By Christy Goodman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, March 6, 2008
Calvert commissioners signed an agreement this week with the Maryland Emergency Management Agency that will bring the county nearly $360,000 in grant funding for terrorism prevention and emergency planning efforts.
The grant includes money to renew the county's contract with Code Red, a service that allows county residents and businesses to sign up for automated telephone notification of emergencies.
The service makes up to 60,000 calls per hour for announcements that include bioterrorism alerts, power failures and missing children alerts. The public can sign up at http://www.co.cal.md.us (search for Code Red) or call 410-535-1600, Ext. 2638.
The grant also will pay to replace an emergency management vehicle, and buy breathing equipment for the Special Operations Team of the Calvert County Sheriff's Office and sensors for reading air conditions for a tactical robot.
The county also approved a $32,000 budget adjustment to complete funding of a project for the Law Enforcement Terrorism Prevention Program.
BG&E Says Service In Calvert ImprovesBaltimore Gas and Electric executives said service to the company's Calvert customers was better in the last half of 2007 and early 2008.
The company, owned by Constellation Energy, has been criticized by state Del. Sue Kullen (D-Calvert) and some of its customers who say that they receive poor service and that the company is slow to respond to outages, compared with the Southern Maryland Electric Cooperative, the utility that serves most of Calvert County.
BGE serves fewer than 7,800 customers in Twin Beaches and the surrounding area of northern Calvert. SMECO serves 30,150 customers in the rest of the county.
BGE reported a customer average of 0.31 power failures or interruptions in 2004, not including major weather events. The rate more than doubled to 0.73 in 2006. In comparison, SMECO reported an average of 1.03 disturbances per customer in 2004 and 0.49 in 2006.
A BGE customer in Calvert went without power for an average of 1.68 hours in 2004 and 2.05 hours in 2006, not including major weather events. For SMECO customers, the average was 1.81 hours in 2004 and 1.02 hours in 2006.
BGE is in the midst of "an aggressive" tree-trimming plan to reduce power failures, said Stephen J. Woerner, senior vice president. Tree trimming will finish in June, he said.
The company also moved a crew to the area of southern Anne Arundel County and northern Calvert to improve response time.
Commissioner Barbara A. Stinnett (D-At Large), the only commissioner who is a BGE customer, said problems have "significantly dropped." She said, "It is noticeable."
Pa. Sued Over Wastewater Cleanup of ChesapeakeDozens of municipalities have sued the Pennsylvania state government over the cost to upgrade wastewater plants as part of a strategy to clean up the Chesapeake Bay, the Associated Press reported this week.
The lawsuit, filed in Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania in Harrisburg on Friday, claims that wastewater ratepayers in towns across much of central and eastern Pennsylvania bear an unfair share of the cleanup costs.
The lawsuit also contends that Pennsylvania entered into an illegal agreement in 2000 with Maryland and Virginia to improve water quality in the bay, which led to the federal government making the agreement mandatory five years later.
If the agreement's 2010 deadline is not met, the federal government could enforce stricter standards, state officials said.
Many municipal officials have expressed anger that the state has not committed money to improve wastewater treatment.
Officials at the Pennsylvania Municipal Authorities Association estimate that the bill to improve the watershed's 184 largest treatment plants will total at least $1 billion.
Neil Weaver, a spokesman for the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, declined to comment on the lawsuit but said the state will continue trying to help local officials meet the federal water quality requirements.
Pennsylvania contributes more sewage, farm runoff and other pollutants than any other state into the 200-mile-long Chesapeake Bay. The pollutants, such as nitrogen, feed algae in the bay that make much of the estuary uninhabitable for fish, crabs and oysters during the summer.
Grants Help Farms Install Conservation MeasuresThe Maryland Department of Agriculture reported this week that the state's farmers installed more than 2,100 conservation projects in 2007.
Farmers added to the record $13.1 million provided through the Maryland Agricultural Water-Quality Cost-Share program with more than $1.4 million of their money.
The grants "helped farmers cover the costs of installing conservation projects that will collectively prevent an estimated 2.7 million pounds of nitrogen and 149,000 pounds of phosphorus from entering Maryland waterways each year," state Agriculture Secretary Roger Richardson said in a statement.
Last year's projects included:
¿ Planting a record 240,410 acres of cover crops statewide, nearly double the acreage planted the year before.
¿ Transporting a record 99,300 tons of excess manure off farms with high soil phosphorus levels to other farms or facilities that could use this resource safely.
¿ Building 60 animal-waste storage structures to prevent runoff by conserving the nutrient benefits of manure until it can be transported or applied to crops.
O'Malley Asks for Stronger Coastal Construction BansMaryland Gov. Martin O'Malley (D) called this week for stronger state prohibitions on building in critical areas near shorelines.
At a news conference on a Chesapeake Bay beach near Annapolis, O'Malley said the General Assembly should pass a proposed bill overhauling the 24-year-old critical-area law.
The bill would require that new homes be built at least 300 feet back from the waterline of the Chesapeake, Atlantic coastal bays and sections of rivers including the Potomac, Patuxent and Severn.
The bill also includes stricter penalties for homeowners who build near the shoreline without permission, forcing them to relocate noncomplying structures.
Building contractors who violate restrictions could lose their licenses. Records show that many property owners who have built without permission have been allowed by local officials to keep what they've built.
The 1984 law designated all land within 1,000 feet of the edge of tidal waters and wetlands as "critical area."
The 1,000-foot area was identified using 1972 state wetland maps that are still used today by local governments for enforcement and to determine variances.
"If we don't take action, the bay is going to die," O'Malley said.
Group Says Legislators Withdraw Bullet TaxA Maryland sportsmen's group said that legislators withdrew a bill that would have put a 5-cent tax on every bullet sold in the state.
The Maryland Legislative Sportsmen's Caucus said the proposal would also have required manufacturers to use lasers to engrave microscopic serial numbers onto every bullet.
The House Judiciary Committee gave the bill unfavorable status Friday, and it was withdrawn by its sponsors on Monday.
The money from the bullet tax would have paid for a database recording who purchased the ammunition.
'Maryland's Best' To Promote Local MeatsThe Maryland Department of Agriculture is promoting local meats during March through the "Maryland's Best" branding program.
Through a Web site and advertising, the program helps producers sell their products and provides consumer information.
"Maryland livestock producers raise some of the best and freshest meats available," Agriculture Secretary Roger Richardson said in a statement.
"Buying local helps sustain Maryland farmers and our rural economies as well as the environment by keeping land in farming rather than development and reducing the impacts of transporting our food long distances."
The department said a recent survey by the University of Baltimore's Schaefer Center for Public Policy found that 78 percent of Marylanders are more likely to buy produce that is identified as having been grown by a Maryland farmer. Nearly all of those surveyed said that it is at least "somewhat important" that the state preserve land for farming.
Various farms are offering coupons this month for 10 percent off purchases of up to $100. For a list of participating farms or to download the coupon, visit http://www.marylandsbest.net.
Staff writer David A. Fahrenthold and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
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