Will Baker Speaks About Four Seasons Project

Opponents of the Four Seasons development argue that the Queen Anne's Board of County Commissioners should now reconsider the whole project and vote a second time on the altered plan (which also includes a change to a bridge). New information about sea level rise, flooding of waterfront areas, and EPA pollution limits for the Bay have become available since the county's 2002 approval, and should now be taken into consideration, advocates argue.

Will Baker, President of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, said that EPA's 2010 pollution limits for the estuary and the state plans to meet those limits (called the Chesapeake Clean Water Blueprint) should mean a re-evaluation and denial of the Four Seasons project.

"We are required as a society to reduce pollution in the rivers and creeks and Chesapeake Bay, not increase pollution," Baker told the audience, describing the Chesapeake Clean Water Blueprint. "One inch of rain, falling on one acre of paved surface, produces 30,000 gallons of polluted runoff. We cannot add more pollution to the rivers and streams."

Hovnanian Enterprises is promising to be responsible about handling stormwater pollution that will pour off the huge waterfront project. But three years ago, Hovnanian was forced to pay a $1 million fine to EPA because of stormwater violations at 591 development sites, including 161 in the Chesapeake Bay watershed, according to the federal agency.

"This out of state developer has a long, long history ... of environmental violations," Baker told the crowd. "What in the world would want us to bring a developer like that onto Kent Island?"

The audience cheered.