One of the few bits of good news that the town of Easton experienced during the rough days of COVID was the explosion of the use of the current Rails-to-Trails pathway. While popular well before the national pandemic hit, the increase in use during the last few years can only be seen as reassuring to local government officials and the general public that this kind of investment indeed pays off.

It also must make town stakeholders overjoyed as they note that the new east-to-west expansion of the trails is taking shape quickly, and will be available for use in a matter of months. But what many in the community might not realize is that there is still much more to come.

The Spy asked Kody Cario, the project manager for the Town of Easton, to come over to the studio last week to talk about the current status of the Rails-to-Trails and what is planned over the next few years.

This video is approximately minutes in length. For more information about the Rails-to-Trails project please inquire here. 

On September 28 the Chesapeake Bay Foundation and League of Women Voters of the MidShore, in partnership with Mid-Shore Community Television and The Talbot Spy, hosted an environmental forum for candidates running in the 2022 Talbot County Council election. Spy columnist Howard Freedlander moderated the forum in which candidates shared their views on the environmental health of Maryland’s Eastern Shore.

Here are the subject and timeline:

Candidate Opening Statements                                     1:40

Climate Change Adaptation                                         19:30

Civility in Public Life                                                     29:45

Climate Impacts on Vulnerable Communities         39:55

Chesapeake Bay Restoration                                        50:10

Land Use Management & Quality of Life               1:00:25

Regulation of Adequate Public Facilities                 1:11:05

Approval of New Dwelling Units                               1:21:25

Reconsideration of Lakeside Development             1:25:20

Role of Talbot County Planning Commission          1:30:20

Expansion of Easton Plastic Bag Ordinance            1:36:20

Most Important County Environmental Issue         1:39:50

Sens. Ben Cardin (left) and Chris Van Hollen were among the members of the Maryland congressional delegation who discussed Chesapeake Bay health Wednesday with Kandis Boyd (far right), the new director of U.S. EPA’s Bay program, and Hillary Harp Falk, the new president and CEO of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation. A portrait of former Sen. Barbara Mikulski is behind Van Hollen and Cardin. Photo by Josh Kurtz.

With a 2025 deadline looming for states to meet aggressive federal goals for cleaning up the Chesapeake Bay, members of Maryland’s congressional delegation met Wednesday on Capitol Hill with two women who will be integral parts of the public-private strategy for eradicating pollution in the nation’s largest estuary.

Eight of the 10 members of the Maryland delegation held a wide-ranging conversation with Kandis Boyd, the new director of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Chesapeake Bay program, and Hillary Harp Falk, the new president and CEO of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation. The session was held in a U.S. Capitol conference room newly named for Barbara Mikulski, the long-serving former Maryland senator, and her visage loomed over the lawmakers from all four walls.

“There is no higher priority that we have as a delegation than the Chesapeake Bay,” said Sen. Ben Cardin (D), the leader of the state’s congressional team. “There is no more iconic manifestation of the way we live than the Chesapeake Bay.”

It was largely a “getting to know you” session, as Boyd and Falk have only been on their jobs for a matter of months. Both gave introductory remarks, describing how they came to their positions.

Falk said she was first introduced to the Bay as a young girl, visiting with her father, a professional photographer. She had an internship with the Chesapeake Bay Foundation during college, then lived on Tangier Island for three years while working for Bay Foundation education programs. Later, she had a long career as a conservationist with the National Wildlife Federation, and came to focus on watershed protection programs in the Great Lakes, Columbia River and Mississippi River Delta regions.

“My background is in coalition-building,” Falk told the lawmakers.

U.S. Rep. Steny Hoyer (D), the majority leader in the House, noted that Falk’s predecessor, Will Baker, took over the Chesapeake Bay Foundation in 1981, the same year Hoyer was elected to Congress.

“You can’t get rid of me,” Hoyer joked. “Will went voluntarily.”Boyd grew up in the Chicago area, and became enamored with a working farm in her suburban neighborhood that offered educational programs for youths. That sparked a lifelong interest in the sciences; she became the first Black woman to receive an undergraduate degree in Meteorology from Iowa State University in 1996, and has spent most of her professional career in the federal bureaucracy, rising to high-ranking positions in the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Science Foundation.“My job is to make the technical not so technical,” she asserted.

As lawmakers peppered the two women with questions, it became readily apparent that some of the federal goals for cleaning up the Bay by 2025 are within reach, while others remain elusive. While Maryland has a better compliance rate than many other states in the Chesapeake watershed, it’s clear that some upstream states — notably Pennsylvania — are impeding the overall regional effort, for now. But several officials said the 2025 pollution reduction goals, which the states agreed in 2010 to try to reach, should be seen as a yardstick of progress, rather than a final destination.

“We’re going to have some problems meeting our 2025 goals,” Cardin conceded. “We recognize that. But this is about 2025 and beyond.”

Senators and House members asked Boyd and Harp about a range of topics — including upriver pollution, the sediment build-up at the Conowingo Dam in the Susquehanna River, agricultural runoff, the alarming decline in the blue crab population, a proposal to create a Chesapeake Bay National Recreation Area, and education and environmental justice programs for Bay communities.

Rep. Kweisi Mfume (D-Md.) recalled helping feed his family by fishing in the Bay as a boy near his home in Turner Station, catching catfish and perch. But he said he “never thought of the Bay as mine,” and wondered if efforts were being made to connect communities to the water and its history. He cited the work at Morgan State University’s Patuxent Environmental Aquatic Research Lab as an example.

“Growing up, the Bay was great for finding worms,” Mfume said. “It was great for swimming. It was great for fishing. But I never really thought of it as mine.”

Boyd, a proponent of “STEAM” education — science, technology, engineering, arts and math — said she is living proof that young people from a variety of communities can be taught to respect vital natural resources like the Bay, and said EPA has several ongoing programs that do just that.

“The focus is: This is local,” she said. “It doesn’t matter where you are in the watershed. Everybody has a stake in the watershed.”

Some of the most vigorous conversation concerned the decline in the blue crab population and its impact on watermen, migrant workers who staff crab picking operations, and restaurants and seafood distributors who rely on the revenue.

“Is there a reason to be hopeful, not just for 10 years from now, but for a year or two?” Mfume asked the experts.

Falk did not sugarcoat her response.

“This is really complex,” she said. “We’re concerned. It’s an indicator [on Bay health]. It’s a concerning indicator.”

One of the factors keeping the crab population low is the growth of the blue catfish population in the Bay — an invasive species. The blue catfish is considered tasty in most quarters, and some Bay fishermen have had success catching and selling the fish.

But a 2008 federal law requires the blue catfish to be inspected by the U.S. Department of Agriculture rather than the Food and Drug Administration, which inspects most other fish. That creates a more cumbersome process and delays the sale of the catfish, hurting vendors’ attempts to sell it on the market. U.S. Rep. Andy Harris, the lone Republican in the Maryland congressional delegation, has inserted a provision in an appropriations bill that would lift the USDA inspection requirement, and Maryland lawmakers and the Chesapeake Bay Foundation are hoping the Senate adopts it.

“It’s one of the rare occasions where I agree with Congressman Harris,” Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D) said Wednesday.

As the 75-minute meeting drew to a close, Cardin sought to tie the disparate subjects together.

“We talked about a lot of individual issues that we need to address,” he said. “But in the end, it’s all about addressing the pollution that’s going on in the Bay. It all comes back to the basic concept of the [federal pollution reduction] agreement.”

By Josh Kurtz

“Where Better to Watch a Sunset Over Water than from a Kayak?!”

When Gary and Justine Reinoehl retired from long careers at Amtrak and public schools respectively, they moved to Kent Island on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. With their passionate interest in the outdoors, as well as kayaking, it didn’t take them long to find the Chesapeake Bay Environmental Center (CBEC) and become active volunteers at the organization.

According to Volunteer Coordinators, Anne and Dave Brunson, the Reinoehl’s are a great fit for CBEC. “Friendly, engaging and experienced in the out-of-doors, they are happy to help out in whatever way possible.” Since they started volunteering in 2018, the Reinoehl’s have become invaluable contributors to CBEC in many ways.

Both Gary and Justine have been long-time kayakers who have travelled many waterways in Maryland, Virginia and Pennsylvania, including the Potomac and Susquehanna Rivers and Baltimore’s Inner Harbor. As CBEC volunteers, they have led numerous youth and adult trips around the Horse Head Peninsula – Marshy Creek, the Kent Narrows, and Prospect and Crab Alley Bays in Queen Anne’s County. Gary is well-versed in local Queen Anne’s County History and Justine, an experienced educator, they help out with CBEC’s numerous camps and outdoor adventures for both adults and students.

Thanks to a grant from Queen Anne’s County, the CBEC kayak fleet now consists of 11 double and 22 single kayaks. “We’ve had groups of as many as 20 or more from the Shore, the Baltimore and Washington, DC areas, and as far away as Colorado,” said the Reinoehls. “There are some weeks in the Spring and Summer when we’re at CBEC every day! Thankfully, we have several other capable folks who help us.” 

“But, we could always use more!” Justine added.

Gary also serves as Head of CBEC’s Trail Maintenance Team, which has had a busy spring conducting clean-up of the existing trails and boardwalks. And, thanks to a grant from the Mountain Club of Maryland, Gary and his team have cleared and re-opened the North Point Trail. “We recently set-up an ‘Adopt a Trail’ program to help with ongoing trail maintenance and we’ve been pleased at the support CBEC has received so far,” said Gary. 

Gary and Justine also worked with a group of volunteers from Chesapeake College to re-open two small nature viewing ponds behind the CBEC Education Building. “CBEC has always had a good relationship with Chesapeake College. Having those enthusiastic, young people here really made the job easy,” he said.

Justine’s background in education has proved invaluable to CBEC as well. Besides helping with popular school environmental education programs like ‘Catch a Bay Critter’, Justine often serves as a volunteer assistant with CBEC’s Raptor Program. “It’s so gratifying to watch student’s and adult’s reactions to seeing owls and hawks ‘up close and personal’,” she explains.

“Having committed volunteers like the Reinoehls is essential CBEC’s growth and success,” stated Executive Director, Vicki Paulas. “They are invaluable volunteers as well as great ambassadors of CBEC’s growing membership!”

“We just enjoy being at CBEC as well as being outdoors on this lovely, unspoiled piece of land,” agreed both Gary and Justine. “Where else can you be to watch the sunset over the water than from here, in a kayak?!”

Interested in becoming a volunteer at CBEC? In addition to helping with kayaking, trail maintenance, and education, CBEC volunteers and members help staff the Visitor Center, assist with fundraisers, and participate in citizen science programs. To learn more, go to: www.bayrestoration.org/volunteer.

In a sign that offshore wind energy production is moving closer to winning approval in Maryland, the federal government announced this week that it will hold three public meetings on one of two proposed wind turbine projects later this month as part of an upcoming environmental review.

This week, the Interior Department’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) will publish what’s known as a Notice of Intent to prepare an Environmental Impact Statement for the construction and operations plan submitted by US Wind, LLC.

The publication of the notice opens a 30-day public comment period through July 8 as part of the process to help BOEM determine the scope of its environmental review. During the comment period, the agency, which has final say over offshore wind projects in federal waters, will hold three virtual public meetings about the proposed project and the approval process on June 21 at 5 p.m., June 23 at 5 p.m., and June 27 at 1 p.m.

Registration for the virtual public meetings and detailed information about the proposed wind energy facility, including how to comment, can be found on BOEM’s website.

“If approved, this project will represent another step forward to creating a robust offshore wind industry here in the United States, all while creating good-paying, family-supporting jobs,” said BOEM Director Amanda Lefton. “We are committed to using the best available science and traditional knowledge to inform our decisions and protect the ocean environment and marine life. We look forward to receiving input from our government partners, ocean users and other stakeholders, which is critical to a successful environmental review process.”

US Wind holds the lease rights to an area 12 to 27 miles off the coast of Ocean City. Under consideration, according to BOEM, is US Wind’s proposal to build and operate an offshore wind project with a total capacity to deliver between 1,100 and 2,000 megawatts of renewable wind energy to the Delmarva Peninsula, which could power as many as 650,000 homes in Maryland, Delaware and Virginia each year.

The project would include the installation of up to 121 turbines, up to four offshore substation platforms, one meteorological tower and up to four offshore export cable corridors, which are planned to connect to a substation at either 3 R’s Beach or Tower Road in Delaware Seashore State Park in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware.

On social media, US Wind called the federal government’s announcement of an environmental review “a significant milestone.”

“We’re thrilled for this exciting new phase in developing offshore wind projects that work for everyone,” the company said.

In the first phase of the lengthy approval process, US Wind was awarded Offshore Renewable Energy Credits (ORECs) by the Maryland Public Service Commission in 2017 for the first 270-megawatt phase of its lease area. Company executives hope to bring that phase, called MarWin, online in 2024. Last December, the PSC awarded ORECs to the second phase of US Wind’s proposal, the 808-megawatt Momentum Wind project, which is targeted to be operational before the end of 2026.

The offshore wind proposals continue to generate controversy in Ocean City, where some elected officials and business leaders fear the sight of wind turbines miles from the shore will be an eyesore and hurt tourism and the real estate market.

But after years of stagnation, offshore wind projects in general are gaining momentum in the U.S. and have become a priority for the Biden administration. And most Maryland officials are increasingly optimistic about their ability to create construction and operations jobs, both on the Eastern Shore and at the Tradepoint Atlantic industrial development in Baltimore County, where turbines are expected to be manufactured and assembled.

If approved, the development and construction phases of the US Wind project could support as many as 2,679 jobs annually over seven years, the federal government estimated. The Biden administration’s goal is to deploy 30 gigawatts of offshore wind energy capacity by 2030 and create about 80,000 jobs in the industry nationwide.

This is the 10th offshore wind energy construction and operation review initiated by the Interior Department since President Biden took office.

There are already small pilot offshore wind projects operating off the coasts of Rhode Island and Virginia, and larger projects are under construction off Cape Cod in Massachusetts and off the coast of New Jersey. Construction of another project, off the coast of Long Island in New York, has just gotten under way.

Meanwhile, an international offshore wind company, Ørsted, also has won leases from Maryland to build and operate offshore wind farms off the coast of Ocean City, and the company is hoping the federal approval process for those projects takes off soon. The Ørsted proposals, known as Skipjack 1 and Skipjack 2, would be slightly farther from shore than the US Wind developments.

The two companies’ projects have been roughly operating on the same timelines. Like the US Wind projects, Skipjack 1 received approval from the Maryland PSC in 2017, and Skipjack 2 was OK’d last December.

“Ørsted looks forward to building, owning, and operating Skipjack Wind for decades to come, while creating thousands of local offshore wind jobs and delivering clean, domestic energy to nearly 300,000 homes in the region,” Brady Walker, Ørsted’s Mid-Atlantic market manager, said in a statement provided to Maryland Matters on Tuesday.

“Development of Skipjack Wind is fully underway,” Walker said. “In May, Ørsted completed offshore geotechnical and geophysical surveys to provide a comprehensive picture of the sea floor and enable continued development of Skipjack Wind’s proposed offshore cable routes and potential landfall locations. Ørsted continues to have a productive dialogue with BOEM on the project’s permitting schedule and plans to submit Skipjack Wind’s construction and operations plan to BOEM this year.”

A veteran government scientist and meteorologist is poised to become director of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Chesapeake Bay Program, which oversees federal and regional Bay environmental monitoring and cleanup efforts.

The EPA announced Thursday that Dr. Kandis Boyd will take over as director of the program on Monday. She’ll be the first person of color to hold a leadership position on government Chesapeake Bay policy — and the first permanent head of that EPA office in over a year.

Dr. Kandis Boyd, the new director of EPA’s Chesapeake Bay Program.

“I’m thrilled to have Kandis join our leadership team as we are stepping up restoration efforts for the Bay in the face of emerging challenges,” said EPA Mid-Atlantic Regional Administrator Adam Ortiz — a former state and local environmental official in Maryland. “Her experience as a strategic leader in the sciences and success engaging diverse communities and youth will help take the Bay effort to a new level as we focus on climate change and vulnerable communities.”

According to the EPA, Boyd has nearly 30 years of experience leading, teaching, advising and mentoring students and early career enthusiasts in environmental and atmospheric science. The first African-American woman to receive an undergraduate degree in Meteorology from Iowa State University, Boyd served most recently as strategic advisor for the Office of Equity and Civil Rights at the National Science Foundation (NSF). That position included serving as the first deputy division director of the NSF Division of Grants and Agreements, where she provided oversight and direction for 35 staffers, a $5 billion budget, and more than 12,000 new grants a year.

Boyd spent most of her career at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). During Hurricane Katrina, she delivered around-the-clock on-site meteorological forecasts during the 2005 landfall of that hurricane. She served as the designated federal officer for the third National Climate Assessment Development Advisory Committee, co-chaired the first NOAA Environmental Modeling Strategic Plan, served as an adviser for NOAA’s $2 billion satellite portfolio, and was both acting director and deputy director of the NOAA Weather Program Office.

EPA’s Chesapeake Bay Program coordinates activities and implements strategies for meeting the restoration goals of the Chesapeake Bay watershed, which covers 64,000 square miles across New York, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia.

“I’m extremely humbled and excited to work with a forward-focused team of specialists and experts to advance the ongoing work of EPA and the Chesapeake Bay partners,” Boyd said. “I’m ready to dive in and get to work on the most pressing matters before us.”

The last permanent head of the Chesapeake Bay program was Dana Aunkst, who served from December 2018 to March 2021. Aunkst was a longtime official with the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection before taking the EPA job. He served at a time when the Trump administration was regularly trying to cut Bay cleanup programs and was sued by states like Maryland for not doing enough to hold other states accountable for their pollution reduction commitments.

Hillary Falk, president of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, which has been a plaintiff in some of those lawsuits, praised Boyd’s selection.

“Many challenges remain, time is running short, and climate change threatens to reverse the progress we’ve made,” she said. “The good news is we also have unprecedented new funding for the Chesapeake Bay Program and federal farm conservation programs that can help us make up ground quickly. Dr. Boyd has the leadership skills to help coordinate the efforts of the multiple federal agencies that play a significant role in Bay restoration, the knowledge to ensure we are guided by the best science, and the personal commitment to ensure that vulnerable communities are not left behind.”

By Josh Kurtz

The Virginia Marine Resources Commission (VMRC) has announced the results from the 2022 Baywide Blue Crab Winter Dredge Survey which indicates a continued downturn in juvenile recruitment and a record low year of total blue crab abundance.

Total abundance of blue crabs in Chesapeake Bay declined in 2022 to 227 million crabs – the lowest abundance estimate in the 33-year history of the winter dredge survey. This decline is driven primarily by a third consecutive year of below average recruitment of juvenile crabs, even though the number of juveniles increased 18% from 2021 to 101 million crabs. The low numbers of juvenile crabs, and this year’s decline in the adult female crabs (which will spawn this spring and summer) will factor into decisions VMRC, the Maryland Department of Natural Resources (MD DNR), and the Potomac River Fisheries Commission (PRFC) make in regards to management measures for the 2022 blue crab season.

These three Chesapeake Bay jurisdictions, which are responsible for baywide management of blue crabs, have successfully managed harvest of blue crabs to prevent overfishing since 2008. Adult female crabs are the key to conservation, as each female can spawn an average of three million eggs per brood, averaging up to three broods per year. These adult females observed in the Winter Dredge Survey are likely to spawn from late May to mid-summer of this year, contributing to next year’s juvenile population. The number of adult female crabs (97 million) declined in 2022 and is below the target abundance of 196 million, but remains higher than in the period before 2008 when the Chesapeake Bay blue crab resource was declared a fishery disaster.

While the Chesapeake Bay jurisdictions have maintained fishing mortality of blue crab at safe levels, crabs still face many other challenges in the bay. Although Chesapeake Bay water quality and submerged aquatic vegetation continue to improve, blue crabs are still vulnerable to low oxygen levels from nutrient runoff and a lack of sea grasses which can leave vulnerable juveniles and soft crabs without habitat for refuge. Recruitment can be hindered by storms and currents which can wash crab larvae out of bay circulation, and growing abundances of predators, such as red drum and blue catfish, can increase natural mortality of blue crabs.

Virginia’s 2021 commercial crabbing season saw harvest of 18 million pounds of blue crabs, one of the lowest harvest levels in the last ten years, but baywide harvest remained well under the threshold fishing removal rate that would indicate overfishing. The 2011 benchmark blue crab stock assessment and subsequent updates establishes a threshold removal rate of 37%. This threshold is the maximum percentage of females that can be harvested annually without overfishing the population. The removal rate in 2021 of 26% by commercial and recreational fisheries indicates overfishing is not occurring. Juveniles observed by the winter survey contribute heavily to the next fall’s crab harvest, which could mean another year of low harvest for Virginia’s commercial crabbers in 2022. Although Virginia’s 2021 harvest fell 15%, high prices lead the total dockside value of crabs to increase 14% to $35 million.

The winter dredge survey is conducted annually by the Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS) and MD DNR. Since 1990, the survey has utilized traditional crab dredges to sample blue crabs at 1,500 sites throughout the Chesapeake Bay from December through March. By sampling during winter when blue crabs are buried in the mud and sedentary, scientists can develop precise estimates of the number of crabs in the Bay.

The Chesapeake Bay Stock Assessment Committee (CBSAC), an advisory group under the Chesapeake Bay Program’s Sustainable Fisheries Goal Implementation Team (Fish GIT) which brings together state managers and technical experts to address blue crab issues, will hold a working meeting next week to discuss the results from the 2021-22 Winter Dredge Survey. The results will be published in the full CBSAC Annual Report this June, and provide science based recommendations for management. The Fish GIT and CBSAC are also planning a fall blue crab science workshop to identify which environmental factors are likely driving the low abundances and evaluate the need for a new blue crab benchmark stock assessment.

“We are concerned with the two consecutive years of poor recruitment,” said Pat Geer, Chief of Fisheries Management for VMRC and Chair of CBSAC. Geer continued, “However, fishing pressure on our spawning stock is still at acceptable levels and the spawning stock remains relatively healthy. We are hopeful a workshop planned for September will help explain these concerns with recruitment and lead to a new benchmark stock assessment that will address blue crab abundance in the Bay.”

VMRC’s Crab Management Advisory Committee will hold a public meeting on May 23rd at 4 PM at the VMRC Main Office to discuss these results and potential management measures for the coming fishing year. These results and data on the 2021 blue crab fishery will also be presented at the monthly meeting of the Virginia Marine Resources Commission on May 24th at the VMRC Main Office. See MRC.Virginia.Gov for more information about these meetings.