Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

GREEN INITIATIVES [AUDIO] More green for Delaware

As a part of the Chesapeake Bay watershed, Delaware contributes to the streams of toxins that flow into the bay—the nation’s largest estuary—from its many distant tributaries. Efforts to clean up the heavily polluted bay must address causes such as fertilizer and animal-waste runoff from farms, including those in Delaware.

Delaware Senator Tom Carper believes that Congress can take comprehensive action to clean up the Chesapeake Bay while avoiding harm to farmers—and even potentially helping them.

Sen. Carper sponsored legislation that would provide grants for projects to convert animal waste from farms into energy. It comes in the form of an amendment to a $2 billion Chesapeake Bay cleanup bill that passed the Environment and Public Work Committee and is headed for a Senate vote.

The funding bill gives the Environmental Protection Agency more authority to force watershed states to meet pollution standards, and it provides money to help the states in doing so. The bill also includes Delaware EPA’s cleanup program for the first time. Delaware will receive funding to establish a Watershed Implementation plan, and will be eligible to compete for $1.5 billion in cleanup grants included in the Senate bill.

We had a chance to talk to Senator Carper about this new legislation and other Delaware initiatives.

Carper explains the benefit of his waste-to-energy initiative

[audio:http://www.wdde.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/Carper-1.mp3|titles=Senator Carper 1]

Carper weighs in on Delaware’s move to universal recycling

[audio:http://www.wdde.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/Carper-2.mp3|titles=Senator Carper 2]

Carper on the virtue of green economy

[audio:http://www.wdde.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/Carper-3.mp3|titles=Senator Carper 3]