Chesapeake Bay Foundation Blog

Goodman & Co. Employees Make An Impact on Earth Day

Earth Day, in four different locations (Frederick, MD; Roanoke, VA; Richmond, VA; and Virginia Beach, VA) an army of CBF staff led restoration activities with the regional public accounting firm Goodman & Company. More than 400 Goodman folks participated at one of the locations. The Earth Day event was an important component of Goodman's three-year, $300,000 investment in CBF's Education Programs. 

This group of accountants wanted to do more that just write a check to support CBF—they wanted to get involved in our efforts to Save The Bay and that they did!

I have been told that this is the largest Earth Day activity CBF has ever organized in Virginia; I cannot speak for Maryland. Regardless, it was a HUGE effort that was a great success. Here are some of the highlights:
•         1200 trees were planted (800 in MD, 400 in VA)
•         2400 plugs of beach grass were planted in VA
•         1 rain barrel was constructed
•         1 butterfly garden was constructed
•         4 dumpsters of trash were collected
•         LOTS of non-native honey suckle was removed
•         100 native honey suckle plants were planted
•         1 snake was spotted!
•         Hundreds of smile were seen

Check out photos on our Flickr site.

Goodman employees, tell us what it was like.

Are You a Member of the Earth Generation?

The Nature Conservancy's Dave Connell had a great post Tuesday. "We don't need an Earth Day or an Earth Hour," he writes, "we need an Earth Generation."

Dave provided the following descriptions of an Earth Generation:

• We need a generation that will apply the same ingenuity it applied to Facebook and iTunes to finding sustainable, scalable and affordable solutions to our insatiable appetite for energy. 

• We need a generation that doesn’t see natural landscapes and the services they provide as an inexhaustible dumping ground, but builds those services into the financial equations of development and wealth. 

• We need a generation that looks for beauty in grasslands and mountains, not just on LCD screens and netbooks.

Are you a member of the Earth Generation?

Bloggers: Blog for the Bay on Earth Day!

Call it Earth Day for foodies.

There's an online party going on for Washington, D.C. foodies today and you're invited. In it's description, "Blog for the Bay" states:

"Please join local food advocates on Earth Day and help rally District foodies to support clean water in the Chesapeake Bay. To participate, simply post about the Chesapeake Bay (a favorite memory, favorite place to eat crabs, best crab cake recipe, anything!) and include a link to the Chesapeake Bay Foundation’s petition urging the EPA to quit delaying action to help save our Bay. Please mention “Blog for the Bay” in your post and link to hosts FoodieTots.com and ArugulaFiles.com." Check the post for more details.

Earth Day: Beyond Good Intentions

It's Earth Day! I don't know what it's doing in your neck of the woods, but here in Annapolis we've got April showers. Great for growing things, but if you watched the PBS documentary "Poisoned Waters" last night, you'll know it's also the cloud that holds the silver lining for the Chesapeake Bay. Why? Stormwater.

If you missed "Poisoned Waters" last night, you can view it online at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/poisonedwaters/ or check your local PBS listings for a rerunning of the show. There's been a lot of discussion going on about the recent CNN story about the Bay and why, after all the funding seemingly dedicated to its cleanup, there are still so many problems. Frontline's Hedrick Smith does a great job of connecting the dots among the multitude of issues that affect the Bay's ecosystem.

The show closes with the following comment by Smith:

"Success is possible, but the lesson driven home to me again and again is that the key is public engagement."

But how do we get the public engaged? That's the million dollar question. For one thing, we need to "frame (the issues) in ways that correspond to what (the public) really care about," says Chris Miller, Piedmont Environmental Council, on "Poisoned Waters," such as traffic, taxes, quality of life.

A discussion on the Chesapeake Watershed Network yesterday broached the same topic. How do we get people informed and engaged to take action? One member brought to the group's attention a recent study, sponsored by the Herring Run Watershed Association and the Jones Falls Watershed Association, entitled "Upstream, Downstream: From Good Intentions to Cleaner Waters."

Most people want to make a difference. But how do we get people to make the connection between their personal day-to-day activities and the quality of their streams, rivers, and the Bay? How do we bridge the gap between good intentions and helpful actions?

So, that's my question for Earth Day. What are your ideas?

What Are You Doing for Earth Day?

Share your plans for Earth Day. Log onto our website at cbf.org/earthday and share what actions you plan to take for cleaner water this Earth Day.

You can read what others have posted here.