"Democrats and numerous environmentalists blame Gov. Larry Hogan, a Republican, for severe staffing shortages and backlogged permit enforcement at the Department of the Environment."
"The Chesapeake Bay Program reported on Wednesday that Maryland’s wastewater treatment facilities, operating in violation of discharge permits, contributed significant increases in nitrogen and phosphorus pollution last year in the bay.
The yearly analysis helps guide the program, a regional partnership between government agencies at all levels, environmental groups and academic institutions, to reduce nutrients and sediment levels to meet goals set for the Chesapeake Bay by 2025. Nitrogen and phosphorus, from sources including agriculture, human sewage and fossil fuel combustion, can cause algae blooms that often lead to respiratory and eye irritation in humans and kill fish, marine mammals and other wildlife.
The report, said Evan Isaacson, senior attorney and director of research at Chesapeake Bay Legal Alliance, an environmental nonprofit, “shows that Maryland’s overall progress was negative—nitrogen pollution increased by 6 percent, which amounts to a whopping 2.8 million pounds, in large part because of the wastewater sector that increased 46 percent in 2021 compared to 2020.”"
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