Deep Creek Lake stewards are on guard for an invasion of non-native zebra mussels, but they aren’t about to drain the Western Maryland waterway because of it, as a widely shared article recently suggested. The posting on breakingnews247.net — a website that suggests visitors “write an article and...
Ocean City officials are resisting a plan to build a wind farm off Maryland's coast — among the first of its kind in the nation — and they are taking their fight to Congress. The $1.4 billion project, in the works for seven years, would put as many as 187 wind turbines off the coast of the state's...
The Hogan administration notified the federal Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday that it plans to file a lawsuit alleging the agency has failed to act against states whose smokestack emissions pollute Maryland’s air. In a letter to EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, Maryland Environment Secretary...
The Environmental Protection Agency has tapped Baltimore as a possible recipient of a federal $200 million loan to help upgrade the city’s infrastructure to stop sewage from chronically spilling into waterways. The money would be used to improve the city’s wastewater collection and treatment and...
A 1930s-era campground in Gwynns Falls Park will be revived with a $750,000 grant from the U.S. Department of the Interior announced Wednesday. The campground, which is adjacent to the Cahill Recreation Center and the Jastrow Levin picnic grove, was a Girl Scout camp in the early 20th century,...
Industry has made more than 9.1 billion tons of plastic since 1950 and there's enough left over to bury Manhattan under more than two miles of trash, according to a new cradle-to-grave global study. Plastics don't break down like other man-made materials, so three-quarters of the stuff ends up...
Dave Gertz lives on Valentine Creek on the Severn River, in a house that he inherited from his great-grandfather. Growing up, his great-grandfather told him about the underwater grass that grew near the home, but disappeared within his lifetime. Gertz has seen the grass again in recent years; it...
Marion East, a retired waterman, recalls the “tingling sensation” he felt when he pulled fish out of the Pocomoke River 20 years ago this summer. “When you put your hands in the water, it was about like you were getting a shock,” the Crisfield man said. That was how East, now 73, encountered the...
The log has proved educational, for anglers and biologists alike.
Chuck McMillin reckons he uses the Magothy River more than almost anybody else. The avid kayaker has been exploring the 67 miles of shoreline for more than a decade. But even he learned about new spots after the Magothy River Association recently launched an online water trail guide. The map denotes...
A year ago, Gov. Larry Hogan put out a call for private industry to suggest how Maryland should address the pollution that was quickly piling up behind the Conowingo Dam — a staggeringly expensive problem that many policymakers thought could wait. For nearly a century, the dam had stopped silt...
On one end of this particular food chain are boxes of dinged-up tomatoes, spotty avocados and other perfectly edible yet rejected fruits and vegetables that pile up at the Maryland Wholesale Produce Market in Jessup. On the other end are the estimated one in four residents of Baltimore who live...
Ice oozes across the surface of Antarctica and breaks off into the southern oceans constantly — but not normally in chunks the size of Delaware. So after a massive iceberg separated from the Antarctic peninsula this week, the burning question among glacial scientists is: Was it influenced by warming...
Citing a growing threat to marine life, the National Aquarium in Baltimore and others across the country launched a campaign Monday against disposable plastic products, and vowed to “significantly reduce or eliminate” single-use plastic bottles at their facilities by 2020. The new Aquarium Conservation...
Out for a walk around 6:45 a.m. the morning of July 4, Diamond the American Staffordshire terrier found something unique at a small beach near a marina in Hillsmere — a diamondback terrapin. The diamondback terrapin is the official turtle of the state of Maryland. It has scaly gray and whitish skin,...
John Tyler's family name can be traced through this Chesapeake Bay community back at least 300 years, and as many as a dozen generations. But a few years ago, he feared his generation might be the island's last. Taking stock after Hurricane Sandy washed over the island, the state proposed using...
Gov. Larry Hogan said this week he's against gas drilling off of Maryland's coast, and as President Donald Trump's administration considers seismic testing to search for energy reserves, state officials are asking the federal government to more closely study its impact. The Trump administration...
'They were doomed'
The waste-to-energy incinerator whose massive white smokestack greets thousands of motorists to Baltimore pumps out twice as much smog-causing pollution as similar trash-burning facilities, but Maryland regulators plan to fix that soon. State officials said they expect to release rules this summer...
As the group of 15 teachers paddled their canoes into the Middle Branch of the Patapsco River, their leader pointed out a tern ahead — stirring a moment of confusion. Not a left turn or a right turn, explained Jocelyn Tuttle, who leads Baltimore harbor education programs for the Chesapeake Bay...
A Baltimore spending panel on Wednesday approved the city's half of a $430 million project to eliminate a miles-long sewage backup beneath the city. A misaligned pipe prevents a massive sewage main from fully emptying into the Back River Wastewater Treatment Plant, and the problem is blamed for...
Gov. Larry Hogan said Tuesday night that he has canceled "zero-waste" landfill rules issued by Gov. Martin O'Malley a week before he left office in 2015. Speaking to the annual summer gathering of the Maryland Municipal League, the Republican governor said he was rescinding the policy in response...
The Trump administration is taking steps to roll back an Obama administration policy that protected more than half the nation's streams from pollution. The Environmental Protection Agency and the Army Corps of Engineers on Tuesday outlined a process for rescinding a 2015 regulation that defines...
Maryland will end the commercial crabbing season a week and a half early while also imposing late-season bushel limits in response to concerns over Chesapeake Bay blue crab population losses. The state Department of Natural Resources announced the decision Tuesday, a day after a scientific panel...
Maryland crabs could be more scarce — and possibly more expensive — in the second half of the summer if state officials heed a call from scientists to limit harvests this fall. Biologists said Monday they are concerned about a decline in the Chesapeake Bay blue crab population over the past year...
Preservationists worried about keeping U.S. colonial history above water have scheduled a conference in Annapolis. The Newport Restoration Foundation is holding the conference this fall, as it focuses on developing solutions for sea level rise in coastal communities and raising awareness about...
At about 5 p.m. Saturday afternoon, Anne Arundel Community College professor Paul Bushmann spotted a male and female horseshoe crab mating at a beach in the Bay Ridge community of Annapolis. The day before he and his research partner, biologist Paulette Levantine, surveyed the beach and two others...
Most people know wine and oysters go well together, but a recent partnership between a Maryland nonprofit and a Massachusetts company is giving the pairing meaning far beyond food etiquette. Proud Pour, a Boston-based manufacturer of wines, recently struck a pact with Maryland's Oyster Recovery...
Stella Schoberg smiled, braces gleaming, as her class project sank to the bottom of the Chesapeake Bay. She and her fourth-grade classmates at Friendship Valley Elementary School in Westminster spent much of the school year learning about the estuary — how "dead zones" form, why warmer water holds...
Reef balls are being planted on the Tilghman Reef this week. The Coastal Conservation Association Maryland and the group's northern Virginia chapter is scheduled to plant 140 reef balls west of Tilghman Island in Talbot County on Wednesday. The association says the reef balls will triple the size...
Calling President Donald J. Trump's recent decision to withdraw the United States from the Paris Climate Agreement "ill-advised," the Baltimore City Council unanimously voted Monday to express its intention of upholding the agreement here. The approved resolution, which does not carry the force...
Democratic members of Maryland’s congressional delegation called on Gov. Larry Hogan on Thursday to “forcefully reject” President Donald J. Trump’s decision this month to pull the U.S. out of the Paris climate agreement. In a letter sent days before Hogan, a Republican, is set to embark on a trade...
Maryland companies the Greene Turtle and DuClaw Brewing Company have a new partnership, with the latter creating the sports-bar chain’s Shell Raiser beers. “[This] opportunity is going to allow us to really open up the Shell Raiser brand, and start brewing different-style beers more regularly,”...
TANGIER, Va. (AP) — The mayor of the tiny Chesapeake Bay island community of Tangier said President Donald Trump called him after seeing a news report about the threat the village faces from sea-level rise and its strong support for him in November. Trump called James "Ooker" Eskridge, the mayor...
Taylor Smith-Hams was living near the Mount Royal Station in Bolton Hill a year ago when her phone lit up one morning with messages from friends and family. At the Howard Street Tunnel's north entrance nearby, 13 cars of a 124-car CSX Transportation freight train had derailed. All but one of the...
Volunteers, organizers and swimmers all agreed: Conditions were near-perfect Sunday morning for the annual Great Chesapeake Bay Swim. The charity fundraiser includes a race from one side of the bay to the other, a distance of 4.4 miles, as well as a smaller 1-mile challenge race. Participants in...
Maryland Attorney General Brian E. Frosh and officials from a dozen other states are threatening to sue the federal government if it weakens emission standards for new cars and trucks. The coalition is challenging a statement by Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt that the...
Maryland Natural Resources Police Sgt. John Buchanan was flying biologists over Tangier Sound this spring to survey ducks when he glimpsed gray bodies arcing in the waters below. The veteran pilot lowered the helicopter for a closer look. Two, three, four pods of dolphins. He counted almost 50...
Gov. Larry Hogan gave perhaps his strongest indication yet that Maryland won't join the United States Climate Alliance, a group opposed to President Donald Trump's decision to abandon the 2015 Paris climate agreement. "We're not sure what the intention of the group is," Hogan said Thursday at an...
Gov. Larry Hogan and a top Environmental Protection Agency official on Thursday downplayed concerns that federal support for the Chesapeake Bay cleanup will vanish under the administration of President Donald Trump — but at the same time suggested it will take a strong fight on Capitol Hill in...
Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh joined his counterparts in six states in filing a formal challenge on Tuesday of the Environmental Protection Agency's recent decision to not label a common pesticide as unsafe for humans in any quantity. It's the latest action by Frosh and other Democratic...
Gov. Larry Hogan has so far declined to bring Maryland into a newly formed alliance of states opposed to President Donald J. Trump's decision to pull the United States out of the Paris climate accord. A dozen states have joined the newly formed U.S. Climate Alliance of states committed to staying...
Secretary-General Antonio Guterres opened the first U.N. conference on oceans Monday with a warning that the seas are "under threat as never before," noting one recent study warns that discarded plastic garbage could outweigh fish by 2050 if nothing is done. The U.N. chief told presidents, ministers,...
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration is seeking permission to use seismic air guns to find oil and gas formations deep underneath the Atlantic Ocean floor, a reversal from the Obama administration that is outraging environmental groups and some East Coast lawmakers. The National Marine Fisheries...