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Cyclists riding through six bay watershed states


By Jessica Anderson, The Baltimore Sun

A pair of Chesapeake Bay Foundation employees left Annapolis Saturday morning on a 1,300-mile journey through the six states in the bay's watershed — by bicycle.

John Rodenhausen and Beth McGee will attempt to ride through the 64,000-square-mile watershed, which stretches to Cooperstown, N.Y., and as far west as the Shenandoah Valley, to raise money for the Bay Foundation. They will spend their first night in southern Pennsylvania, pedal to New York and circle back through western Pennsylvania, then to Virginia and return via the Eastern Shore over the next three weeks.

They say their mission is to illustrate the vast area that makes up the watershed and how it can affect the bay's health.
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The pair hope the bike tour will raise $10,000 for the Bay Foundation and $5,000 each for causes close to them. McGee is raising money for the American Diabetes Association after her sister was diagnosed with Type I Diabetes. Rodenhausen's 6-year-old nephew was treated for leukemia at the Johns Hopkins pediatric oncology department.

"A year ago, they weren't sure he was going to see his sixth birthday," Rodenhausen said. "It was such a tough time for our whole family."
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The two set aside three weeks of vacation time for the trip and began training months ago by riding 150 miles a week. During the trip, they will average 60 to 90 miles a day. They will navigate using a GPS unit mounted to Rodenhausen's handlebars, but they have maps in a folder, nestled in with other supplies, just in case.

They're carrying about 40 pounds of gear each, which includes some food, but they plan to make stops along the way for water, even if it comes from a garden hose.
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To follow their progress, and for information about making a donation, go to chesapeakewatershedrideblog.tumblr.com/

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Electric Bicycle Rentals Come To Hertz


by Aaron Colter

Car rental company Hertz seems to be expanding into the green sector this year, as we’ve recently reported that the company is installing some solar panels at select locations, and offering electric cars for rent in cities like Washington, D.C. and Los Angeles, California.

Well, we can add one more eco-friendly initiative to the company’s portfolio – electric bicycles. While currently only available at London’s Marble Arch location, Hertz is offering twelve electric bicycles for rental, costing approximately $33 per bike per day.
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Friends, Please ASK THE GOVERNOR TO VETO SB 690 [Environment issue]


Update: A good explanation of the issue in the Sun: <a href="http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2011-05-09/news/bs-ed-waste-energy-20110509_1_goals-for-renewable-energy-incineration-trash">http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2011-05-09/news/bs-ed-waste-energy-20110509_1_goals-for-renewable-energy-incineration-trash</a>;

Veto SB 690!

Please veto SB 690 and keep the bar high for renewable energy. Incineration is bad for our health, bad for the environment, and bad for our clean energy future.

1. Waste incinerators do not generate clean renewable energy. Waste incinerators release pollutants through air and ash emissions, including toxins like mercury, lead, dioxins, and PCBs, as well as pollutants that contribute to smog and acid rain.

2. Waste incinerators undermine efforts to fight climate change. According to the EPA, incineration produces more CO2 per megawatt hour than any other form of power generation. They produce nearly 25 percent more CO2 per unit of electricity than coal!

3. Promoting incineration as a Tier 1 renewable would dilute Maryland's Renewable Portfolio Standard and undermine urgently needed progress toward legitimate clean, renewable energy. Burning trash competes with legitimate renewable energy; SB 690 would dilute the standard and negate the impact of the RPS in driving the development of renewable energy.

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Cardin proposes capturing highway runoff


from Maryland Politics by John Fritze

Rain water that rolls off new or newly renovated federally funded highways would be collected and treated for pollution before it reaches nearby waterways under a bill introduced this week by Sen. Benjamin L. Cardin.

Heavy rains wash tailpipe emissions, brake dust, oil and other pollutants off highways and ultimately into drinking water supplies, Cardin’s office said Thursday. The bill, similar to legislation the Maryland Democrat introduced last year, would require the U.S. Department of Transportation to develop design standards for how to address the problem.

There are more than 985,000 miles of highway in the United States. During a hearing last year, Cardin said that every inch of rain that falls on a mile of two-lane highway produces 52,000 gallons of polluted runoff.

“Stormwater is the largest source of water pollution in our nation,” Cardin said in a statement. “We must design and construct roads in ways that address contaminated highway runoff at its source, reducing the chance of flash floods and stopping pollution before it reaches the waters of the Chesapeake Bay.”

Cardin, a longtime proponent of addressing runoff issues, is a member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee and chairs a subcommittee on water and wildlife. It’s not clear how much his proposal would cost. [B' Spokes: It is also not clear how much not doing this costs.]

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Philadelphia’s Battle Against Impervious Asphalt


from Streetsblog Capitol Hill by Tanya Snyder

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Katherine Gajewski, Philly’s sustainability director, says the change was a shock to the system for some people. “Imagine a car rental shop with acres and acres of impervious pavement,” she said, “but it only has three employees in the office and so they’ve always had a low water bill.” But now, with the city factoring in a company’s larger water footprint, its water bill could go from $400 to $2,500. Meanwhile, a skyscraper’s water bill could go in the opposite direction, with its high consumption mitigated by its slender footprint and a high surface-to-volume ratio.

Like attempts at market rate parking or congestion pricing, the stormwater effort forces people to pay the true costs of their behavior, including environmental impact. And though advocates for transportation options may not think about sewer overflow on their list of environmental hazards caused by the automobile, car-based infrastructure poses one of the biggest threats to sound stormwater management.

Philadelphia’s goal is to capture the first inch of rainfall in any storm event. They aren’t trying necessarily to use the water – Philadelphia doesn’t have a water shortage. The problem is that a big rain will overfill the sewers and flow into the waterways, causing a major water pollution problem. (In Philadelphia, unlike some cities with more modern water systems, stormwater and wastewater go to the same place. Under normal circumstances, that place is the water treatment plant. When the sewers are overwhelmed, it flows out to rivers and creeks.) The problem has knocked Philadelphia out of compliance with the Clean Water Act. For every acre of impervious asphalt “greened,” the city says, they reduce runoff by a million gallons a year.

And of course, climate change, caused in part by all the cars running on all that asphalt, is bringing about more and more severe weather events that are creating more and more burden for struggling water systems and causing more and more water pollution.
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Grow Arts - Gourd Vectors


45 Backers
$2,066 pledged of $3,000 goal



Grow Arts - Gourd Vectors is a living sculpture designed by Doug Retzler aimed at illustrating our connection to nature and the important place that nature has in the lives of children and adults alike, particularly in an urban environment such as Baltimore. Gourd Vectors is a dynamic structural design evolved from 2010’s Gourd Palace. It will be comprised of a maypole-like form with a 22’ center pole and grow lines (vectors) radiating from a yin/yang gardening base. Gourd Vectors will be planted with selected gourd varieties in Leakin Park, the largest of Baltimore’s urban forests, at the Carrie Murray Nature Center. The sculpture will be planted during the May 21, 2011 opening ceremony of  Faerie Rings & Eco Things - a one day celebration of Spring & Nature Spirits, as well as the beginning of the summer long nature-based art installations called Nature Art in the Park

Grow Arts - Gourd Vectors will function as an evolving grow sculpture that is the fulcrum of the Nature Art Trails leading to and from the Carrie Murray Nature Center. The sculpture will come to full maturity and fruition by the Nature Art closing celebration on September 3, 2011. The sculpture and the activities surrounding it are in support of Carrie Murray’s Summer Urban Gardening educational programming for children. Funding will help facilitate the creation of the Grow Art sculpture, programming and related activities.

To get back to this project, search on kickstarter grow arts or kickstarter retzler


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Our Bay: Legislators miss the boat for the bay


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Surely, given their professed support for the Chesapeake and its waterways, the fact that the elections were over and the increasingly costly obligation to meet clean-up benchmarks, our legislators would take tangible steps to clean up the bay in 2011, right?

Wrong.

Nearly every major environmental policy initiative that was put forward in the 2011 legislative session died. Like a school of menhaden trapped in a dead zone, these initiatives were bottled up in committee and unable to survive.
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