Outdoors Maryland; 1711

Outdoors Maryland is made by NPT to serve all of our diverse communities and is made possible by the generous support of our members. Thank you. Coming up a look back at the environmental movement in Maryland's building. Ten to 15 million dollars a year is taking to space for view of the earth and planet Chesapeake and protecting the land. For the sake of the water. Next. Outdoors Maryland is produced in cooperation with the Maryland Department of Natural Resources DNR inspired by nature guided by science. When.

You. Look. At. The dawn of the 1960s Waterman plied the Chesapeake as they had done for over a century and. With one little difference harvests would decline. None of them knew why but most agree it could be that the various species were going to sign. Environmental Science still in its infancy. I also began to ponder. Researchers drew some preliminary conclusions. And in 1962 Rachel Carson a biologist turned

author living in Silver Spring Maryland wrote Silent Spring a seminal book that linked scientific conclusions and activism. People responded. The environmental movement was born. Bill I am now working for the World Wildlife Fund and Swanson now working for the Chesapeake Bay commission. And Ken Manford an environmental historian were active during the early years of this movement in Maryland. This was an interesting time because we're right on the cusp of first birthday. Population Bomb. Clean Water Act. All these things seem to offer so much hope for both environmental preservation and restoration. There was a real sense that we could do this and that if we said we were going to reduce nitrogen phosphorus by 40 percent or if we were going to restore 2000 and 10 miles upstream with

forested buffers by 2010 then we would do it with a warrant or wrote a great book called Beautiful Slummers. James Metzner wrote Chesapeake there began to be folk songs written about the by schooner fair. I did some songs. And others. Tom Horton's writing was making an impact. We had politicians who were all for the best. I mean it wasn't a Republican or Democratic issue. It was simply a bay country issue. Scientists were concerned about heat exchange problems and power facilities like choke point on the Patuxent River in the 1960s. There are studies and monitoring efforts intensified when Biji proposed and cited a nuclear power facility at Calvert Cliffs in southern Maryland. About 1970. Three we had a visit. And the man came to all the laboratories in the bay we had a visit from Charles

Mathias who was then a Republican senator from Maryland and he came and asked each one of us one at a time in interviews what do you think is going on in Chesapeake Bay. How important do you think salt marshes are. What do you think about nutrients. And he triggered a seven year 27 million dollar study of the bay. One of the principal conclusions of the report was the impact of nutrients in the role of nitrogen and phosphorous. We thought at first that it would be all toxic awful chemicals that we were throwing into the estuary or even temperature change in chlorine and all the things that come out of the industrial plants in the basin we thought that those things would really be dominant. But it turned out that while they were important and while they had a serious role the dominant thing was nutrients nitrogen coming out of wastewater plants coming out of farmland in the basin and of course coming out in developed areas. Scientific studies conducted on the Chesapeake now began to fuel the fires of

activism politicians and policy followed. In 1980 newly elected Maryland Governor Henry Hughes put clean up of the bay near the top of his political agenda. We said to the scientists All right we want to do something you've never done before. We want you to go a little bit beyond the traditional scientific method and do some integrated thinking about the problems of the bad. So we got to think more integrated. And then at the same time we took the key Cabinet secretaries myself from the Health Department the secretary of natural resources the secretary of agriculture secretary of state planning. We met regularly almost on a weekly basis for about six or eight months. The departure of natural resources the soul of the NY island was called the Y meetings and we really hammered out the program that was going to be the states program for responding to this. And scientific

analysis about the issues of the bay and then part of that process was to build the public. Interest beyond what it already was but to get it focused on action. And so the citizens conference that was held in December of 83 was a very important part of having the citizens think about what they thought the issues were. Of course this was the state of Maryland trying to lead Pennsylvania and Virginia and the District of Columbia all to come together to have a coherent program. The newly formed Chesapeake Bay commission sponsored the event. The time for study is now over. It's time to begin acting. Governor you said later that Maryland has also committed the money necessary to spend in the cleanup. We've been. Looking at 10 to 15 million dollars a year in operating expenses for the next five years. So what happened was they came together and signed the very first agreement.

And those were the early years of an amazing array of legislation. Now we take for granted sediment and erosion control fisheries management a lot of the fisheries management critical areas land preservation agricultural preservation only one piece of environmental legislation put forward by the administration failed to pass in the 1984 legislative session a phosphate detergent ban in the 1985 session Paula Hollinger co-sponsored a phosphate detergent ban. Well Paul Hollander has to be five feet tall on the best of days. I mean she's not a big person. And I will never forget on the floor of the house when they were negotiating it that she had a very large pile of books probably this big on her desk and she was trying to make the point that the phosphate detergent thing is based on scientific evidence. And so she was

standing you know or waiting and the next thing I knew this marvelous little lady just leap up and was sitting on top of this stack of books and she said I am sitting on scientific evidence that the phosphate detergent fan is defendable with science as a driving force. The phosphate detergent ban bill became law and something very rare in my office. This isn't just science giove policy again in 1987 when a second bid agreement was signed. Maryland Virginia Pennsylvania the District of Columbia and the EPA pledged to reduce nitrogen and phosphorus by 40 percent in the bay by the year 2000. Why. On

Earth Day 1990 Environmental activists saw nothing but blue skies into the far distant future science. The weapon they didn't wield it and popular support had seemingly won the day. Was there optimism justified. In the future. Space. Is what makes NASA famous. But the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt Maryland is also home to the world's largest array of scientists. They use a fleet of satellites to study systems and processes on a planetary scale like Monster stone ocean dynamics.

And climate change. The planet from space is a huge perspective. Available nowhere else on earth literally. The data on hurricanes. Ozone. Algae blooms all has direct bearing locally. To the mid-Atlantic and Chesapeake Bay. One key NASA Earth mission is to bring their discoveries to the public. These NASA animators turned raw data into complex scientific visualizations that also qualify as high end digital art scene throughout. Horace Mitchell is director of the scientific visualization studio and the world is a very complicated place. There's a lot of research that goes on. It's very important that everyone understand how the planet we live on works. One of the most important

aspects and strengths of the work of the visualization studio is the fact that we spend a lot of time with NASA researchers making absolutely sure that we get visuals that represent what they understand about how the earth works. We use the same tools and the same processes that the film industry uses in order to produce the same quality result. Only in this case the star of the program is the planet we live on. Lori Perkins is a computer engineer and a. Part of my job that is the most exciting. Thing the scientists. Do their data. A different way. To change the color around here is to bring out the highs and lows of being all going. To see the look on their faces because now they can explain it easier. So I think that that is the best part that our satellites do a great job of picking up the surface.

I think what you guys did here with the staff at that beautiful oceanographer David Adams is one of many NASA scientists who has had research visualized by the award winning NASA animators his work on El Nino has direct impact on memory plays a big role in taking observations of the ocean and in places where observations have never even been taken before where ships have never gone. The reason water is so important in our environment is it is the memory of the whole climate system. For Dr. Adam make the oceans memory resides in reservoirs and currents of warm and cold water the size of continents. Systems like El Nino and the Gulf Stream. Although unseen and from afar these ponderous processes have the power to send millions in Maryland scurrying for umbrellas and spare batteries. Just like when you throw a rock into a pond it sends out all those waves you've got a big splash there South America where El Nino is and then all these ripples moving the storms and jet streams all over the globe. And that does have an effect in Maryland where we have El Nino six thousand

miles away. Not a good winter when El Nino happens in Maryland. Another NASA scientist who's no stranger to the effects of planet scale systems on Maryland is meteorologist Marshall Shepherd. Well the Chesapeake Bay area experiences the hurricanes from time to time in fact Boy Hurricane Isabel was a monstrous storm. I was without power for five days myself. Hurricane Isabel with one of the most well-studied storms in history from the space. We actually monitor Hurricane Isabel as it moved off the coast of Africa all the way across the Atlantic Ocean using our array of satellite instruments aircraft and computer models. We actually are able to take CAT scans look inside the storm pop the hood if you will to see the hurricane engine by looking at the rainfall in clouds using our satellites. This gives us information on intensification problem right now intensity forecast of the holy grail of hurricane forecasting. We're pretty good with track forecasting and intensity forecasts are still

a mystery and so by looking inside the storm we can learn more about these powerful Indian prostheses in the hurricane and we can also monitor things like the wind patterns and differing patterns and whether there is an El Nino that might impact the severity of a hurricane season. The path intensity and rainfall of hurricanes have a direct impact on Maryland. There are many hazards of hurricanes one of the most dangerous aspects of the storm is the inland flooding both from the surge as well as the heavy amount of rainfall with the storm. The inland flooding and precipitation can be a very serious hazard especially for us here in Maryland. NASA oceanographer Jean Carl Feldman begins his global ocean studies with its microscopic life in one of Earth's most fundamental forms phytoplankton. And most of the world's oceans. The color of the ocean is related to the amount of these microscopic little plants called phytoplankton phytoplankton are a really key indicator of the health of this planet. When they bloom in really really large numbers. They literally

turn the ocean a different color and we can see that from space. NASA scientists have tracked huge plankton blooms from around the world. Including a giant plume off the Louisiana coast which annually results in a massive oxygen depleted dead zone. Appearing as red. Similar dead zones exist in the Chesapeake Bay as a result of too many nutrients and runoff. And that oxygen decreases to a low enough level you get these things called Dead zones. There's not enough oxygen to support the fish the crabs the oysters anything that lives in the water. And what's happened over the last 50 years is that these dead zones have gotten bigger the oxygen levels have gotten lower and they last longer. So life on this planet and life in the oceans exists in a very delicate balance with the physical environment. And anytime that balance is upset it can have serious consequences. Atmospheric scientist and Thompson also studies global imbalance ozone

pollution in the lower atmosphere. It's called Bad ozone if the amounts that are at the surface where we're breathing get above about 100 parts per billion. NASA has tracked ozone pollution in Maryland and around the world including the tropics caused by biomass burning unregulated Urban Development and natural lightning in the US. Ozone is regulated by the EPA and Maryland frequently has code red violations of the ozone standards in 2004. Dr. Thompson and an international team of scientists tracked ozone pollution migrating from the North Atlantic to Europe. The research will help local scientists recognize conditions causing code red alerts so that we can understand the processes. And when you understand. You also then get the power to predict from ocean depths to turbulent surface to outer space.

NASA's Earth scientists and artists provide an unmatched window on planetary processes driving the day by day passage of our lives. The character of a people living close to the land is shaped by the land for a farmer planning fields work by his grandmother and father. Dust on the booths is a second skin right in the Chesapeake Bay watershed. Farmlands are increasingly recognized as bulwarks against a rising sea of concrete land trusts are playing a vital role helping government agencies protect cultural lands forests wetlands open space wildlife habitat and fertile farmland to assist in that effort. The Chesapeake Bay program a state and federal partnership to restore the Chesapeake Bay has recently conducted a resource land assessment of the

Bay watershed conservation organizations can use this color coded overlay mapping to target the most valuable and vulnerable lands for protection. The Chesapeake Bay program views land conservation as key to improving the bay's water quality. Peter clag it is land data manager with the U.S. Geological Survey at the Chesapeake Bay program. Most of the land in the Chesapeake Bay watershed is privately down and a lot of the large tracts of land are owned by farmers. So farmers are a really important target audience when you're concerned about conservation watershed protection begins across state lines with the headwaters of the Chesapeake Bay in the mountains of West Virginia. Prime agricultural land along the last river has been preserved forever due in large part to the efforts of one small land trust. Capen River is one of the three largest tributaries of the Potomac. So we're actually a very real headwaters of the Chesapeake Bay.

Nancy Ale's is executive director and the only paid staff of the capen and last rivers land trust a membership organization focusing on agricultural and forest lands. The economic backbone of this region Nancy runs the land trust from my home office. Today Nancy is headed for one of her favorite spots the Rudolph farm for which she negotiated a land conservation easement conservation is meant as a legal agreement. It's recorded in the courthouse with a deed and it runs in perpetuity with the land. And basically it preserves the conservation values on the land. Typically the restrictions would include limited building of buildings and also limited subdivision of the property. Property owners may sell their easement for cash where funds are available or more commonly donate the easement for potential tax relief. In either case the landowner always retains the deed while the land trust holds the easement in trust

and is responsible for monitoring it. Land conservationists win because the watershed is protected property owners win because they can now afford not to sell out to developers. In this case Nancy put together a partnership of federal and state funders. It was the first conservation easement in the state of West Virginia to be signed using farm land protection program funds. Our families in the valley here for all by to early early. Now that the generations are coming. So we've been we've been at it longer. Jack RUDOV Jr. splits his time between farming and teaching high school science. I consider myself every bit as much a farmer as I do a teacher. Now this is all this. This whole farm you see here is protected by the easement. There's 265 acres here. It's kind of hard to get it all in the picture but. As far as you can see and you get to the ridges over there that's that's all part of

it all melted down through there and the three of. You become part of the way. And then all of a sudden does all of this not just down the road or falls in Virginia develop. Next to. It can be houses that could be motorhome that you start to ask yourself a question. I wonder what we could do to keep that from happening. The beautiful part about this is that it's like having your cake and eat it too. We have a farm. We can farm it and do all the things we've always wanted to do and improve it that we raise our cattle and there's not one thing. About. Landing the trust that interferes. In fact the land will be. Under the easement sections of badly eroded river bank will be stabilized. If we went from water level to the top of that bank you're talking probably 10 feet. So when you start taking soil out 10 feet deep. And this problem exists for probably a good 80 yards through here it's a huge amount of sediment silt built into the river.

And and really that's the problem on both ends that problems for the folks in the Chesapeake Bay and all that is a big problem for us because we're losing valuable farmland Jack's brother Mike Rudolph farms the land full time. If you want to preserve the landside just plain sight and start off the day. Life is uncertain. I will start on the day because once the lands are gone. You never get it back. By clear cut sir. Right in the middle of that 30 200 acres the third is all that matter. What matters is if the land gets protected. Their share we have three other farms that we receive far less protection program funds for They're just down river. Each one of them has a failing river bank each one of them wants to protect it but it's because of this example that that happened. 200 miles away close to the bay shores the eastern shore land conservancy. Delmarva is largest has ensured the tidal farmlands deep in history will be preserved as such for ever. Peter Claggett at the Chesapeake Bay

program explains. We've zoomed in now to a portion of the eastern shore between the Chester river and the Corsica river to the south. This peninsula in the middle is where the woods farm property as you can see here in this color scheme that the greener areas. Particularly these wetlands along the shoreline and these forest areas along the riparian zone are those areas that have the highest water quality protection value. Both farms have farm conservation easements on them so they're protected from development. They go back in our family many generations to a land grant from Lord Baltimore 16 sixty seven. So I'm a tenth generation and my children are 11. For James Daugherty Wood and his father Howard wood the third is the value of their farms is priceless. Their long history is important to me and I want to share with my family and my kids.

Sure we can sell this 343 acres and if we had to. But you couldn't buy that same 343 back for me. I mean the uproots signing away development rights on crime riverfront property favorably changed the property tax structure decades ago how it would have championed the cause of land conservation and conservation easements before it had become fashionable to do so. He was a Harvard lawyer who had come back to the land and I was a country lawyer. That is all I had an office in Centerville I practiced law. For about 42 years. I thought it was a wonderful concept to limit the number of houses that could be built on a property on a lovely waterfront property especially Howard became a founding board member of the Eastern Shore Land Conservancy. His standing in the community helped him convince others of the urgent need to preserve the land. Inspired by his conservation ethic the family has also developed forests wetlands

and meadow buffers between croplands and the river. Improving the quality of the water that runs off the farm into the river and into the Chesapeake Bay. Many landowners have a deep deep commitment to their land and that's the job of the land conservancy to. Help them find ways to manifest that commitment. Robert King is executive director of the eastern shore land conservancy conservation easements are often a terrific way to help landowners achieve their long term goals which is to keep their land open and available for farming and wildlife and to help protect the Chesapeake Bay. In. To.

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