SAVE THE DATE Thursday, November 18, 2010 WYPR presentsTerry Gross at MICA
2010-2011 Baltimore Speaker Series Presented byStevenson University Sponsored by WYPR
Environment in Focus
The Environment in Focus
with Tom Pelton
The Environment in Focus is a twice-monthly perspective on the issues and people changing Maryland's natural world. There's a story behind every bend of the Chesapeake Bay's 11,684 miles of shoreline, in every abandoned coal mine in the Appalachian Mountains, in every exotic beetle menacing our forests and in every loophole snuck into pollution control laws in Annapolis.
Tom Pelton gives you a tour of this landscape every other Wednesday morning at 9:35 a.m. He describes the people behind the news and discusses the broader government policies and trends shaping our ecology -- our land, our air and our Bay.
Contact Tom Pelton by e-mail at tpelton (at) cbf (dot) org
You can subscribe to this podcast here
Current Segment:
September 1: A Fly-Fishing Master Abandons His River Bob Clouser at his desk tying flies.
Bob Clouser, inventor of a famous line of fishing flies, made his living as a fishing guide on the Susquehanna River in Pennsylvania. But then a massive series of fish kills made him give up his guide business. Scientists believe the smallmouth bass in the river are dying because their immune systems have been destroyed -- but by what, nobody really knows. Endocrine-disrupting chemical pollutants, such as weed killers and prescription drugs, are being investigated. Previous Segment:
August 18: Yesterday's Dinner is Tomorrow's Weather Although the subject is rarely mentioned in news stories about climate change, the raising of cows, pigs, chicken and other livestock accounts for nearly a fifth of the world's greenhouse gas pollution. That's more than all of the cars, trucks and airplanes in the world. Dr. Roni Neff, a researcher at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, takes a trip to the supermarket to explain how to shop for seasonal vegetables and other foods that have small carbon footprints.
August 4: The Great Owl Mystery Barred
owls, known for inhabiting large trees in remote old-growth forests,
have made their presence known in the city of Baltimore recently.
Their odd monkey-like barking and screaming in the Evergreen
neighborhood suggested a mystery: What are these creatures doing here?
And what are they saying to each other with those bizarre calls? July 21: Aliens Vs. Aliens In an attempt to control an invasive species of tree-killing beetles from Asia, Maryland officials are releasing another exotic species that preys upon the beetles. This attempt to combat emerald ash borers -- which have destroyed more than 30 million trees in the U.S. -- with Chinese parasitic wasps is the latest example of scientists using a technique called "biological control" of invasive species. Researchers say this method works about 10 percent of the time, restoring checks and balances to populations. But more often, adding more exotic species does not help -- and it can go terribly wrong.
July 7: Gender-Bending Bass During
an investigation of a fish kill on the Shenandoah River, fish
pathologist Dr. Vicki Blazer stumbled across an odd fact: more than 80
percent of the male smallmouth bath she examined were growing eggs
inside their testes. She suspected that birth-control drugs flushed
down toilets and other chemicals released from sewage treatment plants
could be messing up the fish's sexual development and their immune
systems. But her investigation took an unexpected turn when she tested
rivers near two sewage treatment plants in Western Maryland and found
the same high prevalance of gender-bending bass upstream as well as
downstream. So she began to look into herbicides, pesticides and
industrial chemicals such as PCBs as possible causes of the sexual
abnormalities. But then her inquiry took another twist. The
sexually-confused bass appeared to be reproducing quite well.
June 23: A Sinking Kingdom Populations of royal terns in the Chesapeake Bay have been declining as the isolated, sandy islands they need for nesting have been slipping beneath the waves. More than 500 islands have disappeared in the nation's largest estuary because of rising sea levels and naturally sinking lands. Only one colony of these regal-looking fishing birds -- with their black crowns and bright orange beaks -- remains in the central Bay, on a fragment of land in the Fox Islands. But farther south in Virginia, homeless terns are surviving by making a surprising adaptation. June 9: Battle Over the Soul of a Farm Town Hebron, a quiet town of 800 on Maryland's Eastern Shore, approved a sprawling development project that would multiply the community's population more than five fold. Some local residents feared that the big box stores and 1,500 homes would destroy the town's character, draw businesses away from the town's center, and pollute a local creek. So the opponents filed a legal action to try to stop the project, and won their court challenge. It was a rare David and Goliath victory of citizens over a developer. But that was just the beginning, and Goliath refused to stay down.
May 26: The Oyster Hatchery Oysters were once so common in the Chesapeake Bay that sailing ships would run aground on their reefs. Today only about 1 percent of these filter-feeding bivalves remain. Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley last week announced a project to help restore this keystone species to the Bay by creating 9,000 acres of no-harvesting sanctuaries. Part of this new plan involves planting about two billion young oysters a year raised at the state's oyster hatchery, at Horn Point, which is undergoing a $10 million expansion.
May 12: Blowin' in the Wind About 30 years ago, wind patterns over the Chesapeake Bay underwent an historic shift that had a major impact on sailing and water quality in the nation's largest estuary. Instead of coming mostly from the south in the summertime, the predominant winds shifted and started flowing more from the west, new research suggests. This change meant decreased mixing of waters and worse oxygen circulation, which hurt oysters, crabs and other critters on the bottom. April 28: The March of the Sooks Blue crab populations in the Chesapeake Bay have more than doubled over the last two years, reaching levels not seen in more than a decade. The most likely explanation for the increase is the success of regulations imposed by Maryland and Virginia in 2007 that limit the catching of female crabs and ban dredging for females in the southern Bay. These actions protect future mothers during their fall migration, called the "march of the sooks."
April 14: Return of an Underwater Forest Aquatic vegetation that filters the Chesapeake Bay and serves as habitat for fish and crabs has more than doubled since its low point in the 1970s. Some unlikely heroes in this comeback tale include invasive species of aquarium plants like hydrilla and millfoil. They colonized and stabilized barren riverbottoms, opening the door for the return of native grasses.
March 31: Frozen Heart Spring peepers, tiny frogs that sing in bell-like choruses in the spring, survive the winter with sweet grace. Their hearts, brains, even eyeballs, freeze nearly solid. But before they turn into green ice cubes, their bodies pump huge amounts of sugar into their blood, and this sugar acts as a natural anti-freeze and lubricant to protect their cells from ice crystals.
March 17: A Tale of Two Cities The tiny town of Dendron, in southern Virginia, is embroiled in a bitter conflict over whether to allow the construction of a coal-fired power plant to boost the local economy. Critics worry about the hidden cost of asthma attacks and heart failure that could be caused by microscopic soot particles from the smokestacks. Meanwhile, just down the road in another small Virginia town, called Clover, a similar experiment in coal-driven economic development ended unexpectedly. March 3: The Terrorism Center Next Door Bonnie Roschy's family for generations has enjoyed the quiet beauty of their 300 acre farm on Maryland's Eastern Shore. But now next door, the U.S. State Department is proposing to build a terrorism defense training center, with weapons firing ranges, blasting pits, and urban-style environments where mock terrorist assaults can be staged. She and many neighbors are trying to stop the more than $70 million project, while supporters argue it will create 450 jobs and help national security.
February 17: The Oyster Thieves Populations of the Chesapeake Bay's iconic oysters have plummeted by about 99 percent since the late 19th century, in part because of overharvesting. To help build back the estuary's oyster reefs, Maryland is proposing to create no-harvesting sanctuaries covering 9,000 acres of the Bay. But earlier sanctuaries created by the state in the 1980s and 1990s failed in part because watermen ignored the rules and routinely poached oysters planted by the government in protected areas. Widespread theft of oysters remains a major obstacle to efforts to restore the Chesapeake's dwindling oysters and encourage aquaculture. Maryland natural resource police pledge to fight back.
February 3: The Government Goose Plot Federal and state governments captured migrating Canada geese in the 1940s and 1950's and clipped their wings to try to get them to populate wildlife refuges in Maryland. It worked, but a bit too well. The clipped geese couldn't migrate back up to the Arctic in the warm months, or teach their offspring to migrate. Decades later, 80,000 resident geese in the state have become a nuisance on golf courses and in parks. So now the government is trying to kill them off.
January 20: A Game of Chicken with the Bay After the EPA proposed to tighten up federal pollution control regulations for the massive poultry industry on Maryland's Eastern Shore, local politicians complained to Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley. He sent a letter up the chain to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, conveying the concern that poultry farms could be hurt, and the EPA backed down. Critics claim that O'Malley sold out the Chesapeake Bay for the financial interests of "big chicken." About a quarter of the Bay's pollution flows from animal agriculture. But O'Malley argues that more environmental harm will grow if chicken farms are replaced by fields of McMansions.
January 6: The Fading Call of the Tundra Swan Every winter for thousands of years,
dazzlingly white tundra swans have migrated thousands of miles south
from Alaska to winter in the relative warmth of the Chesapeake Bay.
But the number of these majestic birds visiting the Land of Pleasant
Living has fallen by a third over the last 35 years, as pollution and
disease have killed the underwater grasses and soft clams they eat.
Because of suburban sprawl and runoff pollution, more and more swans
are bypassing the Chesapeake region and wintering instead in North
Carolina -- depriving Maryland's Eastern Shore of some of its most
distinctive winter sights and sounds.
December 23: Singing to Save Mountains West Virginia song writer Mike Morningstar uses lyrics as weapons in
his fight against coal companies that are blowing up and bulldozing
flat his hilly homeland. He's part of a coalition of artists that
recently produced a CD called "Still Moving Mountains" to raise
awareness of the human and environmental damage caused by mountaintop
removal mining.
December 9: Farming Oysters Maryland wants to encourage oyster farms as an alternative to dredging for wild oysters. Aquaculture could be the future of the Chesapeake Bay. But a visit to a successful oyster farmer on the Choptank River reveals that it's not a business for the faint of heart. November 25: A Golden Shadow in the Stream The largest fish kill in decades in West Virginia eliminated almost all life in 32 miles of Dunkard Creek, north of Morgantown. Investigators discovered that the normally fresh-water stream had suspiciously high levels of salt. And the creek was also brimming with an invasive species of toxic golden algae -- never before seen in the region -- that requires salt to bloom. Scientists suspect that both problems could have been brought in by Texas-based natural gas companies that are drilling hundreds of wells across West Virginia, Pennsylvania and the Chesapeake region. November 11: The Natural Gas Gold Rush Hundreds of natural gas wells are popping up across the Chesapeake region. Drillers are extracting the fuel using a new drilling technique of blasting water at high pressures into underground shale formations. The gas that emerges is a clean fuel in that it creates less air pollution when it burns than coal or oil. But actually getting it out of the ground can be a messy business. Just ask Norma Fiorentino of Dimock, Pa., whose drinking well blew up after gas from nearby drilling leaked into it. A local stream was also polluted by spills of drilling fluids, causing a fish kill.
October 28: Nanoparticles: The Next Frontier of Pollution? More than 1,000 consumer products, from sunscreens to socks, are being manufactured with microscopic particles of metal called "nanoparticles." These tiny bits of titanium or silver can prove useful -- as sunblockers in sunscreen, or bacteria-killing agents in odor-resistant clothing. But some researchers are also questioning whether they could pose a risk to human health and the environment. Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health researchers Dr. Thaddeus Graczyk and Talia Chalew are investigating whether nano-size particles of silver from consumer products are harming the immune systems of oysters in the Chesapeake Bay.
October 14: The Most Important Fish in the Sea Menhaden are oily, bony little fish that -- despite their distasteful flavor -- have been called "the most important fish in the sea." They are an important food source for many larger fish, such as striped bass, and filter algae out of the water. Author Bruce Franklin argues that Congress should ban industrial fishing for menhaden, and Maryland Senator Ben Cardin is proposing a federal study of the fish's ecological value to the Chesapeake Bay. But the one remaining company that harvests menhaden for hog food and other products warns that a ban could put their 300 employees in Reedville, Va., out of work.
September 30: The Flight of the Swifts Chimney swifts are some of the most graceful and powerful fliers in nature. But their populations have fallen by about half since the 1960s, perhaps because of the capping of chimneys they have adopted for springtime nesting and the destruction of south American forests where they winter.
September 16: The Obama Plan to Rescue the Chesapeake Bay The Obama Administration last week released potentially groundbreaking new proposals to clean up the Chesapeake Bay. The EPA is looking at imposing more federal oversight of state pollution control programs, and creating new regulations for farms and developers. These proposals could accelerate the long-delayed restoration of the nation's largest estuary. But these ideas must still be put into action -- and not everyone wants a more aggressive federal cop patrolling the Bay.
September 2: Hairballs from the Deep Crabbers in the southern Chesapeake Bay this summer are complaining that their traps and nets are being overwhelmed by eerie orange hairballs of an unknown substance. On Tangier Island, Virginia, they call it "red moss" -- and claim that vast blankets of the stuff are driving away crabs and ruining their livelihoods. But scientists say it's not moss at all -- more likely an invasive species of giant algae from the Pacific Ocean that hitchhiked to Virginia in the ballast water of a ship, or with exotic imported oysters. August 19: The Bard of the Chesapeake Bay Folk singer Tom Wisner was one of the first
environmental educators in the Chesapeake Bay region. And he invented
a style of music that mixes centuries-old work songs of fishermen with
1960s style political activism and acoustic guitar. Now that he's 79
years old and fighting cancer, he reflects back on what made him what
he is today. His memories revolve around a certain creek he loved to
wade in as a child. August 5:Terrapin Station Travel to a sinking island in the Chesapeake Bay to learn about efforts to keep afloat populations of Maryland's state reptile, the diamondback terrapin. Biologist Willem Roosenburg traps and tags terrapin on Poplar Island, and explains the multiple threats to this slow-reproducing reptile.
July 22: The Crab Pickers' Chorus The women of the island town of Tylerton in the Chesapeake Bay sing gospel hymns as they pick the crabs caught by their husbands and sons. Their music sounds timeless, and visitors might imagine pickers in the fishing community singing work songs like this since the English landed here in 1638. But actually, the tradition of the island women getting together every evening at 5 p.m. to pick and sing only dates back 14 years to -- of all things -- a government sting operation. After Maryland health officials cracked down on a lack of licenses among pickers, the women of Tylerton teamed up to form the Smith Island Crabmeat Co-Op. It is now a successful business that sells crab meat to mainland stores. The workers sing to ease the monotony of the repetitive labor and raise their spirits.
July 8: Vibrio Bacteria in the Chesapeake Bay Mark Allen, a fourth generation waterman from Hague, Virginia, was nearly killed when a salt-water bacteria called Vibrio seeped into a cut on his leg and then entered his bloodstream. The number of reported infections from this potentially deadly disease have more than doubled in Virginia and Maryland over the last decade. And a leading scientist, Dr. Rita Colwell, believes the rise in Vibrio illnesses in the Chesapeake Bay region is being caused by a combination of global warming and nutrient pollution.
June 24: Zebra Mussels Zebra mussels, an invasive species of shellfish native to Russia, recently began appearing in Maryland for the first time. Some scientists worry that these fingernail sized bivalves could spread from the Conowingo Dam area on the Susquehanna River across the state and the entire South. In the Midwest, zebra mussels have caused an estimated $5 billion in damage to water treatement plants and utilities. But, their impact is not all negative -- they seem to improve water clarity, even while causing algae blooms and other ecological imbalances.
Three biologists set out on the Choptank River on Maryland's Eastern Shore with high-tech electric shock equipment to find and catch an increasingly rare fish: American shad. These migratory fish rebounded in 1990s after nearly being wiped out in the 19th century -- but now their numbers are dropping again. Some scientists believe this protected species is disappearing into the nets of large ocean trawlers in the Atlantic.
May 27: Gender-Bending Bass During an investigation of a fish kill on the Shenandoah River, fish pathologist Dr. Vicki Blazer stumbled across an odd fact: more than 80 percent of the male smallmouth bath she examined were growing eggs inside their testes. She suspected that birth-control drugs flushed down toilets and other chemicals released from sewage treatment plants could be messing up the fish's sexual development and their immune systems. But her investigation took an unexpected turn when she tested rivers near two sewage treatment plants in Western Maryland and found the same high prevalance of gender-bending bass upstream as well as downstream. So she began to look into herbicides, pesticides and industrial chemicals such as PCBs as possible causes of the sexual abnormalities. But then her inquiry took another twist. The sexually-confused bass appeared to be reproducing quite well.
May 13: Mollusk Math
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers conducted a roughly five year, $15 million study that concluded that allowing farmers to grow chemically-altered Asian oysters in the Chesapeake Bay would present little risk. But a little-known oyster gardener and math whiz named Jay Rodgers read through the 1,400 page draft report -- and discovered it was a million times wrong. Literally. After the scientists corrected major math errors in the study discovered by Rodgers, the Army Corps decided not to allow the Asian oysters.
April 29: The Bubble City Scientist Pat Megonigal has been growing marsh grasses inside a small city of plastic bubbles in a wetlands south of Annapolis. He pumps in twice the normal amount of carbon dioxide to simulate what the Earth's atmosphere will be like in the year 2100. And what he's found is that plants will grow about a third faster with all that greenhouse gas pollution. Paradoxically, the carbon dioxide could help protect the marsh from another effect of climate change: rising sea levels.
April 15: Salamander Spring Amphibians such as spotted salamanders are in decline around the world. But they're multiplying in unprecedented numbers this spring in a pond in a wooded corner of a Baltimore County park. Dr. Joel Snodgrass, a herpetologist at Towson University, reveals the amazing proliferation of amphibian life in an unlikely-looking place: in a mud puddle atop a natural gas pipeline in Oregon Ridge Park.
April 1: The Blue Green Coalition Last year in Maryland, the United Steelworkers Union played a leading role in defeating an ambitious bill aimed at cutting global warming pollution from the state by 90 percent by 2050. This year, the blue collars formed an alliance with green collars in the Chesapeake Climate Action Network and other environmental groups. And together they won approval of a more moderate measure aimed at reducing greenhouse gases by 25 percent by 2020, although the manufacturing sector is exempt. Envirnomentalists see the passage of the law as a good step forward, and a team-building opportunity for the more important battle in Congress for federal climate change legislation.
March 18: The Concrete Jungle and Smart Growth In the sprawling southern Maryland community of Waldorf, there are no sidewalks and few homes or trees near all the strip malls. But instead of concentrating future home construction next to this retail, Charles County is building a highway to help developers build more than 1,100 homes in a wooded area more than three miles away. All the construction threatens to pollute a fragile stream called Mattawoman Creek, one of the most fertile fish breeding grounds in the Chesapeake Bay region. Destructive development patterns like this inspired Maryland lawmakers to propose bills that would strengthen a toothless state law passed in 1997 to curb suburban sprawl, called the Smart Growth act.
March 4: Deadly Gift of the Fishing Bird Segment originally aired August 20, 2008 Osprey populations recovered after the federal government banned the pesticide DDT.But now fish hawks are facing a new threat in their perverse habit of giving gifts of fishing line, balloon ribbons and junk to their offspring instead of food.
Feb. 19: The Great Vanishing Few people know it, but five years ago almost 80 percent of all the razor clams in Maryland's portion of the Chesapeake Bay disappeared all at once. That followed a die-off of the other large clam species in the northern section of the Bay, shoftshell clams. One person who did notice was clam dredger Andrew Wright of Kent Island, who suddenly lost his livelihood and had to sell his house. Scientists are investigating, and believe that a disease, called DN Disease, and a parasite, Perkinsus, are to blame -- but they don't know where they came from, or what causes DN Disease. The results for the Bay are obvious. Fewer clams means fewer filter-feeders cleaning the estaury's waters, and fewer blue crabs, tundra swans and fish like black drum that eat mollusks. One bright note is that in the salty southern Bay, a third species of clam -- hard clams -- appears to be resistant to these diseases, and is being successfully farmed by watermen.
Feb. 4: The Fading Call of the Tundra Swan Every winter for thousands of years, dazzlingly white tundra swans have migrated thousands of miles south from Alaska to winter in the relative warmth of the Chesapeake Bay. But the number of these majestic birds visiting the Land of Pleasant Living has fallen by a third over the last 35 years, as pollution and disease have killed the underwater grasses and soft clams they eat. Because of suburban sprawl and runoff pollution, more and more swans are bypassing the Chesapeake region and wintering instead in North Carolina -- depriving Maryland's Eastern Shore of some of its most distinctive winter sights and sounds.
Jan. 21: Budget Cuts and the Environment The recession has hit Maryland hard, and Governor Martin O'Malley is considering layoffs to hundreds of state workers. As he considers ways to close the nearly $2 billion budget shortfall, O'Malley has pledged not to take money from a state program that buys up and preserves open space for parks, playgrounds and wilderness areas. But another environmental program, to reduce runoff pollution into the Chesapeake Bay, is more vulnerable to cuts -- which could lead to worse water quality in the nation's largest estuary.
Jan. 7: Algae Farming Some people see algae as, well, pond scum. But researchers Walter Adey of the Smithsonian Institution and Pat Kangas of the University of Maryland see something very attractive in slime. They are growing an algae farm on the banks of the Susquehanna River in southern Pennsylvania. The brown hair-like plants they cultivate in long troughs of water absorb nutrient pollution from the river. And colleagues of Adey and Kangas distill the algae into butanol, a form of fuel that can be burned in cars. Adey sees the future in this simple plant, which made life on Earth possible in the first place. He envisions vast algae plantations beside many of the world's large rivers, absorbing pollution and acting like giant clean water factories.
Dec. 24: The Great Owl Mystery Segment originally aired Sept. 3 Barred owls, known for inhabiting large trees in remote old-growth forests, have made their presence known in the city of Baltimore recently. Their odd monkey-like barking and screaming in the Evergreen neighborhood suggested a mystery: What are these creatures doing here? And what are they saying to each other with those bizarre calls?
Dec. 10: Are Christmas Trees Green? As the Holidays approach, some people wonder whether it is better for the environment to re-use artificial Christmas trees or cut down natural trees. Tom ponders this question at a Toys R Us, where many customers prefer artificial trees. And he visits a local Christmas tree farm, Friendship Trees in Anne Arundel County, which encourages customers to buy not only natural trees but living pines that people can plant in their yards after the holiday. He concludes that natural trees are better because tree farms help local air and water quality, and keep land out of the hands of real-estate developers.
Nov. 26: The Green Bishop The right Rev. Eugene Sutton is the first African American bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Maryland. But he wants to be known not as the black bishop, but as the "green bishop," because he wants his followers to conserve energy and reduce their carbon footprints. His advocacy is part of a trend of more religious leaders becoming involved in environmental issues in recent years -- as growing evidence of global warming has made it clear that "loving thy neighbor" requires regulating pollution.
Nov. 12: Journey Across a Sinking Land Nowhere in the Mid-Atlantic is flooding from sea level rise more dramatic than at the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge on Maryland's eastern shore. Tom takes a three-day kayak trip across the maze-like, 27,000 acre wilderness to see sunken forests, flooded farmland, lakes swallowing marsh grass, and an invasion of salt water into the freshwater system of the Blackwater River. The salt disrupts the spawning of fish like bass that need freshwater to reproduce. And it kills plants like wild rice that are an important food for migrating geese, ducks and tundra swans.
Oct. 29: Plowing the Waves Wild Chesapeake Bay oysters have nearly been wiped out by disease and overharvesting. But a growing number of oyster farmers -- including Doug McMinn of the Chesapeake Oyster Company -- are trying to bring back the region's seafood industry by raising a version of the native Chesapeake oyster with chromosomes that have been manipulated by scientists. These "triploid" oysters grow extra fast and plump and are resistant to disease. McMinn raises millions of them in cages in the Rappahannock River. And he thinks aquaculture of native oysters like this is better than an alternative being studied by Maryland and Virginia: introducing an Asian species of oyster.
Oct. 15: Crab Blues Because of falling blue crab populations, the Chesapeake Bay states are banning the catching of females later this month. Virginia for the first time will prohibit dredging for crabs over the winter, and this will put watermen like Dennis Dalheim out of work. Scientists, however, say the actions are necessary because populations of breeding-age females have plummeted. But the new restrictions don't address the more basic pollution problems that are hurting the Bay's ability to support crabs.
Oct. 1: The Pelican's Strange Journey How global warming cleared an island in the Chesapeake Bay of humans -- and allowed a Florida fishing bird to move in.
Sept. 17: Reading The Stream Environmental education programs like the Carroll County Outdoor School in Maryland started up across the nation in the 1970's. But over the last seven years, many have been eliminated or cut back because of the time demands of standardized testing required by the 2001 federal No Child Left Behind Act. Now a new bill, called the No Child Left Inside Act, aims to restore and expand ecology classes. We visit Carroll County's educational program, and explore how it expands the horizons of one child who watches six hours of television a day -- and has never set foot in a stream.
Sept. 3: The Great Owl Mystery Barred owls, known for inhabiting large trees in remote old-growth forests, have made their presence known in the city of Baltimore recently. Their odd monkey-like barking and screaming in the Evergreen neighborhood suggested a mystery: What are these creatures doing here? And what are they saying to each other with those bizarre calls?
Aug. 20: Deadly Gift of the Fishing Bird Osprey populations recovered after the federal government banned the pesticide DDT. But now fish hawks are facing a new threat in their perverse habit of giving gifts of fishing line, balloon ribbons and junk to their offspring instead of food.
August 6th: SUV's in Paradise
At least 5,000 SUV and pickup truck drivers go off-roading down the beaches at Assateague Island National Seashore in Maryland every year. The practice is increasingly criticized by environmentalists as harmful to crabs, birds and rare plants. But sportsmens' groups are lobbying the National Park Service to boost the number of vehicles allowed on the beach. They argue the public deserves more access to public lands. The bigger question is: Do Americans need machines to enjoy nature?
July 23rd: Eating Oil Every aspect of the world's farming system is dependent on oil, from petroleum based fertilizers to diesel trucks and tractors. A growing number of scholars warn that the world oil production is now at or past its peak and will soon start falling. This could trigger a global food crisis that could cause the starvation of millions of people.
July 9th: Ship Graveyard Story originally aired March 19th, 2008 In the murky waters of Curtis Bay and the Patapsco River in far south Baltimore, a watery graveyard holds the remains of ships and wartime scrap - some of which dates back to Civil War times. Tom shares an audio diary of his last trip to Baltimore's ship graveyard, and how civilization is beginning to reclaim parts of this decaying landscape.
June 25th: The Rebirth of a Stream
Stony Creek in Baltimore used to be an ordinary, lifeless urban stream until a $5 million revitalization effort produced an unexpected explosion in wildlife. The construction of dams and pools in the creek was part of an expensive and controversial national trend toward rebuilding streams in an effort to cope with runoff from parking lost and streets.
June 11th: A Billion Pounds of Manure Industrial-style poultry production is one of the biggest businesses on Maryland's Eastern Shore, but it also produces about billion pounds of manure a year. Runoff from this waste is one of the biggest sources of fish-killing pollution in the Chesapeake Bay. The state's environmental agency recently proposed the first regulations for this industry, but critics say the rules are full of holes and too weak to protect either the bay or public health.
May 28th - The Rise and Fall of the American Shad American Shad -- a migratory fish so vital as a food in the American colonies that it was called "the founding fish" -- were almost wiped out in the early 20th century, in part by the construction of dams across rivers. But then fish lifts were installed along the Susquehanna River and elsewhere to help shad get over dams so they can swim upstream to their spawning grounds. Shad numbers rebounded impressively during the 1990's. But now some biologists say shad populations are falling again for an ironic reason. Another once-rare fish, striped bass, are now so populous they're eating up the shad.
May 14th - Wetlands and Global Warming Maryland is studying the possibility of building vast new wetlands on the Eastern Shore as a way to fight global warming. Marshes absorb carbon dioxide, but new research shows they can also release methylmercury, a toxic pollutant that contaminates fish.
April 30th, 2008 - Song of the American Eel Chesapeake Bay watermen such as Irving Chappelear have noticed dwindling numbers of American eels in their traps. Biologists say the disappearance of Anguilla rostrata could be related to global warming, which may be disrupting the ocean currents that eels rely on to carry them from their breeding grounds in the Sargasso Sea to the coast.
April 16, 2008 - The Highway In Southern Maryland, Charles County is planning to build a four-lane highway over one of the most fertile fish breeding grounds in the Chesapeake Bay region, Mattawoman Creek. The cross-county connector would serve more than 8,000 new homes planned in the largely forested area. The county hopes the road will bring in money and jobs. But biologists predict the construction will also increase polluted runoff into the stream, killing the fish. And this would change the lives of longtime residents like Lavinia Rollins who have come to depend, both physically and emotionally, on the spring spawning runs.
April 2, 2008 - Recession and Rollbacks of Environmental Protections A sluggish economy and rising energy prices have led Maryland lawmakers to tighten the belt on environmental conservation funding and weaken anti-pollution bills. Tom takes a look at some of the green legislation that's getting rolled back by the General Assembly.
March 19, 2008 - Ship Graveyard In the murky waters of Curtis Bay and the Patapsco River in far south Baltimore, a watery graveyard holds the remains of ships and wartime scrap - some of which dates back to Civil War times. Tom shares an audio diary of his last trip to Baltimore's ship graveyard, and how civilization is beginning to reclaim parts of this decaying landscape. March 3, 2008 - The End of Fossil Fuels What would a 90% reduction in carbon emissions mean for the state's economy? For its industries? For its citizens? Tom explores a recent debate over the Global Warming Solutions Act, which would decrease the state's carbon emissions by 90 percent over four decades.
February 20th, 2008 - The Wide Ride Even during times of record-breaking gas prices, Americans love big cars. This week, Tom takes a look at how federal standards and incentives keep fueling the thirst for bigger machines on the road.
February 6th, 2008 - Oyster Wars "The Oyster Wars of the Chesapeake Bay," as dubbed by author John R. Wennersten, began a series of fiery, late 19th century clashes on the water. More than a century later, the same battles are being waged over this mollusk.
January 23rd, 2008 - The Sturgeon Matchmaker A craze for caviar in the 19th century rendered the Atlantic sturgeon nearly extinct from the waters of the Chesapeake Bay. A few years ago, a fisherman turned over a living male sturgeon to Andy Lazur, a biologist at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science. Tom Pelton recaps the history of this resilient fish, and current recovery efforts for the species.
January 9th, 2008 – Drugs on Farms The use of antibiotics in farm feed poses a danger to human health, according to microbiologist Amy Sapkota from the University of Maryland. She testified at a recent local zoning board meeting in Peach Bottom, PA, on the health hazards and the long-term implications of large-scale animal operations, for our water and air.
December 26th, 2007 – The Wind in the Waters Developers in Ocean City are making plans and have hopes to build an offshore wind farm, 12 miles away from the boardwalk.
December 12th, 2008 - Rusty Crayfish Invasive species are no stranger to the Chesapeake Bay and its watershed. Along the Monocacy River, scientists recently discovered the rusty crayfish. Just what to do with these alien invaders is a matter up for debate.
November 28th 2007 – Terrapin Man This spring, Maryland outlawed the trapping of the Diamondback Terrapin (Malaclemys terrapin). Tom describes one of the crusaders of the movement that eventually lead to the legislative victory for the state reptile.
Theme songs by Mark Erelli, from his album, "Hope and Other Casualties." Photograph by Brion McCarthy.
About Tom Pelton
Tom Pelton is senior writer at the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, a nonprofit environmental organization. He writes the Bay Daily blog; read that here. For more than a decade, he was a reporter for The Baltimore Sun, winning several awards for his nature writing and investigative reporting. The Society of Environmental Journalists in 2005 and 2006 named him one of the best environmental beat reporters in America (second best in the U.S. in 2005; third best in 2006). He's also won awards for best environmental reporting from the Maryland, D.C., Delaware Press Association (in 2005) and the Associated Press (in 2006).
Before coming to the Sun in 1997, he wrote for The Boston Globe, Harvard Magazine, The Chicago Tribune and other publications. He has a master's degree in English from the University of Chicago, and graduated magna cum laude from Georgetown University. He's taught journalism at Georgetown University, and been a guest lecturer on environmental reporting at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
He lives in the Evergreen neighborhood of Baltimore with his wife and two daughters.
