Can you imagine a city without impervious surfaces? Actually, engineers call them “impervious surfaces”. People in Baltimore know them as streets, sidewalks, parking lots, and roofs. These hard surfaces make urban and suburban life possible, but they also cause big… →
Stormwater runoff is a long-ignored and growing source of pollution and sediment—which hurts the quality of our streams, the harbor and the entire Chesapeake Bay—and causes flooding and property damage. Our 2012 Healthy Harbor Report Card grade of C- illustrates… →
In the next week, there are important hearings about SB 576 / HB 1086, also known as the “Maryland Bag Bill,” to reduce the number of plastic shopping bags that litter our streams. The bill establishes a five-cent fee for… →
If you live in Baltimore, hydraulic fracturing (aka “fracking”) in Maryland might seem like someone else’s problem. After all, it’s not very likely that we’ll see fracking in Patterson Park. Yet, Blue Water Baltimore is taking a strong stance that… →
Two weeks ago, I had the privilege of attending the 2013 Environmental Legislative Summit in Annapolis, hosted by the Citizen’s Campaign for the Environment. Halle, our executive director,had asked me to represent Blue Water Baltimore at the Summit, and I… →
From the desk of Halle Van der Gaag, Executive Director The 2013 Maryland General Assembly is here! This is a preview of the legislative issues on which Blue Water Baltimore will be focused this year. Check out our blog and… →
Stormwater is the single greatest source of water pollution in modern cities like Baltimore, and in this year’s Baltimore City election you can do something to remedy it. Voting “Yes” on Referendum Question J to create a new stormwater utility… →
[Note: Lisa DeGuire is the 2012-2013 Chesapeake Conservation Corps member for Blue Water Baltimore. She assists with greening projects, environmental education, and the Clean Water Community Initiative.] Today, the Clean Water Act turns 40! Although I wasn’t yet born when… →