Midday on the Bay

As Ken Burns prepares to release his two-part, four-hour documentary about the ecological calamity that intensified the Great Depression, Midday contributor Rona Kobell looks at lessons learned about land conservation after the Dust Bowl. Our November edition of Midday on the Bay includes a conversation with Susan Shumaker, associate producer of  "The Dust Bowl," and a look at how Maryland and other states protect agricultural lands in the Chesapeake region.

The Clean Water Act turns 40 this month. Bay Journal staff reporter and Midday on the Bay contributor Rona Kobell examines how the legislation passed in Congress in 1972, its successes, its failures, how it is enforced today, how it suffers from continuous assault and what the November election outcome might mean for its future. Also, an interview with Oscar-winning filmmaker Barry Levinson about his newest feature film "The Bay."

How do you restore an urban river? Very slowly. But it happened in Norfolk and Boston. Environmental reporter and Midday contributor Rona Kobell of The Bay Journal returns for another edition of Midday on the Bay to talk with leaders of these two river restoration projects: Marjorie Mayfield Jackson, founder of the Elizabeth River Project in Norfolk, and Bob Zimmerman, longtime executive director of the Charles River Watershed Association in Boston.