lawsuit

Plaintiffs Seeking Confederate Monument Removal Say Talbot’s Response is ‘Shameful’

August 17, 2021 by Spy Desk

Talbot County’s arguments that Black people do not have “standing” to pursue a court challenge to a monument to white supremacy on the county courthouse lawn are “outrageous,” “shameful,” and “willfully blind,” plaintiffs suing for the monument’s removal argued Friday in court papers.

The plaintiffs are seeking a court order to remove the Confederate monument and in a strongly worded legal filing outlined the cruelty, pain, and anguish actually inflicted by the monument and the county’s dismissiveness toward Black people’s concerns, according to a press release from the ACLU of Maryland.

“It is unfortunate,” the plaintiffs’ filing begins, “but all too predictable” … “that in responding to the complaint in this case about the unlawful Confederate statue on its courthouse grounds, defendant Talbot County presents the viewpoint of a majority white legislative body as though it were fact, while avoiding any serious effort to confront the cruelty and illegality of its conduct toward Black people. …

“In characterizing the response of Black residents to the Talbot Boys statue as merely offensive, the County ignores the unique place of Black citizens in the eyes of the law, and reveals how little it knows (or cares) about the impact that racism and the legacy of slavery in this country and in its own backyard have on its Black residents.”

The filing includes sworn statements from the plaintiffs detailing the actual injuries they suffer from their forced encounters with the statue.

Plaintiff Kisha Petticolas, a Black attorney who has spent her entire legal career in Talbot County, first as a judicial clerk, then as the county’s first Black assistant state’s attorney, and since 2011 as the only Black public defender at Office of the Public Defender’s Easton office, says the county is flatly wrong it its claims that the statue is merely offensive to her. In fact, she says, the personal anguish she experiences on account of the statue is like a “knife lodged in her soul.”

“To say that the statue pains me every time I walk by it is an understatement — it is a trauma I have had to endure many times weekly throughout my 15 years of practicing law in Talbot County. The statue causes a pain that cuts deeply; one that I have learned to swallow every time I walk into the courthouse. The statue has created a wound that never truly gets the chance to heal.”

Talbot County NAACP Branch President and individual plaintiff Richard Potter strongly agrees:

“Seeing the statue over and over throughout my life has not dulled the pain of what the statue represents. In fact, it has amplified the pain I feel, the longer that the statue remains on the courthouse grounds while the world and society’s views on Confederate statues begin to change around it. It is a thorn in my side that becomes more imbedded, more painful, and more infected with the passage of time.”

Speaking on behalf of the plaintiff NAACP, organizational and community elder Walter Weldon Black, Jr., a former president of both the Talbot NAACP Branch and the Maryland State NAACP, said:

“[T]he presence of the Talbot Boys monument is outrageous and reprehensible, as discrimination stifles people’s ambitions while it closes the doors of opportunity. When Black people are made to feel as a second-class citizen by white society, they believe they are unable to achieve, as white society will not accept them.

“This symbol of white supremacy at the courthouse — maintained by County edict as the highest monument at the courthouse — combines with the fact the staff at the Talbot County courthouse is almost completely white to send a clear message to those looking for fair opportunities at the courthouse, whether be in employment, public services, or for justice through the court system, that they are unlikely to find fairness or equality of treatment there.”

The lawsuit contends that Talbot County’s homage to white supremacists and traitors to the United States and to the State of Maryland cannot remain on government property because it is not consistent with the core promise of the Fourteenth Amendment: Equality to all Americans under the law.

The Maryland Office of the Public Defender, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Petticolas, and Potter are represented by attorneys Daniel W. Wolff, David Ervin, Kelly H. Hibbert, Suzanne Trivette, Tiffanie McDowell, Alexandra Barbee-Garrett, and Ashley McMahon of Crowell & Moring LLP, and Deborah A. Jeon and Tierney Peprah of the ACLU of Maryland.

Go to the ACLU’s website to view the response brief, other legal documents, and additional information at https://www.aclu-md.org/en/cases/opd-et-al-v-talbot-county.

Talbot Officials Ask Court to Dismiss Lawsuit Seeking Removal of Confederate Monument

July 2, 2021 by Maryland Matters

Talbot County officials want a federal lawsuit seeking removal of the Confederate monument from the county courthouse grounds dismissed, according to Wednesday court filings.

The Maryland Office of the Public Defender and the Talbot County NAACP filed a lawsuit in May seeking the removal of the monument from the grounds of the Talbot County courthouse lawn in Easton. Plaintiffs and advocates argue that the statue’s presence is racist and unconstitutional.

The plaintiffs say the presence of the monument on the courthouse lawn violates the U.S. Constitution’s 14th amendment, which guarantees due process and equal protection of laws. The lawsuit charges that the monument’s location is “facially discriminatory.”

But in a Wednesday motion to dismiss the case and a memorandum supporting that motion, attorneys for the county argue that the plaintiffs “have failed to state any claim upon which relief may be granted.”

“The Complaint alleges no specific example where any client of either Ms. Petticolas or the OPD was deprived of due process or equal protection due to the presence of the Talbot Boys statue on the Courthouse lawn,” the memorandum reads.

Attorneys for the county argue that the plaintiffs haven’t done enough to prove that the statue’s presence is discriminatory. The memorandum charges that plaintiffs “failed to identify any occasion that, because of the mere presence of the Talbot Boys statue, any Plaintiff or other member of the public was denied access to the Circuit Court or prevented in any way from petitioning the County for redress.”

The county, in the memorandum, also argues that the statue issue is a “political question.”

“The County respectfully submits that the issues raised by the Complaint are inherently local and not ones calling for the intervention of a federal court.

“This is so because the question of when, or where, Confederate symbology transgresses into an area of unlawfulness transcends judicial determination, just as does fashioning manageable judicial standards for resolution.”

The county’s attorneys further argue that the court lacks subject matter jurisdiction in the case.

“The law governing this Complaint establishes Plaintiffs lack standing to bring any of the claims asserted,” the memorandum in support of the county’s motion to dismiss reads. “And, even if standing were not an issue, Plaintiffs have failed to state any claim upon which relief may be granted. For these reasons, the Complaint should be dismissed in its entirety.”

The memorandum also argues that all claims are barred by limitations, noting that the limitations period on all civil claims is, at most, three years:

“The Complaint alleges that Ms. Petticolas has ‘been obliged to pass by’ the statue for fourteen (14) years. The OPD’s alleged injuries are coextensive, at least, with the injuries alleged by Ms. Petticolas.

“Mr. Potter allegedly has been ‘directly involved with removal of the statue since 2015’ and became aware of its meaning when he was first involved with advocating for a statue of Frederick Douglass. The NAACP has been ‘for years’ speaking out against and advocating for removal of the statue, and its injuries must be, at least, coextensive with Mr. Potters.

“There can be no bona fide dispute that if Plaintiffs incurred an actionable injury, a point not conceded, the cause of action accrued when Plaintiffs first observed the statue as an offensive symbol, which, on the face of the Complaint occurred for all Plaintiffs well before the limitations period for Complaint began to run.”

Advocates have been lobbying for removal of the Talbot Boys statue from the courthouse lawn in Easton for years. Talbot County Council members rejected a proposal to move the statue last year, although rallies to remove the monument have continued.

Read the full memorandum here:

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By Bennett Leckrone

John Griep contributed to this article.

Groups File Lawsuit to Remove Confederate Monument at Talbot County Courthouse

May 6, 2021 by Maryland Matters

A Confederate monument on the Talbot County courthouse lawn in Easton is racist and unconstitutional, said civil rights groups who filed a federal lawsuit Wednesday seeking to remove the Jim Crow-era statue.

The Maryland Office of the Public Defender and the Talbot County NAACP branch argue in the newly filed lawsuit that by keeping up the Confederate statue — a century-old monument to county residents who fought for the Confederacy during the American Civil War and the last Confederate monument on public land in Maryland — county officials are violating both state and federal laws.

The plaintiffs want the statue removed from the grounds of the Talbot County Courthouse.

The lawsuit represents the latest step in a years-long effort by activists to remove the statue from the courthouse grounds. After Talbot County Council members rejected a proposal to move the statue last year, rallies calling for the removal the Confederate monument continued. At a Wednesday press conference, the lawsuit’s plaintiffs said repeated rejections from county officials forced them to take legal action.

The ACLU of Maryland, alongside Crowell & Moring LLP, an international law firm based in Washington, D.C., is representing the plaintiffs in the case.

Dana Vickers Shelley, the executive director of the ACLU of Maryland, said Wednesday that both the county courthouse and the statue sit on the grounds of a former slave market.

“It is beyond time for this racist symbol of violence and oppression to be removed,” Vickers Shelley said.

“The Talbot Boys statue says just this: ‘In this building, white people are given priority over Black people;’ and ‘Justice for Black people means something different than what Justice means for white people means.’ To view it differently is to ignore objective fact,” the lawsuit reads.

The plaintiffs argue that the presence of the monument on the courthouse grounds violates the U.S. Constitution’s 14th amendment, which guarantees due process and equal protection of laws. The Talbot Boys statue’s location is “facially discriminatory,” the lawsuit reads.

“In short, the statue says symbolically no less clearly than were it emblazoned on the front entrance to the courthouse that Black people do not enjoy the ‘equal protection of the laws,’” the lawsuit reads.

The lawsuit notes that roughly 12.8% of Talbot County’s more than 37,000 residents are Black.

“That any government in the United States would continue to maintain the symbolism of white supremacy and promote a legacy of racial subjugation should shock the conscience,” the complaint reads. “That Talbot County does so on a courthouse lawn — a place of prominence that holds itself out as the seat of justice in the county; a place that county citizens pay for and maintain with tax dollars, including the tax dollars of its Black citizens who are overtly denigrated and humiliated by the statue — only compounds the unconscionability of the statue and illuminates its illegality.”

Kisha Petticolas, an assistant public defender in Talbot County and one of the plaintiffs in the case, said she has to walk past the statue on a daily basis for her work. Petticolas, who is Black, said the monument is a painful reminder of “hate, oppression and white supremacy” to both herself and her clients.

“My clients who are walking into the courthouse, hoping to be given a fair shot at justice, are walking onto a courthouse lawn that still celebrates the Confederacy,” Petticolas said. “It is beyond time for this statue to be removed from the courthouse grounds.”

In addition to violating the 14th Amendment, plaintiffs argue that county officials are violating other federal laws and Maryland’s own constitution by keeping the statue in place in front of the courthouse.

Richard Potter, the president of the Talbot County NAACP and a plaintiff, said his organization has been asking county council members to remove the statue since after the 2015 murder of nine Black people during Bible study by a white supremacist in Charleston, South Carolina.

That effort was rebuffed by council members, who have also rejected subsequent efforts. Potter noted that calls to remove the statue were revived after the murder of George Floyd last year, but even amid a wave of Confederate monument removals across the country, county council members voted 3-2 against removing the Talbot Boys statue.

“The council left us with no other choice but to take this action,” Potter said Wednesday. “We have waited long enough.”

In voting to keep the monument up last year, the council majority said the fate of the Talbot Boys statue should be decided by community members instead of the county government.

“This should be in the hands of the community, and not our hands,” Council Vice President Charles F. Callahan III (R), who voted to keep the statue in place, said at the time.

Council President Corey W. Pack (R) and Councilman Peter Lesher (D) voted to remove the monument, while the other Republicans on the council, Laura E. Price and Frank Divilio, voted to keep the statue.

Callahan did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday.

Confederate monuments were removed from public grounds in Maryland and across the United States last year amid widespread protests against systemic racism and police brutality. In one of his final acts as Wicomico County executive before his death last year, Bob Culver (R) removed a Confederate marker in Salisbury.

During their 2021 legislative session, Maryland lawmakers voted to repeal “Maryland, My Maryland,” with its pro-Confederate lyrics, as the official state song.

Read the full complaint here:

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By Bennett Leckrone

Anton Black’s Family Files Federal Suit Over Teen’s September 2018 Death in Police Custody

December 18, 2020 by John Griep

The family of Anton Black has filed a federal lawsuit charging wrongful death, excessive force, battery, and other counts in the teen’s Sept. 15, 2018, death while being restrained by police officers.

Black, 19, died after being chased and pinned to the ground just outside his mother’s home.

Anton Black

Antone Black, father of Anton Black, said in a Thursday press release: “I am devastated. I’m shook up every time I pass by where Anton lived. My son was the heart of our family. Anton had his whole life ahead of him. He was an athlete, a model, he was in college, and he dreamed of being an actor. They took all that away from him, from us, and it hurts me every day.”

Jennell Black, Anton’s mother, said in the statement: “The memory of Anton being murdered in front of me while he pleaded for his life was too much. I cry all the time. I had to pass by my son’s grave every day and I had to move away.”

Black, a former champion athlete at North Caroline High School, an aspiring model and actor, and an expectant father, was a student at Wesley College in Dover.

Black’s family and the Coalition for Justice for Anton Black filed the lawsuit Thursday in federal district court in Baltimore, claiming the officers’ actions caused Black’s death as a result of positional asphyxiation.

The lawsuit names as defendants:

• Thomas Webster IV, then a Greensboro police officer;

• Michael Petyo, then the Greensboro police chief;

• Ridgely Police Chief Gary Manos;

• Centreville Police Officer Dennis Lannon;

• the towns of Greensboro, Ridgely, and Centreville; and

• the state medical examiner’s office, the assistant medical examiner who conducted Black’s autopsy, and the former and current chief medical examiners.

The lawsuit claims Webster was improperly hired and trained and failed to follow the police department’s handbook concerning de-escalation in a mental health crisis.

The case also includes a count of civil conspiracy, claiming the three officers, “among other unnamed police and emergency services personnel, conferred together immediately following Anton’s death and began constructing a false narrative of use of drugs (‘spice’) and abnormal strength to minimize and try to justify their prolonged, unconstitutional restraint of Anton by multiple officers applying direct pressure to his torso and binding his legs in ways that prevented him from breathing. In turn, they fed this narrative to the Maryland State Police.

“The State of Maryland, through the Maryland State Police, relied upon and perpetuated this false narrative in their purported ‘investigation’ into Anton’s death, disregarding contrary evidence plainly available on video Body Worn Camera footage showing that Anton was restrained face down by multiple officers, on his stomach with his knees bent back, for approximately five minutes after he had been handcuffed.

“Defendants Petyo, Town of Greensboro, Town of Ridgely and Town of Centreville likewise relied upon and perpetuated the individual officers’ false narrative about the police practices causing Anton’s death, using this misinformation and disregarding contrary evidence plainly available on video Body Worn Camera footage, to decline to investigate and discipline the involved officers.

“Defendant Russell Alexander (the assistant medical examiner who conducted Black’s autopsy) conferred, on behalf of the State of Maryland, with MSP investigators in a manner suggesting a mutual desire to avoid findings of police misconduct by the Medical Examiner in connection with Anton’s death. The Medical Examiner’s autopsy achieved this aim by departing from basic reasonable standards of forensic pathology and falsely absolving Defendant officers of actual or criminal responsibility, thus enabling Defendant officers to evade criminal charges for their unlawful conduct and forcing Plaintiffs to expend significant resources to disprove the Medical Examiner’s misrepresentations in order to gain access to legal redress.

“Defendants’ unlawful conspiracy harmed the Plaintiffs by exacerbating their severe mental anguish and emotional distress, by thwarting their access to civil justice and their efforts to ensure official accountability for Anton’s wrongful death as guaranteed by Articles 19 and 24 (of the Maryland Declaration of Rights).”

In addition to compensatory damages of more than $75,000, the lawsuit seeks:

• a permanent injunction that (i) prohibits Defendants, their officers, agents, employees, and successors from engaging in the discriminatory, unconstitutional and abusive practices complained of herein, and (ii) imposes a prohibition of similar conduct in the future;

• three-year monitoring of all law enforcement activity by all Defendants to prevent any further abusive and racially discriminatory practices;

• appropriate punitive damages, against Defendants in their individual capacities, in an amount to be proven at trial that would punish Defendants for their knowing, intentional, willful, and reckless disregard of clearly established federal constitutional and statutory rights as alleged herein and enter any and all injunctive decrees and relief necessary to effectively prevent Defendants from engaging in similar unlawful misconduct in the future; and

• reasonable attorneys’ fees, expert witness fees and costs.

Ken Ravenell of Ravenell Law, one of the attorneys representing Black’s family, said in a press release: “It is staggering how much was done wrong in this case that was improper, illegal, unethical and disgraceful. But today we took a bold step towards justice for Anton Black and against the police officers who took his life and also against those who were complicit in covering up the injustice. We are proud to have been chosen by Anton’s family to lead this fight and to partner with the ACLU of Maryland in this historic collaboration.”

René C. Swafford, another attorney for the family, said, “What happened to Anton could happen to any Black child or adult. The implications of the action of the Medical Examiner are far reaching. Deliberately substituting what Anton died with, instead of what he died from, as his cause of death, sends the community an undeniable message that they won’t convict white officers that assault Black people. There was more public outcry over water bills than this life lost.”

Richard Potter of the Coalition for Justice for Anton Black said: “Again, this is another classic case of white supremacy at its best. Officer Webster gets a second chance at his career. Anton doesn’t get a second chance at life. No person is above the law and all those involved in this senseless death of this prominent young African American male should be brought to justice. Anton did not deserve to die in the manner that he did, however he did deserve to still be alive and enjoy those monumental experiences with his daughter, as well as being a student at Wesley College pursuing his degree in Criminal Justice. We as a coalition recognize that justice delayed is not justice denied.”

Deborah Jeon, legal director for the ACLU of Maryland, which is representing the Coalition, said: “There must be justice for Anton Black. Whether it happens on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, in Baltimore or Minneapolis, we must put a stop to the brutal taking of Black lives by police, and do everything in our power to strip away and dismantle the structures of white supremacy that allow law enforcement to escape accountability and thwart justice time and again.”

Anton Black’s family is represented by Ravenell, Swafford, Leslie Hershfield, and Tomeka Church. The Coalition for Justice for Anton Black is represented by ACLU of Maryland Senior Staff Attorney Sonia Kumar and Jeon.

According to the lawsuit:

“Two years before George Floyd died after being restrained and pinned down by police, 19- year-old Anton Black … was killed by three white law enforcement officials and a white civilian in a chillingly similar manner on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. This lawsuit arises from the wrongful death of Anton Black at the hands of officers from three different police departments on September 15, 2018, and the ensuing efforts by public officials to protect the officers involved from the consequences of their excessive use of force against a Black teenager.

“On September 15, 2018, Thomas Webster IV, an officer hired by Defendant Michael Petyo and employed by the Greensboro Police Department (hereafter “Greensboro”), despite a documented history of violence and excessive force against Black residents, confronted Anton while he was in the midst of a mental health crisis. Officer Webster (“Webster”) was aware that Anton was a high school athlete experiencing mental health issues. However, instead of attempting to help Anton, Webster, along with Chief Gary Manos of the Ridgley Police Department and Officer Dennis Lannon of the Centreville Police Department, chased Anton to his home, smashed a car window near his head, fired a TASER at him, and then forced him to the ground, pinning his slight frame beneath the collective weight of their bodies. While immobilized in a face-down position on the ground with Chief Manos’ body and weight upon his back and the other officers and a civilian assisting in holding him down, Anton’s pulmonary ventilation was compromised, resulting in cardiac stress. Even after Anton was handcuffed, the officers ignored the danger they were causing and kept Anton in a prone restraint for approximately six minutes as he struggled to breathe, lost consciousness and suffered cardiac arrest. Anton, 19, while handcuffed and terrified, died from positional asphyxia as a direct and proximate result of the officers’ excessive force and racial bias, as well as the Town of Greensboro and Defendant Petyo’s knowingly hiring of an officer with a proclivity for violence against Black civilians; the State of Maryland’s knowing certification of an officer who had neither the character nor the temperament for employment as a police officer; the failure of all three towns to adequately screen, train and supervise their officers; Officer Webster’s unjustified and unconscionable escalation of a mental health crisis into a fatal confrontation; and the excessive force used by the officers, specifically including Chief Manos. Sadly, Anton’s mother witnessed her son’s death on the front porch of her home.

“Even as he died, officers began developing the false story they would use to defend their actions — falsely claiming that Anton was high on marijuana laced with another drug and exhibiting ‘superhuman’ strength. This was the story the officers fed to the Maryland State Police, the state agency charged with investigating Anton’s death, which used its authority to hunt for evidence to smear Anton and justify his killing by police. In the weeks and months that followed, Anton’s family and Plaintiff Coalition for Justice for Anton Black were forced to battle public officials to gain basic access to the body camera footage of his death and to the autopsy findings — which were not released until Maryland Governor Larry Hogan personally intervened.

“Meanwhile, the State of Maryland, through a Maryland State Police (“MSP”) ‘investigation’ and with the Office of the Medical Examiner (“ME”), collaborated with the officers who killed Anton to absolve the officers and the State government of responsibility. When the State finally released its autopsy findings, officials outrageously contended that Anton’s bipolar disorder was a contributing cause of death, as opposed to the law enforcement officers’ brutal actions in chasing, tasing, and pinning Anton down under hundreds of pounds of weight for six minutes until he lost consciousness and stopped breathing. Both the ME’s obfuscation of the obvious cause of death — prolonged restraint that prevented Anton from breathing — as well as the MSP report downplaying the role of police in Anton’s killing, were used to justify the State’s Attorney’s decision not to pursue criminal charges against the officers and to decline to convene a grand jury. As a result, Defendants collectively have escaped responsibility for Anton’s death, misrepresenting his killing as an “accident” for which no person or entity is accountable.

“Anton Black died at the age of 19 as a direct and proximate result of the Town of Greensboro and Defendant Petyo knowingly hiring of an officer with a proclivity for violence against Black civilians; the State of Maryland’s knowing certification of an officer who had neither the character nor the temperament for employment as a police officer; the failure of all three towns to adequately train and supervise their officers; Officer Webster’s unjustified and unconscionable escalation of a mental health crisis into a fatal confrontation; and the excessive force used by the officers, specifically including Chief Manos,” the suit claims. “Worse still, Anton’s death has gone unpunished because the very entities sanctioned to avenge his death conspired together to instead protect police and public officials, and evade accountability, risking future lives.”

Anton Black federal lawsuit

EPA hit with lawsuits over Chesapeake Bay cleanup

September 12, 2020 by Bay Journal

Making good on threats issued months ago, three Chesapeake Bay watershed states, the District of Columbia and the Chesapeake Bay Foundation took the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to court Thursday for its failure to push Pennsylvania and New York to do more to help clean up the Bay.

In their lawsuit, the attorneys general of Maryland, Virginia, Delaware and the District of Columbia accused the EPA of shirking its responsibility under the Clean Water Act by letting Pennsylvania and New York fall short in reducing their nutrient and sediment pollution fouling the Bay.

“This has to be a collective effort,” said Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh. “Every state in the Chesapeake Bay watershed has to play a part, and EPA under the law has to ensure that happens.”

Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh said the Chesapeake Bay cleanup must be a collective effort. Photo courtesy of the Maryland Office of the Attorney General.

The Chesapeake Bay Foundation, joined by the Maryland Watermen’s Association, a pair of Virginia farmers and Anne Arundel County, Md., made similar complaints in a separate federal lawsuit. Both were filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, where they’re likely to be consolidated into a single case.

“The courts must ensure that EPA does its job,’’ Will Baker, the Bay Foundation president, said in an online press conference held with attorneys general from Maryland, Virginia and the District.

At issue is the EPA’s duty to enforce a decade-old plan the agency drew up for restoring the Chesapeake to ecological health. The plan, known as a total maximum daily load, requires each of the Bay watershed states and the District to do what’s needed by 2025 to reduce their share of the nutrient and sediment pollution harming the Bay.

Progress has been made toward restoring the Bay’s water quality, though much more remains to be done. In particular, Pennsylvania and New York have fallen far behind in meeting their pollution-reduction targets, especially in curbing nutrient runoff from farmland.

All six Bay watershed states and the District were required to submit plans last year spelling out the measures each would take by 2025 to make the needed pollution reductions.

Most of the plans indicate that states will have to increase pollution-reduction efforts to unprecedented levels to reach their cleanup goals. But Pennsylvania’s and New York’s plans don’t even achieve their goals on paper. Pennsylvania’s falls short on curbing nitrogen, the most problematic nutrient, by about 25%, while New York’s was around 33% short. Pennsylvania’s plan also identifies an annual funding gap for cleanup activities of approximately $250 million a year through 2025.

The EPA cited those shortcomings for both states but hasn’t taken any action against them. The lawsuits contend that the federal government is abdicating its legal responsibility by accepting clearly inadequate cleanup plans with no reasonable assurance the two states can achieve their assigned pollution reductions.

Without responding directly to the lawsuits’ core complaint, an EPA spokesman issued a statement defending the agency’s role in the Bay cleanup.

“EPA is fully committed to working with our Bay Program partners to meet the 2025 goals,” the statement said. “We have taken and will continue to take appropriate actions under our Clean Water Act authorities to improve Chesapeake Bay water quality.”

The spokesman noted that in just the past year, the EPA and other federal agencies have supplied “nearly a half billion dollars” to support Bay watershed restoration efforts. The agency also has provided “thousands of hours” of technical assistance to the states, it said.

Those filing the lawsuits say that’s not enough. Unless the federal government holds the states accountable for doing their part to reduce nutrient and sediment pollution, the 37-year effort to restore the Bay’s water quality is likely to fail, they warn.

Will Baker, president of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, said that the courts must make sure the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency “does its job’’ in enforcing Bay cleanup actions. Photo by Mike Busada, courtesy of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation

“When EPA uses its bully pulpit to tell a state that they’re failing to meet their obligations, action follows,” said the foundation’s Baker. “We’ve seen that with Pennsylvania in the past.”

The agency briefly withheld about $3 million in federal funds from Pennsylvania five years ago to prod it to come up with a plan for getting its cleanup back on track. Critics suggest the EPA also could leverage state compliance by threatening to block permits that are needed to build or expand businesses.

Environmentalists and Maryland officials have been complaining for some time that the EPA is not doing more to press Pennsylvania over its lagging cleanup pace. But discontent ramped up in January when Dana Aunkst, director of the EPA’s Chesapeake Bay Program office, described the 2025 cleanup deadline as “aspirational” and said the Bay TMDL was “not an enforceable document.”

The litigants said they didn’t relish taking the EPA to court but felt they had no choice. They faulted the Trump administration, contending it had not only abandoned the federal government’s role as enforcer of the Bay TMDL, but had threatened the cleanup further by rolling back or weakening federal environmental regulations.

The Annapolis-based environmental group and the attorneys general had served the EPA formal notice in May of their intent to sue and followed up later with a letter offering to meet and discuss their concerns. The EPA did not respond, they said.

“We’re here to enforce the agreements,” said Karl Racine, the District’s attorney general. “It’s not unusual at all that when parties don’t do what they’re supposed to do by law, we go to court to have it enforce the remedy.”

Neither Pennsylvania nor New York are defendants in the lawsuits, though their alleged shortcomings are key issues. Deborah Klenotic, spokeswoman for the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, declined to comment on the litigation, saying, “We remain focused on our work to improve water quality here in Pennsylvania and in the Chesapeake Bay.”

But Maureen Wren, a spokeswoman for the New York Department of Environmental Conservation, disputed assertions the state isn’t doing its part to help clean up the Bay.

“New York is fulfilling its clean water responsibilities under the Chesapeake Bay TMDL and is a committed partner” in the federal-state Chesapeake Bay Program, she said.

State officials now expect to meet New York’s nitrogen reduction targets based on new information about Susquehanna flows and a change in the Bay Program’s computer model.

Maryland’s Anne Arundel County, which has more than 500 miles of shoreline on the Bay and its tributaries, joined the foundation in its lawsuit.

County executive Steuart Pittman of Anne Arundel County, MD, walks one of the shorelines in his jurisdiction that border the Chesapeake Bay. The county has joined the Chesapeake Bay Foundation in its suit against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Photo by Dave Harp, courtesy of Bay Journal News Service

“Anne Arundel County residents have invested far too much in the Chesapeake Bay restoration effort to watch from the sidelines as upstream states and the EPA abandon their obligations,” said Anne Arundel County Executive Steuart Pittman. The county has spent more than $500 million in the last decade on Bay protection and restoration, officials estimate.

The Maryland Watermen’s Association, which has been at odds with the Bay Foundation over the state’s management of oysters, also joined in the group’s lawsuit. Observing that “water runs downhill,” Robert T. Brown, Sr., the group’s president, said the nutrients, sediment and debris coming down the Susquehanna River from Pennsylvania and New York are having a devastating effect on watermen.

“So goes the health of the Bay, so goes [our] industry and seafood,” he said. “…We need to have the EPA do its job.”

Also suing are Robert Whitescarver and Jeanne Hoffman, who raise livestock on a farm in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley. Whitescarver, a former Natural Resources Conservation Service representative, has long advocated for farm conservation practices. He said farmers have a stake in this issue.

“All jurisdictions need to do their fair share,” he said. “The efforts that Virginia and Maryland farmers have put into sustainable farming are harmed by EPA’s failure to require all jurisdictions to meet the commitments they agreed to.”

At least a couple of the states suing the EPA to put the heat on Pennsylvania and New York could find themselves on the receiving end of similar pressure if their lawsuit succeeds. Only the District of Columbia and West Virginia have met their 2025 goals ahead of schedule, according to recent data. None of the others are on track to reduce nitrogen by the needed amount.

“If any of the Bay states fall significantly short in implementation, CBF will call on EPA to take action,” Baker said.

By Timothy B. Wheeler

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