Illegal gill nets continue to be hooked by Maryland Natural Resources Police, with two more on February 11 bringing the month total to eight thousand yards of illegal net and 25,000 pounds of illegally caught rockfish. The latest two 900-yard strings of illegal gill nets were anchored in Eastern Bay. Both were in the vicinity of Bloody Point Light, one about a mile south and other about two and a half miles northeast.

Once again Arnold’s Mill Creek pumping station has failed, dumping over a quarter-million gallons of raw sewage into Mill Creek. This spill is being blamed on the failure of two separate backup power sources. The station has been plagued with problems, most notably 2005’s three-million-gallon sewage spill, for which the watershed is still undergoing restoration.

She’s back. It took seven years, one month and six days. Then, against all odds, on January 11, Teresa Chambers of Dunkirk got the news she’d hoped for all along. Before the month is out, she’ll be reinstated to the job she loved and lost, U.S. Park Police Chief.

2010 was supposed to be the year we cleaned up the Bay.  Its nutrient- and sediment-reduction and dissolved-oxygen and underwater grass-improvement goals: all deadlines we missed. But as 2010 ends, many people are still working for a cleaner Chesapeake. Here’s a year-end review of what two local grant-winning projects are doing to change the way we do things on dry land — because everything we put on land ends up in the Bay. 

In the middle of the shopping rush on the last Saturday before Christmas, one Nordstrom customer stopped browsing and started singing. Another 100 voices joined in, singing a seemingly impromptu but suspiciously professional “Hallalujah Chorus” from Handel’s Messiah. The reason for the effortless harmony: The Annapolis Chorale was adding an enticing fourth performance to the usual three nights of singing the Messiah. That’s right, Nordstrom Annapolis was Flash Mobbed.

We lay in bed, just before lights out, and watched the small battalion of gunmetal gray tanks make their way across the top of our curtains. Three windows, three stinkbugs each. After fall’s bombardment, we didn’t get too worked up over just nine of the little buggers. But we did wonder what entrance they were using. My husband suggested our double-hung windows were probably not shut tight, and the slender gap at the top and bottom of each gave the invaders — and the now frequent gusts of cold air — easy access to our warm house.

Veterans and their families are invited to go fishing with Maryland Department of Natural Resources on 35 fall fishing charters now thru Dec. 15, when rockfish season closes. “We are very pleased to give something back to our veterans, who so courageously serve on our behalf — in this case, a day of fishing on our beautiful Chesapeake Bay,” said Gov. Martin O’Malley of the new Recreational Outreach Project for Veterans. 

April, when we pay our taxes, may be the cruelest month. But winter is the most expensive season. At least it was in 2009-10, when what we saved in autumnal hurricanes was lost in the avalanche of winter snow.  In Maryland alone, last year’s record-setting snow cost American taxpayers $54,699,527.85 — yes, the fed counts down to pennies. That’s how much cash the Federal Emergency Management Agency has shoveled into Maryland to help dig out from under last winter’s budget-busting snow. 

This election is like few others we’ve seen. With so many voters fed up with the course of governing — and with so many candidates struggling to tap into this palpable anger — 2010 brings a new strain of the old throw-out-the-bums electoral fever. There’s demagoguery out there, too, in this season of discontent. So it’s hard to know who’s telling it straight and who’s trying to exploit our body politic at a vulnerable moment.  

The Haughwouth sisters’ parents had passed away, and the boat was long gone, but when their childhood sail resurfaced, Penny and Pixie couldn’t bear throwing it away. Instead they turned it into two jackets. Then they turned it into a business, Sea Fever Gear. Sailors don’t have many options for worn-out sails other than throwing them away. “So many hold onto them,” says Haughwouth, “because they carry an emotional tie. Who owned it before? Where has it been? What has it gone through? Each sail has a story of its own.”