Wrong, Just Wrong

By the AP, as published by NYPo, Chesapeake Bay ‘dead zone’ has 200 million tons of pollutants

When the Conowingo Dam opened to fanfare nearly a century ago, the massive wall of concrete and steel began its job of harnessing water power in northern Maryland. It also quietly provided a side benefit: trapping sediment and silt before it could flow miles downstream and pollute the Chesapeake Bay, the nation’s largest estuary.

The old hydroelectric dam spanning the lower Susquehanna River is still producing power, but its days of effectively trapping sediment in a 14-mile (22.5-kilometer) long reservoir behind its walls are over. Behind the 94-foot (29-meter) high barrier lies a massive inventory of coal-black muck — some 200 million tons (181 million metric tons) of pollutants picked up over decades from farmlands, industrial zones and towns.

How big a threat this sediment stockpile poses to the Chesapeake Bay or whether anything can even be done about it depends on who one talks to. With Maryland pushing to curb pollution in dam discharges, the issue has become a political football as Conowingo’s operator seeks to renew its federal license to operate the dam for 46 more years after its old license expired.

And as negotiations drag on, the lack of agreement about curbing runoff pollutants following the wettest year on record imperils hard-won gains in restoring the Chesapeake Bay. . . 

Do you see the problem here?

The so called "Dead Zone" in the Chesapeake Bay is the bottom water in the deep channel that runs out of oxygen in summer, forming a hypoxic (with less than 2 ppm oxygen), or in some cases anoxic (without oxygen) zone in the water that is deadly to organism. I reported on that last night; good news that it wasn't, at time they checked, as bad as they feared it would be based on the amount of rain we have had.

The 200 million tons that AP reports in the "Dead Zone" are the sediments safely, for now, captured behind Conowingo Dam. A pain, but not a current problem. The problem is that Conowingo pool is full, and is no longer catching new sediment that comes down. Those are a problem, but not 200 million tons worth.

We have no idea how many pounds of "pollutants" there are in the Bay; that rather depends on the definition. Certainly nutrients, mainly fixed nitrogen and phosphorus, are regarded as the primary problem. But they do not constitute 200 million tons. The annualized TMDL for nitrogen in the Bay is only 186 million pounds, phosphorus 12.6 million lbs. Even the TMDL for sediment is only 3.2 million tons.

They have part of the story right, and part dead wrong: Behold the Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect:

Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray's case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward — reversing cause and effect. I call these the "wet streets cause rain" stories. Paper's full of them.

In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.

MD Farms Not as Bad for Bay as Thought

Potentially polluting phosphorus levels in 18 percent of Maryland farm fields, state says

Nearly one in five acres of Maryland farmland has enough phosphorus in its soil to potentially threaten local waterways and the Chesapeake Bay, according to new state data released Monday.

Soil sampling results collected since last summer by the Department of Agriculture show that about 18 percent of all fields statewide have elevated phosphorus levels. And on the lower Eastern Shore — in the heart of the state’s poultry industry, where phosphorus-rich chicken manure is widely used as fertilizer— data indicate that two out of every three farmed acres have high enough levels of the plant nutrient to pose a risk to water quality.

While more analysis is needed, the phosphorus concentrations in those farm soils are such that at least some of the plant nutrient could be seeping or running off the land and feeding the Bay’s algae blooms and oxygen-starved dead zones.

But the problem apparently is not as extensive or severe as earlier estimates made it out to be, state officials said. The sampling shows that 82 percent of farm soils statewide are low in phosphorus, they noted, and there is ample farmland even on the Eastern Shore where manure could safely be spread.

“Assumptions were made that phosphorus was higher than it is,” said Hans Schmidt, an assistant agriculture secretary and a mid-Shore grain farmer himself.

Spurred by warnings about elevated phosphorus levels in Bay tributaries, former Gov. Martin O’Malley had proposed new regulations that would restrict farmers’ use of animal manure as fertilizer on soils with elevated phosphorus levels.

So, if the farms aren't as big a problem as had been predicted by the EPA models, who is the problem? Could it be the nutrients from above the Conowingo Dam, and the sewage treatment plants around the Bal-Wash corridor, as the farmers had claimed?

Can Dry Wall Save the Bay?

Or at least the main ingredient in dry wall: Using Gypsum to Help Reduce Phosphorus Runoff

Phosphorus runoff is causing blooms of harmful algae that deplete waterways of oxygen, resulting in “dead zones” that damage ecosystems vital for aquatic life. It’s a problem in many of the waterways we all depend on for recreation and drinking water, including the Great Lakes and Chesapeake Bay.  Just last year, Maryland’s outgoing governor proposed land use regulations designed specifically to reduce phosphorus runoff in the Chesapeake watershed.

USDA’s Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientists have been looking for ways to address the problem by using gypsum, which binds with phosphorus in the soil and prevents it from running off. There is no shortage of gypsum. In fact, one type is a byproduct of scrubbing the sulphur out of power plant emissions and is used to make wallboard.

Studies by ARS soil scientist Allen Torbert, Dexter Watts and their colleagues at the National Soil Dynamics Laboratory in Auburn, Alabama, have shown that when this industrial gypsum is applied to the soil with poultry litter, it reduces phosphorous runoff by 50 to 60 percent. Torbert and colleagues working in Beltsville, Oxford and elsewhere, also have found that gypsum reduces the potential for pathogens, such as E. coli, in poultry litter and cow manure to be transported in runoff and reach drinking water supplies. The gypsum improves soil infiltration and curbs algae growth by binding with phosphorus in the soil, so that less phosphorus is available to algae as a nutrient.

Coal fired power plants, particularly one with the newer pollution control systems produce a lot of gypsum, far more than can be used by the wall board industry. Perhaps the farmers on the Eastern Shore could become customers, and use the gypsum to reduce phosphorus runoff.  This is one of main goals of the "Bay Diet."

If this article is to be believed, gypsum is the magic secret for agriculture: 37 ADVANTAGES TO USING GYPSUM

Enviromental, Social Justice Concerns Slow Maryland Shit Burning Power Plant

MD manure-to-energy plant appears to be going nowhere

Maryland was supposed to be deep into the planning stages for a manure-to-energy plant by now, a plant that was a key component in the state’s strategy to reduce pollution from poultry manure.

The state signed a contract in October 2013 with Maryland Bio Energy, a subsidiary of California-based Green Planet Power Solutions, to construct a power plant on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. The plant was to turn 175,000 tons of poultry manure — about 75 percent of Maryland’s Eastern Shore’s excess manure — into electricity. The state and the University of Maryland signed on as customers. A federal subsidy was in place. The plant was to be built in the fall of 2015 and to generate energy by 2016.

Its construction would have given poultry growers a safe place to take manure they could not use as fertilizer because of new rules designed to reduce pollution from phosphorus. Many of the Eastern Shore’s fields are saturated with phosphorus, and poultry manure is phosphorus-rich.

Instead, the state’s manure-to-energy plan appears stalled. Neither Green Planet Power Solutions nor Maryland Bio Energy have applied for the necessary air permits from the Maryland Department of the Environment, according to officials there. That permit review alone would likely take 11 months — the amount of time that the MDE estimates when public concern mounts in a public review process.

Getting rid of Maryland's excess chicken shit, so that farmers won't spread it on their fields and contribute to the eutrophication of the Chesapeake Bay? What could possibly be wrong with that?

Several environmental groups, including the Assateague Coastkeeper and Chesapeake Climate Action Network, oppose various aspects of the proposed plant. They are concerned about high ammonia emissions and health consequences.

What? You mean burning shit is even dirtier than burning coal, Maryland's traditional way of generating power? Whoda thunk?

Several local environmentalists are concerned about that site because it’s close to an African-American neighborhood. There is a growing concern in the Chesapeake Bay watershed — and everywhere else — that minority and lower-income communities have disproportionately borne the brunt of industrial processes, whether they are massive chicken operations or incinerators. Somerset County planning director Gary Pusey said the company would need a special exception to operate a manure-to-energy plant there. That application process would take at least six months, he said, and could take longer with public opposition.

We could satisfy the social justice people by claiming some land in  Montgomery (Maryland's wealthiest) to erect the shit burning power plant, and then truck or railroad thousands of tons of chickenshit through the suburbs to the power plant? I'm sure that will go over well.

Gov. Hogan Proposes New Phosphorus Regulations

Ag groups back Hogan's PMT

In an effort to strike compromise between the agriculture and environmental communities, Gov. Larry Hogan released his own phosphorus-limiting regulations Monday.

“The Governor’s proposal is certainly an improvement over previous phosphorus management proposals,” said Minority Whip Sen. Steve Hershey, R-36-Upper Shore. “It’s a compromise between the stakeholders and a sensible approach to reducing phosphorus on farmland.”

The Phosphorus Management Tool regulations start with what was proposed by Gov. Martin O’Malley in November and alter it several ways. It is also part of a broader “Maryland Agriculture Phosphorus Initiative,” which, according to the governor’s office, “will further Maryland’s efforts to improve water quality, strengthen the agricultural industry, and bolster rural economies.”

Hogan’s proposal delays PMT implementation by one year, starting in 2016 with full implementation by 2022, which takes it from a six-year implementation to seven years. According to the governor’s office, it allows farmers two years to develop nutrient management plans using the new PMT and the existing Phosphorus Site Index before management changes are required.

The proposal also immediately bans the use of phosphorus on sites with a Fertility Index Value — the amount of phosphorus present in the soil — greater than 500 until full implementation in 2022. This is done to immediately stop the use of phosphorus on fields with the highest likelihood of it leeching into the Chesapeake Bay.

Hogan’s PMT proposal also includes details to collect soil test phosphorus data from every farm in Maryland every six years starting in 2016. That would give the Maryland Department of Agriculture soil fertility data to monitor trends in phosphorus levels and identify potential areas to redistribute manure.

This doesn't seem like much of a pull back from the regulations promulgated by O'Malley, and rescinded by Hogan. It gives farmers an extra year to get into the program. Since these things always get written at the last minute anyway, that's probably a negative. But it goes after phosphorus saturated soil immediately, and since that's what the enviros are screaming about the most, that seems to be a concession.

Git 'er done.