Hurricane Florence has moved on, but the storm is nonetheless forecast to deliver another potentially damaging slug of floodwaters and pollution to the Chesapeake Bay over the next few days. Rising waters on the Susquehanna River are expected to crest Thursday night, prompting the operator of the...
Rick Dove is an environmental paparazzo operating at more than 1,000 feet above the ground. A senior advisor with the Waterkeeper Alliance, he circles the floodwaters from Hurricane Florence in the back seat of a tiny propeller plane, gripping his camera while searching for toxic problems below....
Baltimore’s public trash cans are getting an upgrade. The city’s first Smart Cans, solar-powered trash compactors that tell sanitation employees when they’re ready to be emptied, arrived on sidewalks this week, Mayor Catherine E. Pugh announced Monday. The Casino Local Development Council donated...
Maryland plans to take the Trump administration to federal appeals court now that the Environmental Protection Agency has rejected the state's demands that it do more to limit coal power plant emissions in upwind states. The EPA on Friday finalized a decision it had proposed in May denying a Maryland...
Pasadena waterman C.J. Canby and his crew of three pulled up their crab pots early Wednesday, and for the most part found a healthy catch. “Oh boy,” Canby exclaimed as they hoisted one of the wire cages out of the Chesapeake Bay near the mouth of the Patapsco River. “That’s a $100-a-dozen crab.”...
Crews blew up a section of the Bloede Dam on Tuesday, launching in earnest a process of removing the structure and restoring a section of the Patapsco River to its natural profile. The long-awaited blast occurred around midday Tuesday. Now, the rest of the dam will be removed in chunks over the...
As inevitable as Hurricane Florence’s landfall in the Carolinas appears, the storm's meandering path beyond that — and the foot or two of rain it could dump — remained uncertain Tuesday as preparations and evacuations continued. Forecasts were suggesting that the same force steering Florence toward...
Hurricane Florence is threatening to strike the East Coast on Friday as a Category 5 hurricane, prompting evacuations in the Carolinas and an emergency declaration in Maryland ahead of potentially “historic” flooding. As the storm makes landfall in the Southeast, potentially with winds of 150 mph,...
Persistent rain in the last couple of weeks — and throughout the summer — has has turned the ground throughout the Baltimore region into a soft, wet mess, toppling the occasional tree as happened this past weekend on St. Paul Street and University Avenue in the city. More bad weather — particularly...
It wasn't just a surge of debris that washed into the Chesapeake Bay last month — the estuary received a record-setting flow of fresh water, scientists say, potentially hinting at long-term impacts on ecosystem health. On average, streams and rivers were sending 133,000 cubic feet of water per...
Maryland officials on Wednesday proposed establishing a new oyster sanctuary in the Eastern Shore's Manokin River, and suggested paying for it using only state money — a maneuver that could allow watermen to one day harvest from it. Sanctuaries are permanently off-limits to harvesting if they are...
Baltimore is one of two pilot cities across the nation picked for a new food waste management initiative in partnership with the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Rockefeller Foundation. On Wednesday, Mayor Catherine Pugh and members of the Office of Sustainability announced the initiative,...
For more than a century, a former hydroelectric station straddling Baltimore and Howard counties has blocked wildlife habitat and created unsafe swimming conditions on the Patapsco River. That’s why wildlife and water quality advocates are cheering the destruction of Bloede Dam, a project that’s...
Excessive rainfall during the last few months may have dampened summer spirits in the Baltimore area, but it also left the region’s reservoirs nearly overflowing. Three reservoirs in the Baltimore area are brimming with more than 75 billion gallons of drinking water — 99 percent of their total...
Since we reported on an outbreak of sea lice in Ocean City last week, The Baltimore Sun has received emails from readers that the critters seen this summer were actually baby crabs — not jellyfish or anemone larvae. That’s the explanation Captain Butch Arbin of the Ocean City Beach Patrol stands...
Temperatures in Baltimore officially peaked at 98 degrees Wednesday. But some city blocks might have baked at temperatures as much as 10 to 15 degrees higher. In the high heat of the afternoon, a team of researchers and volunteers crisscrossed the city in cars equipped with temperature sensors...
Environmentalists are threatening to sue a coal-fired power plant in Pennsylvania for contaminating the Susquehanna River with toxic waste, months after the plant’s owner agreed to eventually burn only natural gas to avoid a similar lawsuit over air and water pollution. The Environmental Integrity...
Three egg masses of the destructive Asian gypsy moth were discovered on a vehicle transport ship in the port of Baltimore earlier this month. Agriculture specialists from U.S. Customs and Border Protection found the masses on Aug. 2 aboard the Volans Leader, the agency announced Wednesday. They...
The sting of sea lice, says Dr. Joseph Burnett, doesn't happen in the water — it comes once you get out. The retired dermatology chief at University of Maryland Medical Center, and an expert on jellyfish stings, says it’s only when the tiny yet toxic creatures get trapped inside a wet bathing suit...
At the sound of a horn and the encouragement to “Go! Go! Go!” dozens of stand-up paddleboarders set off Saturday morning on the calm waters of Dundalk’s Bear Creek. They furiously pushed their paddles, kicking off the second-ever B’More SUP Cup, a paddleboard race with the dual goals of having...
More than 3.1 million gallons of sewage-tainted water overflowed into the Jones Falls stream Aug. 22 due to heavy rains, Baltimore officials said Friday. The overflows occurred near the 400 block E. Preston Street, the 1700 block of E. Chase Street, and the 1900 block of Falls Road. All sewage...
Maryland beachgoers are having a lousy time this week, amid an outbreak of sea lice that has plagued the Eastern Shore. So just what are these pests? Despite what the name suggests, sea lice are actually small jellyfish larvae. When under pressure, they release inflammatory, stinging cells that...
Chesapeake Bay watermen have long viewed the cownose ray as a pest, preying on a vulnerable oyster population. Their contempt even inspired tournaments of bow-wielding ray hunters — a practice the state has banned, at least temporarily. But new research backs up concerns that the winged creatures...
President Donald Trump’s administration on Tuesday proposed a new set of rules that would give states greater control over limits on pollution from coal-fired power plants — and likely allow many of those plants to operate longer than they would have under a plan former President Barack Obama had...
The crabs have been plentiful off John and Debbie Woollen’s dock in recent weeks, helping them stock up on meat for a big batch of soup. But their haul Monday included a specimen the Somerset County residents can’t bring themselves to eat. Call it FrankenCrab. A genetic marvel. A mutant crab only...
Mr. Trash Wheel fans have long admired him from the banks of Baltimore’s Harbor. Now, lovers of the trash-collecting wheel can take him home. Stuffed Mr. Trash Wheel toys are officially for sale. The Healthy Harbor Initiative of Baltimore partnered with South Florida-based toy manufacturer, Budsies,...
Maryland environmental regulators are demanding that a Baltimore trash incinerator cut its emissions of one harmful air pollutant by about one-fifth and study whether it can clean its exhaust even more aggressively. The Wheelabrator Baltimore incinerator, the city’s single largest source of industrial...
The Trump administration is set to roll back the centerpiece of President Barack Obama's efforts to slow global warming. It's expected to propose regulations that give states broad authority to determine how to restrict greenhouse gas emissions from coal-fired power plants. The plan would let states...
Ocean City plans to break ground Thursday on a solar farm that will generate enough power to run the resort town's convention center and municipal buildings. In a statement, Mayor Rick Meehan called it “a true example of the Town of Ocean City’s commitment to renewable energy and a sustainable...
After record rains flushed a torrent of tree branches and trash into the Chesapeake Bay, residents of Beverly Beach turned to fire to dispose of debris that washed ashore. Anne Arundel County officials recommended burning the logs and branches after deciding there was too much of it to haul away....
It sounds like the opening to a summer blockbuster. Chris Bowen was returning home from his evening paddleboarding excursion near Edgewater on Wednesday around sunset, walking in about 3 feet of water in the Rhode River when he felt something hit his leg. “I just saw a tail splash,” he said, and...
Two rounds of heavy rainfall Monday washed nearly 600,000 gallons of sewage-contaminated stormwater into Baltimore's harbor, city officials said. A mix of human waste and storm runoff routinely overflows from Baltimore’s sewage system during heavy rainfall. Water enters sewers through breaks and...
A surge of stormwater and pollution from Pennsylvania and New York was flowing into the Chesapeake Bay through the Conowingo Dam again Thursday, raising concerns that the relentlessly rainy summer could threaten oyster reproduction and throw off bay ecology for some time to come. Even as scientists...
The 310-pound bull shark a Maryland waterman recently caught may be unusual and seem alarming, but a Chesapeake Bay Foundation scientist says not to worry, calling it "another sign of a healthy, rebounding ecosystem." Hoopers Island waterman Larry “Boo” Powley found the nearly 9-foot shark in a...
Maryland is requiring three coal power plants to limit the amount of mercury, arsenic and other toxic metals they release into the Potomac and Patuxent rivers starting in 2020, amid uncertainty over whether the federal government will address the discharges. State environmental regulators issued...
A commercial fisherman pulled an 8.6-foot, 310-pound bull shark from his pound net trap at the mouth of the Patuxent River in Southern Maryland on Monday — an uncommon catch that has been the buzz of the bay as the picture has made its rounds. Larry “Boo” Powley, 65, of Hoopers Island said he found...
Last month’s rain storms washed unsightly trash, logs and debris into the region's waterways, ruining plans for anglers and boaters. Swimmers, however, might have picked up a win. Using a formula that depends on salinity levels and water temperatures, a National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration...
In the days after record July rainfall filled Chesapeake Bay waterways with debris, Comptroller Peter Franchot said Maryland was "literally drowning in Pennsylvania’s trash." How much of the detritus actually came down the Susquehanna River and through the Conowingo Dam’s opened floodgates? It's...
Four egg clusters from a destructive moth species were found aboard a vehicle transport ship in Baltimore, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Agriculture specialists discovered Asian gypsy moth egg masses and a dead adult moth during a routine inspection aboard the M/V Gaia Leader....
The Lopez family was up before sunrise to pack up supplies: portable stoves, camping chairs, rainbow-striped mesh hammocks and coolers filled with tortillas, sausages and whole tilapia. Nearly two dozen family members drove in a multiple-car caravan from Dundalk to Cunningham Falls State Park,...
Officials say a bone recovered from a deteriorating barrel in the sand off a Maryland beach was from an animal. The Worcester County Sheriff tweeted Thursday that the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner determined it was an animal bone that was recovered from the barrel, not human remains. On...
U.S. Coast Guard officials uncovered World War II-era debris four years ago, just across a cove from a former Superfund site on its Curtis Bay yard. But it was only recently officials confirmed that the brick, rebar and other remains of former boot camp buildings contain elevated levels of heavy...
When the Carr Fire in northern California enveloped what was supposed to be their escape route, Todd Dudek and his fellow firefighters had an “oh, crap” moment. Flames lapped at either side of their fire engine as the truck barreled through the blaze and back to safety, the volunteer firefighter...
Pennsylvania officials on Tuesday conceded to Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan and other state leaders in the Chesapeake Bay watershed that the commonwealth has not done its part to reduce pollution washing into waterways. Patrick McDonnell, Pennsylvania’s secretary of environmental protection, said that...
A longhorned tick was found on a white-tailed deer in Washington County last month — the first sighting of this tick species this season. A test by the National Veterinary Services Laboratories confirmed the tick, also known as the Haemaphysalis longicornis tick, the East Asian tick and the bush...