Central Oregon Fire Information reported dozens of new fire starts, ranging in size from a quarter acre to 800 acres, on Wednesday and Thursday.

The Pacific Northwest was moved to “Preparedness Level 5,” the highest level, on Friday.

“At this Preparedness Level [PL] there is significant wildfire activity throughout the U.S. creating a shortage of wildland fire fighting personnel and resources. Pacific NW incident management teams are fully committed to large fires and incident management teams from other parts of the U.S. are needed to manage ongoing and anticipated wildfires in the Pacific NW Region,” the Northwest Interagency Coordination Center wrote. “As hot, dry, windy conditions persist, new large fires continue to emerge. Stay alert, follow fire restrictions, and report any smoke or fire immediately.”

Several new fires have been reported in the Willamette National Forest on the west side of the Cascades. Crews and aircraft have been deployed to try to knock down these wildfires.

Content from The National Desk is provided by Sinclair, the parent company of FOX45 News.

While fully electrifying its fleet remains a “key pillar of Volvo Cars’ product strategy,” the company noted such plans no longer appear within reach by its previous deadline. The company, in a release, said it would expand this goal to include plug-in hybrid vehicles, which use both gasoline and electricity as fuel.

“Going forward, Volvo Cars aims for 90% to 100% of its global sales volume by 2030 to consist of electrified cars, meaning a mix of both fully electric and plug-in hybrid models – in essence, all cars with a cord,” it wrote.

The company pinned the adjustment on “a slower-than-expected rollout of charging infrastructure” and “additional uncertainties” created by electric vehicle tariffs. Volvo called for “stronger and more stable government policies” to help it reach its EV goals.

“We are resolute in our belief that our future is electric,” Volvo Cars CEO Jim Rowan said. “An electric car provides a superior driving experience and increases possibilities for using advanced technologies that improve the overall customer experience.”

“However, it is clear that the transition to electrification will not be linear, and customers and markets are moving at different speeds of adoption,” he added.

Volvo now expects to make between 50% and 60% of its cars electric by 2025. The company said it aims to have its electric fleet prepared for “when market conditions are suitable.”

“Volvo Cars remains committed to its long-term ambition of full electrification, and the company’s long-term investment plan and product strategy remain geared towards fully electric cars,” it wrote. “The adjustment to its ambitions is not expected to have any material impact on the company’s capital expenditure plans.”

This pivot will also impact the company’s goal to reduce the CO2 emissions of its cars by 75%. It now says it will aim for a reduction between 30% and 35% by 2025.

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What’s the first industry to fall victim to climate change? There’s a decent argument that it already happened — more than 600 years ago.

When the Norman Conquest in 1066 installed a French feudal aristocracy in the British Isles, the invaders brought with them a love of winemaking. Those skills flourished in the conditions of the Medieval Warm Period, a patch of unusually high temperatures from about 950 to 1250 that allowed vineyards to spread across the well-drained chalk soils of southern England. The mild conditions gave way to a frigid period known as the Little Ice Age, however, which held sway until the 19th century. As the climate cooled, English viticulture collapsed.

That should be a worrying example if you’re a winemaker. Grape vines are notoriously sensitive to the smallest changes in landscape and climate. Those with a skilled palate (I’m not one of them) can supposedly sense the subtlest of environmental effects in a bottle of wine — whether the winter that preceded the vintage was warm or cold, the harvest wet or dry, the grapes grown on a slope facing to the north or the south.

It doesn’t take much imagination to see how a warming climate could play havoc with this. Own a semiconductor factory, and your climate exposures will occur on the macro scale. Will bigger rainstorms flood the site, and will hotter summers push up my bill for air conditioning? A vintner, on the other hand, has to think about micro issues. Will a few extra warm nights or blazing days in growing season throw off the delicate balance of sugar and water formation in developing bunches? And will that make the resulting bottles less fragrant or complex than they otherwise would be?

For winemakers in Europe, a fresh climate headache is looming in the geographic indications they’ve used to defend their art. For the best part of a century, European agricultural producers have built a complex system of intellectual property around the idea that particular types of food and drink are regionally distinctive, and have names that must be protected under copyright law. There’s even a line on geographical indications in the Treaty of Versailles, the document that formally ended World War I.

Recognition of geographic indications is a basic hurdle for any nation wanting to strike a trade deal with the European Union and gain access to the world’s second-biggest market. It’s why makers of sparkling wine in most of the world can’t call their product Champagne, and why Australian and Canadian producers of fortified white wine these days label their bottles as “Apera,” because only those from the Jerez region of Spain can call themselves Sherry. Fully 1,646 of the 1,658 geographic indications for wine listed on the European Union’s eAmbrosia register are for EU countries. Of the rest, five are in the UK, four in China, two are in the U.S. (the Napa Valley and Willamette Valley) and one in Brazil.

Adding such geographic limits might have seemed like a good idea during the stable climate of the 20th century, but in the more disordered era into which we’re now moving it’s a risk. Many geographic indications assign a specific grape variety for a specific region. Barolo, arguably Italy’s most revered wine style, must be grown only with Nebbiolo grapes in a handful of communities among the misty mountains of Piedmont. As a warming planet makes the climate of northern Italy more like regions further south where Nebbiolo can’t flourish, the rigidity of Barolo’s geographic indication risks driving it into extinction.

Researchers in Europe recently analyzed 1,085 wine geographic indications across the continent to work out which were most at risk from a warming climate. What they found should worry viticulturalists: a swath of country is highly vulnerable to the effects of climate change, and has little natural capacity to adapt.“Strong yield decreases were projected for northern Italy, central Spain, Greece, and Bulgaria,” they wrote, “and decreased suitability for Spain, parts of France, central and northern Italy, and large parts of eastern Europe.” In Burgundy, regions known for the Pinot Noir grape may become unable to grow the variety. The geographic indication system needs to be rethought to allow winegrowers to switch their practices as the climate warms, they argued.

That shouldn’t be impossible. Champagne, grown at the northern limit of wine cultivation and traditionally seen as the product of a difficult environment, is conventionally made from just three grape varieties: Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, and Meunier. But there are four other less celebrated varieties (1) that can be added to the blend, and may provide a way of preserving the wine’s characteristics even as the climate of Champagne starts to more closely resemble that of southern France. A further variety, known as Voltis, has been selectively bred as part of a deliberate effort to prepare for the effects of a warmer climate.

For many wine regions, that’s going to be a wrenching shift. What makes European wine unique is the marriage of a particular grape and viticultural practice with a particular region’s soil, climate, and intangibles. That sort of thinking is going to have to change as the planet warms. If Europe’s winemakers don’t want to experience the fate of medieval English vineyards, they’ll need to adapt before they’re wiped out.

(1) The varieties are Arbane, Petit Meslier, Pinot Gris, and Pinot Blanc. They’re often regarded as more difficult to work with in Champagne.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

David Fickling is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering climate change and energy. Previously, he worked for Bloomberg News, the Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times.

©2024 Bloomberg L.P. Visit bloomberg.com/opinion. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

On Friday, Massachusetts and Rhode Island jointly announced they plan to procure a total of 2,678 megawatts of offshore wind power from three projects that submitted bids earlier this year. When completed, these projects will be capable of providing enough electricity to power more than 1.4 million homes.

“Today marks a historic milestone for Rhode Island and Massachusetts as we join forces to drive the largest offshore wind procurement in New England’s history,” Rhode Island Gov. Dan McKee said in a statement. “Together with Massachusetts, we are setting a precedent for regional collaboration in clean energy and advancing a sustainable, resilient future.”

Under the plan, Massachusetts has selected 1,087 megawatts of the 1,287-megawatt SouthCoast Wind project, with the remaining 200 megawatts going to Rhode Island. Massachusetts also selected New England Wind 1, a 719-megawatt project, and seeks up to 800 megawatts from the Vineyard Wind 2 project, officials said.

Details of the contracts, such as the price tag and how much of those costs would be passed along to energy consumers, weren’t disclosed. The projects are also subject to negotiations between utilities and the developers.

The joint procurement is part of a broader regional strategy along the East Coast to address energy and climate issues rather than a state-by-state approach. Some states, like New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts, have struggled to go it alone on offshore wind and have ended up scrapping projects.

In August, the U.S. Department of Energy awarded $389 million to several New England states for improvements to the power grid aimed at significantly increasing the region’s capacity for offshore wind.

The Power Up New England plan—a collaboration between Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Vermont, and several utilities—calls for expanding and upgrading the shared interconnection points for undersea cables that bring power from offshore wind turbines to the regional grid.

The Grid Innovation Program is managed through the U.S. Department of Energy’s $10.5 billion Grid Resilience and Innovation Partnerships program. The funding is capped at $250 million unless projects have a significant transmission investment, as with the New England states’ proposal.

In October, the DOE announced nearly $3.5 billion in awards under its Grid Resilience and Innovation Partnerships program to support 58 projects in 44 states.

Outgoing President Joe Biden, a Democrat, has aggressively pursued plans by the federal government to add at least 35 gigawatts of offshore wind in the U.S. by 2030, beginning with Vineyard Wind off the southern coast of Massachusetts. He argues the plan will boost the nation’s clean energy industry and create jobs.

But the latest procurement comes amid increasing turbulence in the nation’s nascent offshore wind industry. Developers are scaling back—or, in some cases, backing out of projects—citing supply chain disruptions, higher construction costs, and a lack of state and federal government tax credits.

Two major offshore wind developers in Massachusetts—Commonwealth Wind and Shell and Ocean Winds North America—terminated their power purchase agreements with the state’s utilities last year, citing supply chain issues and other concerns that have made it too difficult to finance the projects.

The push for offshore wind also faces opposition from commercial fishermen and coastal conservation groups who argue that towering turbines off the Atlantic coastline will hurt marine life, fishing and tourism industries, and the local economy.

The violations on the Ridgely’s Reserve development in Joppa, which is still under construction, caused excess sediment to run off into a Gunpowder River tributary called the Foster Branch, according to the complaint filed on behalf of MDE by the state attorney general’s office.

The sediment pollution has resulted in a “die-off” of underwater grasses in the Gunpowder, among other consequences, according to the suit. This vegetation provides a key food source and habitat for river life, such as crabs, fish and waterfowl. Aquatic grasses also produce oxygen, and remove contaminants from waterbodies, but they also can be smothered by excessive runoff.

Surveys conducted by the Virginia Institute of Marine Science found that grasses in the Gunpowder declined about 90% from 2021 to 2023, when photographed by airplane. The scientists noted that the reason for the localized decline were a mystery, but measurements found spikes in turbidity, or the murkiness of the water.

The suit, which was filed in Harford County Circuit Court Friday, follows similar legal action by the Gunpowder Riverkeeper, a nonprofit organization focused on the waterway. About a month ago, the Riverkeeper filed a notice of intent to sue the builders, a required step for citizens who file environmental claims under the federal Clean Water Act. After giving notice, citizens must wait 60 days before filing suit. The state, however, is under no such obligation.

State environmental inspectors first visited the construction site in May 2022, according to Friday’s filing, after “multiple citizen complaints,” including from the riverkeeper, about “sediment-laden water observed emanating from the housing development and discharging into Foster Branch.” On the scene, they found sediment control problems, such as a clogged filter rendering a piece of equipment “useless” and a slope that had not been stabilized to prevent erosion.

Between that date and July of this year, state inspectors visited the site about 30 times, noting repeated violations, such as silt fencing that had been overrun by rushing water, and clear evidence that runoff from the site was polluting the surrounding waterways.

Harford County officials have fined the developers and established consent decrees requiring fixes. But officials believe the problems are continuing, according to the filing. Though many homes already have been constructed and sold, construction continues on the site.

In its filing, MDE asked the court to order the developers to halt the pollution and restore the affected natural areas. It also requested injunctive relief and civil penalties, which can be up to $25,000 per violation, per day.

“Inspection after inspection has documented problems with this project, and this pollution has caused real harm to our waterways,” Maryland Department of the Environment Secretary Serena McIlwain said in a statement Friday. “It is past time for this pollution to stop. We are asking the court to not only impose a financial penalty, but also require that the affected waterways be restored.”

The suit names D.R. Horton, the home building company; Forestar, the site developer; and Kinsley Construction, a contractor working on the site until March. The companies did not respond Friday to requests for comment.

Gunpowder Riverkeeper Theaux Le Gardeur said Friday he was grateful “there is positive movement from MDE in filing their own complaint.”

Nearly 1,000 people have signed an online petition calling for action to stop the pollution, which has at times turned the Gunpowder and Bird rivers orange with sediment, according to the petition. The petition was sponsored by a citizen group called the Mad About Mud campaign.

The suit also highlights sediment control violations specific to the sewer line constructed to service the new development’s homes. Though the sewer line has been completed, and Forestar “prematurely” filed to terminate a construction-related permit in April, the area still needed to be stabilized with vegetation as of Friday, when the complaint was filed, according to the document.

“The repeated violations at Ridgely’s Reserve demonstrate a blatant disregard for our environmental laws and the welfare of Marylanders,” Attorney General Anthony Brown said in a statement Friday. “The damage that has already been done needs to be addressed so the waterways around this community are made whole and healthy again while those responsible for the pollution answer for their actions in court.”

Le Gardeur said that in his monitoring of the Gunpowder by skiff, he continues to see turbidity increase as he moves closer to the Foster Branch, and clearer waters heading out toward the Chesapeake Bay. On the site, he has seen exposed soils, which concern him greatly, particularly when stormy weather approaches.

“It’s still a lot of bare soil out there,” he said. “I’m just glad it hasn’t rained recently.”

The offshore wind farm could generate over 2 gigawatts of wind energy and power over 718,000 homes, according to the Department of the Interior.

President Joe Biden said in a statement that the wind energy industry had been “struggling to gain a foothold” in the years before he came into office.

“From manufacturing and shipbuilding to port operations and construction, this industry will support tens of thousands of good-paying and union jobs, provide reliable clean power to homes and businesses, strengthen our power grid against outages, and help reduce pollution – all while protecting biodiversity and marine ecosystems,” the president said.

Maryland Energy Administration Director Paul Pinsky called the Biden administration’s action “an important step forward in the effort to bring clean, renewable energy production to Maryland’s coast.”

“Today’s announcement underscores the careful, comprehensive and collaborative environmental analysis that has gone into these projects,” Pinsky said in a statement.

The Maryland project is the 10th commercial-scale offshore wind energy project approved by the Biden administration. Combined, the projects are projected to generate 15 gigawatts of clean energy, half of Biden’s goal of 30 gigawatts of offshore wind-produced energy by 2030.

The Maryland project includes up to 114 wind turbines, four offshore substation platforms and a meteorological tower. There will be three phases to the US Wind project, two of which — called MarWin and Momentum Wind — have already received offshore renewable energy certificates from the state.

Energy is set to start flowing in December 2028 from the first phase of the project. The final project is expected to be completed in late 2027 or early 2028, according to the plan submitted by US Wind.

The approval is a win for Maryland environmental groups and the state government, which have been working for offshore wind power in the state for around 10 years.

The Maryland legislature passed a series of bills, starting in 2013, to set offshore wind energy projects in motion.

The state set a goal in 2023, through the Promoting Offshore Wind Energy Resources Act, to generate 8.5 gigawatts of power from offshore wind by 2031.

This goal has hit some road bumps along the way, including the withdrawal of Denmark-based Ørsted’s planned offshore wind projects in January.

US Wind won the competitive lease sale of the 46,970 acres of federal ocean waters in 2014.

“By moving away from reliance on dirty fossil fuel energy and building renewable energy, Marylanders will be able to breathe cleaner air and benefit from new clean energy jobs,” Maryland Sierra Club Chapter Director Josh Tulkin said in a statement Thursday.

Jamie DeMarco, the federal campaigns coordinator for the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, said in an interview with Capital News Service that the Maryland wind farm is a milestone in moving offshore energy generation forward in Maryland.

“This is a huge undertaking to build an entire machine to deploy offshore wind, but once that machine is built, it’ll be able to hum and crank out new domestic energy, and clean energy that’s going to help us clean the air and meet our climate goals,” DeMarco said.

Offshore wind turbines have been coming online across the East Coast, DeMarco said, but this will be the first operational offshore wind facility in Maryland.

Environmental advocates aren’t the only celebrating parties. Union officials are touting the jobs set to be created by the wind farm.

New offshore wind area east of Ocean City to be leased to Norwegian company

Almost 2,680 jobs annually over seven years could be created during the development and construction phase of the wind farm, according to the Interior Department.

US Wind’s planned permanent offshore wind components production facility, called Sparrows Point Steel in Sparrows Point — the former home of Bethlehem Steel — is forecast to generate jobs for steelworkers.

The Baltimore Bethlehem Steel mill, which closed in 2012, was once the largest steel producer in the world. Sparrows Point Steel will bring steelworker jobs back to Maryland, DeMarco said, in a way that hasn’t been seen since the closure of Bethlehem.

Jim Strong, the offshore wind sector assistant for the United Steelworkers International Union, told CNS on Thursday that the facility is expected to bring in over 500 jobs. The project will help not only steelworkers, Strong said, but other union trades as well.

“It’s about addressing our climate crisis, about creating new green energy jobs — these will be high-paid union jobs,” Strong said.

Strong has served as a liaison between the union and US Wind. He said that the Sparrows Point facility has the opportunity to become a “central hub” for monopile production on the Atlantic Ocean. Monopiles, steel cylinders, are used for wind turbines, bridges and other projects, he said.

US Wind is a subsidiary of Italian company Renexia SpA.

The project has some detractors, such as Rep. Andy Harris, a Maryland Republican who represents the Eastern Shore.

“Offshore wind industrialization comes at a heavy cost to our marine life and environment, and is an incredibly expensive way to generate electricity,” Harris said on X in July. “We should never allow foreign owned companies to control our energy supply—much less harm our environment while doing it.”

The federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s director, Elizabeth Klein, said in a statement that the Maryland project “reflects the best available science and invaluable insights from Tribes, government agencies, local communities, industry leaders, ocean users, and environmental groups gathered during our extensive environmental review process.”

“As we continue to support the undeniable momentum we see along our coasts, our focus remains on fostering responsible energy development, while protecting marine life and ecosystems,” she said.

Democrats in the state, including Gov. Wes Moore, have been supportive of the project. Moore signed a memorandum of understanding with the federal government in June supporting offshore wind production.

Capital News Service is a student-powered news organization run by the University of Maryland Philip Merrill College of Journalism. 

Crews from Gunther Refuse Service, Inc. and MBG Refuse Service will provide recycling collections for this week’s Tuesday, Thursday and Friday customers in the affected areas, the department said in a news release. Yard waste collections will be completed on Saturday as resources allow.

“We are so grateful that these local businesses and their employee teams have stepped in to help their neighbors during this situation,” said DPW Director Karen Henry. “We appreciate the patience and flexibility of all of our customers as we work to resume curbside collection services in affected communities.”

On Monday, Gunther and MBG crews will pick up trash on residents’ usual collection days. Recycling and yard waste will be taken within two days of the normal collection days. The department is asking affected residents to put out trash, recycling and yard waste on their normal days and leave it on the curb until it’s collected.

Only households in service areas 5, 8, and 15, which include Pasadena, Severna Park, Odenton and Laurel, are affected. Residents can identify their service area by entering their address on the county’s Find My Collection Day feature.

There are 37,605 households in the affected service areas, or 22% of countywide customers, according to Matt Diehl, a DPW spokesperson.

Recycling and yard waste collections in these areas were temporarily suspended Friday after the department learned of a possible strike by Teamsters Local 570, the union representing employees of Ecology Services. The company operates under a contract with Anne Arundel County to provide recycling and yard waste pick up.

The strike began Wednesday morning when more than 70 unionized employees gathered to protest what they said was the company’s refusal to address unsafe working conditions and unfair wages. Frustrations lie with Ecology Services’ management, which offered a 38-cent per hour wage increase and did not address safety issues, the Teamsters national union said in a news release. The union contends the company’s trucks are “dangerously ill-equipped” and lack air conditioning, proper seating and seatbelts.

This summer, an employee suffered a severe head injury after falling from a truck due to heat exhaustion and lack of water, the union said.

A conclusion to the Teamsters Local 570 strike is “open-ended,” Sean Cedenio, secretary-treasurer of Teamsters Local 570, said Wednesday.

Residents in the Jessup area, surrounding the Savage Stone quarry, had complained of dust, as well as property damage and noise associated with the quarry’s blasting to mine a rock called gabbro, which is used in road construction.

After several lengthy hearings about the quarry’s operations, a Howard County hearing examiner agreed with the residents, stating that the quarry was in violation of conditions attached to its zoning permission, and should have its permission revoked.

But the quarry, which has operated since the early 2000s, appealed the ruling, bringing the case to the county appeals board, a five-member panel that is appointed by the County Council.

During an Aug. 29 hearing, the quarry’s lawyers argued that the original set of hearings should never have happened, because the county wasn’t allowed to set conditions requiring the quarry to come back for approval to keep operating every five years. That county requirement flies in the face of state law, which requires the Maryland Department of the Environment to govern mine operations.

Quarry attorney Sang Oh cited a 2012 decision by the Maryland Court of Special Appeals, now named the Appellate Court of Maryland. In that case, East Star v. the County Commissioners of Queen Anne’s County, the court ruled that Queen Anne’s could not set a time limit on a mining operation, because that power rested with the state.

“Our representative, the state legislature, saw fit to create laws to protect mining activities,” Oh said. “And what they specifically did was create a body of law that was so encompassing that they made a clear intent to say the state — the Maryland Department of the Environment — controls the activities of the quarry, once this board decides where it goes.”

Attorneys representing homeowners’ associations from neighborhoods near the quarry argued the East Star ruling didn’t apply.

In that case, Queen Anne’s County limited a mine’s operation to five years, going beyond state law, which includes a 25-year ceiling. But in this case, Howard County placed no such cap on the quarry, said Samantha Bingaman, a student attorney with the University of Maryland Carey School of Law’s Environmental Law Clinic, which is representing the homeowners’ associations. The county merely required five-year renewals during the mine’s 25 years of operations, she said.

“We see a huge difference between limiting the amount of time that a mine can operate, regardless of whether they’re in compliance with the conditions, which is what East Star stated, versus what’s going on here,” Bingaman said.

The Board of Appeals determined that the county’s requirement of five-year renewals for Savage Stone should be revoked, though its other zoning conditions, governing the basting, noise and vibrations for example, still would apply. The law clinic team is exploring its options following last week’s decision, Bingaman said.

Randy Heckler, Maryland operations manager at Laurel Sand & Gravel, which runs Savage Stone, declined to comment on the decision, given that the official order has yet to be released by the Board of Appeals.

University of Maryland law professor Jon Mueller, who manages the Environmental Law Clinic, said that even with the adverse ruling, the county Department of Planning & Zoning has the authority to pursue enforcement action against the quarry for the violations alleged earlier this year.

“The Board did not rule on what the hearing examiner said. The board ruled on a legal issue that the hearing examiner was not even presented with,” Mueller said. “They’re still blasting. We think they’re still in violation of the other conditions of the conditional use zoning, and the county does have the authority to act.”

“The ball is in the county’s court,” Bingaman said.

The quarry received a zoning violation from the county in April, because its zoning approval expired while it was in proceedings to receive its five-year renewal. The county decided against enforcing the violation until the end of the hearing process.

In a statement, Lynda Eisenberg, director for Howard County’s Department of Planning and Zoning said the county’s next actions are to be determined.

“The written decision of the Board of Appeals may yet be appealed to the Courts. The appeal period is 30 days from the date that the Board of Appeals issues their written decision,”  Eisenberg wrote. The Department of Planning and Zoning “will determine its next steps after the Board issues its written decision.”

The hearing examiner ruled that the quarry ran afoul of its original agreement with the county, which required it to maintain a fund to reimburse residents for any damage from blasting. Throughout its history, the quarry has never paid any residents, arguing that its blasts never exceed regulated levels, meaning that damage cited by residents cannot be caused by the explosions.

Residents, including in the neighborhood of Pleasant Chase, have described items falling from shelves and walls during the worst blasts, and argued that cracks they’ve noticed on their walls, foundations and driveways can be attributed to the mining operation.

For residents, the recent ruling was deeply frustrating, said Camille Edwards, president of the Pleasant Chase Homeowners Association. Some residents believed they would be able to testify before the Board of Appeals, just as they had earlier this year before the hearing examiner.

“People took time off their jobs to be there,” Edwards said. “And then they voted … to not proceed. So, who do the residents go to to complain now?”

During their deliberations, board members stated that neighbors still could go to the state or the county zoning departments with complaints about the quarry’s operation. But the five-year renewal hearings were unlawful, and not a proper forum for the complaints, the board ruled.

“It has to go through the complaint process through the county, or through whatever mechanism. They have to investigate it. They have to take action,” said Gene Ryan, chairman of the Board of Appeals. “Ultimately, it may come to us, but we can’t short-circuit that process.”

David Schneider, who purchased his home near the quarry site in 1997 — before the quarry existed — said he also was angered by the ruling. During the deliberations, he felt as though the board members already has reached a foregone conclusion: that they could not rule on the merits of residents’ complaints.

“It’s had a tremendous impact on our community: damage to our houses,” Schneider said. “In my driveway, in particular, there’s about a 2-foot crack across the driveway that developed after the mine.”

“It was our belief that this was coming to an end. And that basically, the quarry would be phased out,” he said.

This time though, the environmental conditions are different, potentially lessening concerns that the facility and its discharges would have a harmful effect.

Instead of discharging water into a small creek called the Marshyhope that flows into the Nanticoke River, the proposed salmon farm would discharge water through a pipe into the Susquehanna River — the Chesapeake Bay’s largest tributary.

Unlike the Marshyhope, the Susquehanna River is not a key breeding ground for an endangered bay species — the Atlantic sturgeon. Worries for the sturgeon, and how they would be impacted by cold water flushed into the river system from the salmon farm, were the principal reasons for public outcry, which ultimately compelled the Norwegian company, AquaCon, to abandon its proposal.

This time, AquaCon has secured 160 acres for its farm, in Port Deposit’s Bainbridge development, a former naval training facility that’s under redevelopment for industrial uses. The company plans to construct new buildings on the site, which would house salmon throughout their lifespan, from eggs to fully grown fish, said Henrik Tangen, AquaCon’s executive chair and president, in a statement to The Baltimore Sun.

At first, the facility will produce about 10,000 metric tons of Atlantic salmon annually, Tangen said. When it’s fully built, the facility is expected to produce double that, and employ about 300 people, Tangen said.

The county is “thrilled” to eventually host the AquaCon project, County Executive Danielle Hornberger said in a statement.

“This innovative project, which utilizes clean tanks over land and eliminates the need for harmful chemicals, promises sustainable practices that align with our commitment to protecting the environment,” Hornberger wrote. “Moreover, it will create high-quality manufacturing jobs for our community, driving both economic development and ecological responsibility.”

AquaCon’s goal is to begin construction in the first half of 2025, and complete its first harvest in the first half of 2028.

In June, the company applied for a permit to discharge into the environment from the Maryland Department of the Environment. Its application remains under review, said Jay Apperson, a spokesperson for the agency.

Twice in July, MDE advertised the receipt of the application, and the opportunity for a public meeting about its contents, in The Cecil Whig, Apperson said. But no such meeting was requested.

At least one environmental group says the project still warrants careful scrutiny.

The Chesapeake Bay Foundation does not have a formal position on the project, but they are examining the proposal closely, said Alan Girard, the foundation’s advocacy director.

In particular, the foundation is examining any potential impact on other species in the Susquehanna River, or key environments that would be downstream of the new facility, like the vast underwater grass bed of the Susquehanna Flats.

“We do know that this location downstream of the Conowingo [Dam] does have shad, river herring, other anadromous species expected to be in that area,” said Girard, using the scientific term for fish species that migrate into rivers to spawn. “Those species are in low numbers, and we need to understand habitat impacts to them.”

In his statement to The Sun, Tangen said the facility would use raw water from the Susquehanna, provided by Artesian Resources Corp., the water and wastewater provider for Cecil County, for the salmon in its recirculating aquaculture system, or RAS, and then purify that water before returning it to the river.

“As we are taking water from the river, the discharge water will be cleaner than the intake water. We are cleaning the intake water to meet the high purity standard needed for salmon production,” Tangen wrote. “The same water cleaning process will be done to the discharge water enabling adherence to all thresholds set for discharge water to the river.”

In addition the flow of the discharge water would be “minuscular” compared to the large water flow of the Susquehanna, which is about 0.8 miles wide at the discharge point, Tangen wrote.

The Susquehanna, which drains much of central Pennsylvania and into New York, accounts for about half of the Chesapeake Bay’s fresh water.

“Due diligence of the various important criteria, such as access to water from the Susquehanna River, electric energy, wastewater treatment, and logistics (access roads and efficient distribution to customers as [the] site is just off I-95), is very positive,” Tangen wrote in his statement.

Based on a quick review, David Secor, a University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science professor who voiced opposition to AquaCon’s former site in Federalsburg, said the company seems to have found “a much more suitable site,” where discharges would be significantly diluted.

In his statement, Tangen said the AquaCon team has “more than 60 years of experience of planning, building and operating salmon RAS facilities elsewhere in the world.”

“RAS land-based fish farming is regarded as the future of environmentally sustainable seafood production,” Tangen wrote. “We are most proud to bring this technology to Maryland.”

The National Safety and Transportation Board on Wednesday released its preliminary report on the explosion of the home at 2300 Arthurs Woods Drive in Bel Air that killed the homeowner, Ray Corkran, 73, and a BGE contractor, Jose Rodriguez-Alvarado, 35.

It noted that gas and electrical lines were in close proximity in a common trench, similar to what led state regulators to penalize BGE with fines of more than $437,000 for safety violations that caused a 2019 explosion in a Columbia office park.

The NTSB’s initial report on the Bel Air explosion said BGE investigators recovered damaged electrical lines and a gas service line with a hole on the bottom, and detected underground gas in the area of the destroyed home.

The damage to the electrical cables, and especially the hole in the gas line, are key, said a former federal explosions investigator who reviewed the preliminary report at The Sun’s request.

“The hole in the line is significant because the root cause of any natural gas explosion is the gas being where it doesn’t belong,” said Richard Summerfield, a retired agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, who now works as a consultant. “Now that they’ve identified how the gas got out of the system, the investigation is going to center on what caused that hole.”

After the NTSB released its preliminary report Wednesday into the Bel Air house explosion, Baltimore Gas and Electric announced steps to enhance system safety and reliability.

The utility company said it had recently implemented “refresher trainings” on gas and electric emergency processes, reinforced procedures on “responding to issues” and “increased oversight of emergency customer calls to the company.”

The Maryland State Fire Marshal’s Office previously told The Sun that BGE usually calls local fire departments when it receives reports of gas odors, but did not do so in this case.

The NTSB report said investigators examined the blast site, reviewed BGE’s operational procedures, gathered documentation, conducted interviews and recovered physical evidence for examination.

The report stated that the night before the explosion, the home experienced an electrical outage.

According to the report, the outage prompted a BGE electrical service technician to respond to the scene. That evening, two reports of the odor of gas were made. The first was by the technician who made the report to BGE’s electrical dispatch operator and the second was from a neighbor 0.2 miles away from the home.

According to the report, BGE responded to the neighbor’s report and did not find a leak. The Sun previously reported that a neighbor, Carline Fisher, had called BGE and spoke to a worker who responded.

The following morning, two BGE electrical contractors were working on the electrical repair when the explosion occurred — resulting in the death of one of the contractors, Rodriguez-Alvarado. The second contractor suffered minor injuries, according to the report.

The report stated that in an interview with NTSB investigators, another worker said that he smelled gas in front of the home about 6:05 a.m., just before the explosion.

NTSB said the natural gas distribution system near the home — consisting of a 1 and 1/4-inch diameter plastic main — was installed in 2006. Another service line was a 1/2-inch diameter plastic service line, installed in 2007.

According to the report, the operating pressure of the gas system at the time of the explosion was about 89 pounds per square inch gauge — below the 99 per square inch gauge maximum allowable operating pressure.

The report did not state the cause of the gas leak or the ignition source. NTSB said their investigation is still ongoing.