Environment

Environmental reporter Rona Kobell, staff writer for the Bay Journal, returns for an update on hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” for natural gas in Maryland. A Montgomery County delegate wants the state to prohibit fracking until it can be done without harming drinking water. Plus, the case of Lake Bonnie in Caroline County; it became so polluted with sewage that the owner of the land filed suit against the Maryland Department of the Environment. And, how a company called Ecotone is helping to restore forests and wetlands in Maryland. 

Every summer, a dead zone forms in the Chesapeake Bay.  It’s an area of such low oxygen that animals and plants have trouble surviving.  This coming spring, the University of Maryland  Center for Environmental Science, or UMCES, will be using a new robot, called the Kongsberg-Hydroid REMUS 600, to explore and gather data about the area.  Sheilah talks about it with Don Boesch, professor of Marine

Changing streetlamps to LED lighting may save money, but some are concerned that it's coming at the cost of safety. We'll talk to lighting experts and hear from city officials about what the new lights mean for Baltimoreans.

Then: Nearly 10 percent of Baltimore’s acreage is parks. The Trust for Public Land ranks Baltimore’s parks 15th out of 40 cities. We’ll ask their lead researcher how far the parks have come since he graduated from Johns Hopkins 40 years ago.

As the best-selling book tell us: everybody poops.  That includes chickens, cows, pigs, humans.  In Maryland, farmers have traditionally taken processed animal poop—or manure—and processed human poop—or biosolids—and used it as fertilizer for their fields.

Audio for this segment will be available by the end of the day.

"Pollution diet," "total maximum daily load," "watershed implementation plan" -- What is Saving the Chesapeake Bay for $500, Alex?

Did you know those pesky weeds in your garden could actually be edible?  Tom Hall talks with our garden guru Anne Raver about how to use nettles, dock (often found among potatoes), and wild sorrel.

We had plenty of rain over the weekend, but besides that Maryland has been experiencing one of the driest summers on record.  While the farmers have been lamenting the weather, one feature of our environment has benefited from the sauna-like heat: the Chesapeake Bay.  The lack of water has decreased the size of the dead zone in the Bay:  an area of such low oxygen that animals and

farmers dead zone.mp3