Bat losses can have major impacts on ecosystems, as they routinely consume large quantities of insects and themselves provide food and nutrients for other plants and animals. There also are economic impacts as caves close to recreational use, in an effort to combat the spread of the disease.
The 48 mines are also linked by the fact that most of their owners have been legally delaying action on the violations through appeals of the citations. The Mine Safety and Health Administration is faced with a backlog of approximately 16,000 appeals.
"Four environmental groups have just filed a major new water pollution lawsuit against Massey Energy."
"The Environmental Protection Agency has ordered air pollution limits tightened on a Baltimore trash-to-energy incinerator after finding the state improperly relaxed them and did not require adequate monitoring of the plant's toxic emissions."
"Baltimore's revitalized waterfront draws millions of visitors a year, but could it ever be a place where people actually take a dip? Or catch fish? That's the vision of a local group that wants to make Baltimore's harbor swimmable and fishable within a decade."
"The Chesapeake's blue crabs, in decline for a decade, are in the middle of an extraordinary comeback, officials in Maryland and Virginia said Wednesday. The estuary's crab population has more than doubled in two years, they said, reaching its highest level since 1997."
"Maryland is failing to ride herd on water pollution in the state because of serious funding shortfalls and its own flawed enforcement practices, according to a Washington-based think tank."
In the face of public outrage (and press coverage), the legislature partially backed down — but kept a requirement that the law clinic report to the legislature on whom it represented.
"An O'Malley administration proposal to ease Maryland's stringent new storm-water pollution rules won legislative approval [Monday] night, capping a fierce debate over whether the Chesapeake Bay would suffer from giving developers more time and leeway in having to clamp down on rainfall washing off their building projects."
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