Those of us who are city residents tend to regard our relationship with nature as an afterthought. Our interaction with wildlife typically involves securing our trashcan lids to deter rats and the occasional smell of fresh-cut grass feels like nothing short of a revelation.

But, in truth, people living in urban areas are surrounded by nature—whether we realize it or not. And the National Wildlife Federation (NWF) wants to remind city residents there are things they can do to protect biodiversity and watershed health right in their own backyard. For the second year in a row, the national organization is hosting Baltimore Wildlife Week from May 3-11, a chance for community members to come together to increase green space, mitigate nuisance flooding, improve water quality, and beautify neighborhoods.

“We were really inspired by similar events in Los Angeles and Seattle, but this is the only event like this on the East Coast,” says Holly Gallagher, NWF regional education manager. “In Baltimore, specifically, it will be a lot about focusing on pollinators, the Chesapeake Bay watershed and iconic species that people can relate like orioles and oysters.”

The organization has worked with a number of partners over the past eight months to plan the week-long program including the National Aquarium, Waterfront Partnership, Blue Water Baltimore, neighborhood associations, and what may seem like an unlikely partner in Charm City Meadworks—which has really embraced the cause and ran with it.

“We produce a product that relies heavily on clean water, bees, and other pollinators every day,” says Derek Vaughn Brown, marketing coordinator at Charm City Meadworks, which is making a special mead with local ingredients for the occasion. “It’s hard to sit idly by when you make something that relies on nature and so we’ve help take the lead on bringing people together and creating some fun events.”

Those events kick off these weekend in the Meadworks taproom, first with a dance party where urban creature costumes are encouraged and a portion of the proceeds go to Baltimore Wildlife Week. The taproom will also feature a pop-up exhibition curated by local artist Bridget Parlato, a show where scientists will discuss their research and get “gonged” if it gets too wonky, and a Jones Falls Watershed walking tour on Sunday that benefits Blue Water Baltimore and Baltimore Heritage.

“The easiest way to physically show people how close we are to nature is take this two-mile walk from Druid Hill Park down to Round Falls,” Brown says. “The idea is to walk along the river, ask thought-provoking questions, and realize nature is all around us.”

Beyond that, there are a ton of other environmental events throughout the week, including a volunteer cleanup on May 6 at Camden Yards, where NWF created a 10,000-square-foot oriole habitat to try and attract the real birds to the stadium. Plus, community conservation forum will take place at Whitelock Farm in Reservoir Hill, the B’More Wild Fest & GreenScape will take over Middle Branch Park, and the first community-preserved forest in Baltimore City will be celebrated in the Glenham-Belhar neighborhood.

“Our big goal is to make these events accessible to different neighborhoods and utilize underused space in the city,” Gallagher says. “We try to focus on issues that are important to people—whether it’s reducing trash, saving money on energy bills, or improving your mental and physical health by having a green space to walk to.”

Gallagher stresses that, while this is a wonderful week to focus on the environment, NWF is working on these initiatives in urban areas all year-round. In fact, last year the organization helped establish Baltimore City as a certified Community Wildlife Habitat, something that may come as a surprise when you choose to only see brick, Formstone, and concrete.

“The more we work with community residents, the more these neighborhoods will change,” Gallagher says. “If kids grow up with that change already instilled in them, there are more likely to have that environmental stewardship as a priority from the start.”

Baltimore was making a bad impression. John Kellett was sure of that. Walking to his job as the director of the Baltimore Maritime Museum, his path took him across the footbridge connecting Harbor East and Pier Six. And most days, the Jones Falls flowing underneath looked like a conveyor belt of trash, full of debris sucked downstream from the river’s 40-square-mile watershed.

As an environmental scientist, marine educator, shipwright, sailor, and general Chesapeake Bay-niac, Kellett knew better than most how fouled local waterways were. But it still pained him to see the region’s economic and cultural anchor so degraded. And he could tell that others noticed, too.

“Every day, I’d hear the tourists say, ‘Ugh, this harbor is full of trash. It’s disgusting,’” he recalls, now more than a decade removed from this galvanizing moment. “And I actually called the city and said, ‘We have to do something about this.’ And they said, ‘Well, we’re open to ideas.’”

In truth, the city was trying to do something. It’s just that its efforts weren’t particularly effective. A boom had been installed at the mouth of the Jones Falls to corral debris. But every time it rained, trash would overwhelm the boom and escape into the harbor. Once the trash was in the harbor, the city would sometimes send out trash-skimming boats. But these boats were able to gather only a small fraction of the trash at a time, and they required human operators, making them costly to run.

There had to be a better way, Kellett reasoned, so he began brainstorming. Then he hit upon an idea so simple that he couldn’t believe it hadn’t been tried before.

“All you really need to do is get the trash out of the water and put it somewhere where it can be transported,” he explains. “So it sort of dawned on me that we could use the flow of the river that brings the trash as the power to pick the trash out of the river. And that’s where the idea of the waterwheel came from.”

Twelve years and a few pairs of googly eyes later, Kellett’s crude waterwheel idea has begat three lean, green, trash-collecting machines known to Baltimoreans as Mr. Trash Wheel, Professor Trash Wheel, and Captain Trash Wheel. Stationed throughout the Inner Harbor at the outflows of the Jones Falls, Harris Creek, and a stream in Masonville Cove, respectively, these contraptions function much as Kellett envisioned: Booms funnel trash toward the “mouth” of the machine while the current, supplemented by solar-powered motors, turns a wheel. Power from the wheel then activates a conveyor belt, which, in turn, slowly lifts the trash out of the water and drops it into a dumpster. The trash is then transported by the city and burned in the incinerator, generating electricity. It’s remarkably low-tech—and remarkably effective. Collectively, the trash wheels have removed more than 859 tons of trash from Baltimore’s Inner Harbor since 2014.

But what Kellett couldn’t envision when he conceived of the trash wheels was just what a source of fascination they would become. Thanks to savvy marketing and the public’s hunger for environmental success stories, the machines have attracted the kind of following usually reserved for human celebrities—or at least Apple products.

Besides glowing coverage in outlets ranging from NPR and National Geographic to Business Insider and Gizmodo, the trash wheels have accrued tens of thousands of followers on their various social media accounts. Additionally, they have inspired two local beers, several novelty T-shirts (“Stay Trashy, Baltimore,” “Feel the Churn”), a holiday sweatshirt (“Trashing Through the Snow”), a theme song, and, as of this spring, an official do-gooding fan club (The Order of the Wheel). In short, they have become the region’s most unlikely aquatic icons since soft-shell crabs.

“It’s kind of become a national and international sensation, which is not what I expected,” admits Kellett, a 55-year-old father of two with a laconic drawl and steely blue eyes. “I thought, ‘Hey, we’re going to clean up Baltimore Harbor and try to make a difference right here.’ It’s sort of like, ‘Act locally, think globally’—although I wasn’t even thinking globally. I had global thinking thrust upon me.”

Most days, you can find John Kellett puttering around Locust Cove Marina, the tiny boatyard he and his wife, Pamela, co-own in Pasadena. Here, amongst the clutter of boats, trailers, and assorted spare parts, is the headquarters of Clearwater Mills, the company Kellett founded soon after his a-ha moment in 2006. These days, business is booming. There is talk of a fourth trash wheel for the city, to be stationed where the Gywnns Falls empties into the Middle Branch of the Patapsco. And beyond Baltimore, there are projects brewing in locales from New York City to Newport Beach, California.

But Kellett acknowledges that arriving at this point was not easy. After his initial flash of inspiration, he constructed a six-foot-long working model that he tested in the Inner Harbor. He invited employees from then-mayor Martin O’Malley’s office and the Department of Public Works out to see it, and they agreed it had potential.

“So it sort of dawned on me that we could use the flow of the river that brings the trash as the power to pick the trash out of the river.”

“They looked at it and said, ‘Yeah, it’s a pretty cool idea, but since it has never been done before, we don’t feel like we can finance an experiment,’” Kellett recalls. So Kellett went in search of funding, landing in front of Bob Embry, president of the Abell Foundation, the area’s largest private foundation with a focus on funding local projects. A meeting with Embry went well, although Kellett wasn’t so sure at first. “I thought he was thoroughly unimpressed, but, the next day, I got a call saying, ‘We’d like to work it out so we can finance your idea.’”

Behind his poker face, Embry says he saw the project as “an appealing experiment” with “the potential to be marketed to other cities.” He offered Kellett $375,000 to build a prototype with the agreement that, if it were successful, the city would purchase it and the Abell Foundation would recoup its investment.

Kellett and his business partner, Daniel Chase, built the first full-scale trash wheel in six months, producing a 32-foot-long contraption with the machine’s inner workings concealed underneath a shed-like structure.

It made its inauspicious debut in the Jones Falls in February 2008. “The prototype didn’t receive a tremendous amount of attention,” Kellett remembers. “People thought it was kind of interesting, but they didn’t think it was any big deal.”

Included in the not “any big deal” camp were some members of city government, who felt that the trash wheel was underperforming and unreliable. Kellett, meanwhile, argued it was performing admirably, given that it was handling approximately four times more trash than had been anticipated.

After eight months, the city relocated the trash wheel to the outflow of the Harris Creek in Canton—a move Kellett likened to putting it out to pasture—and a years-long tussle about its efficacy ensued.

Kellett refers to this time as “the lean years.” Still, he never lost faith in his invention. And he had some key allies in his corner.

Among those allies was the team at Waterfront Partnership of Baltimore, a nonprofit that promotes the Inner Harbor and its adjacent neighborhoods.

“They said, ‘This machine is doing a great job. We’ve never seen the harbor cleaner. We want a waterwheel back at Jones Falls,’” Kellett recalls. So in 2013, armed with lessons learned from the prototype and $750,000 in funding from various public and private sources—including Waterfront Partnership—Kellett and Chase set out to reinvent the trash wheel. (Waterfront Partnership owns and operates both Mr. Trash Wheel and Professor Trash Wheel. Captain Trash Wheel is owned and operated by the Maryland Port Administration.) They added more heft (wooden and plastic dock floats were replaced by steel pontoons), more solar panels (three panels ballooned to 30), and, with the help of Ziger/Snead Architects, adopted a sleeker, more eye-catching design. Gone was the Unabomber cabin-ish garden shed. The new model was all exoskeleton, a primitivism that somehow read as futuristic.

On May 9, 2014, the new-and-improved trash wheel went into the Jones Falls next to Pier Six. Two weeks later, it was famous.

Adam Lindquist just wanted to make a little video. As director of Waterfront Partnership’s Healthy Harbor Initiative, Lindquist leads efforts to make the Inner Harbor swimmable and fishable by 2020, and he wanted his family and friends to see his newest pollution-fighting tool. So on May 16, 2014, he climbed aboard the trash wheel and filmed a short clip of it in action.

“I put it up on my YouTube page, and over the course of a week, that video went to number one on Reddit and received over a million views,” Lindquist says, still incredulous four years later. “It was at that point that we realized that we need to do something more to capture the viral nature of the device.”

Waterfront Partnership solicited ideas from local marketing agencies. One firm, What Works, suggested anthropomorphizing the trash wheel and giving it a Twitter account. One of the company’s then-employees assumed the Mr. Trash Wheel persona, and on July 15, 2014, Mr. Trash Wheel sent his first tweet: “I love it when kayakers come visit me in the Harbor! Just don’t get too close or you could end up in my belly!” (Since 2015, Robyn Stegman has been the voice of Mr. Trash Wheel. She now voices Professor Trash Wheel, too.)

The feeds provide a steady stream of water quality factoids, silly memes (Mr. Trash Wheel wielded a lightsaber on Star Wars Day), and cheerfully irreverent asides (“Do people really still drink diet root beer? If you’re going to litter, please send something tastier.”)

And, occasionally, internet gold just falls into their laps.

Headlines ensued after the trash wheel picked up a live ball python in August 2015. A few months later, a drawing of the trash wheel sporting a pair of googly eyes proved so popular that Waterfront Partnership added the peepers to the actual machine. In 2017, inspired by the snake incident, Peabody Heights Brewery created Mr. Trash Wheel’s Lost Python Ale, with proceeds benefiting the Healthy Harbor Initiative.

On May 9, 2014, the new-and-improved trash wheel went into the Jones Falls next to Pier Six. Two weeks later, it was famous.

“We keep thinking, ‘Oh, we’ve got our 15 minutes of fame,’” says Kellett, “But we’ve had that like a dozen times. You never know where it’s going to come from.”

With each new round of publicity comes another chance to raise money, discourage pollution, and improve water quality.

Waterfront Partnership keeps a running tally of the debris collected by the wheels on its website. So far, the machines have munched more than 10 million cigarette butts, 796,214 polystyrene cups, and 852,261 chip bags—among other items.

Having such exact data has been useful for policymakers, says Del. Brooke Lierman, who represents much of waterfront Baltimore in the 46th District and has spent the past two legislative sessions championing a statewide ban of expanded polystyrene foam food containers. Though a statewide ban has yet to pass, Montgomery County, Prince George’s County, and Baltimore City have approved local bans.

“The trash wheels make understanding the amount of trash more accessible. . . . That is an important part of proving to skeptical policymakers that there’s a real need to act,” says Lierman.

Because the trash wheels are such effective anti-littering ambassadors, there is a small chance that they could one day render themselves obsolete. Until then though, Kellett and others are happy to have them.

“To see the trash come down the river . . . and realize that before this machine was in, that trash would have been scattered around the harbor,” Kellet says. “That’s really rewarding.”

Why did you write this book—or why now? It seems like it was a long time coming, comprising years of research and reporting.

It’s essentially the culmination of 20 years of my writing and thinking about the Chesapeake Bay. If I drop dead tomorrow, I wanted to leave something that represented what I honestly thought about something I love.

Over the decades, I’ve learned a lot through reporting—through radio shows and for the newspaper [The Baltimore Sun] and for some other publications—and I wanted to do the best I can to express the unvarnished truth about this great cultural, ecological masterpiece. I hope that this book is my contribution, in the years ahead, of what one person who has spent a lot of time researching and writing about the bay thought about what needs to be done.
 

Did you grow up around here?

I grew up just north of Chicago on Lake Michigan, and I loved growing up on Lake Michigan. I used to teach sailing, and my family had a summer house on Lake Michigan, so I spent a lot of my time as a kid outside on the water—fishing, swimming, sailing. I used to teach sailing. Boating has always been a huge passion of mine. I’m a big kayaker. . . . I got a job at The Sun in 1997, and I moved to this area and raised my family here.
 

Something that struck me in reading your book is that the Chesapeake Bay is really a historic and geographic treasure, one of the world’s “ecological masterpieces,” as you put it, and not simply a resource. You go so far as to say that its destruction is almost a religious crisis.
I think that life in the Chesapeake Bay is sacred and should be protected and honored in a way that it’s not today. For generations, the culture of the bay was to exploit the bay, and in doing so, we’ve destroyed much of this beautiful treasure that defines the state we live in. Chesapeake Bay cleanup is a social problem—yes, almost a religious crisis—because in the end, what we need, I believe, is more faith and more trust.

We’re up against not just a water pollution problem but the Trump administration and a political wave coming through our country that worships the commercial acquisition of money and power over all else and is fundamentally selfish and destructive—not only to nature and the bay but to humanity itself. So I view this as an issue far more grave than just the bay. We need to save ourselves by rebuilding a basic confidence in the ability of people to work together through our democratic government to make the world a better place.

You give some examples in your book of “ordinary” people who did amazing things to help the bay, like Bonnie Bick.

Bonnie Bick! A Southern Maryland preschool teacher, with really no money at all. Some people ridicule environmentalists as being rich people or elitist—well look at Bonnie Bick. Through a passion for forests and wild spaces, she personally saved thousands and thousands of acres that were going to be bulldozed for development. . . . Her story really shows how one person can make a difference. You really can change the world around you if you’re willing to work without much pay and with great passion for what you believe in.
 

The “Lorax of Baltimore” was another great example of that.

Yeah! Michael Beer was a neighbor of mine here in Evergreen. You know, a lot of people sit on the couch or move to Florida or just vacation when they retire. No. Michael Beer, after he retired, became a new man and a passionate protector of the river, Stony Run, organizing festivals and fundraising events and cleanups that really did a lot to clean up an urban stream. It’s another example of how people can each be little soldiers in this war to protect our beautiful world.
 

What do you see your role being in all of this?

What the bay really needs is truth telling. We’ve had a lot of murkiness, not [only] in the bay, but in the reporting on it. My conclusion is that the bay’s biggest problem is not poultry manure or even human waste but hogwash. We need to tell the truth about what’s really happening, and I think that’s my role. The Chesapeake Bay restoration effort is very much like a country club where everyone knows each other and everyone gets along, but you’re never going to solve a problem if you can’t talk candidly about it. It’s not politically correct among the environmental community in Maryland to talk about some of the things that I talk about, but I think we need to address some of these failings in the bay restoration efforts if we’re ever going to improve them.

Some of the things I recommend in the book are controversial. For example, I recommend a ban on all wild oyster harvesting. Only 1 percent of our oysters are left. If we only had 1 percent of our grizzly bears left, we wouldn’t keep hunting grizzly bears. We need to stop dredging for oysters in the bay entirely until the oyster population can rebuild itself. Watermen are already moving toward oyster farming, which is a terrific alternative and does not harm the bay, and it actually can be more lucrative than the harvesting of wild oysters.

The bay is a huge component of America’s history and culture, too.

Absolutely. The Chesapeake Bay is the artery into which both slavery and democracy came into America. It’s the passageway through which tobacco and our first commercial success as a nation flowed. It’s the place where factory farming was invented, with the poultry farms of Perdue on the Eastern Shore. It’s really a meeting of north and south, of saltwater and freshwater, and of all the fundamental ideas about American freedom and slavery and democracy and capitalism —they all mix in the Chesapeake Bay.

And that’s why it’s extraordinarily important for people to learn about the bay, understand the bay, and protect the bay, because the bay is at the core of what it is to be American. If we disregard it as a resource we use to make money, or dredge up oysters or dump our pollution into, essentially we are dumping on our own heritage and who we are as a people, so we need to respect ourselves by respecting the Chesapeake Bay.
 

Is there any one action that you encourage the layman to do to help the bay?

The blunt truth is, the one action you can take is to vote for liberal democrats who believe in environmental regulation. People like to tiptoe around that and pretend that somehow maybe by driving less or using less water or changing lightbulbs, you’re going to make a difference. That’s not what’s going to make a difference. I mean, people should, in their own lives, do what they can to limit their own footprint, but the bigger picture is, we need to vote for politicians who will put public policies in place that will regulate, on a massive scale, pollution. And that includes at the federal level.

Anyone who voted for Donald Trump put a dagger in the heart of the Chesapeake Bay. The Trump administration is trying to destroy years of progress on the bay by taking away pollution limits that have been very effective and by basically destroying the EPA, which is the only agency that can really control pollution over a multi-state area. . . . There’s been a lot of demonizing of the term environmental regulation and these false claims that it kills jobs. Economists have come to the conclusion that environmental regulations are not job killers—they create jobs just as often as they destroy them. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, only two-tenths of one percent of all layoffs in the United States are caused by regulations of all kinds, including environmental regulations. . . . So when you ask what can people do, people need to vote—for strong environmental regulations, strong environmental law enforcement, more government funding for environmental programs—and if you don’t think that’s necessary, you’re fooling yourself.
 

You make that point in your book, that through three decades of trying to “save the bay,” this is really the only thing that’s worked. What are some things that haven’t worked?

Buying a Chesapeake Bay license plate does not help the bay. I think it’s a classic example of a feel-good program. In a way, it’s a distraction, because it’s counterproductive. Oftentimes these voluntary programs are substituting for the regulations and enforcement that are really needed.

A state-led voluntary approach was a failure. In 2010, the Obama administration shifted directions, and for the first time imposed a federally led EPA pollution limit system for the whole Chesapeake Bay region. And that is working. For the first time, we’ve seen real improvements in the bay’s health.
 

You sprinkle so many lovely little narratives into your book, scenes from the vantage point of your kayak, describing the bay and the rivers leading into it. Was this intentional, to give the reader some passages showing the beauty of what it is you’re trying to save?

Yes. The book has a fair amount of numbers and facts and policy discussions, which can be hard to swallow and can be tedious to some people, and I really wanted to bring to life why it matters, why we care. So I wanted to have examples of the great beauty of the Chesapeake Bay, examples of people who have dedicated their lives to protecting the Chesapeake Bay, and also colorful examples of life in the bay—blue crabs, the sturgeon, the striped bass—so that we can see what’s at stake.

Those kinds of scenes—paddling out on the James River at night among the bald cypress trees—I included in the book to make people understand that the Chesapeake Bay itself is a living character. It’s like a person that we need to understand and love so that we have the heart to fight and try to protect it.  
 

Meet Tom Pelton at his book launch on March 21 at Peabody Library in Mount Vernon. He’ll sign books at 6 p.m. and give a talk at 7 p.m.
 
 

Snow-covered roads, wintry winds, and frigid temperatures may not sound like ideal farming conditions. But the Redlands Farm at St. Timothy School in Stevenson is proof that a little snow doesn’t slow down operations. In a greenhouse, on the school’s more than 160 acres of land, is a fully functional and sustainable farm complete with a multitude of lush greens, clucking chickens, and buzzing honeybees.

The boarding school’s partnership with Bon Appétit Management Company—a farm-to-fork, on-site food service that specializes in organically locally source food—is one of the driving forces behind the year-round harvesting. Redlands Farm provides 60 percent of the fresh vegetables, honey, eggs, and fruit to the school kitchen where the chefs cook everything from scratch to provide three meals a day. 

Started in 1999, Bon Appétit’s program requires chefs to source at least 20 percent of their ingredients from small, owner-operated farms within 150 miles of the kitchen. 

“Thanks to Redlands, our Farm to Fork scores are consistently two or three times that,” said Bon Appétit chef at St. Timothy’s Scott Richter. “They are just nailing it in terms of their quality and freshness. We are so lucky here. It’s every chef’s dream to be able to work with this kind of produce.”

Redlands Farm was started just two years ago when the St. Timothy class of 1965 wanted to fund an environmentally conscience project as a gift to the school. The head of school, Randy Stevens, had the idea of an on-site sustainable farm that would be dedicated to growing produce for the campus.

“A number of things just lined up,” Stevens said. “We really wanted to find a way to link health and wellness together, and bring all those pieces together to really shift the way that students look at their overall nutrition.”

As a living classroom, the farm has garnered the interest from students, who receive an afterschool activity credit for working on the farm. One student in particular, junior Ronelle Williams from Douglasville, Georgia, has fallen in love with the farm and has begun making connections between nutrition and sustainability.

“I do my homework and sit with the chickens,” she said. “I’ve come to love nature. The farm is my favorite place on campus.”

Aside from the partnership with Bon Appétit, Redlands Farm is meant to teach the girls about economic and environmental sustainability. Instead of growing food for profit, the goal of the farm is to grow enough food to offset the costs of maintaining the farm. Handling day-to-day operations, like plowing and planting, is 2008 almuna Sammy Clopton and her husband Adam. 

“We try to design a loose curriculum,” Sammy said. “I have certain things that I want them to get out of it besides just planting. They need to know the reason behind it. We try to give them a bigger picture of small-scale agriculture and sustainability.” 

The multi-pronged approach to the farm also includes an educational resource for the students, including the science associated with the crops. Each decision the school makes about Redlands Farm is measured against the environmental impact standards in Maryland. By researching and using best practices, they are able to dramatically decrease erosion and redirect runoff that will reduce excessive nutrients in the streams, which eventually flow into the Chesapeake Bay.

The ultimate goal of Redlands is to become a fully sustainable and include livestock down the line. The hope to also partner with local inner-city middle schools to develop a mentorship program is also in the works.

“It’s amazing to see how it’s flourished and what we’ve developed here,” Stevens said. “We are trying to connect all the academic pieces—helping them look at the ecosystem, and their footprint. We are trying to be a green school.”

Like Riding a Bike

After a tumultuous first year that included temporary suspension of service, Baltimore Bikeshare is expanding. According to an announcement in its most recent membership newsletter, Bikeshare will add nine locations around the city, bringing the total number of stations to 50. The new locations include two in South Baltimore, two in East Baltimore, and four in Mt. Vernon/Station North. Installation of the new locations, which will also include a new downtown station at the Charles Center metro stop, will begin December 15.

The locations are:

• Charles Center
• Chase Street and St. Paul Street
• 1200 Maryland Avenue
• North Avenue and Maryland Avenue
• St. Paul Street and Madison Street
• Light Street and Ostend Street
• Charles Street and Fort Avenue
• Betty Hyatt Community Park (near Broadway and East Baltimore Street)
• Perkins Homes (1400 Gough Street)  

Maryland Goes Anti Antibiotic 

Maryland farmers raising animals for consumption will have to abide by stricter criteria when administering antibiotics to a member of their flock or herd thanks to a newly enacted state law. Passed by the state legislature earlier this year, the so-called Keep Antibiotics Effective Act, prohibits dosing healthy cattle, hogs, and poultry with broad-spectrum antibiotics in order to promote growth, a common industry practice that scientists warn has contributed to the rise antibiotic resistance. Now, in order to administer an antibiotic to an animal, farmers will need the express approval of a licensed veterinarian. Furthermore, the law outright bans agricultural use of some medically precious antibiotics. In enacting the law, Maryland becomes only the second state (after California) to place limits on antibiotic usage in livestock. 

However, prominent public health officials charge that the law does not go far enough. Firstly, the law does not apply to farming operations classified as small, which, in this case, means farms selling fewer than 200 cattle or pigs, or 60,000 birds per year. Secondly, in a recent oped in The Washington Post, Ellen Silbergeld, a food systems expert at The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, notes that while the bill requires veterinarian approval it does not require that veterinarian to confirm the presence “of disease in the herd or flock before animals can be treated with antibiotics.” Given these parameters, she says it would be easy for a cooperative veterinarian to write an unneeded prescription based on risk factors—or the threat of disease—rather than the actual presence of disease. 

“Given the crowded conditions characteristic of factory farms, it would not be difficult for a veterinarian to conclude that every animal stands a reasonable risk of contracting a disease,” she writers. “This situation is analogous to how a pediatrician might conclude that every child who attends day care should take antibiotics on a daily basis throughout childhood simply because they have an increased risk of contracting strep throat.”

First Day Hikes

For those looking to start 2018 off on the right foot (so to speak), the Maryland Department of Natural Resources has posted a list of New Year’s Day hikes at 32 state parks. Hike times, distances, and difficulty levels vary (but most are easy to moderate). Local options include ambles through the historic Jerusalem Mill Village section of Gunpowder Falls State Park, a 2-mile jaunt around North Point State Park, and easy excursions into both the Avalon and McKeldin areas of Patapsco Valley State Park. More information can be found on the DNR’s website.   

Park Places

Earlier this month, it was announced that Baltimore City’s parks received $7.6 million from the state for fiscal year 2018. The funds, which come from the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, are earmarked for 10 projects around the city’s green spaces. The largest chunk of funding ($2.4 million) is allocated for the renovation/rebuilding of the Cahill Fitness and Wellness Center in Leakin Park. Other line items include $500,000 for a new artificial turf multipurpose playing field, scoreboard, lighting, fencing, and ADA-compliant pathways in Clifton Park; $300,000 for upgraded lighting, an expanded community garden, and renovated park entrances and pathways in Patterson Park; and $300,000 for improved trailhead access to the Jones Falls Trail in Druid Hill Park. The city also received $1.5 million for general activities such as “continued maintenance, planning, volunteer support, and operations.” Details on the various projects can be found in the city’s grant application, which is available as a PDF here.     

Hopkins Cuts Coal

The Johns Hopkins University is joining the global movement to cut financial ties with fossil fuel companies. On Friday, December 8, the university’s board of trustees voted to withdraw its investment holdings in companies that produce coal for electric power as a major part of their business. The new policy also prohibits future purchases of shares in companies that earn more than 35 percent of their revenue from electricity-generating coal. Studies have shown that burning coal for electricity produces more greenhouse gas emissions per unit than any other fossil fuel. In embracing the new edict, Hopkins joins a growing list of academic institutions, state and local governments, faith-based organizations, nonprofits, and businesses that are jettisoning investments with fossil-fuel-burning energy giants. The University of Maryland announced a similar pledge last year, but its directive went even further, eliminating investment in any coal, oil, and natural gas companies.  

Turtles Rescued 

In our continuing sea turtle coverage, the National Aquarium took in a group of 30 sea turtles in November after the aquatic reptiles fell victim to cold water temperatures off the coast of Cape Cod. The turtles arrived suffering from a range of ailments, including pneumonia and blood chemical imbalances, which can arise when the water temperatures drop rapidly and the turtles become “cold stunned.” Cold stunned season typically last from December through April, but a chilly New England fall caused an early onset. The group of turtles is largest ever taken in by the aquarium, which is a member of the Greater Atlantic Region Stranding Network, a network of zoos, aquariums, and conservation groups along that East Coast that respond to animals in peril. Aquarium employees had fun with their newest charges, naming each turtle after a breakfast food. Resultant names include Waffles, Bacon, Flapjack, and Benedict.      

BeLeaf 

In our city’s ever-evolving effort to become a “cleaner, greener” version of itself, the Flowering Tree Trails of Baltimore initiative is the beautiful, fragrant next step. The effort—organized by a coalition of city governmental departments, environmental groups, and volunteers—aims to plant 6,000 flowering ornamental trees along 39 miles of Baltimore trails. In the spring, when they flower, the trails will be visually connected and become a source of splendor for residents and tourists alike. 

“In time, our city could be as famous for its Flowering Tree Trails as Washington, D.C., is for its cherry blossoms and New York is for the High Line,” says the initiative’s website. The plantings, which can range from—crabapples and cherry trees to dogwoods and silverbells—will contribute to the city’s goal of increasing its tree canopy from 28 percent to 40 percent by 2037. That is the level of coverage the U.S. Forest Service recommends if Baltimore wants to improve its air quality. The first trees went into the ground on November 11, during a ceremony in Druid Hill Park. Organizers estimate that, when all is said and planted, the initiative will cost somewhere in the low seven figures. Fundraising efforts are underway.

Bay Watch

Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen has introduced legislation to increase funding for a program that helps farmers prevent agricultural runoff from entering the bay. According to the Chesapeake Bay Program “agriculture is the single largest source of nutrient and sediment pollution entering the Chesapeake Bay.” The bill, officially titled the Chesapeake Bay Farm Bill Enhancements Act of 2017, would triple funding—from $100 million to $300 million—available to farmers for mitigating practices such as constructing secure manure storage, installing cover crops, practicing no-till farming, and maintaining forested stream buffers. 

Van Hollen’s bill has already garnered multiple sponsors, including one Republican, Sen. Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia. According to The Washington Post, Congressman Robert C. “Bobby” Scott of Virginia’s 3rd District will introduce an identical bill in the House, but is still gathering support. Separately, Congress continues to debate 2018 funding levels for the Chesapeake Bay cleanup program—a six-state, $73 million agreement to curb pollution that President Trump has proposed eliminating.   

Sewer Followup

When last we checked in with Baltimore City’s $1.6 billion plan to upgrade its failing sewer system, the city was locked in a dispute with water quality advocacy group Blue Water Baltimore over the scope of the federally mandated consent decree. Blue Water Baltimore wanted the work to continue until water quality met a certain benchmark, even if that meant performing repairs and upgrades outside the purview of the initial agreement. The city—and the federal government—argued that this was not feasible or necessary. In October, a federal judge sided with the city and federal government. The first phase of the project, which will address 83% of sewer overflows, is supposed to be completed by January 1, 2021. All remaining work is to be completed by 2030. The consent decree can be viewed in full here.  

Park Places

• The ribbon cutting of a redeveloped baseball field in West Baltimore provided the setting for a classic Orioles reunion last week as Cal Ripken Jr., Eddie Murray, and Brooks Robinson gathered at the newly dedicated Eddie Murray Field at BGE Park. The park, a project of the Cal Ripken Sr. Foundation, now features a synthetic turf baseball diamond, dugouts, a backstop, and a digital scoreboard. The field is located behind James Mosher Elementary School and will host after- school programming in addition to James Mosher Baseball—the oldest continuously operating African-American youth baseball league in the country.
• Users of the Stony Run trail that snakes through many of North Baltimore’s most coveted neighborhoods had cause for celebration in early October. After nearly 10 years and $1 million in investment, two footbridges opened creating the final linkages in the trail that runs between Roland Avenue and North Charles Street from just below Northern Parkway to Remington.  
• In October, the state announced it will allocate $23 million to protect parcels of farmland, forest, and open space in 17 conservation districts around the state. The funds are part of the Rural Legacy Program, a program of the state Department of Natural Resources, that works “to preserve large, contiguous tracts of land and to enhance natural resource, agricultural, forestry and environmental protection while supporting a sustainable land base for natural resource based industries.” This year’s recipients include the Manor and Piney Run areas in Baltimore County, and the Deer Creek area of Harford County. 

Babies in a Half Shell: Turtle Power!

In late September, the National Park Service announced that a nest of loggerhead sea turtles successfully hatched on Assateague Island National Seashore. The approximately 100 hatchlings emerged from one nest site in the Maryland Over Sand Vehicle zone and successfully made their way out to sea. This is the first successful hatch of loggerhead sea turtles on Assateague, though other attempts have been noted in recent years. The species generally does not nest north of North Carolina. Bill Hulslander, chief of resource management for the National Seashore says, the hatch “underscores the increasing importance of undeveloped beaches along Assateague Island to sea turtles and other federally threatened and endangered species.”

Growing up in Baltimore County in the 1970s, painter David Brewster was always fascinated by the nuances of urban and suburban life—studiously analyzing collapsed structures and casual human interactions. As an adult, he’s still intrigued by these memories of his youth, but now he’s more engrossed in how those factors affect the social construct of his environment.

“Having built over decades an intimate knowledge of such a distinctive place,” Brewster said. “I now have a critical lens through which to observe universality in the ways in which humans occupy space all over the world.”

That knowledge led to a series of his recent paintings on display at the Maryland Historical Society (MdHS), a notable more contemporary exhibit for the institution. Structure + Perspective: David Brewster Explores Maryland’s Landscape debuted on October 12 and brings together his commissioned work with objects from the MdHS collection. 

“This is something very different for us,” said Alexandra Deustch, chief curator for MdHS. “I came up with this idea of bringing David’s paintings together with our collections to show how those objects can speak to contemporary topics. I wanted this to be provocative and inspire discussions about topics that are relevant today.”

In the exhibit, Brewster’s paintings are juxtaposed with objects from various decades in history that relate to themes of gender, race, urban decay, environment, suburbanization, and political tensions in order to provide a new perspective on how society views each topic. 

“Given the social exclusion and marginalization of minorities in Maryland and beyond,” Brewster said. “It was paramount that the diverse figurative narratives I depicted be more than a treatment of difference, but convey a deep sense of human dignity.”

One example of Deustch’s vision of marrying old and new is contrasting a 1940s peep show of a nude beach with Brewster’s Cellar Slave painting that depicts a scene of a dominatrix and her submissive beneath a highway overpass. Both are similarly risqué pieces from different time periods, but once paired together they share an underlying theme that would typically be overlooked.

“It really speaks to people’s innate desire to voyeurs,” Deutsch said. “It’s the whole nature of looking at something that isn’t meant to be seen.”

More of the same can be found in the exhibit along with interactive features at each installation that encourage visitors to provide feedback answering the question, “What’s your perspective?” Visitors can use the tablets that are set up at each station and listen to other people’s responses and discussions about the piece of art.

Smartphone tours and special events are also available for visitors throughout the duration of the exhibit, which ends October 2018. Deustch encourages everyone to explore the installation in hopes that it creates dialogue about the societal pitfalls of today.

“I really love the pairing of the painting Two Women in a Landscape of Fear and Spectacle and an 18th-century sculpture of a traditional family,” she said. “I just think it’s really moving—sort of looking back at those stereotypes that have so long existed really makes you look at things from a different perspective.”

In The Air

On Wednesday, Governor Larry Hogan directed Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh to sue the federal Environmental Protection Agency for allowing coal plants in five upwind states to emit harmful chemical compounds that pollute Maryland’s air. The move is the culmination of a nearly yearlong standoff between the EPA and Maryland over a part of the Clean Air Act known as the “Good Neighbor Provision” that “requires EPA and states to address interstate transport of air pollution that affects downwind states’ ability to attain and maintain [air quality standards].” Last November, Maryland filed a petition requesting that 19 coal plants in Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia adopt stricter controls to prevent ozone-causing emissions. The EPA never responded to the petition, which asked that the plants employ already existing emission capture technologies every day during the summer months, when the released chemical compounds are more likely to react with heat and sunshine to form the ground-level ozone that triggers Code Red and Code Orange air quality alerts. 

“We know for a fact those power plants have the existing control technologies . . . but for whatever reason, they’re not running them every day during the ozone season,” Ben Grumbles, Maryland’s Secretary of the Environment, told The Sun in 2016. 

Thanks to a 2015 regulation, Maryland’s own power plants must use emission capture technologies every day during the summer. Maryland is also part of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, a coalition of nine northeastern states that have taken action to curb emissions from power plants through cap-and-trade programs. But rules and attitudes differ from state to state, and the lawsuit aims to bring upwind states in line with Maryland’s practices. 

“We’re not asking for anything that we’re not already doing in Maryland,” Grumbles said. 

Bay Watch

Speaking of the EPA, the agency and some of its landmark initiatives remain under assault from the Trump administration and some Congressional Republicans. As was widely reported earlier this year, President Donald Trump’s proposed 2018 federal budget would slash funding for the EPA by about a third and eliminate the Chesapeake Bay Program, a regional effort to rehabilitate the bay that dates back to 1983. Though it is unlikely that the final budget that emerges from Congress will feature such drastic cuts, the administration has already demonstrated a willingness to back up its rhetoric, announcing last month the cancelation of an annual EPA grant to the Bay Journal, a nonprofit news outfit that has covered the Chesapeake Bay since 1991. The administration is also challenging an Obama-era interpretation of the Clean Water Act that expanded the types of waterways protected under the legislation.  

This month, House Republicans passed an amendment introduced by Virginia Republican Bob Goodlatte that would keep the Chesapeake Bay Program nominally in tact but hobble its reach by striping the EPA of its ability to penalize states that did not meet cleanup goals. 

Though the Chesapeake Bay Program began under the Reagan Administration, its initial progress was uneven because the seven jurisdictions that make up the bay’s watershed (Delaware, Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia) were allowed to create and enforce their own disparate compliance standards. Then in 2010, the Obama Administration brokered an enhanced agreement—often referred to as a “pollution diet”—that stipulated how much pollution each jurisdiction could discharge into the bay each day. Under the new agreement, the EPA could penalize states that failed to meet their pollution reduction benchmarks. Since then, bay advocates have reported modest but steady signs of improvement, such as an increase in aquatic grasses and smaller than expected dead zones each summer.     

According to The Sun, however, Goodlatte called the initiative an effort to “micromanage” and “hijack states’ water quality strategies.” 

The measure, attached to a larger funding bill that would fund the federal government from December through September 2018, passed largely along party lines, though some bay state Republicans, including Rep. Andy Harris of Maryland’s 1st Congressional District, joined Democrats in rejecting the amendment. 

Fatberg Ahead! 

This week in ew: Baltimore City’s Department of Public Works announced it had discovered a giant mass of congealed fat, antibacterial wipes, and other materials lodged in a sewer main underneath North Charles Street near Penn Station. The accumulation—dubbed the “fatberg”—caused a sewer overflow on September 21 that spewed about 1.2 million gallons of sewage into the Jones Falls. Since then, most of the fatberg—which was blocking approximately 85 percent of the 24-inch pipe—has been scrapped off and disposed of in a city landfill. The Department of Public Works is using the occasion to remind residents not to pour fats, oils, and grease down the drain or flush disposable wipes.

Pipe Dreams

Even without fatbergs, Baltimore’s sewers have enough problems. Most of the sewage pipes that run underneath the city are over a century old, and they regularly fail causing backups in homes and spills in local waterways. It’s a long-acknowledged problem, and in 2002 Baltimore City entered into a consent decree with the EPA to upgrade its wastewater system by 2016. That deadline came and went with little progress made. State and federal agencies then agreed to modify the original agreement, and, last month, Baltimore officials announced a $1.6 billion plan to repair the aging wastewater infrastructure by 2030. The pact would require the city to finish upgrading its Back River Wastewater Treatment Plant by 2021 and implement a program that compensates residents for sewage backups in their home, among other items. 

But Blue Water Baltimore, a local water quality watchdog nonprofit granted third-party status in the consent decree last year, said the new version “lacks full accountability standards,” and has asked a federal judge to reject the agreement. Specifically, the group wants the agreement to allow for additional repair projects should water quality monitoring indicate a need.

“Blue Water Baltimore’s top concern is that the consent decree be an enforceable, science-based plan to eliminate sewage overflows and improve water quality, as required by the Clean Water Act, not just a static list of projects,” said Angela Haren, the nonprofit’s Baltimore Harbor Waterkeeper and Director of Advocacy. The city contends that Blue Water Baltimore’s demand is beyond the scope of the consent decree’s narrow purview.  

Park Places

Here’s an update on recent developments at green spaces near and far. 

• A $750,000 grant from the U.S. Department of the Interior, will breath new life into a circa 1930 campground in Gwynns Falls Park. The campground—an old Girl Scout facility—will see renovations to its existing pavilion and stone amphitheater and the addition of water and electrical service, lighting, kitchen and storage areas, composting toilets and showers, and extra camping pads. Gwynns Falls Park is also getting a new visitor center and a renovated Cahill Recreation Center, which is adjacent to the campground. Both of those projects are funded by the state.   
• As of June, the drained fountain and cold concrete blocks of the old McKeldin Square are gone, replaced by an expanded lawn and young trees. The $4 million overhaul of the plaza at the corner of Pratt and Light streets is just phase I. Phase II will add a water feature, as well as signs and a memorial honoring Theodore R. McKeldin, the former Baltimore mayor and Maryland governor, for whom the park is named.    
• Earlier this month, the state Board of Public Works approved the Maryland Department of Natural Resources’ acquisition of land for a new state park. The newly secured 2,009 acres in Garrett County are spread over three parcels near the town of Kitzmiller, and two of the parcels border Potomac State Forest. The tracts include a riparian forest, three brook trout streams, approximately 1,700 acres of mixed forest, and critical wetlands and bird habitat. The property will be open for biking, camping, fishing, hiking, and hunting. 

Animal Collective

The past few months have brought a raft of odd animal news. Here’s a rundown of our favorite stories about local creatures, great and small. 

• A female blue crab with two oysters growing on her shell near her eyes was pulled from the Chesapeake Bay in June. 
• Last week, the Maryland Department of Natural Resources announced the discovery of New Zealand mudsnails in the Gunpowder River, the first confirmed finding of the tiny invasive mollusks in Maryland waters. Maryland DNR is asking that people using the river take care not to spread the snails to other waterways by decontaminating clothing and equipment used in the river. A list of helpful tips can be found here.  
• In late June, the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science asked Chesapeake Bay users to report dolphin sightings via the center’s Dolphin Watch website. Each sighting will be logged on an interactive map allowing researchers to learn more about the aquatic mammal’s numbers and habits. Dolphin season in the Chesapeake Bay continues through October before cooler water temps send them south.
• By far the cutest story you’ll read all day: Earlier this month, the Baltimore City Public Schools’ board of commissioners approved new guidelines for service animals in its buildings. In addition to dogs, the new rules also allow for miniature horses, provided they are housebroken and under their handler’s control. 
• Towson University took a cue from savvy farmers everywhere this month when it employed a herd of goats to munch unwanted vegetation in its 12-acre campus arboretum. This is the fourth consecutive year the university has hired the goats from Harmony Church Farm in Harford County to tackle its overgrowth.    
• On Wednesday, 7-Eleven gifted the Baltimore Police Department’s mounted police unit with a 4-year-old draft horse named Slurpee. The black Percheron replaces the original Slurpee—also a gift from 7-Eleven—who retired to a farm in Pennsylvania earlier this year at age 17. (No, really, he is at a farm.) We look forward to hearing the clip-clop of Slurpee No. 2’s hooves on Baltimore’s streets for years to come.  

Fall Foliage

As October approaches, so too does leaf-peeping season across the region. The Maryland Department of Natural Resources releases weekly fall foliage status reports that can help you locate peak color across the state. This week, change is just beginning in the mountains of western Maryland, which the DNR says are still 75 percent green. If you’re heading out that way to leaf-peep, we recommend you check out our guide to 10 great nearby mountain getaways for tips on where to stay, eat, and play. Happy peeping! 

Inside Mt. Vernon Marketplace, Tj Tate walks up to the counter at The Local Oyster and peruses the menu. 

“Where are your shrimp from?” she asks in an accent still colored by her Kentucky roots. “Gulf of Mexico,” the woman behind the counter replies. “That’s what I thought,” Tate says, “and I bet I know the fisherman who caught them.”

If Tj Tate had her way, we’d all be asking where our seafood comes from—and we might even know the name of the fisherman who caught it, as well. Tate is the National Aquarium’s first director of seafood sustainability. She was hired more than two years ago to get the word out that, yes, seafood tastes great and is good for you, but more importantly, if we keep harvesting fish as we have been doing, there won’t be enough left for our grandkids to enjoy.

“When you think about the number of people who are going to be on this planet and what they’re going to eat in 20 years, some people are going to be lucky enough to still be eating shrimp from the Gulf of Mexico,” she says. “We’ve got to start working toward a system of sustainability.”

Highlighting sustainability—in this case seafood that is either caught or farmed in ways that consider the long-term vitality of species and the health of the ocean—is a decidedly different tact for the National Aquarium, an organization better known for educating visitors about marine life than advising them on which fish they should be eating. Until Tate started her job in March 2015, the institution had no programs to instruct its 1.4 million annual visitors on what to do about it. Dubbed Seafood Smart, the aquarium’s new program hopes to create a sustainable seafood movement on the Chesapeake Bay and beyond.

“There was a need for someone to reach the consumer, to fill the gap, to work with industry and watermen. The National Aquarium had the position to be that unbiased voice for a really big region,” Tate explains.

 Aquaculture, the honchos at the aquarium believe, is the best way to preserve our wild fisheries. “Aquaculture is a way to ensure our oceans are healthy and our people have sustainable protein,” says Kris Hoellen, the aquarium’s chief conservation officer and Tate’s boss. “That’s a different place for the aquarium—it’s about making conservation relevant.” 

If Tj Tate had her way, we’d all ask where our seafood comes from.

What that means for Tate is working to shift the entire regional seafood supply chain, from the watermen who catch or grow it to the seafood distributors who sell it to the chefs who cook it, and, ultimately, to the consumers who demand it. But, if there’s one thing Tate has already learned, bringing new ideas to a region steeped in tradition is easier said than done.

Back at The Local Oyster, Tate squeezes lemon juice on a half-dozen Skinny Dipper oysters, grown in St. Mary’s County. She adds a dollop of cocktail sauce to each one and slurps them out of the shell like it’s second nature. With her long strawberry blond hair and a quick smile, Tate has the easygoing manner of someone who’s spent the last 20 years on boats.

At 48 years old, she’s a salt-sprayed ball of energy, talking about her 6-year-old daughter one minute (“The only fish she’ll eat is halibut. Halibut!”) and firing off statistics the next: “There are more than thousands of types of seafood that we could be eating, but most people typically only eat five to 10 of some species—that’s just silly.” She seems as if she could get along with anybody, which, in this job, might be her most important asset.

“To be able to communicate what’s important about sustainable fisheries to watermen and the folks in the seafood industry is super important, but it’s a different conversation than one you have with a chef or someone wandering into the aquarium,” says Patrick Hudson, co-owner of The Local Oyster and the farmer who grew the bivalves Tate is eating. “She’s got to wear different hats and make some progress on sustainable seafood in the Chesapeake Bay, which is sometimes much more of a battle than people realize, particularly in Maryland where you have a really conservative group who have been in the industry for generations.”

Tate didn’t grow up around the water. She was raised in a small town in western Kentucky, miles from the sea. The first time she went fishing with her father, she caught a tire. As a teenager, she thought about becoming a marine biologist, but instead majored in communications and worked at a radio station in her hometown. (“Yes, I was known as Tj the deejay,” she quips.)

But something about the ocean, where she vacationed every year as a kid, kept calling. She decided to go back to school for another bachelor’s degree in biology and then a master’s. She settled in Florida and worked for an environmental consulting group before taking over as executive director of the Gulf of Mexico Reef Fish Shareholders Alliance, an organization that works to protect sustainable fisheries and the fishing industry in the Gulf. There, she made a name for herself as a savvy advocate, one who helped defeat a Florida congressman who wanted to reallocate fishing rights held by commercial fishermen to recreational anglers. She also helped start Gulf Wild, a national initiative that let consumers trace a tag on a fish to learn exactly where it was caught, who caught it, and by what method.

“Organizing fishermen is harder than herding cats,” says Buddy Guindon, a fisherman out of Galveston, Texas, and president of the alliance board, which hired Tate. “She was able to coordinate the fishermen, implement sustainable fishing practices, and create change in the Gulf.” 

But like anyone who stirs up the pot, she made a few enemies along the way. Disgruntled fishermen accused her of “stealing quota,” which refers to the amount of a particular fish watermen are allowed to catch in the Gulf. Someone tried to spread a rumor that one of her board members had fathered her child. Through it all, Tate remained resolute. 

“Fishermen are either the biggest part of the solution or the biggest part of the problem,” notes Tate. The problem in the Chesapeake Bay is a general distrust by watermen over rules and regulations restricting the catch. And sustainability remains a dirty word among some watermen.  

Robert T. Brown, head of the Maryland Watermen’s Association, says that regulators base catch limits on “guesstimates” of fish and crabs, rather than hard science. It’s the watermen, who have plied the bay for generations, he says, who know best about the fishery—and how to sustain it. “The scientists are doing the best they can with what they’ve got, but the problem is, it’s still a guesstimate. We do have a sustainable fishery. If we didn’t, we’d be out of business.”

For her part, Tate says her position at the aquarium doesn’t involve being an advocate or taking sides so much as being a facilitator or an educator. “Now I don’t feel like I’m pushing an agenda,” she says. “I feel like I’m protecting a whole area. We want to help people make better decisions. To me that’s the coolest thing. Nobody wants to throw stones at an aquarium.”

When Tate arrived in Baltimore, it didn’t take her long to assess the state of affairs in the bay. “You’ve got amazing seafood and an amazing cultural heritage, but you’ve got a lot of consumers who aren’t eating the seafood,” she says. “They think crabs and that’s it. You’ve got a watermen community that’s fractured—they want to be doing the best for the bay because they want to have a future—but they are still trying to figure out what that means.”

When it comes to sustainability practices, Tate estimates the Chesapeake is about 20 years behind the Gulf, which in turn, is about 20 years behind methods employed on the West Coast. “I expected more people to be on the seafood-sustainability bandwagon a bit, but they’re just not thinking about it,” she says. “Even though there’s all this great seafood, there’s a disconnect. [In Baltimore], you don’t have a lot of fish houses lined up where people see the commercial boats like in Maine or the Pacific Northwest. You see shrimp boats in the Gulf all the time, so you think seafood. One reason why farm to table is doing so well is you see farmers at farmers’ markets, you see the farms. You don’t see fishermen.”

Tate is working
to shift the entire regional seafood supply chain.

In her first few months on the job, Tate met with key players to see how they could work together. And along the way, she’s helped watermen like Billy Rice, who fishes blue catfish on the Potomac River, get a better price for his haul. Blue catfish is an invasive species, so, as Rice says, “It’s actually something [the Department of Natural Resources] wants us to get out of the water.” Tate arranged for chefs and wholesalers to go out on Rice’s boat to witness his work, establishing the kind of relationship that farmers have with buyers of their produce. “She’s been a huge help,” says Rice. “The Chesapeake needs someone like Tj. She can take the message to watermen that you can’t do business like you did 30 years ago.”

Getting chefs, supermarkets, and consumers to demand the bay’s less popular seafood will help create new markets for watermen, while taking pressure off the celebrated species like rockfish. “We put a lot of stress on serving the sexy fish populations, but we fish them to death,” says John Shields, who loves putting what he calls the “trash” fish of the Chesapeake—yellow perch, hardhead catfish, white perch—on his menu at Gertrude’s periodically. He believes other chefs shouldn’t be afraid to follow his lead, particularly when it comes to serving blue catfish. “There’s a percentage of chefs who are already on board, but many chefs, they’re already stretched to the limit. They’re happy if they can get the salmon in, much less worry about where it comes from. But as they learn more about the issues involved, they’ll get on board.”

With recent news reports about slave labor used in Asian fisheries and health and safety concerns about aquaculture overseas, overcoming the stigma of farmed fish is another challenge facing Tate. Up to 90 percent of our seafood is imported, she says, yet the United States has some of the world’s largest wild fisheries and some of the best-managed fish farms. But Americans like their cheap imported fish. Sustainably caught or grown fish will cost more, explains Hudson, who says he has to charge more for his Skinny Dipper oysters than watermen harvesting the wild varieties. Tate will have to convince chefs and consumers the expense is worth it, and convince watermen that the added investments will pay off.

For chefs like Spike Gjerde of Woodberry Kitchen, paying more—and charging more—is a no-brainer. “We have some of the best fish and shellfish in the world and it should command a premium,” he says. “Anything that’s higher quality that requires more work to get, that value should go back to the watermen.”

For now, oysters are the primary crop for aquaculturists around the bay, but Tate says there’s no reason rockfish or other species couldn’t be farmed. Hudson, who at age 31 represents a new breed of forward-thinking farmers, is experimenting with seaweed and soft-shell clams, while he and his father are helping to raise tilapia in an aquaponics facility in Bel Air.  “It’s an ‘and’ not an ‘or,’” says Hoellen. “It’s aquaculture and wild-caught because if the wild-caught can’t be consistently supplied in our restaurants and retail outlets, then it doesn’t stay on the menu. You need both to keep both industries moving.”

Now all Tate has to do is convince people to ask for sustainable seafood. “Nobody is going to do it unless you have someone lighting that spark,” says Shields. “If there ever was a cheerleader for this region, it’s Tj. She was a very good catch.”

Concrete Kids

May 13, 2017
West 36th Street

“Could I ask the elected officials here to raise their hands?” City Councilman Ryan Dorsey says, raising his own hand and glancing toward several fellow councilmen, a pair of state delegates, and Mayor Catherine Pugh, all in attendance this afternoon for the phase II grand opening of Hampden’s Roosevelt Park skate park. “Now, will everyone who has skated in this concrete bowl keep their hand up?”

The only hand still raised, of course, is that of youthful, 35-year-old Dorsey, who was elected to his first term last year. 

Dorsey notes how long it took for the facility to get built—a dozen years—adding with a smile that he decided “it would be easier to run for office” than do the type of behind-the-scenes advocacy, organizing, and fundraising required to bring the 16,000-square-foot, world-class project to completion.

That said, the driving force behind the project works for one of Dorsey’s colleagues. Longtime skater Stephanie Murdock, also 35, serves as legislative director for Councilwoman Mary Pat Clarke. “It started when I placed an ad with my personal cellphone number in the back of the City Paper—next to all those ‘interesting’ ads—to gauge support and recruit volunteers,” Murdock recalls. “People began calling me who wanted a skate park.” She founded the nonprofit, 501(c)3 Skatepark of Baltimore in 2007. 

In the past, says Northeast Baltimore native Spencer Brown, 28, skaters often jumped on the light rail, getting off near the University of Baltimore, Inner Harbor, or Meyerhoff Symphony Hall, looking for “a good place to grind” on ramps, stairs, ledges, boxes, and pipes.

“This brings in people from Maryland, D.C., Virginia, and Pennsylvania, and there are going to be professional teams coming in the next few weeks for competitions,” says Brown, who is sponsored by Hampden’s Vú Skate Shop and several other skateboard-oriented businesses. “The big thing is that the perception of skating, because of this project, has changed in recent years. 

“There’s acceptance now.”

Table Scraps

May 15, 2017
Inner Harbor

Since 2014, Mr. Trash Wheel, the Inner Harbor’s water-and-solar-powered, garbage-devouring device, has pulled 1.1 million pounds of debris from the harbor—including nearly a half-million polystyrene containers, more than 650,000 snack and grocery bags, nearly 400,000 plastic bottles, and more than 9 million cigarette butts.

“He also gets a lot of baseballs and soccer balls, and random stuff, including beer koozies, a beer keg, a motorcycle helmet, pink flamingos—once a lost, 5-foot python,” says Cy Kellett, who helped build the prototype with his uncle John Kellett, Mr. Trash Wheel’s inventor.

Situated near where the Jones Falls flows into the Inner Harbor, the beloved Mr. Trash Wheel—a viral video showing him in action garnered nearly 1.5 million views, and he’s been profiled by the likes of CNN, NBC News, and National Geographic—is celebrating his birthday today. Along with staff from the Waterfront Partnership’s Healthy Harbor Initiative and a dozen or so local fans, the party this afternoon includes students from Commodore John Rodgers Elementary School, who have brought a “cake” (a used tire filled with plastic bottles and junk) to feed to Mr. Trash Wheel.

After the desserts are served, including actual cupcakes for the kids, Adam Lundquist, director of the Healthy Harbor Initiative, and Jonathan Jensen, on guitar and ukulele, respectively, lead the students and crowd in song. First there’s a rendition of “Happy Birthday” and then an homage to Mr. Trash Wheel, penned by Jensen, whose full-time job is as a bassist with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra.

Scooping up the yutz and the cigarette butts
Up to 25 tons a day
Mr. Trash Wheel, Mr. Trash Wheel, Mr. Trash Wheel
He’s the hero of the harbor

 “The world premiere of ‘Hero of the Harbor’ was last month at Peabody Heights Brewery,” Jensen grins. “For their launch of Mr. Trash Wheel’s Lost Python Ale.”

Statue of Liberty

May 16, 2017
North Charles Street

On May 17, 1917, nearly a century after the Marquis de Lafayette’s last visit to Baltimore, city leaders and a French delegation broke ground for a statue of the American Revolutionary War hero in Mount Vernon Square. The effort to memorialize the wildly popular Lafayette in Baltimore—a downtown city street had already been named in his honor—was meant to symbolize the important bond between the two countries as the U.S. entered World War I. 

“Fifty-thousand residents of Baltimore turned out for the groundbreaking,” Robert Dalessandro, chairman of the U.S. World War I Centennial Commission, reminds a smaller but still enthusiastic crowd gathered in Mount Vernon Square to mark the 100th anniversary of the groundbreaking. Behind Dalessandro and the statue—and in front of Baltimore’s towering monument to George Washington—two 30-foot American and French flags blow in the wind. 

Lafayette’s first visit to Baltimore came in 1781, when the dashing officer and his soldiers camped near here before heading further south. His second visit came in 1784 and his third in 1824, according to the Baltimore Sun, when the 67-year-old was greeted by celebratory cannon fire at Fort McHenry and a parade of ships. 

It’s hard to overstate the courageous, freedom-fighting Lafayette’s hold on the American imagination, which continued long after his death. Dalessandro notes that when American troops first arrived in France in 1917, Col. C.E. Stanton, an aide to Gen. John J. Pershing, was said to have uttered: “Lafayette, we are here!”

After the ceremony, Michel Charbonnier, consul general of France at the French Embassy in Washington, is asked by an attendee about the French reaction to the election of President Donald Trump amid the administration’s early controversies. 

“The French people have been interested in American politics for more than two centuries,” Charbonnier says with a diplomatic smile, alluding to Lafayette’s mission. “Not that we have always understood it.”

When the first Earth Day was held on April 22, 1970, America’s natural landscape seemed under siege. There was not yet an EPA, and key environmental regulations like the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act were in their infancies. The previous year, in Ohio, an oil spill—and decades of unchecked pollution—caused the Cuyahoga River to catch fire, and not even for the first time. Here in Maryland, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation was just two years old. We’ve come a long way since then—or maybe we haven’t—but one thing is for sure, it’s always a good idea to spend some time in nature. So whether that means a hike in the woods, attending a street festival, or rolling up your sleeves for a stream cleanup, we’ve got an local Earth Day event to help you connect with Mother Earth. 

Cleanup Events 

Patterson Park hosts a park cleanup beginning at 9 a.m. Participants should meet at the white house prepared to mulch trees, pick up trash and leaves, garden, and edge walkways.

Oregon Ridge Nature Center marks Earth Day with a “Love Your Mother Earth” celebration with trail cleanup and a tree-hugging contest complete with prizes. Event is free and runs Saturday and Sunday from 1-3 p.m. 

Carrie Murray Nature Center in Leakin Park will host an all-ages “Clean up the Gwynns Falls Trail” event on Saturday from 12-2 p.m. 

Civic Works, a local job-training and sustainability nonprofit, invites volunteers to its campus in Clifton Park for several Earth Day activities from 10 a.m.-1 p.m. Volunteers can help mulch pathways, plant new trees, remove invasive plants, build a pollinator garden, or assemble decorative mosaic stepping stones.    

Druid Hill Park will host its monthly 4th Saturday workday from 10 a.m.-12 p.m. Come prepared to clear debris/leaves/trash off the paths and mulch a garden (in preparation for next weekend’s Charm City Bluegrass Festival). 

Pigtown will host its 5th annual Bloom the Boulevard on Saturday from 9 a.m.-2 p.m. Attendees are invited to help collect litter, plant flowers and trees, and spread mulch along the 700-1300 blocks of Washington Boulevard. Participation will earn you a $10 credit toward your city stormwater fee, and there will be an after party at Cheat Day Bar & Grill.

Blue Water Baltimore, Baltimore City’s watershed watchdog group, will host several events, including a cleanup at Herring Run Park on Saturday, from 10 a.m.-12 p.m. and a make-your-own rain barrel workshop at Herring Run Nursery from 11 a.m.-12:30 p.m.  

Many of these cleanup events are part of Project Clean Stream, a bay-wide effort to collect 100,000 pounds of trash from local waterways by June 9. Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay has an interactive map that lists all area cleanup sites and events. 

And next weekend, on April 29 from 9 a.m.-1 p.m., is the Mayor’s annual Spring Cleanup. Participating residents can earn credits toward their stormwater fee. Communities and individuals are encouraged to register by calling 311.   

Plant Sales

Concurrent with Pigtown’s Bloom the Boulevard, the neighborhood will host its annual Flower Sale offering annuals and perennials for gardens or planters. Everything is under $7. 

Herring Run Nursery is Blue Water Baltimore’s native plant nursery, and a great local resource for eco-conscious gardeners. In honor of Earth Day, the nursery will be giving away native species of trees to its customers on Saturday morning (while supplies last). There will also be 250 native species of trees, shrubs, vines, flowers, and plants for sale. Hours are 10 a.m.-3 p.m. 

Festivals

University of Maryland Baltimore is throwing its 2nd annual Neighborhood Spring Festival, Saturday, April 22, 2017, on the 800 Block of W. Baltimore Street, from 11a.m.-2 p.m. Festivities will include live music and dance performances, taekwondo and outdoor zumba, local food and craft vendors, and Earth Day activities, as well as free health and dental screenings, HIV and Hepatitis C testing, mental health resources, and legal advice. 

Hikes 

Scenic Rivers Land Trust and the Anne Arundel County Department of Recreation and Parks are partnering for the 12th Annual Walk for the Woods on Saturday. From 7 a.m. to 3 p.m., the public is invited to the Bacon Ridge Natural Area in Crownsville for feature guided hikes, educational programming, and a chance to explore the county owned property that is not always open to the public. The event is free and dogs are welcome after 10 a.m. Rain date is Sunday, April 23. 

Kids

After the grownups finish tidying up Patterson Park, kids can convene at the playground at 10 a.m. for fun and games. 

Francis Scott Key Elementary/Middle School in Locust Point will host a free Earth Day Mommy and Me class on Saturday from 10:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. The event is geared toward children ages 2-5 who are not already enrolled in the school. There will be a craft, snack, and playground activities. 

Lost Python Ale is a slow sipper, clocking it at just 4.5 percent ABV, with a blend of hops that gives off lemon-lime and stone fruit flavors. The beer was brewed earlier this week and will debut at an Earth Day event at Peabody Heights on April 22.

“After a hard day of cleaning up a stream or gardening oysters, this is just the kind of beer I want to drink while kicking back with my volunteers,” Lindquist says. “And then recycling the cans, of course.”

In fact, the decision to put the beers in environmental-friendly cans was intentional, O’Keefe explains. He elaborates by saying that, aside from being a contract brewery for start-ups, Peabody Heights has made it its mission to give back to the community, raising nearly $100,000 for nonprofits last year alone.

“Most of our proceeds for this upcoming event will go to the Healthy Harbor,” O’Keefe says. “Long before the Trash Wheel came along, they’ve been working to improve the the waterfront. We are really proud of this town and the harbor is an incredibly important part of that.”

As for Mr. Trash Wheel himself, who now has more than 10,000 followers on Twitter, he couldn’t be more excited to have a beer named after his “one and only pet.” Lindquist said he wouldn’t rule out creating something similar for his counterpart, Professor Trash Wheel, down the line and that people’s interest in the water wheels has been really inspiring.

“Many things came together to make Mr. Trash Wheel a success,” Lindquist says. “It’s not a computer rendering that people will have to wait 10 years to see. Day one it stopped trash from floating in the harbor. And people can see that. Plus, humor is compelling. That is what has engaged so many people to care about activism.”

O’Keefe echoes the environmental sentiment and adds: “Anything with googly eyes works for me.”

Will Baker was literally standing in a tree when he was asked to join the Chesapeake Bay Foundation some 40 years ago. As a tree surgeon, he was working on the property of a CBF trustee (and now mentor) who looked up at him and said, “Will, would you like to save the bay?”

Baker, who went on to become CBF president at age 27, has watched the now 50-year-old nonprofit, which focuses on education, advocacy, litigation, and restoration for the Chesapeake, blossom from a 22-person team in an old church annex in Annapolis to a 200-person staff with more than 200,000 memberships across the mid-Atlantic.

“Since we started, the Chesapeake Bay has really emerged as a national treasure,” says Baker. “I often say the bay sells itself, both in terms of reasons for concern and worry, and for love and determination to make it better.”

CBF, known for its blue-and-white bumper stickers and biennial State of the Bay reports (last year: a slightly encouraging C-), has become the largest organization dedicated to saving the bay. Through the decades, it has helped protect tidal wetlands, create critical areas for shoreline development, and drastically reduce pollution throughout the watershed, including here at home with Blue Water Baltimore and the Waterfront Partnership.

“We’re lobbyists in the broadest sense,” says Baker. “You have to be determined and keep fighting.”

And while there have been some positive changes, including improved water clarity and regrowth of underwater grasses, Baker says more work needs to be done. “We’re starting to see major, systemic improvements, but it’s nowhere near enough.” He hopes Gov. Hogan will place more emphasis on pollution reduction, fisheries and habitat restoration, and oyster sanctuary protection in the months ahead.

“I love this job because it’s big enough but small enough to think you can really make a difference in a lifetime,” he says. “I am so glad I looked down from that tree and said yes.”

Field Notes is a monthly roundup of environmental news from around the area. If you have a story you’d like considered for a future Field Notes, email mamy@baltimoremagazine.net. Put “Field Notes Suggestion” in the subject line.

Bay Watch

When is a C- a cause for celebration? When we’re talking about the Chesapeake Bay’s health grade. Late last week, the nonprofit Chesapeake Bay Foundation released its report on the bay’s overall health in 2016, granting the estuary its highest grade since the foundation began issuing reports in 1998.

The report divides data into three main categories—pollution, habitat, and fisheries—then grades various indicators within each category to calculate an overall score out of a possible 100 points. This year’s overall score was a 34, which equates, in this specially weighted grading system, to a C-.

Except for a slight decrease in the amount of forested buffers, the bay showed improvement or remained steady across all sectors. Especially notable is the 10-point jump in the health of the blue crab population and the continued hardiness of the rockfish population, which garnered an A-, the scorecard’s highest individual grade.

But while things have improved, there is still a long way to go to reach that 100-point A+ (which would be like restoring the bay to how it was in the 1600s). Particularly troubling are the pollution scores, with nitrogen and phosphorus levels still earning F and D grades, respectively. (Excess nitrogen and phosphorus contribute to algae blooms that block sunlight and create dead zones in the bay. Certain algal blooms can be toxic to humans and pets, as well.)

The largest sources of nitrogen and phosphorus are agriculture runoff (particularly chicken manure and fertilizers), car and power plant emissions, sewage plant discharges, and suburban and urban stormwater runoff. Attempts to curtail the nitrogen and phosphorus runoff have resulted in controversial measures such as the Bay Restoration Fee (the so-called “flush tax”) and the much-maligned Stormwater Utility Fee (aka the “rain tax”).

But along with a suite of other actions that have been folded into a federally coordinated multi-state initiative called the Chesapeake Clean Water Blueprint, there is a view that the oft-maligned fees are having a positive effect.

“We believe the Bay is reaching a tipping point,” the report’s introduction states. “As this report shows, the evidence is there. We are seeing the clearest water in decades, regrowth of acres of lush underwater grass beds, and the comeback of the Chesapeake’s native oysters, which were nearly eradicated by disease, pollution, and overfishing. . . . The bottom line is our report provides hope and promise for the future.”

Full report here.

So, That Was Christmas

And what have you done? Left your tree in the corner, dropping needles by the ton.

Don’t worry, Baltimore City Department of Public Works will be collecting Christmas trees with your regularly scheduled trash pickup throughout the rest of January (excluding Monday, January 16, because of Martin Luther King holiday). All tinsel and ornaments must be removed before pickup. Or, if you want to divert your tree from the landfill and turn it into free mulch for future garden projects, bring it to the the Southwest Citizens’ Convenience Center at 701 Reedbird Ave. in South Baltimore, Monday through Saturday (excluding the MLK holiday), from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Residents should bring their own containers for the mulch. DPW also would like to remind everyone that wrapping paper and many packaging materials are eligible for standard curbside recycling. An extensive list of recycleable items can be found here.

Baltimore County is also collecting old Christmas trees, beginning this week. Detailed instructions can be found here.

Anne Arundel County regulations can be found here.

Howard County runs a free mulch program similar to Baltimore City’s, as well as curbside pickup and recycling drop-off. Details are here.

Legislative Briefing

Last week, Gov. Larry Hogan announced his environmental priorities for the 2017 session of the Maryland General Assembly, which starts Wednesday at noon and lasts for 90 days.

Hogan wants to spend $65 million over three years on a variety of programs that focus on “targeted investments and market-based solutions to protect and preserve Maryland’s environment and natural resources.”

Forty-one million of the $65 million he has earmarked comes from a 2012 settlement with Exelon Corp. and must be invested in Tier 1 renewable energy projects. (Tier 1 renewables include solar, wind, and certain biomass and waste-to-energy methods.)

The rest of the $65 million would be distributed among four initiatives: increased tax credits and rebates for electric cars and charging stations, a $3 million investment in the state’s green jobs-training program, $7.5 million for a new clean-energy startup incubator at the University of Maryland, and up to $10 million in funding for a pollution credit-trading program.

But as The Sun pointed out in a recent editorial, those pet projects might not get much traction in the Democratic-controlled legislature. Instead, the General Assembly might focus on its own green agenda, which includes possibly overriding Gov. Hogan’s veto of a measure that would have boosted the state’s required quota of Tier 1 renewable energy from 20 percent to 25 percent by 2020. The legislature and the governor are also due for a reckoning about hydraulic fracturing, aka fracking. The controversial practice, in which a solution of water and chemicals is blasted into bedrock to release deposits of natural gas, is under a moratorium in the state while officials investigated its potential environmental impact. (It has been implicated in water and air pollution, as well as drilling-induced earthquakes.) But the ban expires this year and Hogan and the legislature will need to decide whether or not to allow it and, if so, how strictly it should be regulated.

Energy Star

Kudos to Columbia’s Wilde Lake Middle School. When the newly constructed school opened last week, it did so as the state’s first “net-zero energy” school. This means that, over the course of a year, the $33 million building will generate as much energy as it uses. The energy efficiency is achieved through both low-tech and high-tech means. There’s the school’s 2,000 solar panels, geothermal heating system, and lights that automatically dim when conditions are sunny.

But, as Scott Washington, the Director of School Construction for the Howard County Public School System, said in a video update on the project this fall, “Number one is the building orientation and envelope. That means how the building is situated on the site, as well as the envelope that the building is made out of—the roof structure, the wall structure, how insulated they are.”

The school also boasts an “energy kiosk” in the main hallway, which allows students to see, in real time, how much energy the building is using and generating. The school replaces the 48-year-old Wilde Lake school, which will be razed to make room for new playing fields and a bus loop.

Great Vertical

Time to add another entry into the city’s ever-growing register of urban farms.

Last month, a trio of organizations led by a Canadian agriculture technology companysigned a letter of intent to start a vertical farming operation in East Baltimore. The triumvirate is led by a Canadian agriculture technology company Arcturus Growthstar Technologies Inc., which procured financial backing from the Columbia-based venture capital firm CBO Financial to lease 25,000 square feet of indoor space from the local nonprofit Volunteers of America Chesapeake. The farm will grow greens like lettuce, basil, oregano, and cilantro in a climate-controlled environment and will offer agriculture job training to ex-offenders participating in Volunteers of America Chesapeake’s workforce re-entry program.

The $6 million project joins other agriculture and food system-related ventures popping up throughout East Baltimore. In the parking lot of the American Brewery building, another vertical farm, Urban Pastoral, grows greens in a LED-light-laden shipping container. Down the road, Walker Marsh raises cut flowers for market at Tha Flower Factory, a half-acre parcel where vacant rowhomes once stood. And in late September, the long-awaited Baltimore Food Hub broke ground at its 3.5-acre site at the corner of East Oliver and North Wolfe streets. The $23.5 million project, spearheaded by American Communities Trust and local workforce nonprofit Humanin, will eventually host job-training facilities, communal incubator space, and an excess of land to be dedicated to urban farming.

William Donald Schaefer stood at the edge of the National Aquarium’s 70,000-gallon seal pool and looked out at the reporters and spectators surrounding the tank. It was July 1981, and the Aquarium was a month behind schedule. The project was a $21.5-million risk, but it was a risk Schaefer knew he needed to take to help revive his city, struggling beneath the weight of empty row houses, unemployment, and high crime. As part of his Inner Harbor project, he believed the Aquarium would help restore Baltimore’s image and faltering economy, and he was willing to swim with the seals to prove it.

Wearing a striped Victorian-era swimsuit and straw hat, Schaefer took a 15-minute splash with a gray seal named Ike and a young model dressed as a mermaid. Onlookers laughed and cheered and, less than a month later, the Aquarium opened its doors on August 8, 1981, beginning the next phase of Baltimore’s urban revitalization.

As the National Aquarium celebrates its 35th anniversary this week, it’s standing on the edge again. As the interests and opinions of its visitors continue to shift away from aging point-and-look exhibits and traditional captivity methods, the Aquarium must follow the example of its original champion and commit to evolving as the city does.

When the 81-year-old National Aquarium closed in Washington D.C. in 2013, the Baltimore location snapped into action. It consolidated its animal collections and employees, redefined the future of the Aquarium, and mapped out the necessary steps to ensure it remained relevant to a changing audience.

“As the reality of the health of the world’s oceans came into sharper focus in recent decades, the Aquarium recognized and embraced the role it could play in motivating people to act on behalf of our planet’s well-being,” says Dale Schmidt, the Aquariums’ executive vice president and COO. “We have focused our efforts on conservation, which has led to the development of a comprehensive plan, and, so far, the reaction by our visitors and partners have been very supportive.”

With the help of a design firm and intelligence company, the Aquarium devised a plan to help it evolve from a tourist attraction with preservation projects into a full-fledged conservation program. Three major projects have been given first priority: creating a waterfront campus, building an off-site animal care and rescue center, and constructing North America’s first seaside dolphin sanctuary.

No one is more eager for change than the eight Atlantic bottlenose dolphins swimming circles in the Marine Mammal Pavilion. For more than 20 years, they had jumped, spun, and whistled for audiences up to seven times a day, before the death of two baby dolphins in 2011 and visitors’ increased discomfort with animal captivity spurred the cancellation of the dolphin shows.

Overnight, the 1,300-seat pavilion transformed from a theater into an educational exhibit, where guests can visit and interact with the dolphins. In June of this year, the Aquarium announced that it plans to build an outdoor, seawater facility for the dolphins by the end of 2020. But until a site location is chosen, purchased, constructed, and the animals are relocated and retrained to live in an ocean-like environment, they will continue to wait in their 1.2 million gallon tank overlooking the Inner Harbor.

Walking through the Aquarium, evidence of the evolution is apparent in every corner. In 2012, the Wings in the Water exhibit, which was housed in the center of the original building for 32 years, was given a $12.5-million renovation and transformed into a replica of an Indo-Pacific coral reef, full of sting rays, sharks, and other larger fish. More recently, the third floor was gutted to create the Living Seashore exhibit, where visitors can experience the sights and sounds of the Mid-Atlantic shoreline.

Kate Rowe, director of media relations for the National Aquarium, says the Aquarium strives to give visitors an experience they can take home.

“You can read things, like some of our exhibits have placards with the animal’s Latin name, and a bit of information, but not everyone understands or takes anything away from that,” Rowe says. “Seeing, smelling, and touch makes it a whole other level of learning.”

Over the past five years, the Aquarium recognized a shift away from ogling at animals behind Plexiglas to engaging in the animals’ daily routines. To accommodate, they added activities like feedings and cleanings to the exhibits, which offer guests opportunities to observe every aspect of the animals’ day-to-day life.

In July, the Aquarium held more than 40 scheduled animal-to-visitor connections each day, which didn’t include daily feedings or other spontaneous interactions. According to Rowe, bringing the behind-the-scenes work to the floor has allowed Aquarium staff members to share their work directly with guests.

“The original thought was that it needed to be beautiful for when people visit,” she says. “But now, it’s so much more of an experience to see how we do it, when we do it, why we do it.”

“I like representing Baltimore in a way,” says Susan Magri, charter volunteer and exhibit guide for the last 35 years. “If I can give a visitor a good experience, hopefully they will tell other people that they had a positive time here in Baltimore.”

The Aquarium drew 1.34 million people in 2012, marking the first increase in visitor attendance since 2006. Six months after the opening of the award-winning Blacktip Reef exhibit, the Aquarium reported a 2.4 percent increase due to the amount of people lined up to see honeycomb stingrays and a rescued three-finned sea turtle named Calypso. In June of this year, The Aquarium announced that it’s on track to increase 7 percent above projections of about 1.3 million visitors.

The Aquarium still has work to do, as the interior layout begs for a change, and the additions of the Marine Mammal Pavilion and Australia: Wild Extremes exhibit have created enough of a traffic flow problem that a committee of volunteers is strategically stationed to help visitors navigate through the building. Jeanne Gang, the architect leading the redesign of the National Aquarium, has recommended relocating the entrance and realigning the escalators to help visitors move through the facility more easily, but restructuring the interior of the Aquarium is not on the immediate to-do list.

Even with a list of changes to be made, one glimpse at the mockup plans for the Inner Harbor 2.0 or the Blacktip Reef exhibit shows how far the Aquarium has come and where it wants to go. It also continues to modernize outside of its walls, through a growing social media presence with daily Instagram posts, Facebook comment contests, and regular video uploads to YouTube.

“The evolution of our offerings and the evolution of our guests have given us the opportunity to see that people want to learn,” Rowe says, “and they want so much more than to just see a tank of beautiful fish.”

Toxin-free insulation, recycled countertops, energy-saving windows, and solar panels—they’re all part of the green building movement that first hit its stride 20 years ago among commercial builders (who were thinking energy savings and green tax credits, of course).

But, at long last, residential builders are seeing a real boom in demand for green homes, and not just among aging hippies—looks like that feeling-sorry-for-the-planet thing is going mainstream.

For homeowners hankering to do an earth-friendly and energy-saving project—large or small, new construction or retrofit—we went in search of builders, architects, and local suppliers whose business is environmentally smart solutions. Here are nine experts to consider.

Greenbuilders

16626 Cedar Grove Road, Sparks, 410-472-7072

Polly Bart had “a mountaintop moment” in 2002. After a varied career as a policy analyst for the Carter administration, a commercial real-estate agent, and a rehabber, she moved from downtown to a farm in the country, only to find that some species of trees were in distress, frogs were disappearing from her pond, and invasive plants were taking over the grounds.

“I wanted my professional life to fight that,” she says.

Now a remodeler and a builder, Bart is something of a green guru, as owner of the 13-year-old Greenbuilders.

Her work runs the gamut from kitchen remodels to whole-house renovations—and in her free time, she’s putting a thatched roof on an outbuilding on her 34-acre farm. Bart’s projects have included building a parks and recreation headquarters using straw bale construction and green roofs designed to provide habitats for birds, bees, and butterflies, and to absorb rainwater.

Brennan + Company Architects

8333 Main St., Second Floor, Ellicott City, 410-313-8310

The portfolio of Brennan + Company Architects, headquartered in a historic building on Main Street in Ellicott City that they renovated, includes its share of commercial projects, but owner and principal architect Rob Brennan says residential work is the 29-year-old firm’s “bread and butter.”

Associate principal Carri Beer says a lot of her early work was limited to using materials like cork, bamboo, and recycled glass. Now, she says, some of her projects are more complex. Clients in Western Maryland, for example, “want to live off the grid.”

Since few residential projects in the U.S. involve hiring architects, the company markets itself by trying to educate contractors on the merits of switching to environmentally safe materials and practices, such as avoiding carcinogenic insulation foam that may take up to 500 years to biodegrade.

Emory Knoll Farms

3410 Ady Road, Street, 410-452-5880

Emory Knoll Farms, a fifth-generation family farm in northern Harford County, was a traditional working farm—including a stint as a dairy farm—for much of its life. Now, it’s home to Green Roof Plants, the nation’s first nursery dedicated solely to growing and selling vegetation for green roofs.

The 10-acre nursery, owned by Ed Snodgrass, who co-authored the 2011 book Small Green Roofs: Low-Tech Options for Greener Living, has several greenhouses (each named for a famous blues musician, from Howlin’ Wolf and B.B. King to Bessie Smith and Bonnie Raitt) sheltering long rows of plants (which typically sell for $45 for a flat of 72 plants). Boasting more than 100 species, Green Roof Plants has supplied plants not only for residential roofs but also for the tops of office buildings, schools, and hotels, including the Hilton in downtown Baltimore.

Baldwin Homes

2410 Evergreen Road, Ste. 104, Gambrills, 410-721-0101

A subdivision of custom-built luxury homes is rising from the woods of Gambrills in Anne Arundel County. You say, “So what?” These homes, however, are good examples of the momentum of the residential green-building movement.

What’s unusual about this development is that all of the homes are engineered to be environmentally responsible and sustainable, says Mike Baldwin, owner and president of Baldwin Homes, which began developing the subdivision, called The Preserve at Severn Run, in 2004. The newest home, designed by Annapolis-based architect Kathy Purple Cherry, carries five major green certifications, including LEED and Energy Star. (Homeowners who build to the highest green standard qualify for a tax credit, Baldwin says.) “We wanted to show people that green isn’t just grass on a roof,” Baldwin says.

The four-bedroom, five-bathroom eco-model doubles as a demonstration model to show how a custom green residence is built, from solar water heating, tightly insulated walls, countertops that are mostly made of recycled material, and triple-pane windows, to bathroom floors made of recycled tiles, zoned central air conditioning, fiberglass columns that resemble wood, and an outdoor swale to reduce runoff into streams.

SM+P Architects

1016 Morton St., 410-685-3582

Architect Tom Gamper, a senior associate for SM+P Architects, has planted a proverbial green flag in the 2200 block of Callow Avenue.

There, in the shadow of Whitelock Community Farm, a thriving urban farm in the Reservoir Hill neighborhood, Gamper is leading a federal-, state-, and city-funded effort to restore nine vacant row houses using environmentally sound and energy-efficient construction methods.

“This is pretty special in terms of gut rehabs,” Gamper says of the project. The local grantee is Healthy Neighborhoods, and community partners include the Druid Heights Community Development Corp., a client of Gamper “I don’t think there are that many projects like this in the city.”

Conservation Technology

2233 Huntingdon Ave., 410-366-1146

Green roofs aren’t just about soil and plants. They also involve drainage systems, engineered soils, and aluminum edges.

All are components that Lee Jaslow sells as president of Remington-based Conservation Technology.

Jaslow started the company in 1984, focusing in the first 15 years on residential projects.

Among Conservation Technology’s areas of specialization are storm-water management and rainwater-harvesting systems, especially in parts of the U.S. that have limited water resources. One of the systems is in Baltimore’s Leakin Park. Another company niche is aesthetic in nature: making landscaped waterfalls and streams that look natural.

Jaslow adds that residential green roofs are usually only cost-effective for people building a new house or doing a major renovation. “Green roofs are fairly complicated,” he says. “Most companies that do it won’t do residential. If the customer just wants to spend a couple of hundred bucks, it’s rain barrels or bust.”

Amicus Green Building Center

4080A Howard Ave., Kensington, 301-571-8590

Think of the Amicus Green Building Center as one-stop shopping for anything environmentally friendly that you need to build a house or an addition, or to redesign your kitchen or bathroom.

Need cork flooring? Owner Jason Holstine says he carries about 200 kinds in his long, narrow showroom, ranging in price from $4-8 per square foot. He also stocks soy-based paint strippers and concrete finishes, deck finishes made of waste from cheese-making, and insulation made from recycled steel and volcanic rock. Or you can pick up some carpet made of wool or recycled soda bottles, tile fabricated from recycled glass, pesticide-free lawn-care products, and energy-efficient windows.

Gabrielli Design Studio

2224 Crest Road, 410-530-0389

While raising her teenage son, architect Julie Gabrielli is content to run Gabrielli Design Studio out of her house in Mount Washington. But Gabrielli, who previously co-founded Terra Logos, an architectural design and consulting business, is well-known in what she calls the “small community” of residential green designers and builders.

It is, indeed, a tight-knit community: She has done several projects with Polly Bart of Greenbuilders and architect Carri Beer, who now works for Brennan + Company but who used to work for Terra Logos. For a recent kitchen remodel, Gabrielli and Bart bought supplies from Amicus Green Building Center. And when Gabrielli was doing commercial projects 25 years ago, she bought supplies from Lee Jaslow at Conservation Technology.

“Everyone in the industry knows one another,” she says.

European Landscape and Design

1412 Railroad Ave., Lutherville, 410-296-3162

Glen Gutierrez seems embarrassed to be linked with the residential green-construction industry, as if he were somehow unworthy.

“People think landscapers are naturally green,” says Gutierrez, owner of European Landscape and Design. “I think it’s a great misnomer.”

Gutierrez, however, has a green soul that extends beyond specializing in fine stonework, horticultural services, distinctive gardens, rain gardens, backyard design, waterfalls, ponds, and permeable driveways. He uses organic fertilizers and eschews any weed killers with chemicals—his staff sometimes uses a spray of vinegar, detergent, and Epsom salt instead.

A three-time winner of the best-in-show landscape design award at the Maryland Home & Garden Show, Gutierrez wants he and his staff of about 17 to expand into restoring native habitats and doing green roofs.

“I’m getting more involved,” he says of his focus on sustainable solutions. So we’re calling him a green expert, whether he likes it or not.

After serving a 15-month tour in Iraq, Columbia native Justen Garrity returned home in 2008 to a tough job market and few prospects. In 2010, he decided to take matters into his own hands, leasing a farm in Aberdeen and founding Veteran Compost, which collects organic material (mostly food scraps) from businesses and residential properties and then uses that material to produce compost, the rich soil additive prized by gardeners.

“Two-thirds of all the waste in America is compostable,” Garrity, now 33, notes. “Since no one was doing [anything with] it, it seemed like either a good opportunity or a terrible idea.”

After a slow start, Garrity now serves clients ranging from the Ravens to McCormick & Company, plus residential customers. To meet demand, a second compost site in Fairfax, VA, was added in 2015, and a third site is coming soon to either Anne Arundel County or Baltimore County.

Garrity is proud of Veteran Compost’s ecological bona fides—he estimates that every ton of material collected prevents the release of a ton of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. He is equally proud of his role as an employer of veterans, who often contend with higher unemployment rates than the general populace.

“Democrat or Republican, whether you believe in global warming or not, I’m over here creating a ton more jobs than landfilling,” he says.