Vacation Envy
Hello out there?
With everybody from the president to the financial planner on vacation, I considered printing this week’s paper in invisible ink in hopes of convincing you the stories were right below your eyes if you had the right stuff — lemon juice or infrared light — to see them. That idea fell to our watchful puzzlers, who showed me my ruse would be caught. Since last Thursday, call after note has come in admonishing us for printing clues that — for all the shoehorning in the world — won’t fit into the spaces provided with last week’s crossword puzzle.
Now that I know you’re reading, I’d better give you the real thing just as we do every week.
Even in a slow week, there’s plenty to do in Chesapeake Country, as you’ll see in 8 Days a Week. Make haste to buy your tickets for Annapolis Summer Garden Theatre’s Spamalot, reported by reviewer Jim Reiter as the best way to laugh your way out of summer. Mark your calendar for Irish band The ShamRogues on the lawn (weather allowing) at London Town Sunday, August 17 at 5pm. Look forward to Annapolis Art Walk Thursday, August 21, starting at 6pm.
Just back from vacation, Madeline Hughes guarantees you’ll never go thirsty, reporting to you on her coffee-shop summer tour of Chesapeake Country.
Fresh from a vacation of a sort nobody wants to take, contributor Elisavietta Ritchie describes how the nasty bug vibrio vulnificus gave her a week in the hospital.
More attractive bugs return in Creature Feature, where you’ll meet the Silvery Checkerspot, and Your Say, where the Monarch makes a two-stage appearance, as beauty and beast.
As a retiree, contributor Bob Melamud reports he’s always on vacation. So he’s stepped up this week with another of his occasional series on the environmental and human value we get for our tax dollars. Cleaning up the Bay One Family at a Time explains the Flush Tax at work in the Calvert County home of Navy aviation electrician’s mate Rob Pryke and wife Brandi.
Breaking News on Dominion Cove Point
Tom Hall returns from vacation in Maine just in time to follow up our July 17 story on the controversial Dominion Cove Point Liquefied Natural Gas export plan:
A Calvert County judge ruled this week that the county’s 2013 waiver of local zoning rules for the export expansion constitutes an unconstitutional “special law” benefitting Dominion Resources.
AMP Creeks Council, a local environmental group, successfully won a ruling that invalidates the county’s pro-Dominion local zoning amendment. Now county officials will have to regroup, deciding whether to appeal the ruling … or figuring out another way to proceed in accord with county zoning protections. The commissioners next meet August 19.
Calvert County Attorney John Norris said the exemption granted Cove Point was not designed to expedite the project but to defer to the expertise of federal regulators like the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and Environmental Protection Agency.
“I really believe the intent of the text amendment was to do no harm, and not to create any overlap or conflict of regulations,” Norris said. “I’m not sure any county in the state has the ability to analyze an extremely unique project like this.”
Calvert is Maryland’s smallest county.
Dominion Cove Point spokesman Karl Neddenien said the company is analyzing the ruling and confidently awaiting FERC approval. The company hopes to begin construction on the $3.8 billion export terminal later this year.
“We don’t see any schedule impact,” Neddenien said.