I HAVE A LITTLE advice for dads who might be thinking of spending Father's Day with a fishing rod on the Chesapeake Bay or any of its tributaries: Throw 'em back. Release your catch. For the sake of your own health, evoke the name of that bygone Baltimore establishment, "No Fish Today," and pick up something else for dinner on your way home.

From Save The Bay, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation's quarterly newsletter: "The Maryland Department of the Environment reported that every fish tested from 14 tidal tributaries contained levels of at least one of six toxic chemicals dangerous to human health. ...

"The [department] advises that men, women and children should not eat a single serving of white perch from the Back, Bohemia, Elk and Sassafras rivers. Women and children should eat no white perch from the Gunpowder or Magothy. All healthy men should limit their consumption of white perch to only one eight-ounce meal per month from the Bush, Chester, Gunpowder, Magothy and South rivers."

From a recent Sun story: "Some respected scientists suspect ... that many, if not most of the Chesapeake Bay's striped bass [rockfish] are infected with a disease called mycobacteriosis, a slow, wasting disease, like tuberculosis in humans."

The "rockfish tuberculosis" is probably related to pollution -- the result of a chain reaction of environmental problems.

In the summer, The Sun reported, "rockfish have trouble feeding, and seek cooler depths. But the deep waters can't provide as much oxygen as there was before the bay was choked with algae. If the fish go too deep, they can't breathe. That may force them into a small part of the bay, where there isn't enough food for all of them and crowded conditions spread the disease."

What a mess.

In recent years, a growing number of sport fishermen have been practicing catch-and-release fishing out of concern for fish populations -- not for their own health. But that's where we are now.

Having that odd tendency to trust scientists more than I do industrialists or politicians, I find these recent advisories making me want to stop eating any fish from the bay or its tributaries -- despite what our no-beef-eating governor said about Maryland seafood in all those post-Pfiesteria-hysteria TV commercials. My friend, Bunker Hill Cal, is an old salt, a longtime sport fisherman; he's pretty much given up harvesting fish from the bay. Joe Bruce, who runs a fly fishing shop in Catonsville and works as a guide, tells me he won't handle a rockfish without gloves anymore.

What a mess we've made of things.

What a world we are handing our children.

And we continue to sleep through the fire.

Our president apparently has come to believe that global warming will substantially change the United States in the next few decades, with the "very likely" disruption of snow-fed water supplies, more stifling heat waves and the permanent disappearance of Rocky Mountain meadows and coastal marshes.

But the Bush administration doesn't plan to do much about it. President Bush still opposes the Kyoto treaty, which would impose mandatory reductions in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions. "The Kyoto treaty would severely damage the United States' economy," the commander-in-chief said this week.

Heard that one before, George. It's probably what Bethlehem Steel brass, long dead, said about restrictions on their dumping heavy metals into the bay back in the day. It's what automakers said again this winter as they argued against better fuel economy in cars and SUVs (and got, among others, Maryland's self-proclaimed "industrial-strength environmentalist" senator, Barbara Mikulski, to go along with them).

So I guess we'll just keep on doing what we've been doing -- and live (or die) with the consequences. Happy Father's Day.

A threat farther west

Proof -- that there's too much money in America, and too many people who don't know what to do with it -- can be found in Garrett County, Western Maryland, where people with too much money are in the process of ruining Deep Creek Lake. They're cutting down large swaths of trees, paving driveways (great for the water nearby) and building huge houses ("luxurious chalets," if you're in the business of lake ruination).

The nouveau riche and just-plain-riche don't content themselves with a quaint lakeside cottage anymore. (This is the same crowd that demanded skyboxes at baseball games and McMansions in the exurbs.)

In fact, we'll see more fat cats buying up more of the old Deep Creek cottages, turning them into kindling and putting up more of these shingled mansions in their place. And who's going to stop developers from tearing into even more of the woodlands? Give it time, baby, and Deep Creek will be ringed by one contiguous mass of treated lumber and out-of-control ego.

A good dose of guilt

Evidence -- that we have some very clever and caring citizens in our midst -- can be found on Cross Country Boulevard, near a wooded area of Mount Washington where, I'm told, people are constantly littering and dumping. Nearby, someone posted an official-looking sign that says, "Penalty for littering: $120 fine, two points, Bad Karma Eternally."