Back in March, Travis Deale, a student at Christopher Newport University, shared his experience working with CBF during spring break. I just found out that students from the University of Maryland who participated created a video of their experiences, which placed second in a U of MD video contest. Great job guys! Check out the video here.
Ever wonder what it's like to be a Chesapeake Bay crabber? Join WYPR's Joel McCord as he heads out on the water with Mark Kitching, a waterman from Smith Island.
Riverkeepers, watershed associations, and other groups that track water quality should be interested in IMRivers. This interactive mapping tool is very impressive! Unfortunately, there's no information on their website about costs, so I'm waiting to hear back from Dr. Wansoo Im, the tool's creator.
One of the latest groups to start using the tool is the San Diego River Park Foundation.
Some other organizations have started using IMRivers for other purposes: the Lower Columbia River Estuary Partnership's map lets you view images along the river's shoreline; the Delaware & Raritan Canal Community created their own interactive photo album, and Chatham High School is using it to map its student-led water quality testing project.
Working at CBF has it’s advantages, but sometimes the news and feedback you get on a wide range of topics is just…impressive. On the BaltimoreSun.com, Ted Shelsby wrote, in his On the Farm section:
“Many farmers hire scouts to search their fields, identify problems, recommend management techniques and implement action to protect crops. Homeowners can take similar management steps before turning to pesticides.”
The more I work at CBF the more I learn just how much we as homeowners, farmers and inhabitants of the Chesapeake Bay region have an impact our soil and water resources; both positively and negatively. I was really impressed with the amount of information that the farmers offered that home owners are able to put in place for a healthier environment and bay friendly home. Some of the tips seem like common sense, but if they were common place we’d all be working towards a healthier land and bay.
Take some time to check out "Farmers Share Their Conservation Tips".
One of the biggest questions surrounding Maryland's new 2010 Trust Fund, created this year to help restore the health of the Chesapeake Bay, is how the $25 million allotment will be distributed. Yesterday, Gov. O'Malley announced a new competitive process that lets local governments, community groups, non-profit organizations, academic institutions, and private enterprises to apply for grants from the fund.
What do you think? Is the new process an improvement over business-as-usual?
All six Chesapeake Bay Guitar Project guitars were completed on schedule and were unveiled at the Festival hosted by Emory and Charlene Knode at the Appalachian Bluegrass Shoppe in Catonsville on May 17. The event was a huge success, with a number of great performers playing the guitars, singing, and entertaining the festival attendees. First up were Bob Walters, Mike Walls and Deb Peitavino, who performed a selection of songs, including “Chesapeake," an original song that that Bob composed specifically for this event. They were followed by Andy Rathgeber (pictured), Charles Roe, Michael Cassidy and his wife Joie Frye, and Pat MacCubbin, all very talented performers.
Rick Landers and photographer Mike Davis were present from Modern Guitars Magazine. Rick conducted an interview with myself and Emory, while Mike took some great shots of the guitars, the store, and the event happenings. The interview and photos have been published on the Modern Guitars website.
All in all, this was a great day, with live music and refreshments, the Chesapeake Bay guitars, and staff from the Chesapeake Bay Foundation providing information about their efforts to preserve the Bay. There are guitars still available for purchase, and they are on display at Appalachian Bluegrass. To inquire, please contact Emory Knode at Appalachian Bluegrass either by phone (410-744-1144) or Internet website (www.appalachianbluegrass.com).
My heartfelt thanks to everyone who helped make this project and event a success. A special thanks to Craig Lavin for his beautiful and inspired inlay artwork on the guitars. He is a true artist.
Photo courtesy Claire MacCubbin
Dave MacCubbin
Congratulations Brian Gray! Brian was one of 12 students who participated in CBF's Expedition Susquehanna two years ago. Pennsylvania's Snyder County Conservation District just awarded him its Conservation Wildlife Award and was recently named the 2008 Pennsylvania FFA Star in Agri-Science. Way to go, Brian!
The Starbucks Foundation, whose mission is "to create opportunities for youth to learn, serve & grow their natural potential to reinvent the world," has made a generous $50,000 grant to support CBF's Student Leadership efforts, providing a huge funding boost for the program.
In addition, from now through June 3rd, bring your own travel mug when you buy a drink at Starbucks and they'll donate 10-cents to the Chesapeake Bay Foundation.
Watch history in action as three boats, each a unique modern interpretation of the vessel Captain John Smith used to explore the Chesapeake Bay 400 years ago, race around Annapolis Harbor on Saturday, May 3 at high noon. Who got it right? The boat built by the Reedville Fishermen's Museum, Deltaville Maritime Museum, or Sultana Projects in Chestertown?
The race is part of the Maryland Maritime Heritage Festival and celebrates Bay sailing history and the creation of the new Capt. John Smith Chesapeake National Historic Trail.
Admission is free. For more information, visit the Maryland Maritime Heritage Festival website http://www.mdmhf.org/view.asp?id=526&page=32732
Photo by Raynell Smith, Deltaville Maritime Museum Director, last August when the Shallops met in Deltaville.
Teen Alex Elliott of NizamFilms sent us this video. Music video and educational video rolled into one. I wonder if teachers could use it in the classroom?
click on images to enlarge
Now that March has come and gone and we’re into April, there’s quite a bit of progress to report. The first three guitars are now finished, and work is well underway on the other three.
Ladies’ Night: inlayed onto the Peruvian Walnut backed guitar, depicts female crabs foraging through eelgrass.
Heron Sunset: inlayed onto the Brazilian Kingwood backed guitar, depicts a setting sun silhouetting a great blue heron, with a close-up on the neck of another heron among the cattails.
The Fisherman: inlayed onto the Quilted Sapele backed guitar, depicts an osprey coming in to capture a fish for its dinner.
Stars and Stripers: the fourth guitar underway, places the viewer within a school of striped bass and has a starfish sitting at the bottom. All this sits below the Francis Scott Key nun buoy on the headstock. This buoy is located in the Patapsco river mouth and commemorates the location of the British ship that held Francis Scott Key when he composed the Star Spangled Banner.
The Duke and Duchess: the fifth guitar underway, shows a pair of woodland ducks in marsh grass.
I should have the artwork for the sixth guitar shortly.
The first three guitars headed to the Newport Miami Guitar Festival to be displayed with many other custom guitars from April 11 to 13. They will be coming back after the show and all six will be displayed at Appalachian Bluegrass in Catonsville as completed until the Chesapeake Bay Guitar Project Festival there on May 17. This local festival will not only have the guitars on display for sale, but there will be staff from the Chesapeake Bay Foundation present, supporting the event, as well as live music (we’re hoping for some original works that speak to the Bay) and refreshments. More information can be obtained from Emory at Appalachian Bluegrass (410-744-1144) or on his website (www.appalachianbluegrass.com).
Dave MacCubbin
Written by Alex MacLennan, CBF staff writer
On Wednesday, I and seven CBF staff members spent the day volunteering with the Chesapeake chapter of Habitat for Humanity in downtown Baltimore. It was an amazing opportunity—not only did we get to help a family become homeowners, but I also learned to frame up a wall.
CBF got involved with the North Washington Street project through the efforts and energy of Claire Ellwanger, a graduate of CBF’s Student Leadership Program and our 2007 Student Leader of the Year. Claire has fostered a partnership between The Park School and Habitat for Humanity—a partnership committed to building one house a year for ten years that includes the school raising $100,000 a year for H4H! And, since Wednesday’s “home raising” team was from CBF, Merrill Center staff donated a housewarming collection of green, sustainable home products. The new home will start of with a collection of long-lasting, low-energy fluorescent lightbulbs, organic cleaning products, and canvas shopping totes.
Eight of us went: Seven educators, who are used to being physical and outdoors with the 40,000 students CBF educates each year, and me. My job at CBF is to sit at my desk and write about the issues facing the Bay—dead zones and climate change, agricultural runoff and sprawling development. It’s an amazing job, but rarely do I get to head out and make a difference with my own labor and sweat. It was important to me to work just as hard as my cohorts, so naturally, when a competition sprung up—“Who can drive in a nail with the fewest hammer whacks?”—I slammed a hammer straight into my thumb. (Don’t worry, I only whined for a minute-and-a-half.)
We spent the day framing the upstairs walls—lining up and marking wood, cutting wood (my first circular saw! my first nail gun!), hammering wood, standing up huge frames of wood while real carpenters and builders shored them up. Honestly, I felt a bit like a geeky schoolkid, and a bit like Indiana Jones.
For me, what was so special was that I was helping someone in a direct, visceral way. Our foreman Rodney took us on a brief tour of the street we were working on and showed us five houses—two completed, and three underway. He knew the residents (current or future) of each house. He knew their stories, and how hard each person had worked to own their own home. That my job allowed me to contribute to that effort and that it ensured that at least one of these houses will get off to a green, sustainable start, makes my work even more worthwhile.
See more pictures on CBF's Flicker site
Here's a podcast about a great new group called the Maryland Grazer's Network, a mentoring program for farmers interested in selling locally-grown, grass-fed meat directly to consumers. Network leader Michael Heller, farm manager for CBF's Clagett Farm, has pulled together a "dream team" of farmers who will provide others with advice on Bay-friendly, rotational grazing practices and marketing. Listen and share it with your friends, and come on back to share your thoughts. 
Other links you might find interesting:
The following Letter to the Editor was published in the Baltimore Sun on February 29, 2008
It was disappointing to see The Sun encourage delay on fighting global climate change ("Striking a balance," editorial, Feb. 26).
One thing we've learned from Chesapeake Bay restoration efforts is that if we don't set specific, incremental goals, no one is held accountable and little progress is achieved.
The Chesapeake Bay region is at severe risk from pollution and climate change, and the time for action was yesterday. Today we are playing catch-up, and tomorrow will be too late.
The federal government has failed to produce meaningful climate change legislation, and just last week, Rep. Chris Van Hollen told a meeting of concerned citizens in Annapolis that the best way to hold federal feet to the fire was for the states to move forward with climate change legislation.
The Global Climate Change Solutions Act is just such a bill.
It is designed to make fundamental, incremental reductions in carbon dioxide levels that will help avert imminent damage to the state and to solidify Maryland's role as a national leader in carbon reduction.
The state's carbon reduction goals are not overly ambitious.
Six states have set goals in the 80 percent to 90 percent reduction range, and 26 states have adopted lesser limitations.
And there are economic upsides. "Green jobs" can provide an economic boost at the same time that pollution is reduced.
There is no doubt that climate change is here, affecting local rivers, streams and the bay.
There is no doubt that rising sea levels and increasingly severe storms threaten coastal populations.
There is no doubt that we need to reduce pollution, now.
We need the road map, specific goals and milestones provided by the Global Climate Change Solutions Act.
William C. Baker
President, Chesapeake Bay Foundation
Put a big red circle around the date March 5 on your calendar.
The Clean Water Network has declared March 5 as National Clean Water Phone Congress Day. The U.S. House of Representatives is poised to act this year on what could be the most important clean water legislation in 35 years: The Clean Water Restoration Act (H.R. 2421).
This bipartisian bill is needed now to ensure that all of the nation's streams, headwater tributaries, wetlands and other waters remain protected from pollution by the federal Clean Water Act. It will reaffirm that the Clean Water Act was intended to protect all of the waters of the United States, from big rivers to small streams, and from the Great Lakes to remote wetlands.
So limber up those fingers and and call your U.S. Representative between 9am and 6pm EST. Tell him/herto support clean water by getting behind the Clean Water Restoration Act (H.R. 2421). For more information about the bill and how to contact your representative, download this message from CWN.
If you live near Annapolis, you'll want to limber up those legs and walk or ride to Lawyer's Mall (across from the State House) to Rally with O'Malley for green jobs and a clean energy future. Join Governor O'Mally, the Alliance for Global Warming Solutions, CBF, and others at 10am on March 5 to thank the Gov. for his support of the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2008 and to stand with him in asking the General Assembly to pass this bill!
As the Maryland General Assembly meets to debate new, stricter regulations on Chesapeake Bay waterfront development, Maryland Public Television (MPT) will air a new program that examines Maryland’s Critical Area Law.
"Weary Shoreline," a documentary about the failure to enforce Maryland's Critical Area law, airs at 9 p.m. Wednesday night. For a preview of the show, check out Tim Wheeler's post on the Baltimore Sun's News & Environment blog.
One prime example of the Critical Area law's "death by one thousand cuts" is back in the news. Just last week, David Clickner, owner of Dobbins Island, resurrected plans to build a 4,500-square-foot home, septic system, and road on the island--plans which violate Maryland's Critical Area law but which Clickner has received variance approvals for from the state.
Fervent discussion over HB 1253—set for General Assembly debate February 28 (the day after Weary Shoreline’s premiere)—is expected. Among several proposed changes to this controversial law, the bill mandates that new development (including houses, outbuildings, decks, patios, driveways, landscaping and swimming pools) be even farther away from the bay shoreline than the current 100 feet. Instead, the inner Critical Areas shoreline buffer would be expanded from 100 feet to 300 feet.
February is well under way, and we’ve made quite a bit of progress on the Chesapeake Bay guitars. Craig has been working on the inlays for the first two necks. The first inlay, just completed, is titled “Ladies' Night” (left) and depicts several mature female crabs, or ‘sooks,’ swimming through eelgrass. The second inlay, still under construction, (right) is titled “Heron Sunset.” This inlay shows a silhouette of a heron at sunset on the headstock and has a close-up of a heron among the cattails on the fingerboard. The guitar bodies are coming along as well. I’ve completed construction of the first two guitar bodies, and am just waiting on the completed necks to finish the guitars. The “Ladies' Night” guitar has Peruvian Walnut back and sides, and a Sitka spruce top. The guitar bindings are flamed Western maple. The “Heron Sunset” guitar has Brazilian kingwood back and sides, and a Sitka spruce top. The guitar bindings are ebony. Craig has designed the inlays for the next two guitar necks. The first is titled “The Fisherman” and depicts an osprey catching a fish. The other, titled “Future Matters,” shows a male seahorse, indigenous to the Chesapeake Bay, giving birth to baby seahorses. We should have some photos of these in the next month. We have set the date for the guitar festival for May 17, 2008. It will be held at Emory’s store, the Appalachian Bluegrass Shoppe, in Catonsville, from 12-4pm. There will be a number of guitarists featured at the festival, and we’re hoping for some original songs related to the Chesapeake Bay to be performed. More information about the event will be included in the Spring 2008 edition of CBF’s “Save the Bay” magazine. If anyone has any questions about the project or the guitars, please contact Emory at Appalachian Bluegrass. His contact information can be found on his website www.appalachianbluegrass.com. It’s back to building, but I’ll continue to post the project progress, passing on our status and any news.
David MacCubbin |
Pennsylvania newspapers are filled with articles about municipalities who are frustrated about the costs of cleaning up the Chesapeake Bay. The cleanup is federally mandated--but unfunded, and if a 2010 deadline for meeting these mandatory water quality standards isn't met, the federal government could come down harder with even stricter standards. But local jurisdictions don't know how they're going to come up with the hundreds of millions of dollars it will take to comply. CBF has joined the call for the Rendell administration to provide funds to municipalities struggling to meet sewage treatment upgrade requirements.
If you live near Harrisburg, you might want to attend tonight's panel discussion on the Chesapeake Bay cleanup and its effects on sewage bills. The discussion will be held from 5 - 7 p.m. at the Holiday Inn West, 5401 Carlisle Pike, Mechanicsburg. Panel participants include Kathleen McGinty, secretary of the Dept. of Environmental Protection; John Brosius, deputy director of the Pennsylvania Municipal Authorities Association; and Scott Wyland, lawyer for the Capital Region Council of Governments.
The Patriot-News reports that a public forum on the strategy to clean up the Chesapeake Bay Watershed will be held from 5 to 7 p.m. on Feb. 12 in Hampden Twp., PA.
Mimi Boseman is one of about 300 oyster gardeners in Hampton Roads, Virginia. WVEC reporter David Allen spoke with her recently about her efforts. Check out the video on WVEC's website.
In December, CBF lost a friend, trustee, and one-of-a-kind donor. In 1988, G.R. “Randy” Klinefelter made an unusual gift to CBF: a 250-acre island. In doing so, he and his family established CBF’s largest residential education center, Port Isobel, and opened up a treasured and historic piece of the Chesapeake to thousands of students, teachers, and citizens.
Named after his wife, Isobel, the former family getaway is a stone’s throw away from its sister island Tangier, home to one of the Chesapeake’s last remaining watermen’s communities. Over the past 20 years, students, teachers, and decision makers have traveled by boat to Port Isobel to explore the island’s marshes, beach, and woodlands. Often, visiting Tangier to learn about the nearly lost way of life is part of the trip.
The Klinefelter family owned the property for 30 years before donating it to CBF, and during that time instituted soil conservation measures and other environmental improvements. Residents of Ephrata, PA, the Klinefelters recognized the connection between their home state in the northern watershed and the downstream Chesapeake Bay.
Mr. Klinefelter served on the CBF Board of Trustees from 1988 to 1999.
Memorial gifts in his honor will be accepted at:
Randy Klinefelter Memorials
CBF
6 Herndon Ave.
Annapolis, MD 21403
I visited Port Isobel for the first time last fall. It's a beautiful place and a wonderful place to learn about our Bay. To see photos, visit our Flickr page. To share your own Flickr photos, tag them "CBF Port Isobel."
We'd love to hear your stories about Randy Klinefelter and your experiences at Port Isobel. Feel free to post your own comments below.
by guest blogger Tommy Leggett, oyster fisheries scientist in CBF's Virginia office.
The Maryland Oyster Advisory Commission recently supported the concept of boosting Maryland’s oyster fishery using aquaculture. The fact that the Chesapeake Bay’s oyster population and fishery is hitting rock bottom is old news. The good news is that aquaculture can produce oysters for market and keep watermen on the water, all while the oysters are in the Bay providing habitat and filtering the water.
I was a commercial fisherman in Virginia for nearly 20 years and every fishery I participated in seemed to be going south. I would switch from one fishery to the other in order to make a living. The final frontier for me was patent tonging for hard clams, and I wasn’t long figuring out that that fishery would not last. Sure enough, there are only about 25 clammers left in Virginia who are actively working full time in the fishery.
In the early 1990s, I had the opportunity to listen to several seminars sponsored by the Virginia Institute of Marine Science on oyster aquaculture. The idea intrigued me, and before long I was investing a small amount of capital in oyster seed and grow-out gear. I also tried growing a few clams with my goal being to eventually get out of the wild fishery and direct all of my efforts in the shellfish aquaculture industry.
I was well on my way to becoming a successful full-time shellfish grower when I had the opportunity to go to work for the Chesapeake Bay Foundation (CBF) doing environmental education and oyster restoration. For the last 8 years now, I have been operating an oyster farm for CBF and have produced nearly 6 million adult cultchless oysters (grown from spat independent of a substrate, as opposed to spat on shell, which we also grow at CBF) that were planted for restoration but could have been sold. We are now working with the oyster industry to demonstrate the feasibility of spat on shell production by watermen and large growers for the market production of oysters. Meanwhile, I still have my own small oyster farm (separate from my work with CBF) and grow approximately 100,000 oysters per year for sale to local and out-of-state restaurants.
The return on investment isn’t too shabby, either. Consider the following two alternatives, each of which nets $1,250:
Virginia has long been practicing oyster aquaculture, first on private leases where leaseholders would purchase wild oyster seed, and later with the use of cages, bags and trays, using hatchery-produced seed to grow oysters for the half-shell trade. Historically, Virginia has produced more oysters from private leases than from its public oyster grounds, demonstrating that the private sector is better suited than state government to produce oysters for commercial harvest. (Oyster production on private grounds started in the mid-1800s.)
Could oyster farming one day be viable in Maryland? I think so. Of course, some major changes would have to occur. The laws and regulations governing leasing Bay bottom would have to be updated, and a more streamlined permitting process would have to be developed. But I think what’s most important is that our watermen remain key players in the industry. Yes, they would have to adapt to a business that is more like farming than harvesting a wild resource. These changes may be significant, but they are not impossible to overcome.
For those of us who work the waters of the Chesapeake Bay, oysters are in our blood, and it would be a great thing to see more watermen once again be able to pass the fruits of their labor on to future generations.
I believe the future is bright for oyster aquaculture. It requires some adjustments in the thinking of watermen, but the fact is, oyster farming will keep watermen on the water producing Chesapeake Bay oysters. Our Bay has changed over the centuries and it continues to change. Watermen should consider changing as well if they want to continue working on the Bay. Will it be easy? Of course not, but nothing worth having ever comes easy, whether it be 15,000 wild-caught oysters or 5000 oysters grown in cages.
Think about it!
written by B. L. Lang, author of the novel "Saint Clements Bay"
As a young girl in the 1950’s, I spent most summers at my grandmother’s cottage in southern Maryland. The place, primitive in a charming sort of way with an ivy-covered outhouse tucked away at the edge of the pines, was perched on a bluff overlooking Saint Clements Bay down at the mouth of the Potomac River. That bay and the river are important bodies of water flowing into the treasure that is the Chesapeake. Through the years, I’ve been pestered by vivid memories of the water, murky and brackish as the salt mixed with the fresh, but supporting plentiful blue crabs, beds of rich sea grasses, oysters, and adventure. Inspired by my own history, an inescapable love of the Chesapeake and the Saint Mary’s County area, I wrote Saint Clements Bay: A Novel of Remembrance. It’s a sweet story of a time gone by, a little history, some rather quirky characters, and a “near as can be remembered” account of my grandmother’s remarkable life and family, many of whom are native to the County.
The Chesapeake needs all of us to pitch in however we can to bring it back to health and bounty—that’s why I have pledged one third of profits from the sale of the book to the Chesapeake Bay Foundation. When it comes to working hard to ensure the improved status of the Chesapeake, no organization does more and is more effective than CBF. They provide education, activism, expertise, and more, to get the job done. We’ve made an initial donation to CBF and, with the help of new readers we hope to keep contributing for a long time to come. The book can be purchased at the publisher’s website, www.plangentpress.com where you can also read reviews and more, or on Amazon. Watch for author signings in the area later this spring.
If you have a question or comments on the book, you can email me through the publisher’s site. I’d love to hear your own stories about the Bay—send me a note!
B. L. Lang, Author
We can't thank Ms. Lang enough for her generousity. The magic of it is that she is just one of thousands of others who have similar memories of the bountiful Bay in earlier days. We would like to hear your stories, too. Won't you please share them in our Comments section?
It's that time of year again! CBF volunteers can help restore the health of Virginia's rivers and the Chesapeake Bay by participating in our Grasses for the Masses program.
2008 workshops start February 13th.
Well, the Chesapeake Bay Guitar Project has been underway for a little over two months now, and we’ve made quite a bit of progress (even with the holidays). We kicked off the project the weekend of November 4, 2007, when Craig flew up to Baltimore and he and I spent some time kayaking down at Blackwater Refuge in Cambridge, taking photos of the wildlife and wetland scenery, including the one on the left. Craig plans to use the photos as the basis for some of the inlay art on the guitar necks and fingerboards.
Since then I’ve spent a good bit of the time building the guitar necks for the first 6 guitars, preparing them for Craig to inlay with the Chesapeake Bay scenes. I’ve also started on two guitar tops; cutting the wood to size, inlaying the rosettes, and bracing the tops. Shown below are several photos of the work in progress.
Craig has been busy designing and storyboarding the scenes for the first two guitars, and has completed the concept art on paper, shown below. One is a scene of a great blue heron, silhouetted in a sunset. The other is a montage of Maryland blue crabs in the water. I just shipped the first two necks to Craig, so the actual inlay work is about to commence.
Emory has been very busy beating the bushes and drumming up support for this project from his customer base. There is already significant interest in the first guitars, and we expect them to be a hot commodity, once the word is out there.
On December 10, 2007, Emory and I appeared on the Steve Rouse morning show on WLIF Lite FM 101.9 to talk about the project. A synopsis of the interview and the audio can be found on my MacCubbin Guitars website, under the Chesapeake Bay Guitar Project link.
If anyone has any questions about the project, they may contact Emory at Appalachian Bluegrass. His contact information can be found on his website.
I’ll keep posting as the project progresses, passing on our status and any news.
David MacCubbin
Excerpt of a Baltimore Sun Op/ed written by Kim Coble, Executive Director of CBF's Maryland Office.
When citizens want to change how the government protects the environment, they generally work toward changing legislation, regulations or government leaders. Rarely do people think about judges.
But they should.
Maryland's judges are thoughtful people whose primary experience is with criminal and business law. But they are often unaware or insufficiently educated about the environment and the laws meant to protect it. Too often, these judges do not have a fundamental understanding of the complexity and importance of our natural resources...Lacking a larger understanding, they can be overly sympathetic to claims that protecting our water, air and land should be subordinate to an individual's property rights...As a result, in recent years, we have seen cases in which the legislature had to go back and rewrite legislation to repair damage done to environmental laws through misinterpretation by the court system.
...The courts and other judicial institutions (as well as many local planning offices) have chosen to ignore the cumulative impact of the next shopping center, apartment complex or industrial park. Each case is reviewed independently, and thus the courts look only at the impact of just this "one" case: One parking lot. One gazebo. One bed of underwater grasses destroyed. One wetland lost.
It's an argument developers routinely deliver, with amazing success. But the cumulative effects of these "ones" is death by a thousand cuts for our environment, our rivers and streams, and our bay.
...Sadly, the cost of mounting a legal challenge to each case is beyond the financial ability of most citizens. And special-interest organizations, willing to act on behalf of concerned individuals, are rarely even allowed to appear because of an overly narrow interpretation of who has "standing" - that is, who has the right to appear before the board or court.
...Judges who respect our natural resources and the common good, who have a demonstrated record of protecting the public interest, can help preserve and restore the land, air and water that belong to all citizens.
Maryland has good environmental laws. They could be stronger, but even the strongest and most well-crafted laws are only as good as those who enforce them.
Read the complete Op/Ed here...and recommend it when you're done.
written by Kim Coble, CBF Maryland Executive Director
The environment and the Bay lost a good friend last week.
Delegate Jane Lawton (MD - District 18) died on Thursday, November 29. Jane was a member of the Environmental Matters Committee, which is where I had the distinct pleasure of working with her on a number of important environmental bills. Jane was passionate about protecting the environment and truly made a difference. She was the lead sponsor of the Stormwater Bill in 2006--a bill that will help reduce polluted stormwater runoff from new development. There is no doubt, Maryland's waters will be better because of Jane's efforts.
Jane was always someone we could count on to give us honest feedback and valuable input. She was the type of bill sponsor you dream of. She learned the issue, worked hard and was politically savvy.
It is difficult to think of Jane as gone. She was always full of energy and smiles.
I was very touched when I heard that Jane's family asked that contributions be made in her memory to CBF and to the Montgomery County Abused Persons Program. This is an honor that is hard to describe. Jane committed a lifetime to public service, working at various levels of government and on a variety of issues. The decision to support these two organizations is a tribute to her commitment to her constituents and their quality of life. All you need to do is read the condolences and memories that have been posted to her website and to the Maryland Politics Watch blog to understand what a wonderful woman we have lost. It's fitting that someone who cared so deeply during her life will continue to help those she served even after her death.
I will miss Jane personally and professionally. She was a friend to me and to the Bay. Her family is in our thoughts and prayers.
Contributions in memory of Jane can be made to:
Chesapeake Bay Foundation
To the Jane Lawton Memorial Fund
Online at www.cbf.org
or by mail to
Chesapeake Bay Foundation
6 Herndon Avenue
A
