Chesapeake Bay

Bay Journal reporter Rona Kobell has the results of tests of water quality in tributaries of the Chesapeake Bay, part of our look at recent controversies over the storm-water fees imposed on Baltimore and nine counties to stem polluted runoff into the bay.

On a beautiful morning in May 1813, the people of Havre de Grace awoke to a terrifying sight. Out on the bay were the towering masts of a British fleet, and rowing toward them were landing craft filled with Redcoats.

When Rear-Admiral George Cockburn of the Royal Navy arrived in the Chesapeake in the spring of 1813, he was a naval hero of sterling reputation and a household name in Britain. He departed later that summer with a price on his head and the towns and farms of the Chesapeake in smoking ruins. This is how it happened.

April 24, 2013

Assessing the environmental impact of the 2013 Maryland General Assembly session with Rona Kobell, Midday contributor and reporter for the Chesapeake Bay Journal, and Pamela Wood of the Capital Gazette newspapers.

The House of Delegates has passed a bill that would create a new tax on gasoline, on top of the existing tax, to fund roads and mass transit.  Now the debate continues in the Senate. WYPR statehouse reporter Karen Hosler tells us more.

Then, Captain Larry Simns was the voice of Maryland’s commercial watermen for forty years until his death earlier this month. We talk with Bob Rich, who helped Larry Simns write a book about his life.

And, a play about life’s takeoffs and landings. Theater critic J. Wynn Rousuck reviews "Mud Blue Sky" at Center Stage.

March 25, 2013

Happy Maryland Day! Three-hundred and seventy-nine years ago, the first European settlers landed on Maryland soil at St. Clement’s Island in what is now St. Mary’s County.

Should Maryland taxpayers foot the legal bills for a Perdue farmer who was sued for polluting the Chesapeake Bay? Apparently so. At the behest of the O’Malley administration, the House of Delegates approved up to $300,000 for an Eastern Shore farm that raised cornish hens for poultry giant Perdue. The Hudson family won a lawsuit brought by the New York Waterkeeper Alliance, litigated by the environmental law clinic at the University of Maryland and criticized by Gov. O’Malley.

Our always-interesting environmental contributor tells us about the annual perch run and the development of oyster farming in the Chesapeake. In addition, Rona lists the kinds of environmental issues that should be of concern to parents of young children -- and those that shouldn't. Rona Kobell is a staff writer for the Chespapeake Bay Journal. She appears once monthly on Midday.

Evan Pritchard, director of the Center for Algonquin Culture in New York and a professor of Native American History at Marist College in Poughkeepsie, on the stories and culture of Maryland natives whose influence helped shape the state we live in today. Pritchard sings native songs, explains "the way of the heron" philosophy, and tells the story of Maryland's 17th Century "Thanksgiving moment."