive facilities in Maryland.

We have other concerns:

• AquaCon has not detailed contingency plans for what they’d do in the event of a major salmon die-off or significant storm, such as if a hurricane hit.
• What food sources would the company use to feed the salmon? Wild-caught forage fish such as menhaden, sardines, and anchovies are typically used as fish food in these types of operations. CBF is concerned about industrial-scale menhaden fishing in the Chesapeake Bay because the small fish are important for the broader food web. Using forage fish from other ecosystems may damage the food web in those areas as well.
• The proposed facilities would be among the largest structures on the Eastern Shore, with each building covering about 25 acres—the size of about six Walmarts. These facilities will produce huge amounts of stormwater runoff from their roofs and paved parking areas. The company has proposed tree buffers around the structures, which may help but are too small to do the entire job. We encourage state and local officials to scrutinize the company’s stormwater management plans to prevent flooding and water quality issues due to these buildings’ massive footprints.
• Sensitive wildlife must be protected. One facility is proposed near Marshyhope Creek in Federalsburg. The creek is among the Bay’s few remaining habitats for endangered Atlantic sturgeon. Any environmental disturbances to this creek due to runoff, wastewater, or other pollution from this operation could harm juvenile sturgeon and larvae.

We understand AquaCon’s proposed project has economic potential for the Eastern Shore and the ability to help meet global seafood demand. Those benefits, however, must be weighed against the environmental risks that such a large-scale, land-based aquaculture operation inherently poses. Complete transparency is required before – not after – local and state officials approve these facilities to proceed.

Alan Girard is the Chesapeake Bay Foundation’s Eastern Shore Director

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Incitement. Insurrection. Inauguration. What we need now, on the part of Republicans in the United States Senate, is intrepidity. They would, no doubt, need to look it up. But then they’d probably have to reference the dictionary definition of the word “courage”–a synonym for intrepidity–because at least four out of five Senate Republicans have shown less political courage in the face of fact-free president 45 than a wet dish rag.  At least a dish rag is handy in cleaning up a mess.

As the Senate sits in judgment of ex-president Trump in his second impeachment trial–a world record as only two other presidents have been impeached, once each, in the 244 years of our democracy–odds are that Republicans will again give the wayward president a pass. Never mind that the final verdict will most likely be a majority in favor of conviction. Without a two-thirds vote to acquit, Donald will declare the whole thing a total vindication of a partisan hoax. For once, when he proclaims his latest impeachment “the greatest injustice in the history of the universe,” he may be close to the truth if famously feckless Republicans let him off the hook. That would be the injustice.

I get it that there’s a plausible logic in arguing that a vote to convict and remove Trump from office when he’s already been succeeded by President Joe Biden is superfluous. But to call it unconstitutional is an exercise in conveniently, deliberately missing the point. Trump could have tried to dodge conviction by resigning one minute before noon, Jan. 20. But a similar gambit was tried before by a post-Civil War cabinet member. It failed. He was tried. That’s called a constitutional precedent. Someone must have clued Trump before they were fired, because he has no clue. Ever.