“By the end of 2012, about 3.4 percent of PJM‘s total installed capacity was generated from wind. Over the next 13 years, with the advent of renewable portfolio standards, states within the PJM system (including Maryland) will expand their wind energy capacity to 11 percent of their total installed capacity.”

Read the Full Article Here

Also, check out where Maryland gets it’s energy, how it’s used, and more from at the Maryland Energy Association website: http://energy.maryland.gov/energy101/

Bay Foundation backs ‘rain tax’

Posted: Friday, May 10, 2013 2:00 am

More pollution goes into Frederick County creeks and rivers than into the waters of any other county in Maryland, according to Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE) data. About 20 percent of that comes from storm water — a swill of dog feces, lawn fertilizer, oil and gasoline residue and water that flashes off streets and parking lots when it rains.

This type of pollution is the only source of water pollution increasing in the region, especially in growing counties such as Frederick. Farmers, sewage plants and other sources are discharging less pollution than years past.

Frederick understands the value of investing in streets, water filtration plants and sewage plants. But some county officials don’t seem to want to invest in another county utility: the system of ponds, pipes and culverts that drains its landscape. As a result the antiquated system gets more expensive to upgrade each year, like a leaking roof we refuse to patch.

Contrary to a recent News-Post editorial there are no storm water “plants” that treat polluted runoff as there are plants to treat sewage. The polluted runoff mostly goes into a storm drain and straight into local creeks.

How polluted is Frederick County? The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and MDE have declared most of the waters of the county officially “impaired,” including the Monocacy River, Double Pipe Creek and Catoctin Creek. Residents are cautioned not to come into contact with the water for a full 48 hours after a summer thunderstorm. How’s that work for convincing businesses to relocate to Frederick County?

This isn’t a new problem. But there is a new urgency to fix it. In fact, soon Frederick and other Maryland counties will receive new storm water permits under the federal Clean Water Act that require them to do a better job.

How to pay for it? About 1,300 jurisdictions around the country have approved some form of “storm water utility fee,” determining such fees to be the fairest and most efficient way to address this problem.

Despite popular rhetoric, these fees aren’t “rain taxes” but a fair assessment on polluters (you and me) that pays for a service the county provides. It’s fixing our parking lots, streets, driveways and other surfaces that turn rain into toxic soup.

The benefits would be substantial. In Anne Arundel County where county commissioners have approved a storm water fee, for example, the University of Maryland Environmental Finance Center estimates that for every $100 million the county invests in improvements, the county will gain $220 million in economic benefits and almost 800 jobs.

By state law, Frederick can decide how much of a utility fee it wants to raise from each resident and business to begin to meet its responsibilities. Unfortunately, Frederick County Commissioners have decided their constituents can live with dirty water. They have said they will collect only 1 cent from each resident for the job. That ploy might make for a fine protest, but Frederick County will get what it pays for — likely continued unhealthy water and flooded basements. And an ever larger bill to be paid by the children and grandchildren of the county.

Alison Prost

is Maryland executive director of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation

No Profit in Pollution: a comparison of key Chesapeake Bay state water pollution penalty policies

“Industries that discharge water pollution are required to abide by clean water laws and regulations that limit how much they can pollute the nation’s rivers, lakes, streams, and other bodies of water. If they exceed their limits or, fail to implement appropriate methods for controlling their pollution, they violate the law. Such violations should trigger appropriate economic sanctions to deter all regulated entities from committing future violations.  All too often, however, polluters may weigh decisions about whether and how much to pollute from a dollars-and-cents perspective only, comparing the costs of compliance with the penalties to which they may be subject for exceeding applicable discharge limits.”

Members of the public are invited to comment on the feasibility and desirability of various forms of institutional oversight at federally-funded institutions that perform research involving certain pathogens or toxins.

“Certain types of research that are conducted for legitimate purposes may also be utilized for harmful purposes. Such research is called ‘dual use research’,” said a Notice filed in the Federal Register Friday by the Office of Science and Technology Policy.

“Dual use research of concern (DURC) is a smaller subset of dual use research defined as life sciences research that, based on current understanding, can be reasonably anticipated to provide knowledge, information, products, or technologies that could be directly misapplied to pose a significant threat with broad potential consequences to public health and safety, agricultural crops and other plants, animals, the environment, materiel, or national security,” the OSTP Noticeexplained.

The term “dual use research of concern” should not be taken in a pejorative sense, OSTP said.

“Research that meets the definition of DURC often increases our understanding of the biology of pathogens and makes critical contributions to the development of new treatments and diagnostics, improvements in public health surveillance, and the enhancement of emergency preparedness and response efforts. Thus, designating research as DURC should not be seen as a negative categorization, but simply an indication that the research may warrant additional oversight in order to reduce the risks that the knowledge, information, products, or technologies generated could be used in a manner that results in harm. As a general matter, designation of research as DURC does not mean that the research should not be conducted or communicated.”

In the February 22 Federal Register Notice, OSTP posed a series of questions concerning potential oversight arrangements for dual use research of concern and solicited feedback from interested members of the public.

1736 new homes

There will be a meeting hosted by Oakdale LLC to discuss the Eaglehead DRRA. Please attend and spread the word to your neighbors and friends

When:  Saturday May 11th 10AM

Where:  Oakdale Middle School (entrance is usually around back)

Eaglehead PUD fact sheet, page 1

Eaglehead PUD fact sheet pg 2

639 acres to become a planned unit development

To learn more please click here for the Casey Property PUD fact sheet.

Map below shows streams surrounded by floodplain, forest (green) and blue for ponds and wetlands.

natural resource features on Casey property

New development planned for the north and south sides of Executive Way, south of Frederick, between Buckeystown Pike and New Design Road.  There will be 122,500 square feet of employment use and a maximum of 615 dwelling units (approx. 255 single-family and 360 multifamily) type products (apartments, two-over-twos, condos), or any variation of dwelling unit mix such that the intensity of total peak hour vehicle trips or the school student generation is not increased above that analyzed in the “Westview South Land Bays 2, 3, and 4″ memorandum prepared on behalf of the Applicant by Wells and Associates, LLC, dated February 22, 2013 (the “Project Memorandum”) or the student projections referenced here.

See the former LOU  and the DRAFT LOU in progress.

We like to talk a lot about building the future while we actually approve plans that either fit the past or stamp approval on a vision that is more dumb density than smart growth. While, like Josh Bokee, I admire the vision of residents in the small area plans of the Golden Mile and East Frederick Rising, these imagined benefits are far removed from their affects in the face of market realities.

And while they sleep soundly on opposite sides of town, the city engages in slash and burn quality of life by retail dominance on the north end of town. Clemson Corner offered better design with a tree-lined front to Md. 26, and they chose what I call the “great wall of Frederick.” Market Square juxtaposes three-story, narrow townhouses against parking for a strip mall. Both contribute to long-term traffic failures in the north end. The shifting focus around town also puts a drag on resources for both further private market investments on the sides of town, while also draining the municipality with infrastructure costs. Where is the balance? Where is the vision that benefits all?

What has occurred is we’ve weakened the standards for growth that fits alongside residential neighborhoods via zoning by devising this concept called mixed-use zoning. Mixed use is like scrambled eggs. You can’t tell one place apart from another, and it all ends up looking like a tangle of dense residential with retail and parking amenities.

Smart growth was supposed to be a tradeoff between density and green spaces, a sustainable community of walking and biking, not auto-centric stores and concrete alleys with next to no yard space.

I’d rather see us guide our development with design standards than a zoning that cans residents like sardines. The city long ago did some of its best planning vision with the East Street extension studies. The report justified community design standards with economic benefits.

Our current planning mainly counts up extra tax dollars, which then get thrown into projects like Carroll Creek and a downtown hotel, rather than quality of life improvements, like a Baker-type park on the east side. We seem to be on track to keep spending tax dollars to benefit bad development, rather than craft a place of real value and community vision.

You can bet I’ll be voting for something different.

Jack Lynch

writes from Frederick ]]> http://www.friendsoffrederickcounty.org/by-campaign/the-hidden-costs-of-sprawl/33113-citizen-makes-good-planning-points/feed/ 0 http://www.friendsoffrederickcounty.org/by-campaign/agriculture/poorlyplannedgrowth2013/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=poorlyplannedgrowth2013 http://www.friendsoffrederickcounty.org/by-campaign/agriculture/poorlyplannedgrowth2013/#comments Tue, 19 Mar 2013 21:53:16 +0000 FofFC http://www.friendsoffrederickcounty.org/?p=5420 The Frederick County Commissioners have approved or are discussing approval of over 7000 new dwellings, in many cases without appropriate plans for schools, roads, emergency services and other key infrastructure. We believe that our public officials should follow existing laws; in a growing number of cases that is not happening.

FoFC is using the option of last resort to protect your quality of life: litigation. As recently quoted in the Frederick News Post “We turned to the courts after finding that citizen concerns were ridiculed and dismissed …These lawsuits will determine whether the county follows state law, whether growth proceeds at a reasoned pace that does not increase taxes, traffic, school overcrowding and water and air pollution.”

FoFC is currently challenging:

* Crum and Thatcher (Frederick City north)
* New Market Municipal Growth Element in Maryland Court of Special Appeals(read letter from FoFC)
* Frederick City Comprehensive Plan in Frederick County Circuit Court
* Landsdale (Monrovia) at the Board of Appeals
* Landsdale Storm Water Management Administrative Waiver at the Board of Appeals, March 28, 2013 7pm
* Landsdale in Frederick County Circuit Court
* Jefferson Technology Park at the Board of Appeals
* Frederick County’s 2012 Comprehensive Rezoning in the Frederick County Circuit Court

If school overcrowding is your concern, it is with good reason. Read this published letter from one Monrovia citizen who gives us the facts.

Mr. James Cummins, Interstate Commission on the Potomac River Basin

(This text is a summary of Mr. Cummin’s presentation at Hood College Symposium, March 7, 2013)

The American Shad is the world’s largest herring.  It spends most of its life along the Atlantic coastline, ranging from Florida to Canada, but returns to freshwater rivers to spawn.  Its life cycle can be a 12,000 mile journey.   Shad are not only an esteemed food for humans, they are important in the ecosystem because they are food for so many different species, like the Bald Eagle and Bottlenose Dolphin.  Shad are historically important to our country and sustained many economies.  Tens of millions of shad were once harvested each spring in the Potomac alone.   They were typically smoked and salted in barrels.   They were in huge demand were transported  long distances inland.   They were the number one item in terms of dollar value transported upstream on the C&O canal. Unfortunately, through overfishing, pollution and loss of spawning habitat primarily by dams, their populations plummeted and the fishery was closed in the Potomac in 1982.

An American shad restoration program began in 1995, managed by the Interstate Commission on the Potomac River Basin, which worked with local watermen and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.   Spawning shad are netted and their eggs collected, fertilized, taken to a hatchery and then stocked in the Potomac when they are small fry.   A dam in the Potomac River at Little Falls, near Washington, D.C., blocked their upstream migration.    In 2000 a new fish way was installed which is basically a notch in the dam with three weirs to reduce flow and allow fish to pass.    Shad stocking also became a local school project with over 50 schools now involved in hatching shad in their classrooms.    After they hatch, students go to the river to release their fry.   This has worked well for schools because they are helping restore the shad and the quick development of the fish is easy and fun for the students to observe.

The exciting news is the restoration has been successful, the American shad population of the Potomac has rebounded and in 2012 was declared a sustainable fishery once again.   Sadly though, the Potomac is the only river along the entire east coast that has improved to such an extent.   Fortunately, the Potomac now serves as the egg source for shad restoration in other rivers including the Rappahannock River in Virginia, all shad restoration rivers in Maryland, and the Susquehanna and Delaware rivers in Pennsylvania.    Hopefully, all of the rivers in the east coast will once again run silver with shad.