Bay Journal News Feed

Tropical storms and hot temperatures proved to be a lethal combination for the Chesapeake's underwater grasses, which declined 22 percent Baywide last year, according to the latest aerial survey.

It's commonly thought that religion and politics don't mix. Religion and science don't have a great history, either.

The Waterkeeper Alliance's lawsuit against an Eastern Shore poultry grower and Perdue Farms has ruffled feathers all across the state. But a resolution may soon be near.

A panel of Maryland historic preservationists has put Maryland's watermen on their 2012 Endangered Maryland list. The list, compiled by Preservation Maryland, traditionally includes historically and architecturally distinguished properties that are threatened with destruction through neglect or development. Ten such properties were named this year.

Should immigration become the main concern of the Chesapeake Bay restoration, as a recent report suggests?

"One of the most serious challenges to human destiny in the last third of this century will be the growth of the population."

For the last several years, the EPA and the states have been warning municipalities that they must upgrade their wastewater plants to keep nitrogen and phosphorus pollution out of the Chesapeake Bay. And for just as long, the municipalities have complained they can't afford it.

A bipartisan team of House members has revived legislation that would sharply curb the EPA's implementation of its "pollution diet" to clean up the Chesapeake Bay.

Federal agencies accelerated their efforts to restore water quality and habitats in the Bay and its watershed last year, but tight budgets could jeopardize their ability to maintain progress and fully meet objectives set forth two years ago in a sweeping federal Bay strategy.

The EPA's Bay cleanup effort would get a boost in President Obama's proposed 2013 budget, but some initiatives, including oyster restoration, would take a financial hit while others, like the Bay's smart buoys, face elimination.

The earthquake that rocked Youngstown, OH, late last year has been blamed on practices associated with natural gas drilling, leading many observers to wonder if the earth will start to shake under the Marcellus Shale.

Federal wildlife officials have confirmed that nutria, a South American rodent that has destroyed thousands of acres of Maryland's marshes, has taken up residence in Delaware.

The University of Maryland has landed a $27 million national grant to build an institution that will take available environmental and sociological data and distill it into meaningful pieces so it has a better chance of affecting public policy.

It looks like the end of the road for the Cross-County Connector.

A new partnership between Virginia Sea Grant and the College of William and Mary- including the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, Mason School of Business and Marshall-Wythe School of Law - is exploring whether a community-supported fishery is a feasible means to help promote greater consumption of locally harvested fish and shellfish.

Two Potomac commissions still don't know if Virginia will fund them in the coming year.

Many years ago, I interviewed one of the nation's leading bear biologists who had been studying Pennsylvania's black bears. His work had revealed that the state was something of a paradise for bears. Their numbers were increasing, and, they grew larger and had more cubs than anywhere else.

Spring is a great time to focus our attention on our environment. Days are getting longer, plants are budding and the sound of birds is once again filling the morning air.

When my wife, Nancy, and I first arrived in a rural area of Southern Maryland 40 years ago, we set out to find a local physician. Our young neighbor informed us, "My father's a doctor, everybody likes him."

In the 1800s, steamboats regularly left the Chesapeake Bay to venture up the Choptank River and wind still farther upstream on Tuckahoe Creek. Their journey ended at the hamlet of Hillsboro, MD, where the Tuckahoe narrowed and its waters grew shallow.