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Editorial

Yo Feds: Ante Up for Bay Oysters

Maryland’s Department of Natural Resources has a promising tonic for the Chesapeake’s critical oyster problems: cranking up the Piney Point Oyster Hatchery in St. Mary’s County.

The hurdle here is latching on to the $100,000 in start-up money and a commitment for about $350,000 annual operating costs.

The federal government, which often trumpets its benevolence toward the Bay, ought to seize the day and fork over the money to get things moving. And Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Md., should deploy his clout as a House leader to make it happen.

Oyster aquaculture is a rare answer to a problem more serious than most people know. Disease and overharvesting have all but destroyed Bay oysters; last year’s 120,000 bushels amounted to less than one percent of the haul a century ago.

Thank about that. And when you do, remember that oysters aren’t just for selling and eating; they flush and clean the Bay. Sitting there on the bottom they mind the Bay’s business, not just their own. The plan at Piney Point is to nurture scads of tiny oysters in tanks and plant them in the Bay’s rivers, thereby creating beds free of the devastating Dermo and MSX diseases.

“We have to develop a disease-free stock,” asserted Pete Jensen, DNR’s director of tidewater fisheries.

Of course there are uncertainties as well as skepticism, in watermen and others. But it’s time to take risks, as the assemblage of experts in the Oyster Roundtable has advocated.

Observed Jensen: “There’s always reticence when you do something bold.”

As they say at the pool hall, quit talkin’ and start chalkin’. The federal government ought to waste no time signing on to the proposal now that Maryland has offered the Piney Point facility and a strong plan.

Hoyer raised expectations when he visited Piney Point a few weeks ago. As chairman of the Democratic caucus in the House, Hoyer will have his hands full with crime, health care and national business when Congress reconvenes this month.

Before the noise and confusion begins, Hoyer ought to muscle this modest chunk of money out of the Clinton administration’s discretionary accounts to jumpstart this worthwhile project.

Drug Abuse Versus Constitution Abuse

In a little-known ruling, the Maryland’s Court of Special Appeals has made it slightly more difficult to seize property in connection with drug violations.

The ruling follows a U.S. Supreme Court decision last month that corrals overzealous prosecutors.

Drugs are dumb and corrosive. Crack cocaine appears to drain people’s sense and uncivilize them.

But constitutional rights of non-drug users are important, too. Since 1992, newspapers have chronicled cases in which governments have taken houses and cars from innocent people.

The Maryland ruling last week dealt with the confiscation of a Jeep Cherokee owned by a Wicomico County veterinarian. Local officials seized the wagon after the vet’s son was found to have a small amount of drugs — not crack — when stopped by police almost two years ago.

The Court of Special Appeals, reversing a circuit court ruling, said that a vehicle should not be taken if the owner doesn’t know drug violations are taking place.

In the fight against drugs in Maryland, we’ve seen drug checkpoints on highways and heat-sensing helicopters flying around trying to guess if people are growing pot in their houses. (Gardeners working to get their tomatoes, peppers and basil sprouted while the ground is too cold could become suspects.)

We want law enforcement agencies to have the budgets and tools to carry out their jobs. We want purveyors of crack in jail. And we want to avoid the slippery slope of eroding constitutional rights, which in the long run may be just as dangerous any drug.

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Letters to the Editor

No Call for Bad Names

Dear New Bay Times:

The reach of your New Bay Times has stretched far beyond the limits of the unique estuary eco-system that you inhabit and enjoy. Here in a polluted little pocket of paradise beset with many troubles and so often little hope, it is truly refreshing to see the work of people dedicated to communication, understanding and genuine quest for the common good, as well as concern for our planet’s ability to provide for us.

Your paper is obviously a professional labor of love, and my only regret is that after many years as a journalist, the first letter to the editor that I get to write gives me no call to scream and rant and call you bad names.

I do, however, expect someday to read the full story of that Bay monster named Chessie.

Thomas Long

San Salvador

Central America

Humorist / Songwriter / Singer

Dear New Bay Times:

New Bay Times is quite an endeavor.

I especially like the photo of Burton on the Bay. He reminds me of a Sunday comic called “Cappy Dick,” which was filled with tips for fun-seeking boys and girls. For example, “Hey kids, when you’re walking down the street, don’t be bored. Why not count things?” (illustrated with a body in red sweater vest, counting “127 trees, 39 birds, 17 houses …”)

Each week closed with a grizzled Cappy Dick, snarling through the pipe clenched in his teeth: “Cappy Dick says ‘Get busy, kids.’”

Could Burton on the Bay be the original Cappy Dick?

I congratulate you on the newspaper. I hope it does fabulously. But if it doesn’t, remember —

Cappy Dick says “Get busy, kids.”

Dan Hunter

Des Moines, Iowa

Green for Green

Dear New Bay Times:

Thanks for your good article on the “Greening of Annapolis” (Vol. 1: 15), which brought the Alliance for Sustainable Communities

a volunteer landscape architect and a contribution of $50!

Anne Pearson

Annapolis, Md.

Hungry for Crabs and Info

Dear New Bay Times:

I’m trying to form an opinion. I need is information. What I want to know is just how bad are our Bay shellfish doing.

I like the fun of taking crabs and eating crabs but I would be willing to give it up for a few years so there will be plenty in the longrun. I’d be willing — as long as I didn’t see a commercial boat coming home overfilled with what I couldn’t catch. If there’s going to be regulation, I think it should start with commercial fishermen before us guys who catch a couple of bushels now and again for ourselves.

And if there’s a real danger, DNR should be doing more than posting signs that everybody ignores.

Jeff Norman

Holiday Beach, Md.

Unexpected Pleasures

Dear New Bay Times:

Reading Eli Flam’s article about books on the Bay (Vol. 1: 17), my eye fell on the words “Unexpected Pleasures” and as I began reading, I said, “Who could possibly know about these books of mine?” Then I looked for the author’s name, and it all clicked. It’s always good to see something Eli’s written.

Phyllis Naylor

Bethesda, Md.

Miss Ethel, 105, Looks Ahead

Dear New Bay Times:

I have just finished reading the contents of New Bay Times, Vol. 1. No. 19 (December 30-January 12) and found my picture leading the pages, “Faces of the Bay.” It is very interesting and I thank you for making the paper. I do enjoy the copies.

Each copy opens up a new idea in reference to the Great Chesapeake, of which we are all so proud.

All my lifetime has been spent viewing the river and Bay, so great for the oystermen and for fishermen and just plain viewers. My home was located on Parish Creek. My new home for the last 25 years — the home of my daughter and her husband — also gives me a special view of West River and the Bay. I’m sure the joy the pictures give me has created the unusual health now in its 105th year without a pain.

For years, my parents and later I ran a summer hotel for guests who would come on the steamer Emma Giles from Baltimore City to piers in West River and stay at hotels or boarding houses (then called).

There were no automobiles in 1900. After 1932, when autos began to make themselves felt, the Emma Giles ceased to come to the rivers and guests came to the rivers using vehicles on wheels run by a gasoline engine.

Deale and Shady Side began to grow up with their lovely shorelines, every city person wanted a home on the water.

Let’s go back to the picture in the paper. I certainly look terrible but God gave me 105 years on this “great ball.” He let me stay perfectly well. I taught as principal of the elementary school 41 years and served as postmistress, then fourth class, for 30 years. No one wanted the office when my father became its first postmaster.

Thank you for the unusual page in New Bay Times.

Your writers have called on me, and they are intelligent people. Keep up your good work. Be positive and uplifting. You have a splendid opportunity to give new ideas of “good.”

Drop in to see me, an old citizen who loves writers who keep the public thinking.

Ethel Andrews

Shady Side, Md.

Toasting Fathers

Dear New Bay Times:

Thanks for the richly anecdotal “Toast to Gene” in your December 1 issue. As a beneficiary of his hospitality and humor for these last 36 years, I chuckled my way through your aptly drawn word portrait. May we all honor his memory by living our lives with “style and abundance.”

P.S. On my holiday visit to the cemetery where both he and my father are buried, I took some oysters.

Linda Claire Kulla

St. Louis, Mo.

Paradise Found

Dear New Bay Times:

It’s been over a year since we left San Diego for the hamlet of Fairhaven, nestled at the apex of Herring Bay in Anne Arundel County.

Most of our Southern California friends thought we were nearing lunacy to leave paradise, where a solid city of over 20 million people stretches from Los Angeles to Mexico.

“It snows back there,” they warned. "Your heating costs will bankrupt you, and then the summer will cook you. You’ll be back to paradise in no time.”

That’s not what happened. My kids thanked me for moving us here. I guess they didn’t know we’d left paradise. “What’s wrong with you kids?” I asked. “Don’t you miss the manicured lawns, the eight-lane freeways, the Zoo (animal and otherwise), the always-the-same-weather and the neighborhood gangs?”

Sally and I discovered the new freedom of not worrying where the kids were every minute. It was safe to walk around our new neighborhood. The kids could now wander over hill, dale and beach; in San Diego they were not allowed to leave our yard. The kids learned to crab, to search for and classify fossils and to discover new bugs, birds and snakes. Even our three year-old got into the act with his frequent trips “over the hill” to go see Ed, the newly adopted granddad.

We met more families in a week than we had in a year in California, and we enjoy a community spirit that is difficult to cultivate in large cities. I found myself experiencing what it must have been like for my parents growing up when there was less crime, less TV and more discovery.

We have now experienced the full cycle of winter, spring, summer and fall. We haven’t succumbed to heating bills yet; in fact we have plenty of firewood gleaned from the occasional trimmed or downed tree. We haven’t frozen to death, instead enjoying the cold, the cozy fires and snow sports.

A flock of swans visited our back yard in winter. Spring was such an explosion of life and fresh breezes that I was practically in sensory overload. While the summer heat got pretty oppressive, we enjoyed the water (boating, swimming and beachcombing) and wildlife. In California, on the other hand, I experienced “seasonal change deprivation syndrome.” We had to drive to the mountains to sample a few hours of winter.

My California friends say we don’t know what we’re missing. I think we do.

Lynn Yates, Fairhaven

What Others Are Saying

“… A newcomer on the scene is New Bay Times, a lively, well-written and eclectic publication now nearly a year old and published twice monthly, from Deale, Md.

“For fans of Bill Burton, longtime outdoor writer for The Evening Sun, New Bay Times is where he ‘retired’ his column.”

Tom Horton

“A Guide to Some Armchair Exploring on the Bay”

The Baltimore Sun: January 8, 1994

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Burton

Why Count Your Chickens

When You Can Conjure up Rockfish?

One swallow maketh not a summer. Ah, but one big rock can make a day of fishing. And that’s how things shape up for spring fishing in Chesapeake Bay.

Our prediction of a couple months ago appears to be holding up. The Maryland Department of Natural Resources has officially proposed a spring trophy rockfish season to hold the interest of anglers to its very end. Thanks to resurgence in rock populations, DNR — with the blessing of the almighty Atlantic Coast Marine Fisheries Commission — has announced intentions of liberalizing the May season.

Unless fisheries managers have a last-minute change of heart (which isn’t expected), spring fishermen will be allowed one rockfish a day (34 inches or more) from May 1 through 31. To those who fished in the good old days before the species began its precipitous decline, that might not sound like much, but let’s not look a gift horse in the mouth — as the English epigrammatist advised back in the mid-1500s when he also wrote that line about sparrows and summer.

Consider that since the lifting of the moratorium, the spring limit for both recreational and charter fishermen was one fish for the entire month — catch it and your season was over — and it had to be 36 inches or bigger.

The potential of switching from one keeper a season to one a day is obvious, but more advantageous to fishermen is dropping the minimum length by two inches. Since the trophy season’s inception two years ago, many, many rock of between 34 and just short of 36 inches were caught and released as mandated.

This coming May, those fish can be legally kept, which should increase overall statistics appreciably. Add to this the opportunity to go out again the next day or thereafter for an encore, and the spring trophy season shapes up as an exciting affair.

Looking back, the first trophy season in 1992 turned up just less than 1,000 trophy rock; last year, 2,000. This year we have a quota of 5,000, which prompts a nagging question or two within those of us who harbor an occasional pessimistic thought. Such as:

Q. Is this so liberal that we will endanger basic brood stocks?

DNR’s rockfish specialist Steve Early assures us that the 5,000 fish removed from the coastal population poses no threat whatsoever. We’re far below a mortality rate of 20 percent of coastal stocks, the fishery is improving dramatically, and the fish are available, he said at a recent meeting in Annapolis. So much for the first question, though I have reservations about suggestions that fish we could catch, but don’t, could be taken by other fishermen elsewhere along the coast.

This let’s-get-them-or-someone-else-will approach is bothersome, and probably Early didn’t mean it literally. It was more a comment concerning fishing pressure elsewhere along the coast where seasons are much longer — though not necessarily much more liberal — and are directed to large migratory fish.

Despite all the restrictions, we of the Chesapeake catch the lion’s share of striped bass. Fisheries managers all along the coast are aware of that; some howl about “slaughters” elsewhere, but statistics don’t back them up.

Several months ago, in little more than a footnote, this column suggested Marylanders were actually taking a disproportionate share of the coastal catch, but offered no definite statistics. They weren’t available at the time.

Conservative-minded Al Goetz, a former Maryland representative of Coastal Fisheries, attended the Annapolis meeting armed with figures he had just received from the commission. Let’s take a look:

• In 1990, Marylanders caught 25 percent of all rockfish taken by numbers, 17.3 percent by overall weight.

• In 1991, Marylanders took 33 1/2 percent of all rockfish caught, 19.6 percent by weight.

• In 1992, Marylanders took 44 1/2 percent of all rock caught, 28.2 percent by weight.

Among fishermen from North Carolina to Maine, Marylanders have little to complain about. And this is not meant to be a complaint.

We were the first state to make the sacrifice (though we procrastinated for too many years), and since we have dedicated more time, effort and money to species management than any other state — possibly as much as most or all other states combined.

So let’s not ask for too much; instead, accept graciously and gratefully what we finally have achieved. Better late than never is the way Heywood put it more than 500 years ago.

Q: Can we plan on a full-term fishing season?

Early predicts the spring season will run its full 31-day course. Rich Novotny, executive director of 6,000-member Maryland Saltwater Sportsfishermen’s Association, thinks otherwise. At Annapolis, Novotny said that he imagined the reduced length limit would allow many more keepers to be taken — and thus require DNR to abort the season.

This would disrupt plans of those who intend to fish later in the month. It would also be a poor public relations move for DNR, which in the past has closed or lengthened fall recreational seasons because anglers were exceeding or not meeting predetermined quotas.

Early couldn’t promise the trophy season would run its full course, but who can? His educated guess is good enough for me; we can’t ask for anything better — not when fisheries managers must make decisions by deadlines with no guarantees of what weather will be like months later.

A cold and wet spring could delay spawning; warm and dry weather could hasten it. Weather also affects fishing success. Too many factors are involved to guarantee accuracy, though constant monitoring of catches can insure that we won’t remove too many rockfish from the migratory stock.

The Saltwater Sportsfishermen’s Association suggests a limit of three oversize spring rockfish to ensure the season runs through May, but this would mean the additional cost of extra permits. If the catch rate exceeds what’s expected, however, it could avoid a season shortened at the expense of those who can’t fish as often.

On the other hand, imposition of a three-fish-a-season rule could restrict Maryland anglers as a whole from catching the allotted quota if catches are not so good.

Given that a catch of 5,000 fish won’t harm coastal stocks, why not go with DNR’s proposal and as Heywood advised, When the sun shineth, make hay?

Remember, at the offset of the 1993 fall season, most everyone predicted sportsfishermen would meet their quota of 892,500 pounds. Yet when catches were slower than anticipated, the season was extended two additional weeks.

Even with the extension, the recreational catch was 632,793 pounds, far short of the 892,500-pound quota. On the other hand, charterboats exceeded their quota of 315,000 pounds with a catch of 350,000 pounds. That was opposite from previous years, when recreational fishermen topped their allotment while charter interests didn’t fulfill theirs.

All of which reminds us that predictions on fish and fishing, one can only be based on good information — and hope. DNR appears to be on that track.

Incidentally, Early did predict that in the future there could be even more liberalization of spring trophy rockfish regulations, though he couldn’t elaborate because futures depend on continued improvement of stocks. Maybe there’ll be a longer spring season — though not opening earlier than May 1. Fisheries managers want to be sure most female spawners have completed their mission before fishing begins.

Additional days would come in June. Additional creel limits are another possibility somewhere down the line, but don’t look for easing restrictions that bar trophy fishing north of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge.

Admittedly the Bay Bridge boundary is inconvenient for the many thousands of fishermen who sail out of upper Bay ports, but let us not forget that some rockfish spawn in the upper Bay, and the intent of springtime regulations is to protect fish on the spawning grounds. Trophy fishing is limited to the Chesapeake Bay proper to protect traditional spawning in the tributaries plus open waters of the upper Bay where there is some spawning.

It has been suggested that the boundary be moved a mile or two north of the Bay Bridge, which would probably not affect much spawning, but poses another concern. The Bay bridge is a visible barrier, much more distinct than, say, an invisible line that runs from the mouth of the Patapsco River to Swan Point. What an enforcement dilemma this could induce on heavily overcast days or among fishermen unfamiliar with landmarks!

Also, consider that the more salinity, the less the mortality to fish caught and released. The saltier the water, the more fish can cope with the injuries and stress of fight. Salinity levels drop appreciably above the Bay Bridge. So, let’s put that matter to rest.

Probably the future will bring no changes in bait regulations for spring, either. Only artificial baits are allowed in the trophy season to lessen chances for mortality due to barbs set too deeply. However, chumming is now — and probably always will be — allowed if fishermen fish the chum with artificial lures.

As Early said, we’re never going back to the good old days of catch all you can, but things will probably get better. With a 34-inch minimum in springtime, one even wonders whether the spring season should continue under the guise of a “trophy” season. A 36-incher is a legitimate trophy, but is a 34-incher? It depends on who’s catching it.

One final word from our friend John Heywood: A penny for your thoughts.

Your thoughts count with DNR, whether you think so or not. Many times proposals have been modified to accommodate dissenters .

Early invites phone calls or written comments. The deadline is Jan. 24. Call 410/974-3733, or write Steve Early, Assistant to the Director; Fisheries Division: DNR; Tawes State Office Building; Annapolis, Md. 21401.

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Laughing Gourmet

From Sara’s Kitchen in Prince Frederick Comes

Pure Sin in Twenty-Five Flavors

We know where it goes, all those sweet slices of Pure Sin devoured for holiday treats. Such goodies are why diets are every New Year’s most impossible resolutions.

But where does Pure Sin come from?

Some of the thickest, richest, creamest pies and cakes — bringing joy and remorse from Solomons to Annapolis — come from Sara’s Kitchen, which is about as close to home as boughten sweets can get.

“I bake what people would make themselves — if they had the time,” says 32-year-old Sara Bowen of Calvert County.

Imagine what you could make if you spent whole days in the kitchen concocting your wildest fantasies with never a thought to balanced meals. Sara does just that. By night she must dream dreams of sweet decadence. Naturally. Everything in her kitchen is “made with real everything. No preservatives, no shelf life, high cholosterol, and truly scrumptious.”

Kahlua Swirl Cheesecake. Pure Sin, Chocolate Mousse, Kentucky Derby, Margarita, Mississippi Mud, and Pecan (Southern or Chocolate Bourbon) pies. Fresh, uncooked fruit pies of blueberry, peach and strawberry, topped with heavy whipped cream …

By day, to make those dreams come true, Sara searches recipe books, hunting out historical and regional greats. She quizzes friends for the most succulent recipes. She bakes trial after trial until she achieves perfection. Never mind how many imperfections have to be thrown out along the way. Nor how many years perfection demands (her record is three). Five cakes, seven cheese cakes, 25 sweet pies, and eight savory quiches are, Sara thinks, there.

Three-layer German Chocolate Cake. Caramel-Chocolate Chunk Cheesecake. Butterscotch Meringue, Lemon Mousse, Peanut Butter, Pina Colada, and Sweet Potato pies. Quiches stuffed full of broccoli or spinach.

Imagine the ideal view out your kitchen window. Wouldn’t you like to glance up from your hot stove to see swans on the wide, glittering Patuxent? Sara does.

Her kitchen stands on land that’s belonged to Bowens since the days when Calverts were lords. Her father and marketing adviser is retired Calvert County Judge Perry G. Bowen Jr. Her mother, Virginia, is her baking mentor and partner, in charge of cheesecakes and meringue pies. Mother drives the refrigerated truck on Tuesday’s deliveries; Sara on Friday’s.

Working whatever hours she likes out of her own kitchen in the back quarters of the old home where she grew up, now fully equipped and state-inspected, is Sara’s ideal job. She hopes to do it till she’s “old and gray.”

But to come home, this favored child of fortune and old blood had bases to cross. On her own in Hartford County, she worked as a homemaker for senior citizens. She washed dishes, waitressed and cooked at Annapolis’ Crate Cafe. Her next step, cooking school in Washington, D.C., took her back to work she’d always liked — and the maturing responsibility of long hours and hard work.

At summer’s pace, when pies are selling like hotcakes at Calvert County’s Farmers’ Market on Rt. 2-4, Sara bakes 30 to 40 pies and cakes daily in four or five varieties. Many of those go to her regular commercial customers, where you’ve no doubt been tempted by — and are likely to have sampled — one of Sara’s treats, at restaurants from Solomons to Annapolis.

At the Christmas season just past, Sara was pretty busy, again. Her brother, Perry III, a local farmer and craftsman, filled the market with trees, crafts, and Sara’s cakes and pies. Not satisfied with such favorites as Apple Nut Crumb and Key Lime, she added holiday specials: her Derby Pie is loaded with pecans, chocolate chips, candied fruit, rum and bourbon. Her yet-to-be perfected Christmas Truffle Pie will layer chocolate and white candy truffles in a fudge pie shell.

Come Easter, she’ll be baking fresh strawberry pies.

“My kitchen is my marriage,” Sara says. So she’s passionate about the quality of chocolate: the origin of fruit (strictly fresh in summer; frozen in winter. No syrupy canned filling for Sara, thank you); the consistency of pie crust (hers has a secret liquid ingredient); the authenticity of ingredients (everything, including liquors for flavoring, is real); the proper way to bake a quiche (hers have two layers of filling, each baked 30 minutes). Sara cooks only to order; her baked goods are never frozen.

Sara thinks big as well as good. Her three-layer German Chocolate Cake is stuffed with 3 pounds of filling. Her pies and quiches weigh four pounds each. As a main course, a single quiche can satisfy six big eaters. Two pounds of apples go into each apple pie. “A pie you’re going to pay $11 for better have two pounds of apples in it and plenty of pecans!” she says.

Like all of us, Sara knows only too well where goodies such as hers go. A class at Calvert Memorial Hospital taught her “how wicked her business is,” so she’s trained herself to stay away from chocolate chips — even though a case of the very best Hershey’s chips is always open before her.

Good luck on those New Year’s resolutions.

Sara welcomes orders with 48 hours notice. Her delivery minimum is four items: 410/535-0732. Or sample pies, cakes and occasional quiches from Sara’s Kitchen at these spots

Anne Arundel County: Crate Cafe (Annapolis); Adam’s Rib (Edgewater)

Calvert County: Adam’s Rib and Sea Breeze (Chesapeake Beach) Benny’s (Dunkirk); Adam’s Rib (Prince Frederick); Gateway (St. Leonard); Lighthouse Inn (Solomons)

Charles County: Chappelears

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Politalk

Green Politics

Green is the favorite color of any politician running for office. If you don’t have the green stuff, you don’t have a campaign. Green is also the favorite shade of politics for some Bay area voters. They’ve organized an environmental Political Action Committee or PAC.

The Anne Arundel Voters for Environmental Justice is open to all registered voters in the county. Its mission is to “work to elect those candidates with convincing environmental justice platforms and records.”

The PAC will support candidates for state and local offices and for committees, courts and boards. After interviewing candidates, PAC members will hold an open discussion at a convention, then vote on the endorsements.

On the green voters want-list are more natural and recreational public open space; building codes that improve energy efficiency; 65 percent county-wide recycling and reduced use of toxic chemicals by businesses.

Organizers of the new PAC know they won’t be able to compete against the big players who pump hundreds of thousands of dollars into campaigns. But these local voters say they'll at least be in the game. Member Jim Martin explains, “What we want to try to do is to provide money to meet special needs within a campaign ... be a shot in the arm where needed.”

The group’s next meeting is January 19, 7:00PM at the Community Center at 251 West St. in Annapolis.

Radon Returns

Radon is back in the news this month. This time the Anne Arundel County Health Department is sounding the alarm.

Eighteen percent of 117 homes recently surveyed, most in the southern part of the county, had radon levels above EPA guidelines. That’s risk enough to recommend you testing your house for radon, the health department concluded. Johns Hopkins University also named radon an important environmental health issue for AA County.

Remember, you can’t smell or see this radioactive gas, but it can hurt you. It’s the second leading cause of lung cancer after smoking.

For more information on the naturally occurring gas, call the Maryland Radon Hotline: 800/872-3666.

Trustees for the Land

This time of the year, it’s nice to watch the Bay’s winter character evolve.

Easier said than done. Getting to the Bay can be difficult if you’re not part of a private community.

Some residents in Calvert County want to change that, making it easier for anyone to take a stroll along the Bay anytime of the year. The Plum Point Environmental Land Trust was formed in 1991 by residents who wanted to help preserve open space in Calvert County.

Now the Trust is trying to buy the Neeld Family Farm, a 180-acre tract with 20 acres fronting directly on the Bay. It’s a natural for preservation because 90 percent of the total acreage is within the Bay’s critical area. The farm includes a beach, forest, wetlands, even peach and apple orchards.

Land Trust President Jim Odgers says it would be a great place for walking, canoe launching and other passive recreation. His goal is to purchase the farm for the Trust and send developers to work in areas that can better accommodate density. “We’re not anti-growth, anti-development. We just want to see open space and sensitive areas preserved and the county develop in an orderly manner to preserve its rural character,” Odgers explains.

Volunteers with the Land Trust have been working for two years to buy the Neeld Farm. Now they’re close to making a deal and hope for a contract by April. To fund the purchase, the Trust is counting on grants, public contributions and the county government. Odgers says they’re also counting on the Calvert County Commission’s Revolving Open Space Loan Fund. The Trust hopes to borrow money from the county’s fund, buy the property, then pay the money back, making it available for other projects.

If the Trust gets the Neeld property, it will need help to keep the project going. Volunteers will be needed to make time and money commitments to staff the preserve and help repay the loan. So far, about 200 residents have signed up as Trust members.

Odgers started the Plum Point Environmental Land Trust as one concerned resident. Now he urges his county and regional neighbors to get involved. “When I saw so many farms being sold and developed, I wondered what could be done to preserve property. Land trust was the answer because it is a non-profit, non-political and tax-exempt charitable organization to preserve land.”

Reach the Trust at 410/535-LAND.

Not In My Back Yard

Most forward-thinking folks agree that composting may be the wisest way to deal with garbage. You don’t bury it forever in a landfill and you don’t throw it in a furnace, where it can combine with other stuff to create nasty byproducts.

But instead of moving ahead, the Anne Arundel County Council backed away from a composting plan when they gathered for their first meeting of 1994. South county residents successfully argued that the plan was ill conceived and would threaten rural homes.

“I do not want one of these things 300 feet from where I live; I have enough trouble now,” complained Rhonda Zinn, of Harwood.

The council took the politicians’ path of least resistance; they set up a committee to study the plan.

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Who Is Here

In The Air

We’ve had unusual holiday visitors: a Hooded Merganser, Loggerhead Shrike and Savannah Sparrow.

The birds were sighted during the annual winter bird count at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center near Edgewater. Each winter holiday, Smithsonian scientist Dr. Jim Lynch leads volunteers across the property in search of visiting and resident birds. This year, 10 volunteers combed the 70 square kilometer count area, which is small by some standards, about five percent the size of the Audubon Christmas count circles.

Though volunteers were few and area small, a near-record high of 68 species turned up. This is the first time in 12 years of counting that the Hooded Merganser, Loggerhead Shrike and Savannah Sparrow have been seen. It’s especially unusual to find a Loggerhead Shrike in our neighborhood, Lynch says. That bird is rare in the mid-Atlantic, with only three breeding pairs in Maryland. “Of all the songbirds, this Shrike is one of the ones that has shown the biggest decline in the US. It’s so rare in Maryland, it might as well be extinct,” says he.

According to the ornithologist, you can’t draw any conclusions from the fact that these species were found this year ... it doesn’t point to any trend. Lynch and his volunteers will have to count birds for many Januarys to come before a pattern or change could be confirmed.

Other interesting sightings included three Bald Eagles, two Gray Catbirds and one Great Horned Owl — none of which have been seen at Edgewater since the mid 1980s.

The count took place during the Christmas/New Year holiday, but there was no sighting of a partridge in a pear tree.

A group of Savannah Sparrows also visited a Fairhaven bird feeder. These first-time visitors have the general brown and buff markings of most sparrows but are distinguished by yellow stripes above and below a dark brown stripe through the eye and a pale buff crown stripe.

Fairhaveners boast of the regular company of Bald Eagles. On a sunny afternoon in the second weekend of January, an eagle soared whiteheaded and tailed against a deep blue sky high above the salt marsh.