From Lauren Greenberger, Sugarloaf Citizens Association, November 13, 2019
We at Sugarloaf are working on two major areas - zero waste initiatives including shutting the incinerator and getting those greenhouse gases and pollutants out of the air. The other area we are actively working on is maximizing carbon sequestration in the county and increasing local food production through regenerative agriculture, and increased land coverage with trees and grasslands.
Incinerator
Over the past few months we have hired 2 consultants to help address concerns Marc has had about closing the incinerator. Our first did a lifecycle analysis for Montgomery County’s solid waste disposal system and found that directly landfilling our non-recyclables, even hundreds of miles away (hauled by rail) would be far safer for both the environment and human health. For years the industry and even the EPA have used models that manipulate data to make incineration look ‘clean’. They completely discount the pollution caused by burning ‘biogenic’ material because they say it can grow back so it is renewable and thus not a hazard. When calculating pollutants from landfills they count ALL biogenic emissions. They also use displacement of coal when they measure pollution averted but, in fact, they are displacing wind and solar (the truly renewable sources of energy).
The second consultant Sugarloaf hired evaluated the feasibility of moving Montgomery County’s trash via rail to landfill instead of burning it and sending the toxic ash to landfill.
What he found was very exciting. Tunnel Hill, the largest manager of rail-served MSW in the country is keenly interested in Montgomery County, given our volume of trash. They would be willing to reconfigure the Shady Grove loading site (making it smaller, more efficient and more cost effective) and would send trash west or south thus avoiding the congested rail lines we have going east. They are prepared to come assess of our operation and give us a firm offer. Pricing could well be competitive with our $47-48 per ton that we are paying COVANTA.
This option would, of course be better for the County in that:
Regenerative Agriculture
1. We have 110 acres of farmland that have been in traditional commodity crops for the past 20 years. Another 40 acres have been fallow grasses. We are looking for a regenerative farmer to use the land and possibly act as a demonstration site for other farmers to see the economic and environmental benefit of building soil and sequestering carbon through farming.
2. We are reaching out to our public officials, especially the Planning Board which is developing a new long-term master plan for the county. We want to be assured that the goals they set for land-use in the county align with best practices for farmland that will serve to draw down carbon in the atmosphere and insure food security and clean drinking water for the ominous years to come.
From Julie Taddeo, Safe Grow Montgomery, November 13, 2019
Just wanted to update all of you about the Montgomery County Lawn Pesticide Law-- since it was upheld in the courts, the DEP is now notifying county residents about it with a great mailer Mary Traviglini has put together & DEPs website has been updated too. Hopefully, we'll see the promised ride-on bus ads, and a concerted effort by DEP to get retailers to place organic products up front and information about the law in their stores. https://www.montgomerycountymd.gov/lawns/law/
Just last week, Howard County's council voted to ban neonics, chlorpyrifos, and glyphosate on county-owned land (glyphosate is not banned in MoCo Parks, sadly). So the tide is turning, while slowly, in favor of herbicide-free lawns & parks.
The Parks Dept. has added more parks to their pesticide-free program, so now there will be 45 out of 422 parks on the list, but only ONE playing field out of hundreds of their fields will be involved in a pilot project to go pesticide free. The current County Council is simply not interested in this issue, and Mike Riley and Parks won't budge on this, whether it's artificial turf or pesticides, but I wish those on the artificial turf issue good luck.
Lastly, we've been warned that the pesticide industry & Farm Bureau will be seeking a preemption law at the state level to stop these types of local actions to restrict pesticide use-- so be on the lookout, if your issue is Bees, Birds, Kids, Clean Water, etc-- we will all be impacted if preemption occurs.
From Diana Conway, November 9, 2019
By way of check-in, I and some others on this list are working on synturf, and will have two bills re-introduced in Annapolis. One to prohibit use of Program Open Space funds for synturf (Del Jared Solomon D18), and another to regulate disposal of synturf to prohibit what MCPS did with the used Richard Montgomery HS field (see attached photo). That bill’s being carried by Del. Mary Lehman of PG/Anne Arundel D21.
The arguments against synturf are simple:
1 Lethally hot --hotter than adjoining asphalt.
2 Multiply toxic to people and environment.
3 Dramatically higher injury rates for both concussion & lower-extremity injury.
4 Much more expensive than well-built grass—and the difference is even greater when replacement and disposal are included (and how could they not be?).
5 And the looming elephant: liability for failure of due diligence and fiduciary duty—especially given the higher duty of care owed to children. Electeds/officials are spending public tax dollars even as the evidence on the preceding points grows. In a school with leaded water kids can bring their own drinks. In a school with leaded synturf, ummm.
Update: The issue now encompasses tire-based playgrounds, intended for our very youngest kids who are the most vulnerable to these pernicious effects and will have the longest window of exposure to both playgrounds and synturf fields.
From Amy Maron, Zero Waste Lead, Sierra Club Montgomery County Group, November 9, 2019
The Sierra Club Montgomery Group's Zero Waste team has almost completed our second survey of shoppers' use of plastic/paper/reusable bags at grocery stores since the 5-cent fee went into effect in 2012. Our 2015 survey showed that 47% of shoppers were using reusable bags and 18% were using no bags. This fall, we surveyed approximately 10,000 shoppers at 62 large chain grocery stores across the county (not counting stores that don't provide free plastic bags like Whole Foods and Trader Joes). After we analyze and prepare a report on our findings, we plan to make a recommendation to county council on how to more effectively promote use of reusable bags. Hint: the use of these bags hasn't gone up.
There may be a state legislative proposal as well since the Sierra Club groups in Prince Georges, Frederic, Howard, Baltimore (where no fees exist) have also completed their own surveys and have found appallingly low use of reusable bags. You may have read that Baltimore City council is considering a bag fee bill (it was voted out of committee last week).
We've briefed Adam Ortiz on our survey goals and methodology. Stay tuned for our report and recommendations. I strongly support these regular meetings with Marc and Adam.
We at Sugarloaf are working on two major areas - zero waste initiatives including shutting the incinerator and getting those greenhouse gases and pollutants out of the air. The other area we are actively working on is maximizing carbon sequestration in the county and increasing local food production through regenerative agriculture, and increased land coverage with trees and grasslands.
Incinerator
Over the past few months we have hired 2 consultants to help address concerns Marc has had about closing the incinerator. Our first did a lifecycle analysis for Montgomery County’s solid waste disposal system and found that directly landfilling our non-recyclables, even hundreds of miles away (hauled by rail) would be far safer for both the environment and human health. For years the industry and even the EPA have used models that manipulate data to make incineration look ‘clean’. They completely discount the pollution caused by burning ‘biogenic’ material because they say it can grow back so it is renewable and thus not a hazard. When calculating pollutants from landfills they count ALL biogenic emissions. They also use displacement of coal when they measure pollution averted but, in fact, they are displacing wind and solar (the truly renewable sources of energy).
The second consultant Sugarloaf hired evaluated the feasibility of moving Montgomery County’s trash via rail to landfill instead of burning it and sending the toxic ash to landfill.
What he found was very exciting. Tunnel Hill, the largest manager of rail-served MSW in the country is keenly interested in Montgomery County, given our volume of trash. They would be willing to reconfigure the Shady Grove loading site (making it smaller, more efficient and more cost effective) and would send trash west or south thus avoiding the congested rail lines we have going east. They are prepared to come assess of our operation and give us a firm offer. Pricing could well be competitive with our $47-48 per ton that we are paying COVANTA.
This option would, of course be better for the County in that:
- We would no longer be putting mercury, dioxins, furans, lead, NOx and particulate matter into our air. The ‘significantly high’ levels of cancer, lower respiratory infection and particulate matter that the 2016 MC Health study found in the 2 zip codes adjacent to the incinerator would likely disappear.
- With a minimum of a 75 % methane capture rate, we would considerably reduce our GHG emissions - both methane and CO2 thus moving towards our GHG reduction goals.
- We would no longer be endangering a large minority community in VA with 200K tons the toxic ash we are dumping there every year.
- We would no longer have the incinerator needing to be ‘fed’. As waste is reduced through food composting, pay-as-you-throw and other initiatives; so would our expenses to dispose of trash.
- We could break our ties and expenses to the NMWDA which filters information to our DEP to keep us thinking that burning trash is safe and economical.
Regenerative Agriculture
1. We have 110 acres of farmland that have been in traditional commodity crops for the past 20 years. Another 40 acres have been fallow grasses. We are looking for a regenerative farmer to use the land and possibly act as a demonstration site for other farmers to see the economic and environmental benefit of building soil and sequestering carbon through farming.
2. We are reaching out to our public officials, especially the Planning Board which is developing a new long-term master plan for the county. We want to be assured that the goals they set for land-use in the county align with best practices for farmland that will serve to draw down carbon in the atmosphere and insure food security and clean drinking water for the ominous years to come.
From Julie Taddeo, Safe Grow Montgomery, November 13, 2019
Just wanted to update all of you about the Montgomery County Lawn Pesticide Law-- since it was upheld in the courts, the DEP is now notifying county residents about it with a great mailer Mary Traviglini has put together & DEPs website has been updated too. Hopefully, we'll see the promised ride-on bus ads, and a concerted effort by DEP to get retailers to place organic products up front and information about the law in their stores. https://www.montgomerycountymd.gov/lawns/law/
Just last week, Howard County's council voted to ban neonics, chlorpyrifos, and glyphosate on county-owned land (glyphosate is not banned in MoCo Parks, sadly). So the tide is turning, while slowly, in favor of herbicide-free lawns & parks.
The Parks Dept. has added more parks to their pesticide-free program, so now there will be 45 out of 422 parks on the list, but only ONE playing field out of hundreds of their fields will be involved in a pilot project to go pesticide free. The current County Council is simply not interested in this issue, and Mike Riley and Parks won't budge on this, whether it's artificial turf or pesticides, but I wish those on the artificial turf issue good luck.
Lastly, we've been warned that the pesticide industry & Farm Bureau will be seeking a preemption law at the state level to stop these types of local actions to restrict pesticide use-- so be on the lookout, if your issue is Bees, Birds, Kids, Clean Water, etc-- we will all be impacted if preemption occurs.
From Diana Conway, November 9, 2019
By way of check-in, I and some others on this list are working on synturf, and will have two bills re-introduced in Annapolis. One to prohibit use of Program Open Space funds for synturf (Del Jared Solomon D18), and another to regulate disposal of synturf to prohibit what MCPS did with the used Richard Montgomery HS field (see attached photo). That bill’s being carried by Del. Mary Lehman of PG/Anne Arundel D21.
The arguments against synturf are simple:
1 Lethally hot --hotter than adjoining asphalt.
2 Multiply toxic to people and environment.
3 Dramatically higher injury rates for both concussion & lower-extremity injury.
4 Much more expensive than well-built grass—and the difference is even greater when replacement and disposal are included (and how could they not be?).
5 And the looming elephant: liability for failure of due diligence and fiduciary duty—especially given the higher duty of care owed to children. Electeds/officials are spending public tax dollars even as the evidence on the preceding points grows. In a school with leaded water kids can bring their own drinks. In a school with leaded synturf, ummm.
Update: The issue now encompasses tire-based playgrounds, intended for our very youngest kids who are the most vulnerable to these pernicious effects and will have the longest window of exposure to both playgrounds and synturf fields.
From Amy Maron, Zero Waste Lead, Sierra Club Montgomery County Group, November 9, 2019
The Sierra Club Montgomery Group's Zero Waste team has almost completed our second survey of shoppers' use of plastic/paper/reusable bags at grocery stores since the 5-cent fee went into effect in 2012. Our 2015 survey showed that 47% of shoppers were using reusable bags and 18% were using no bags. This fall, we surveyed approximately 10,000 shoppers at 62 large chain grocery stores across the county (not counting stores that don't provide free plastic bags like Whole Foods and Trader Joes). After we analyze and prepare a report on our findings, we plan to make a recommendation to county council on how to more effectively promote use of reusable bags. Hint: the use of these bags hasn't gone up.
There may be a state legislative proposal as well since the Sierra Club groups in Prince Georges, Frederic, Howard, Baltimore (where no fees exist) have also completed their own surveys and have found appallingly low use of reusable bags. You may have read that Baltimore City council is considering a bag fee bill (it was voted out of committee last week).
We've briefed Adam Ortiz on our survey goals and methodology. Stay tuned for our report and recommendations. I strongly support these regular meetings with Marc and Adam.