A bear has been released back into the wild by wildlife authorities who believe the animal was responsible for killing two ponies in western Maryland. News outlets report that the horses were killed either July 8 or July 9 in Clear Spring. Wildlife officials set a trap, and on Tuesday caught the...
To onlookers it might be mistaken for a baptism — a group of people standing together in the waters of the Magothy River, backing slowly deeper and gazing downward. In a way, it is an initiation. Of environmental awareness. For more than a dozen years, a group of adults and youngsters in North...
Starbucks will eliminate plastic straws from all of its locations within two years, the coffee chain announced Monday, becoming the largest food and beverage company to do so as calls for businesses and cities to cut waste grow louder. While the straws account for a small percentage of the pollution...
First came the rains. Now come the mosquitoes. Populations of the itch-inducing insects have multiplied across Maryland — in many areas up to three times their normal early summer numbers — because of recent storms and flooding that have given them an abundance of water to breed in. That means...
The plastic foam container ban was officially defeated Monday after the Anne Arundel County Council failed to schedule an override vote for its next meeting. Councilman Chris Trumbauer, D-Annapolis, said there weren’t enough votes to override the county executive’s veto of bill 49-18, which banned...
State health officials are warning consumers to avoid unpasteurized Venezuelan crab meat because they believe it has sickened nine people in Maryland with infections of Vibrio bacteria. They have not pinpointed a single source of the contaminated meat. Illnesses have been traced to crab dishes...
A former assistant administrator at the Environmental Protection Agency has joined the Annapolis-based Chesapeake Bay Foundation, the organization announced Monday. Lisa Feldt, a resident of West River, has been appointed vice president for environmental protection and restoration, according to...
A year after baby oysters were deposited on a new man-made reef near the Francis Scott Key Bridge, the bivalves are flourishing despite a legacy of Patapsco River pollution. Photos of the project shared by the Chesapeake Bay Foundation show mounds of oysters, some at least 3 inches long. The reef...
The nonprofit Clean Air Partners chose a fitting venue for the launch of its “Breathe Easy” campaign Thursday. Maryland Environment Secretary Ben Grumbles explained how a colleague used to stand where he did, at the edge of Federal Hill Park, overlooking Baltimore’s Inner Harbor, and see the pollution...
Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan has picked Jason Stanek, a longtime federal civil servant and current Capitol Hill adviser, to serve as the next chairman of the state Public Service Commission, the body that sets utility rates across the state. Stanek is senior counsel to a House of Representatives energy...
The 13 bald eagles were found lifeless on a Maryland farm more than two years ago, many with wings splayed, bodies intact, and talons clenched. Several were too young to have their species’ distinctive white heads. And at least six, according to a federal lab report, had ingested a highly toxic...
The economics of recycling have shifted drastically over the past year, threatening the viability of single-stream curbside collection in Maryland and across the United States.
A black bear was struck and killed on Interstate 83 in Baltimore County on Thursday morning, Maryland State Police said, at least the ninth bear struck this month. The bear was struck on I-83 southbound just before Shawan Road, police said. It had been moved to the median as of 7 a.m., and the...
For several years now, indicators have tentatively suggested that the Chesapeake Bay ecosystem is healthier than it has been in generations. Now, scientists say they know it for certain: The estuary is on a "significant" upswing.
Ocean City officials say they don't want offshore wind turbines to be built within 30 miles of the resort town's beaches under any circumstances — not even in exchange for free electricity. That was among the offers energy developer U.S. Wind recently made to appease concerns that its planned wind...
Maryland environmental officials say they are mounting a challenge — including a potential lawsuit — to fight the Environmental Protection Agency’s decision not to force power plants from Pennsylvania to Indiana to tighten pollution controls. Maryland Environment Secretary Ben Grumbles said Thursday...
Early one mid-May morning, heavy rain awoke Ron Peters and sent him fumbling for his iPad. On the screen, a network of live video feeds revealed Ellicott City was not flooding. The views came from a $13,000 network of cameras Peters had just installed around the historic Main Street corridor so...
The Environmental Protection Agency said Friday that it plans to deny petitions from both Maryland and Delaware seeking emissions reductions from power plants in five upwind states. The petitions sought to reduce emissions of ozone-forming nitrogen dioxide from power plants in Indiana, Kentucky,...
A month after Maryland environmental regulators demanded the owner of Conowingo Dam do more to help reduce pollution that flows down the Susquehanna River, the company has filed two lawsuits against the state. Exelon Corp. argues it should not be held responsible for pollution it doesn't create....
For the first time, the Severn River Association and Oyster Recovery Partnership are asking for direct funding to buy baby oysters and restore a reef in the Severn River near Annapolis. The organizations have partnered to buy and grow 10 million baby oysters that will be added to the 40 million...
As parts of the Baltimore region flooded Sunday, the heavy rains were also washing 10 million gallons of sewage-contaminated stormwater into Baltimore’s Jones Falls — one of the largest waste discharges city officials have reported in recent years. Heavy rains routinely overload Baltimore’s aged...
Baltimore will now pay up to $2,500 toward cleanup costs associated with some basement sewage backups. The city launched the reimbursement program last month under a federally supervised program to modernize its aged, leaky sewer system. Only sewage backups caused by heavy rain are eligible for...
Vacationers returning to Ocean City this weekend might notice deeper, wider beaches, the result of a $282 million sand dredging project aimed at protecting the resort town from storm damage. But the work also raises concerns about surf injuries and swimmer safety. Over the winter, the U.S. Army...
Levels of bacteria in Baltimore streams fell dramatically in 2017, according to a water quality report released Monday. The city's Healthy Harbor Initiative and advocacy group Blue Water Baltimore say it appears water pollution is decreasing, but it's too early to say for sure.
Federal regulators have forbidden many Baltimore-area carry-out shops from accepting food stamps for steamed crabs, a move that is stirring debate over whether it is an appropriate use of government benefits and what impact it could have on a beleaguered seafood industry.
The Chesapeake Bay crab population is down by 18 percent in 2018 compared to last season after cold weather killed off more than a third of adult crabs. But the number of juvenile crabs swimming into the bay is up by a third as crabbing season begins. That means watermen are expecting a slow start...
Eastern Shore farms produced $1 billion worth of chicken in 2017, surpassing that milestone for the first time, an industry group said. Maryland poultry production grew 12 percent from 2016 to 2017, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture statistics. The growth in value came even as the amount...
Researchers have confirmed some 450 sightings of bottlenose dolphins over the past year in the Chesapeake Bay and tributaries including the Potomac River. They hope the unexpected deluge of reports is a sign that improving bay health is inviting more of the marine mammals to visit.
Annapolis area creeks and rivers have been hit with recent outbursts of algae blooms known as mahogany tides — with one report of a bloom running the length of the Severn River. The species found in abundance, prorocentrum minimum, contributes to dead zones as the bloom dies and consumes oxygen...
Maryland's crab industry is in crisis, with nearly half of the Eastern Shore businesses without any workers to pick the meat sold in restaurants and supermarkets. They failed to get visas for the mostly Mexican laborers who pick the crabs when the Trump administration awarded them in a lottery.
Baltimore hit 90 degrees Wednesday for the first time since September, breaking a record set in 1913. More record-breaking heat, and poor air quality, are forecast Thursday. Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport hit 90 degrees at 3:21 p.m., according to the National Weather...
Maryland, along with 16 other states and the District of Columbia, is suing President Donald Trump's administration, demanding it leave in place vehicle emissions standards adopted under President Barack Obama. The Environmental Protection Agency last month moved to scrap the standards for cars...
Scads of silvery, lifeless fish were seen floating along in the waters of the Baltimore harbor and Back River this weekend. On Monday, state investigators estimated the kill at around 30,000, mainly Atlantic menhaden, said Jay Apperson, a spokesman for the Maryland Department of the Environment....
In the hottest reality TV news since Khloe Kardashian gave birth earlier this month, the Chesapeake Conservancy’s nest cams have a few new baby cast members of their own. The first baby blue herons of the season arrived for parents Rell and Eddie, hatching all four of their eggs over the weekend....
A Maryland appeals court has rejected a Baltimore synagogue's challenge to a stormwater management levy on city property owners, popularly known as the “rain tax.” The Court of Special Appeals on Friday upheld a circuit judge's ruling that the fee does not violate the synagogue's right to free...
Gov. Larry Hogan’s administration is requiring the owner of Conowingo Dam to find a way to trap pollution that flows down the Susquehanna River and into the Chesapeake, threatening progress in cleaning up the bay. For decades, pollution has built up behind the Conowingo. But the dam is now at its...
Underwater grasses that provide vital places for fish and crabs to live and hide from predators covered more than 100,000 acres of the Chesapeake Bay in 2017 — the most ever recorded in a 34-year-old aerial survey, scientists said Tuesday. The Virginia Institute of Marine Science found 104,843...
The Franciscan Center will begin farming land in Howard County to provide produce for their dining hall and food pantry.
Myesha Jones tied a pink ribbon around the skinny trunk of Jim Grill’s new red maple tree, a native species the 67-year-old planned to plant to entice bees and other pollinators into his Catonsville yard. “Hopefully it’ll attract those little devils,” Grill said. Behind him, a long line of dozens...
Baltimore’s Department of Public Works says about 4.1 million gallons of a sewage and rainwater mix was released into the Jones Falls on Monday, as heavy rain inundated the sewer system. The largest release was more than 3.7 million gallons in the area of the 400 block of E. Preston St. About 400,000...
The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, a power plant emissions-capping program that includes Maryland, has generated $4 billion in net economic activity, even accounting for the costs it has added to electricity, a study has found.
A study of 20 years of precipitation, pollution and water quality data has traced degradation of Baltimore's Gwynns Falls to frequent sewage leaks, and some environmental improvements to projects to clean up or reduce stormwater runoff.
About 2.5 million cubic yards of mud, silt, sand and other material will be dredged from the Cape Henry Channel at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay near Norfolk, Va. — an approach that’s used by shipping lines to reach the port of Baltimore — according to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Great...
A challenging General Assembly session for environmental groups ended with the failure of two key proposals — one to measure the loss of Maryland forests and another to end green-energy subsidies for a Baltimore trash incinerator. Neither bill came up for votes in the state Senate on Monday, the...
A freshwater mussel that's found in the nation's mid-Atlantic region, including Maryland, will soon be listed as "threatened" under the Endangered Species Act. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said the listing will take effect in May for the yellow lance mussel. The species can be found in Maryland's...