wetlands

How to experience the area's natural beauty ¿ and how to protect it

You never know where some of the items we discard each day may show up. Often the plastic foam, plastic ware, bottles and other floating debris nestle in wetlands at Fort McHenry, disrupting the hundreds of animal species there.

A judge has upheld a county zoning board of appeals decision last year permitting a planned major expansion of the Harford County Airport near Churchville, including construction of a new, longer and wider main runway.

A loophole in the Clean Water Act allows polluters to dump about 200 million pounds of toxic chemicals into waterways nationwide each year.

EPA rules offer best chance of sparing endangered streams from destruction

Delmarva's marvelously productive salt marsh ecosystem is losing ground to the rising waters of the Chesapeake Bay. Salt marsh is that green fringe that protects natural areas, farms and communities from coastal storms and tides.

Gail Wagner, of Pleasant Valley, said her two sons wanted to participate in the Chesapeake Bay Foundation's Create a Wetland Project for two very different reasons.

Sitting as the board of appeals, the Harford County Council Tuesday night approved zoning special exception and a variance that will permit a major expansion of the Harford County Airport near Churchville.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is giving the Maryland Department of Natural Resources $153,321 to protect the bog turtle, which at just three to four inches long can fit in the palm of an adult hand - when it can be found at all. The grant will go toward buying a home for the turtle, which is so rare it's considered endangered in Maryland and classified as threatened nationally.

Kelly Scible explores the natural scenery at Irvine Nature Center.

Harford County planning officials have asked officials with the Love Fellowship Christian Center Inc. of Bel Air to revise their plans to build a church in Abingdon to ensure there is enough space between the church property and existing residential and school property.

Frank Marsden, founder and past-president of Eden Mill Nature Center in Pylesville, has become quite the nature photographer and, in doing so, has made a suburb continuing study of the flora and fauna of Eden Mill and its surroundings along Deer Creek. This past Sunday, Marsden took some once-in-a-lifetime shots.

Maryland's senior senator is key figure in supporting EPA's clean water regulations

Built near former site of Crowl Town

From ocean to swamp: Mike McMonagle of Bel Air won the Wambaw Swamp Stomp 50-mile trail run in Cordesville, S.C., Saturday, resuming his ultra-marathon racing quickly after five months at sea.

"Marshlands" is praised by such literary power-brokers as the New York Times and Booker Prize-winning author Julian Barnes

To combat pollution plaguing the marsh habitat, about 250 volunteers picked up trash, dredged debris, planted trees and tended the wetland's gardens Saturday as part of a cleanup event hosted by the aquarium and the National Parks Conservation Association.

A recap of the Dec. 4 episode of 'American Horror Story: Coven,' as Fiona has second thoughts

A developer's request for permits to build a bitterly disputed waterfront housing project on Kent Island has been put on hold after state officials discovered a "business relationship" between a high-ranking Maryland environmental official and a lawyer for the development team.

Millions in federal funds are to be spent in Maryland to help protect Smith Island, Crisfield and other coastal communities from devastating flooding like that caused by last year's Superstorm Sandy.

Students from two city schools and some adult volunteers gathered at the National Aquarium Tuesday to "plant" some oysters in the Inner Harbor - not for eating but to try to improve the health of the ailing water body.

According to Columbia Association's Assistant Director of Open Space Sean Harbaugh, the "floating wetlands," as they are called, are CA's latest attempt to increase the sustainability of its lakes and ponds.

Eco-Goats at Dunloggin Middle School provide valuable environmental lesson

A recap of the opener of Season 11 of 'Top Chef,' as we head to New Orleans for frog, turtle and alligator

The Harford County Council upheld a zoning hearing examiner's decision to grant a special exception for a developer to build 198 apartments at Plumtree Road.

Pasadena resident Bill Hubick and Jim Brighton of Easton launched the Maryland Biodiversity Project, an effort to do something no one has ever done — catalog examples of every living thing in Maryland on one website: marylandbiodiversity.com.

Maryland has taken a leadership role with a comprehensive plan to address climate realities; now others must follow our example

Six years after Gov. Martin O'Malley tried to kill the project, state officials will ask the Board of Public Works Wednesday to reverse itself and approve permits that would let a developer move forward with what would be the largest housing development in the environmentally sensitive areas surrounding the Chesapeake Bay.

Even though a state project to add express toll lanes to I-95 in Harford County, and possibly build a new park-and-ride lot near the highway interchange with Route 152 (Mountain Road) in the Joppa area, is years away, state transportation officials are continuing their quest for environmental permits.

A nine-year federal survey of frogs, toads, salamanders and the like found widespread precipitous declines in their populations but drew no conclusions about why.

Anthony head butts Bates right in the stomach. Bates says that he lost the Stanley Cup, so he's happy to finally win something.

More than 100 gloved volunteers, some in boots and others in waist-high waders, streamed along the narrow paths, sandy waters' edges and historic sea walls of a hard-to-spot nook of wetlands at the southern end of Fort McHenry in Locust Point on Saturday — their eyes scanning for trash or the perfect spot to plant a sapling.

It was Dirty Finger Club Day at Linton Springs Elementary School, near Eldersburg. Out in the vegetable garden ¿ one of a dozen "outdoor classrooms" in the meadows, wetlands and woodlands of school's spacious grounds ¿ Anna Letaw, a volunteer who has been the dynamo behind Linton Springs' Environmental Education Program, was giving a kindergarten class a primer on gardening.

The Bel Air Planning Commission's decision last week to deny permission for the construction of 48 townhouses on a portion of a property owned by St. Matthew Lutheran Church was a sound move

About 40 youths from the Freestate ChalleNGe Academy finished up their morning of cleaning refuse from the marshlands of the Melvin G. Bosely Wildlife Conservancy tired, muddy and hungry, but their contributions to the 22nd annual cleanup of the marsh were invaluable to the organizers of Saturday's event.