Opinion: Maryland needs an Environmental Human Rights Amendment – Maryland Matters

By Claire Miller

The author is communications director for the Maryland Marketing campaign for Environmental Human Rights.

That is in response to Josh Kurtz’s article on September twenty eighth, “Report particulars alarming ranges of poisons being dumped in Maryland’s waterways.” It’s disturbing to listen to concerning the 1000’s of kilos of poisonous chemical substances, together with PFAS — “perpetually chemical substances” — being dumped in our Maryland waterways and that the precise launch could also be a lot greater.

Marylanders are bearing the true human price to releasing these harmful chemical substances into the environment that are linked to elevated charges of most cancers and issues that have an effect on human growth and copy. It’s not simply air pollution in our waterways. Communities like Curtis Bay, Lothian, Brandywine, and counties together with Prince George’s, Calvert, Wicomico, and Worcester are bearing the burden of air and water air pollution from energy crops, landfills, superfund websites, and business that’s permitted subsequent to residential communities of shade.

Sufficient is sufficient. Maryland prides itself on its environmental file, but this report is one other instance of the place Maryland’s environmental legal guidelines and insurance policies are failing the Maryland public. The place was the oversight and enforcement of permits to forestall the 1000’s of poisonous pollution from being dumped?

With the Supreme Courtroom actively working to scale back the variety of waterways being protected, Marylanders are much more depending on motion on the state and native degree to guard the well being of the waterways that we rely on for ingesting water, a wholesome habitat for the seafood we eat and the recreation all of us want and deserve

There’s a higher approach to make sure oversight and enforcement occurs. It’s referred to as the Environmental Human Rights Modification. It will give the state and native governments a constitutional obligation to guard Maryland’s air, water, lands, wildlife and ecosystems for the advantage of present and future generations. A constitutional obligation elevates the position of the state and its businesses to be protectors of the waterways and to make sure selections they make don’t infringe on this proper.

It’s time to replace our expectations for the way our shared pure assets are managed. Marylanders want the state and its businesses to step as much as defend the well being of our waterways upon which our human well being relies upon. The UN Normal Meeting not too long ago acknowledged a clear, wholesome and sustainable surroundings as a human proper in July with an expectation that nations and sub-nationals would implement this proper in treaties, constitutions, environments and legal guidelines. It’s time for Maryland to make the suitable to a healthful surroundings a constitutional proper.