Bay Daily

The Snow Fairy's Rampage

Snow day!

Here's the view outside my house in Baltimore after this weekend's assault and battery by the Winter Warlock.

Several of my neighbors had no heat or electricity, and had to sleep heaped up with their kids, dogs, coats, rugs and blankets to keep warm. Folks were sledding down the middle of the road on the hill near our home, with no fear of traffic.

How did you all survive?

My top five favorite snow headlines:

SNOWMAGGEDON

Sewage Spill Prompts Health Warning

A spill of 25,000 gallons of sewage into the Stoney Run in Linthicum, Maryland, has prompted the Anne Arundel County, Maryland, health department to warn people to avoid all contact with the water.

President Obama Boosts Environmental Education

Here’s a burst of nutrients for green education.  For the first time ever, the U.S. Education Budget next year will include the words “environmental literacy.” 

President Obama’s administration is also planning to fork over some green to back up those words. States will be able to apply for $265 million for a variety of programs that promote a well-rounded education, including environmental studies, foreign languages, the arts and history.  That’s a 17 percent increase in money for these types of studies over the current year, if Congress approves the president's proposed budget.

This extra cash would help school districts around the Chesapeake Bay beef up their outdoor and environmental education, which would be great news for our children.

The Government Goose Plot That Flew Out of Control

On a cold, gray morning recently, I was out on the Chesapeake Bay when I uncovered the government goose plot.

I was in a motorboat near Shady Side, Maryland, with an award-winning wildlife biologist, Dr. Matthew C. Perry (below)  who has served the federal government for four decades.

All of a sudden, gunshots rang out.

From behind the row of skeletal trees lining the shore, a flock of thousands of Canada Geese swarmed up, filling the sky.

They appeared to be normal migratory geese, which fly from Canada down to the Chesapeake Bay every fall and return up North in the Spring. 

But I couldn’t help but ask Dr. Perry: what’s the story with those other geese? 

Pollution and Tree Growth

A curious twist in the debate over global warming. New research suggests that all the  carbon dioxide in the atmosphere from the burning of coal and other fossil fuels is making trees grow faster. And this, in turn, means bigger trees will absorb more carbon dioxide, The Baltimore Sun reports.

The Bay's Problems As Seen From Outer Space

Check out this NASA satellite image of the Chesapeake Bay taken on Sunday.  Notice the big brown stain of chocolate milk spewing from the Susquehanna River, in the far north, and spreading more than 50 miles south, past Annapolis. Similar smudges ooze down the Potomac and James rivers.

It ain't chocolate, Wonka fans.

This is mud, fertilizers, and chemicals flushed by last week's heavy rains off of farm fields, construction sites, parking lots, and roads.

It’s so much pollution you can see it from outer space.

What The Harbor Seals Think About Developers

Look at these harbor seals. They appear to be lounging on the ice at the end of the world, but they're not. They're sunning in the waterway behind Ocean City, Maryland, not far from a wilderness of parking lots, roads and strip malls. Right now in Maryland and Virginia, developers are fighting to undermine new pollution control rules that would force them to filter rainwater running off of parking lots, so that it doesn't flush hot oil, gasoline, anti-freeze, dirt and other pollutants into the bedrooms of animals like these seals.

Spin Defeats Intelligent Management of Bay's Fish

Bad news has washed ashore from Virginia.

The General Assembly last night killed legislation that would have improved the state’s management of menhaden, a small but important fish that helps to filter the Chesapeake Bay and feed larger species.

The bills would have switched management of the fish from the politicians in the General Assembly to the scientists at the Virginia Marine Resources Commission.  It is unfortunate that opponents of the bill misrepresented the legislation as a threat to the state’s economy –- when actually, the commission has a duty to safeguard both the Bay’s economic and ecological benefits.

Coal Crackdown?

For all you who enjoyed the Bay Daily story in December about my road trip to West Virginia to explore the issue of mountaintop removal coal mining, check out this update in today's Washington Post.

The newspaper reports that the Obama Administration launched a "crackdown" on mountaintop removal mines, scrutinizing 175 proposed mines in the Appalachian region over the last year, and only approving 48. 

Biased Poll Pollutes Public Debate

Beware the wording of poll questions, because they can turn black into white… and public opinion into nonsense.

Exhibit A:

An Annapolis-based public opinion research firm yesterday released a poll that was paid for by the Maryland State Builders Association.  This special interest group is lobbying hard to undermine new stormwater pollution control regulations that would improve water quality in the Chesapeake Bay.

Wouldn’t you know it?  The builders’ poll concluded that the public doesn’t really want what’s in the public  interest: clean water.  What the public really wants is what is in the development industry’s interest: fewer regulations.