Online Archives
Volume 2 Issue 13 1994


Previously inaccessible archives from 1993-1997 now coming on-line, with more each week!
Note that this is working copy (uncorrected text, no photos, including covers).

Better Be on Your Toes If You Grow Bamboo Otherwise, It Will Surely Bamboozle You |
When Sawaca Succumbed To Seaweed |
Burton on the Bay | Commentary | Editorial |
Letters to the Editor | Not Just For Kids | Laughing Gourmet | Dock of the Bay | Politalk | Earth Journal


Lead story

Better Be on Your Toes If You Grow Bamboo
Otherwise, It Will Surely Bamboozle You
by Sonia Linebaugh

Leaning alone in the close bamboo,
I am playing my lute and singing a song
Too softly for anyone to hear —
Except my companion, the bright moon.
— Wang Wei

Bamboo does not grow naturally amid thoughts of Southern Maryland; tobacco, sharecroppers, and colonial history are more likely associations. Bamboo brings to mind delicate Chinese poems, misty ink brush landscapes, and cuddly-looking panda bears. Rightly so, for it grows most abundantly on the southeastern borders of Asia, from India to China and Japan.

In the West, however, bamboo flourishes in Southern Maryland, growing from here all the way down the length of South America to the ends of Argentina and Chile.

Bridges, Greenhouses, Chicken Coops

Long used in tropical climes for houses and hedges as well as for food, clothing, weapons and containers, bamboo has also proved useful to West River Farm manager John Erlich. Its usefulness came to him in a round-about-way

Erlich was planning to build an ecologically friendly greenhouse of old tires filled with soil, but the weather didn’t cooperate.

Says Erlich: “It was too wet in early March for the backhoe to work properly. So we looked around and decided to use some of the vast quantities of bamboo growing here.” About two acres of the 100-acre farm throng with the 20-foot tall Phyllostachys, a relative of grass. Other varieties grow to 80 feet, 120 feet, and even 200 feet.

“With the help of carpenter Jack Frazer, we put up a framework of bamboo, covered it over with plastic and piled hay bales on the north side to protect it from cold and wind. It worked out so well we’ll likely do the same thing next year,” Erlich says. Deck screws hold the frame together.

It works, producing a warm, moist atmosphere filled with thriving seedlings. Tomatoes and cucumbers are planted right into the ground of the greenhouse.

A nearby chicken coop uses bamboo too. One side of the coop is a cast concrete half-dome; the other side is bamboo-supported chicken wire. Erlich plans a movable coop on bamboo frame so “the chickens can graze in a new spot every few days to clean up parasites and insects while they spread their droppings as fertilizer.”

Kids get to help build a bamboo bridge to the island in the middle of West River farm’s pond this summer at Erlich’s ecological sessions for kids. They’ll also learn how to farm without chemicals and to feed the animals on the farm, including a dog named Bamboo.

Feeding Panda and People

Bamboo is a favorite on the menu of giant panda Hfing-Hfing at the National Zoo. Most of the year, zoo workers gather bamboo from Fort Washington to feed the ever-hungry national panda, but in winter that bamboo isn’t good, so for the past 10 years workers have harvested enough at Scientists Cliffs in Calvert County that Hfing-Hfing can consume his normal 30 to 40 pounds per day.

At China’s Peking Zoo, highly-prized pandas not only eat bamboo but also play in bamboo groves, wandering in large outdoor enclosures whose grassy banks are planted with bamboo and mimosa trees. When, that is, they’re not enjoying their air-conditioned homes with rocks, pools, beds and intermittent water sprays.

We don’t know how bamboo tastes to panda but to humans the tender shoots taste much like young field corn when properly prepared. This means: peel off the outer covering, then cut the shoots in 1/8 inch slices. Parboil them for six to eight minutes, then change water and cook for 20 minutes longer. Serve hot with butter, cold in salads, or as a stew ingredient.

“Who needs it?,” says Sy Do, since 1990 cook and part owner of Orient Express in Churchton. “Back in the old times when I was a boy scout in Vietnam, we used bamboo as a cooking pot on our campouts. We cut it between the eyes and cleaned it out. After soaking it in water we stuffed it inside with rice and meat, then covered it up with banana leaves and wet clay from the stream bank. We built a fire and let it burn down to ashes then put the bamboo in and let it roast.

“During the Vietnam War, some of the commies carried their food and even their water in bamboo. It’s naturally compartmentalized, so if you cut it right you have a bottom. It’s also waterproof.”

And now? “Who needs it? Bamboo here is so little; in Vietnam it’s three to four inches thick. I have Revere Ware and an automatic rice cooker now.”

Eat bamboo? “No way. Besides, when I’m not cooking at the restaurant, I cook Italian and contemporary American at home. Or sometimes French. I try new dishes on my family each weekend. Bamboo? No way.”

Ornamental or Weed

Bamboo grown as an ornamental can become more than an unsuspecting homeowner bargained for. Happy in a location, it can soon grow out of bounds like a weed. Although related to grass, it doesn’t mow like grass. To control invasive varieties requires vigilance.

Bamboo puts out rhizomes, fleshy stems that grow out from the plant just underground, giving rise to new shoots. Anyone with bamboo or marsh grass knows how difficult it is to hack through those tough roots to keep the plants in manageable bounds. The most effective birth control is an impenetrable rot-proof barrier sunk at least 20 inches deep all around the plant.

Recent hybrids include less invasive varieties but Luther Burbank, father of hybridized plants, wasn’t here to see it. It’s said that Burbank’s bamboo continues to thrive and spread at his Glenn Dale home near Bowie, where he lived just before leaving for fame and riches through plant breeding in Santa Rosa, California. We can credit him with creating Shasta daisies. We can also credit him with the graceful arching stems swaying in gentle breezes smack in the middle of southern Maryland.

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When Sawaca Succumbed To Seaweed
by Lee Fifer

“Pop Fifer Sees Green!” read the headline in the late August, 1938 edition of the local paper. That headline described the sorry end of the maiden voyage of the Sawaca, a Hoopers Island-built craft and the first boat my dad had commissioned.

The story began when Dad and two of his friends, Jim Gooch and Floyd Hobbs, yielded to that primal urge, particularly irresistible among men, to own a boat. The three and their spouses had shared many social occasions before jointly undertaking to build a boat, which is where this story begins

Sawaca was said to be the name of an Indian princess of the Virginia Mattaponi and translated to mean “fast,” a quality meant to apply to the boat, not the princess. In reality, it was a combination of the names of the wives — Sara, Jimmie Watts and Catherine.

Dad’s nickname was “Pop,” which he acquired on a date in college. He had seated himself at the head of a long dinner table, where the assembled revelers heckled him with barbs such as, “Hey Pop, say the grace!” and “Pop, pass the bread!” His nickname stuck, but Sara was called “Mother” only by her three children.

Three Men And A Boat

Once upon a time, Dad, Gooch and Hobbs had seen a good-looking, obviously quick boat when crossing the Patuxent River at Benedict, Maryland. Inquiring as to the builder, Dad learned he was Capt. Wilfred Tyler of Upper Hoopers Island, Maryland.

After trips to meet Capt. Tyler and look over his craft, Dad, Gooch and Hobbs contracted him to build a 45-foot, single screw fishing boat to be powered by a Chrysler “straight 8.” She would sleep at least six. And, just as her Indian name suggested, she was to be fast. All this for the outrageous sum of $2,300.

The delivery date was June 1, 1938. As the months passed, expectation grew. The anticipation of the three owners did not, however, appear to be equaled by Capt. Tyler. June arrived, and the boat was far from complete. July showed progress but no boat.

After not-too-discreet inquiries at Hoopers Island and many hints by Capt. Tyler himself, Dad decided that the problem was twofold: First, Capt. Tyler was more than a little distracted by a new, young ladyfriend. Second, the deadline for delivery apparently wasn’t clear enough. Having no ability to affect the first, Dad, Gooch and Hobbs told Capt. Tyler that they would arrive at Hoopers Island on August 1 to sail the boat to Alexandria, her designated home port.

A crowd would meet them at the pier the following day. Included, they told him, would be a reporter for the Alexandria Gazette (actually, a longtime friend). Capt. Tyler promised to be ready.

On the appointed date, Capt. Tyler was ready, but the Sawaca was not. Still to be finished were the interior and such exterior touches such as the flagpole mount. Still, the hull gleamed white in the hot August sun, and eyes were drawn to the gold leaf scroll on the bow, a trademark of Capt. Tyler, worthy of the proudest of vessels. The roof of the pilot house was painted golden yellow to complement the gold scroll.

Capt. Tyler explained that the Sawaca was perfectly seaworthy and ready for the trip. He would accompany the owners to Alexandria, working as they traveled, and complete the interior work there. To underscore his belief in her seaworthiness, Capt. Tyler refused to take a life-preserver on board for himself. Thus, only three were brought along, even though Capt. Tyler could not swim. Nor was there need for charts, he said, since he knew the waters so well.

The 125-mile trip began on calm waters. The Sawaca was indeed fast. Even at half-throttle, they made Colonial Beach before dark. That meant they would arrive in Alexandria by early afternoon the next day at worst. Phone calls were placed, and the arrival celebration was calibrated.

A bright sunny day greeted the crew on the final leg of the trip. They ate a leisurely breakfast in Colonial Beach. With just a short trip left, there was no rush.

Capt. Tyler worked to finish the exterior touches to ensure the Sawaca would look her best on arrival. He positioned himself on the bow, facing forwards to drill the base hole for the flagpole. He had brought the new brace and bit drill set (recently given him by his ladyfriend) for just this sort of job. Gooch sat near Capt. Tyler, flagpole in hand, ready to install the colors.

Dad had the wheel approaching Mt. Vernon. They passed another vessel heading north, but its occupants, perhaps irritated at being passed, did not return greetings. Just north of Mt. Vernon, a buoy presented itself in the black-and-white typical of mid-channel markers. Chartless, Dad called out to ask Capt. Tyler whether he should pass to the right or the left of the buoy. Looking up from his drilling, Capt. Tyler waved Dad to the left.

Seconds later, the Sawaca came to a grinding halt, throwing Capt. Tyler head first into the Potomac. The new black-and-white buoy marked the location of an abandoned black buoy, whose the base had been left in place. Sawaca balanced precariously on the submerged iron infrastructure that had cut a 2-inch-by-6-foot hole in her new bottom.

And she was filling with water.

From Bad to Worse

Immediate attention went to Capt. Tyler. He had been thrown into a dense bed of “Japanese chestnuts” that spread a thick, green blanket across the shallow flats of the river, much as hydrilla does today. The spot was more like quicksand than water, only with long strands.

Capt. Tyler surfaced like a sorry Neptune, green vines wrapped around his neck and glasses dangling from one ear. Then he went under a second time. This time he came up without the glasses. Gooch extended the flagpole down to him, ending his immediate danger.

Capt. Tyler’s rescue left Dad time to realized that his boat hung on the edge of the channel. To the right was deep water— 60 feet. To the left was shallower water covered in the Japanese chestnuts. The Maryland shore was a thousand yards away. The Virginia shore was closer, but thick vines blocked the way. In this predicament were four people with three life-preservers.

Suddenly, the boat they had overtaken south of Mt. Vernon appeared. All four men aboard the sinking Sawaca yelled for help. It looked as though their plight would be short-lived. But the passing boat — ignoring maritime courtesy, not to mention the law — kept going. As their hope for rescue sped by, Sawaca rocked in its wake.

What could they do?

To stabilize the rocking and perhaps preserve the craft, Dad threw the anchor toward the Virginia shore and pulled the line tight as he could, securing it to the forward sampson post. Perhaps that would give them a few more minutes. Even so, there were four men, three life-preservers, and the dense Japanese Chestnut vines.

Rowboats and Submarines

To stop the flow of water into the boat, Dad considered — but quickly rejected — descending into the quickly filling bilge to stuff rags into the hole. There wouldn’t even be time to retrieve his shoes from the forward cabin, his companions warned.

Perhaps it was their loud conversation or maybe the silence of the approach, but they didn’t notice a small craft approaching from the Maryland shore. A man who had seen the wreck and the passing scoundrel had set out to help — in a rowboat.

Gratefully, they piled into their rescuer’s rowboat — four men in three life preservers, one of them with no shoes.

But there’s more to this tale of many boats. As they rowed to safety and away from danger, who appears from the depths but a submarine, which, we must assume, wasn’t altogether uncommon in these pre-war years. As the huge vessel surfaced from the south, it pushed a wall of water in front of it.

Dad looked back as these large waves approached. The first wave lifted Sacawa’s stern, pointing the bow down at the water as if she were an ocean liner heading downward to a watery grave. Dad started to say good-bye.

But then a second wave arrived, lifting her off the buoy and propelling her forward like a large surfboard. Which way would she fall, the occupants of the rowboat wondered?

As Sawaca. thrust forward, the anchor line remained taunt. Like a tether, it guided Capt. Tyler’s handwork around the anchor toward the Virginia shore, where she settled into just two feet of water, only half way up the engine block!.

Sawaca was saved.

“Pop Fifer Sees Green”

The travelers were saved and so was the boat. Next, their attention turned to saving their pride. Calls were made, the arrival celebration canceled, and the explanation given that they had continued to dock in D.C. where finishing work would be completed.

As with most good fabrications, theirs was accurate in the facts provided. In fact, much later the Sawaca was refloated by filling her with airtight barrels at low tide. When the tide came in and she floated, she was towed to D.C. Captain Tyler did finish her there, staying at my parents’ home and being chauffeured daily by Mother.

It took the inquiring mind of Jack Tullock, the very able reporter and editor from the Gazette, to search out what they had left out. In his story, the reporter described the tangled bed of vines Dad surveyed just after the Sawaca was impaled. The headline?

“Pop Fifer Sees Green.”
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Dock of the Bay

On The Patuxent, Was It Toes Or Woes?

State Sen. Bernie Fowler’s colleagues and constituents have a standing invitation from the senator to go wade in the Patuxent River.

They’ve been gathering at Bernie’s Cafe on Broomes Island — the same spot where Fowler opened his rowboat business on his World War II GI loan — the second Sunday of June since 1988. But this year was different.

This year they waded in on a state holiday named in recognition of their friend, who has dedicated not just this Sunday in June but his life to the life of the Patuxent River and the Chesapeake Bay. This Sunday was Bernie Fowler Day.

Last weekend’s event drew plenty of waders, among them politicians in an election year: U.S. Rep. Steny Hoyer, Delegates John Slade and George Owings and Sen. “American Joe” Miedusiewski — waded behind Fowler.

“Sunday was a good day for a Wade-In, bright and sunny. But not for good results,” said Fowler. “A Southeaster Saturday night stirred the water up. We couldn’t see below our knees.”

Back in the ‘50s, Fowler could see 63 inches — all the way down to his toes. In the ‘60s, visibility had diminished to 57 inches. The low was 1989, when he could see only eight inches. The visibility bounced back to 16 inches in ‘90 and ‘91, and to 18 inches in ‘93.

This year, Fowler was not disappointed. Visibility hit 28 inches and participants could see more sea-grass than in recent years.

But Fowler, who is retiring from his Senate seat, said that people should not be too sanguine.

“We’ve got to keep the environmental movement going,” said Fowler.

Current Events: A Great Bay Swim

Thanks to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and their Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler, this year’s 561 participants in the Great Chesapeake Bay Swim knew the safest time to make the grueling swim across the Bay from Sandy Point State Park to Kent Island on June 12.

The first wave of swimmers attacked the choppy waters at 10AM; the faster second wave started at 10:15. These times were computed by NOAA as the best for avoiding brutal currents that have plagued this race over past years.

For his sixth time in six Bay races, James Kegley, 36, of Washington, D.C., won in an arm-numbing1:32’28. Zena Herrmann, of Catonsville, the first woman to reach Hemingway’s restaurant, came in at 1:39’34.

Finishing later but with no less distinction was Michael Cornely of Merchantville, New Jersey. Cornely started training in a swimming pool in January after a friend challenged him to do the swim. He had to meet race requirements, among them the ability to swim 1.5 miles in 45 minutes.

By the way, Cornely attempted the challenge even though both of his legs are amputated from the thigh.

“At the three-mile mark, I had to push to the right; it was rough and choppy there,” said Cornely, describing the strong current. Cornely described the swim matter of factly as “just another achievement.”

The Chesapeake Paddlers presided between the spans in their sea kayaks, following the swimmers every stroke of the way. Supplying support in bigger boats was Chesapeake Bay Power Boat Association, prepared to rush injured swimmers to shore.

Just 19 of the swimmers who had plunged into the 71-degree water had to be pulled out during the race, including one who received a dislocated shoulder when kicked.

With much help and heart, the 13th Annual Great Chesapeake Bay Swim was a successful adventure raising $20,000 for the March of Dimes.

—SEA.

Wood’s Abrupt Departure Stirs Speculation

Col. Franklin Wood’s sudden resignation as commander of Natural Resources Police raises speculation throughout Chesapeake Bay Country. Wood, of Deale, is succeeded by John W. Rhoades, an associate of Parris Glendenning, the front-runner in the race to be Maryland’s next governor.

Could there be any connection between this choice and fears that a new administration will clean house at DNR?

Can it be that some DNR officials serving at the pleasure of the governor would like to be able to tell an incoming Glendenning (if he makes it) “Hey, we looked out for one of your guys x”

These are the questions being asked.

Wood’s resignation came out of the blue. By many standards, he was doing a great job; he had started a Citizens Police Academy and was establishing safe boating programs. In his 26 years with the force, he was known as an effective public servant.

DNR claimed no connection between the abrupt resignation and several complaints and lawsuits filed by minority DNR police personnel alleging racial discrimination and sexual harassment. .

Morale on the 223-member force has been low for years, but not primarily because of racial discrimination and sexual harassment issues.

Many DNR policemen are coming to Wood’s defense — anonymously. But the deed is done. His resignation is effective July 1. Then, they say, Rhoades will have all the headaches.

—BB

In Annapolis, Market House Fights To Survive

City of Annapolis Market House merchants closed their shops early Thursday, June 9, by mutual consent. Then, carrying petitions with more than 3,000 customer signatures, they walked the block and a half up to City Hall to plead their case before the City Council Economic Matters Committee.

At issue is the fate of vendors in city-owned Market House for the next decade. A market has stood in this spot since the early 17th century, though on how early sources conflict. The10-year leases now being reviewed will affect not only vendors but also downtown residents, tourists and boaters through the year 2005.

The Economic Matters Committee will decide which leases to renew and which new products to permit into the Market House by June 23.

Merchants have their complaints, but they want to keep their spaces. Decision-makers, on the other hand, want to look at their options.

“I consider the Market House to be the jewel of the downtown and feel the city must maximize its revenue potential for the facility,” said Alderman Carl O. Snowden, who chairs Economic Matters, in a release before the meeting.

That statement provoked a storm of sentiment and packed the chambers with voices advising the Council to leave well enough alone.

Merchants say they’ve suffered enough, having weathered several year economic downturn and the loss of daytime sales from state workers’ shortened lunch hours. Now, they need the city to allow them to rebuild their businesses, said Market House Merchants’ Association President Joseph Martin Jr.

Their contributions ought to buy them a secure future, Martin argued. Market House merchants contribute over $110,000 in revenues to the city. Added to their base rent of $12/square foot is 10 percent of each business’ gross sale, a 33 percent capital gains tax, and an added beverage tax. The merchants also maintain the Market House and adjacent city park. Altogether, Market House fees come close to the $40+/square foot range of other downtown store rents.

Historic interests also were on the merchants’ side.

“The public benefit should be a higher priority than economics,” said Stephanie Carroll of Historic Annapolis Foundation. “The Market House should retain a true market house flavor,” not become a food cart or beachhead for national franchises that “suck profits out of a community.”

As well as historians and preservationists, Realtors, business brokers, and citizens chastised the city for eleventh-hour tinkering with the futures of Market House merchants. Many had invested in improvements and banked their futures on the renewal of 10-year leases, which had been considered automatic.

“Let these people run their businesses,” urged Scott Gardiner, president of the Greater Annapolis Chamber of Commerce.

By the end of the three-hour session a chastened committee chairman and members Louise Hammond, Dean Johnson, and Shep Tullier vowed to work more closely with the merchants through Hammond’s Ad Hoc Market House Committee.

Bets are that the June 23 vote will be favorable to current Market House vendors.

Down in the Dumps

You have to be real hardcore to volunteer for Charles County’s newest environmental challenge. One of the types who subscribes to Garbage magazine.

Here’s the inside dirt:

Charles County is not resting on its laurels after surpassing the state recycling goal for small counties. If we can recycle 19 percent of our trash, Commissioners are asking, why can’t we do more?

Doing more begins with finding out what people are still throwing away. Precisely.

So volunteers are needed to sort, identify and weight the trash still piling up at Pisgah Landfill. Hours are short, and you can work weekdays or Saturdays.

Gloves, coveralls and eye protection are on the county.

Just call Environmental Educator Doug Elam: 301/867-3000.

Landscaping for the Bay

If you think your perfect, well-fertilized, weedless, emerald rug of a lawn is a thing of beauty, you may want to take a Sunday afternoon ride down to some of the backwaters along the Bay. Here, you’ll see small estuaries, shallow bodies of water that are home to wintering swans and a myriad of ducks, nursery to billions of crabs and the Happy Hour haunt of kingfishers.

If you look closely, you’ll see that the run-off from over-fertilized lands is changing some of these lovely vistas. You’ll see thick yellow-green scum in huge rafts. These rafts do many things, none of them good.

First, they cut off light, killing the bottom grass. Next, the scum dies and sinks to the bottom, turning the water into a cesspool unfit for even such an unpicky critter as the blue crab.

What does this have to do with your gorgeous lawn, you ask? The lawn you slave over endless weekends, water daily and fertilize regularly, spray for disease, unwanted pests and noxious weeds? The lawn that is the envy of your neighborhood?

What do these dying little backwaters have to do with me, you ask?

The Alliance for Chesapeake Bay can tell you.

In a meeting last week to give a push to its Bay Scapes program, the Alliance had plenty to say about lawns, gardens and the health of the Chesapeake Bay.

The ambitious program of lawn-lover education can make a difference in the Bay’s waters, participants learned. If we’re careful, fish, crabs, and other aquatic life will be healthier and more plentiful. Ugly blooms of scum will vanish. Bottom grass will return. Erosion will diminish. And that’s just for starters.

Maryland has more acres of lawn under cultivation than acres of corn. These acres are, in many individual cases and in entire communities as well, over-tended. Many long-held practices have proved to be wasteful of both water and pesticides and fertilizers, to say nothing of time and money. Here are two examples:

• Commercial spraying is quite often overkill. A regularly scheduled spraying is frequently not only expensive but unnecessary. What’s more, the runoff from spraying can be deadly; the water you see running along the gutters in many communities is a soup of nutrients gets into the Bay through the storm drain system.

• Routine watering wastes time, money and water. Daily watering encourages a shallow root system, making the lawn vulnerable to disease and drought. Your lawn will tell you when it needs water: when you step on the grass, it doesn’t spring up.

This is what dying estuaries are all about: Excess fertilizer and excess water have drained off the surrounding land and found their way into the estuary, unbalancing the tender ecology of the water.

In other words, that immaculate pampered lawn you love is a deadly weapon against the Bay.

For more information or a Lawn Evaluation Kit, call the Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay: 800/662-CRIS.

—LS

Way Downstream...

Delaware issued a wake-up call to its neighbors, warning that big rockfish in the Delaware River are unfit to eat because of PCBs, a cancer-causing chemical. Rockfish, catfish and perch taken in the region from the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal to the mouth of Delaware Bay should be eaten no more than five times a year.

PCBs were banned from electrical transformers and other uses in the 1970s when their link to cancer was discovered.

Virginia immediately announced that it will test rockfish in the James River. Maryland officials assert that no threat exists here ...

In the category of Green Politics, the Green Party lost ground overall in the European elections but picked up steam in Germany, Ireland and Denmark. Closer to home, in New Mexico, the Green Party last nominated former Lt. Gov. Robert Mondragon as its candidate for governor this year...

The Chinese are waging a new campaign in an unexpected direction — eliminating dripping toilets. Officials say that cheap toilets waste 200 million cubic meters of water yearly, one reason the country has serious water shortages in most of its cities. They have ordered the use of equipment only from “top-of-the-line toilet makers”...

Our Creature Feature comes to you from three feet away, where, we are told, a spider is lurking no matter where you are.

That’s what they says in a grand new exhibit all about spiders that opened last weekend in Washington at the National Museum of Natural History.

There’s much to see. How about the deadly black widow living in a boot. Or the scary brown spider that makes its home in a jewelry box. You can see spiders as small as a pinhead or as huge as ten inches across.

Most people shudder at the thought of spiders, even though they are useful in eating mosquitoes and unwanted pests. But sometimes, they’re not wanted themselves and eaten by other spiders.

When a male and female spider meet, explained exhibit curator Jonathan Coddington, “they have to have negotiations to determine whether it will be sex or food.”


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Editorial

Some things just don’t make sense.
Take littering, an offense that goes against the laws of the land and the laws of nature.

Recently, on Route 2/4 outside Prince Frederick, a road cleanup crew illustrated just how nonsensical littering is.

A dozen or so men, clad in jeans, T-shirts and bright, orange mesh vests, lined the west side of the road. Armed with long skewers, they speared loose pieces of garbage and bent down to retrieve larger debris.

What good Samaritans, you say. Perhaps guilt at having littered has spurred them to get together on this fine sunny Thursday to clean up their mess.

Wrong.

These men are inmates of the Southern Maryland Correctional Facility. As Ronald McMillion explained: “This is another stage in our rehabilitation into good citizens.”

So, this is your garbage and you guys are serving time for littering and now they have you out on these work crews to take responsibility for your actions?

“No way,” McMillion laughed, heading back to work as a guard walked up to see what was going on.

Prison guards are forced to take vows of silence to protect them from impertinent reporters’ questions. But this one laughed when asked whether the inmates were cleaning up a mess of their own making.

Of course these inmates are cleaning up our mess. Perhaps at one time or another, these men let a candy wrapper loose in the rushing wind of their opened car window. But most of these inmates haven’t been free to drive, or litter, in some time.

These road crews, outside details in corrections lingo, have “worked their way through the system,” said Christine Stonestreet. They are well on their way to reform and near the end of their sentences, said Stonestreet, a case management specialist with the Southern Maryland Pre-Release Unit of the Maryland Division of Corrections.

“They go out Monday through Friday, weather permitting,” she said, adding that the inmates don’t have to work on holidays. “They earn a minimum daily wage” — $2.25 a day.

It’s good that these men have a chance to earn a little money to ease their transition back into society.

But what sort of message does this send when they’re cleaning the trash left behind by free, so-called law abiding citizens?

“Unfortunately, people don’t have any problem with throwing litter out their window,” Stonestreet answered.

Do these inmates look forward to the day when they can drive down the road, free to toss an empty soda can toward the curb, knowing full well that some inmate will soon be along to pick it up?

The inmates who make up Maryland’s 43 pre-release outside details certainly aren’t getting a bad deal. Who wouldn’t choose work on a cleanup detail earning some pocket change over confinement in a cell all day? They even get time off their sentences for their work, according to Stonestreet.

And we, as taxpayers, aren’t getting short-changed by the inmates’ work.

Inmate labor is “42 percent cheaper than using maintenance employees,” said Chuck Brown, a spokesman for the State Highway Administration, which supervises the outside details.

But that is 42 percent more than it would cost if there were no litter to be picked up in the first place.

In April alone, inmates put in over 3,500 man-hours in Anne Arundel County and a little less than 2,000 man-hours in Calvert County cleaning our roadside trash, Brown said. Based on an eight-hour day, that amounts to 687 1/2 days, amounting to over $1,500 for one month in two of Maryland’s 26 counties and Baltimore. Over the course of a year this adds up to hundreds of thousands of dollars.

That’s tax money coming out of our pockets.

Money budgeted for picking up litter means less money for other services such as public schools, hospitals or libraries.

So when you see someone ahead of you on the road toss a piece of trash out their window, remember, they’re not only committing an ugly crime against our roads and environment. They’re also taking our money and depriving us of the services our tax dollars are meant to provide.

Get mad. Maybe even get even.

Get the license plate number of the offending vehicle. Call or write your state and county police and tell them you’re witness to a crime and victim of a robbery. Tell them you see littering as a serious crime and you want them to do something about it.

Let’s find the criminals responsible for this vile, careless crime. Let’s get them out on the side of the road wearing the orange mesh vests. Let them clean up their own mess.

And tell them to forget the $2.25 a day. Litterbugs don’t deserve even that.

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Letters to the Editor

Chesapeake Children’s Museum Seeks Volunteers

Dear New Bay Times:

I would like to acquaint your readers with a fabulous opportunity to increase understanding about the Chesapeake Bay. For the past two years, a group of volunteers have been meeting, planning and creating to bring to life the Chesapeake Children’s Museum. We have held numerous hands-on events around the area, providing interactive exhibits concerning the peoples, technologies and physical environment of the region. This summer we will set up a five-week exhibit at Odenton Elementary (just south of Ft. Meade). Our plan is to have a full-time operation by September somewhere in Annapolis.

We welcome anyone wishing to contribute time, talents or resources to join in. Pam Arey coordinates the schedule of volunteers at our events (410/544-4737). Students and scouts may earn community service hours for volunteering.

Sewing and carpentry help is needed for exhibits being constructed this month. Homemaker clubs and older scout troops who can sew straight lines can call Elisabeth Yuan (410/974-4456) for help in covering foam blocks. Tinkerers and mariners please call Rob Sell (410/268-5236). Rob is creating a toddler climber from boat parts.

Because many Chesapeakeans have family origins in West Africa, an exhibit depicting family life in that part of the world is being created. Call Cynthia Hickson (410/626-7052) to help out. Individuals wishing to contribute to an exhibit entitle “My Adoption Story” should contact Trish and John McGarty (410/757-6050) about artifacts (plane tickets, photos they can loan for display).

Please call me if there are other ways you would like to get involved (410/757-1675). Our next board meeting will be held June 28 at 7PM in Annapolis.

—Deborah Wood Chesapeake Children’s Museum

Going Like Hotcakes

Dear New Bay Times:

My wife, Elizabeth Prouty, and I own Second Look Books in Prince Frederick, where New Bay Times was delivered last Friday. Before the weekend was over, all the copies were snatched up. I think Bernie Fowler’s face on the cover was what did it. Please bring more next week.

—Richard Due Prince Frederick

Editor’s Note: Distribution manager Steven Anderson tries to keep all our pick-up spots well stocked with New Bay Times and adjusts numbers each week to suit demand. But sometimes demand simply outstrips supply. Get your paper early, and if your favorite spot is out, check the inside cover of your last copy for more locations.

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Not Just For Kids

What Native American tribe lived where you live?
by Amy Ellsworth

They were here before us.

Native American culture is hidden all around us.

Though Native Americans were pushed off their land by settlers from Europe, their language and folklore remain in the names of Maryland land and waterx

Allegany County: “beautiful stream"

Accokeek was inhabited as long ago as the Stone age.

Chaptico in St. Mary’s County is named for its former inhabitants, the Choptico tribe

Conowingo Dam: “at the rapids”

Lover’s Leap: An Indian legend says that an Indian brave went to this steep cliff with his wife before a battle. She threw them both over the edge to avoid separation.

Nanticoke: “tide water people”

Patapsco: “jutting edge of rock” or "“black water white-capped waves”

Piscataway was the principal Indian community in the Potomac region. The local chief lived here from the 14th to the 18th centurys.

Pasadena: “between two hills”

Savage mountain and Savage river: The Indians were forced into this area by settlers who called them “savages”

Takoma Park: “high up, near heaven”

Warrior Mountain commemorates an Indian path that runs along the crest of the mountain

White Rock: Indian weddings were celebrated here

Wicomico: “pleasant place to live”

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Burton

A couple of years ago when fishing the Potomac near the Woodrow Wilson Bridge with then President George Bush, I watched my perturbed companion reach into the water to pull out a partially deteriorated clear plastic bag.

“There ought to be a fishing tournament for trash,” he groused as he tucked the debris in a litter bag. “I don’t know what people think of when they dump things into the water.”

George Bush is now back in Texas where presumably there are also litter problems, but probably he would be interested to know that the time has come for, as he suggested, a fishing tournament for plastic waste. Hey, Bill Clinton never thought of that.

Trash isn’t really the target “species” of the 14th Annual Ocean City Sharkers Shark Tournament June 22 – 26 out of Ocean City Fishing Center, but there is within the competition’s structure a Trash Fish Division. The boat that brings back the most plastic ocean trash by weight from the Atlantic wins $100; second place wins $50.

That’s a big step in the right direction.

Tens of Thousands Unhappy Endings

Floating plastic in the ocean is a killer. Sea turtles mistake it for jellyfish, and it blocks their digestive tracts. Inky, the 325-pound female pygmy sperm whale doctored recently at Baltimore’s National Aquarium had the passageways to her four stomachs jammed by an assortment of plastic including part of a mylar balloon.

Treated for four months at the aquarium, she was released in good health recently off the Georgia Coast. A radio transmitter attached to her broadcast the message that she was eating regularly and doing just fine. A happy ending, but, I dare suggest that for every such cure there are thousands, probably tens of thousands, unhappy endings we never hear about.

Discarded plastic is a killer on the high seas, inland waters and on land. Six-pack plastic rings entrap birds and animals, plastic lines choke fish and animals that inadvertently ingest it while feeding. Such tragedies are unnecessary.

Not infrequently, fishermen come across varying amounts of plastic in the stomachs of sharks they clean for table fare. Sharks are indiscriminate feeders; in addition, plastic waste is often mixed in with the trash they feed on once it is discarded by boats large and small. Plastic doesn’t pass through the system easily, instead it often packs up to eventually pose a life-threatening blockage.

So, that’s why the Ocean City Sharkers have declared war on ocean plastic waste. It isn’t just that they want to spare sharks so they can catch them; it’s that they just want to save sharks. They appreciate them as a sports fish — and most of those they catch are released.

Sharks, you see, like many other marine species, are a troubled lot. Since about the time of the movie Jaws, both commercial and sports fishing pressure has intensified for most shark species. Shark steaks have long been marketed as steak fish in seafood markets — and now are used by some as the fish in fish and chips. A slab cut from a fresh mako shark is equal in taste and texture to a prime cut of broadbill swordfish.

Add to this the rape of the fishery by profiteers who target sharks to sell only the fins to meet the growing demand, especially among Orientals overseas and here, for the making of sharkfin soup and other delicacies. This is now outlawed, but some renegades persist. The quick profits are too tempting to resist.

Many of the sharks mutilated for just their fins are dumped back into the ocean to die. Unable to navigate without fins, they starve — unless they are first feasted upon by other sharks and predators who instinctively realize they are defenseless. Life in the sea is tough.

From Ocean Trash to Local Sharks

We’ll get into the shark tournament later, but first let’s go into sharks some more — sharks not of the ocean but of the Chesapeake. Yes, we have them in the Bay, some as far up as waters off Rock Hall well north of Chesapeake Bay Bridge.

In the mid-’70s when rockfishing was in its heyday at the Bay Bridge, shark sightings were reported, but few believed. Occasionally, a fisherman would reel in part of a rock, but the missing tail end was blamed on bluefish.

One day while fishing with Capt. Ed Darwin of the charterboat Becky-D out of Mill Creek, we were casting bucktails near the Stone Pile at the Bridge when Darwin hooked a large rock. At first it put up a great scrap, then stopped. Darwin thought the fish tossed the hook, but when he reeled in he still had the head. The fish was cut off clean as the proverbial whistle at the gill plate.

A bluefish? Hardly. The size of the head indicated the whole rock would have weighed about 20 pounds. That convinced Darwin to never again send his mate — his son, Peter — overboard to dislodge a hung anchor. A season or two later, a large nurse shark was caught in a net near the bridge. Not long thereafter, a few large sharks of different species were taken in nets by fishermen out of Rock Hall.

About a dozen years ago, a couple of Baltimore fellows boarded a bass boat out of Sandy Point State Park with the intention of taking a shark by chumming. It was a wild day, with winds blowing nearly 30 knots, but by late afternoon their heavy tackle had landed a shark of between 300 and 400 pounds — the largest fish of any species I recall ever being taken by rod and reel in Maryland’s share of the Chesapeake.

That shark almost won the battle. Landing it in a whitecap-covered Bay was more than the anglers bargained for, but they finally managed to lash it to the stern of their boat. This brought the rear gunwales precariously close to the water line — and a couple of times they were nearly swamped.

This writer has endured a couple of close encounters with sharks elsewhere through the years. One day when the sea at Assateague Island was flat, I waded out to chest-high waters to cast for sea trout. I caught a couple and attached them to a line around my waist. Just before dark I noticed a fin cruising between me and the beach. Then another.

Nothing unusual about sharks cruising close to the beach, but they were between me and the shore, and I had heard stories of sharks panicking when they feared having their path to open water blocked. I also realized I had a couple of wounded sea trout lashed to me, and I appreciated the reputation sharks have for smelling blood on anything injured.

Gradually, I retreated to the shoreline, untying the trout as I did, then tossing them aside. It’s an eerie feeling being alone in the surf near dark; add a couple of sharks and it can be frightening. I edged my way ashore safely, and I’ll never know whether or not the two sharks had a sea trout dinner.

A couple years later, Bill Shockley at Shockley’s Fishing Center in Berlin weighed in a shark of nearly 200 pounds that was taken by a surf fisherman who was dunking large menhaden baits for blues at the very same spot my two kids were riding the breakers a couple hours earlier.

It is said that as one approaches death, his lifetime flashes before him, and after a hair-raising encounter with a huge shark in the back bay at Chincoteague, I believe it true. As I fell overboard from a skiff onto that shark, I relived part of my life, and recall thinking this is a hell of a way to go: to a shark of all things.

My companions, including well-known decoy carver Cigar Daisy and a few others, were fishing for flounder in two 18-foot skiffs when we noticed the fins of three large sharks. Knowing they were worth several cents a pound, and seeking adventure, we decided to try for them.

I rigged a makeshift gaff with a long boat pole and huge hook from my tackle box, and we pulled alongside one of the sharks. All three had become stranded in a back bay basin when the tide dropped below normal; they didn’t have a deep enough channel to return to the sea.

The first was gaffed, brought aboard and tied securely. It weighed about 300 pounds; the second was about 100 pound larger and also posed no problem.

The third was the largest and least obliging. As I balanced myself with one foot on each gunwale at the bow of the boat, I set the hook, and it became aggressive. Unwilling to admit defeat, I held tight. The shark turned and rammed the boat, inflicting a large crack on the hull severe enough to cause me to lose my footing.

The drop from the bow gunwales was only a couple of feet, but as I headed down on the broad black back of an angry shark parts of my life did flash before me. I figured it was all over, but thankfully the shallow water slowed the shark’s maneuverability. It couldn’t turn around quickly.

But I recall the feeling of its sandpaper-like hide on my bare legs and the jolt to my chest when it struck the bow. A companion reached over and grabbed me, and with his help I was back in the skiff, though my watch and camera weren’t.

Young and foolish, I was determined to resume the scrap, chased after the shark, boated it and headed for the docks where it weighed in at 450 pounds. It was identified as of the lemon species, known for sometimes attacking humans. Never since have I chased after sharks in a small boat.

At Ocean City many years ago we fished for sharks on heavy rigs with gallon glass jugs for bobbers and caught 200 and 300-pounders for market. We chummed them to the inlet on an ebb tide; our catches drew curious sightseers — until the mayor and city council asked us to stop. They didn’t think it was good for OC tourism.

For a time in the late 1970s, fishermen from the boardwalk pier also fished for large sharks, including hammerheads, and caught them. City officials again stopped the practice. Just the mention of sharks makes them jittery. What would bathers and surfboarders think? You will note that when a great white shark was taken there a couple years ago, it was kept a secret. The same when a smaller one was caught last year; then another a couple weeks ago.

In a reprint of the 1928 edition of Fishes of Chesapeake Bay by Samuel F. Hildebrand and William C. Schroeder, I note that in 1886 it was reported that great whites were common in the outer harbor of Baltimore, not far from my Stoney Creek home. However, I’m told that such reportings were probably a case of mistaken identity.

But that book also tells of nurse, smooth dogfish, Milberts, shovel-nose and hammerhead sharks in the Chesapeake. Hammerheads, which can be dangerous indeed, were reported so common at the mouth of the Miles River across the Bay from us that fishermen were forced to abandon their nets in 1876.

As for the Ocean City shark competition (phone 800/322-3065 if you’re interested), much of the action will be targeted to mako sharks, considered the most sporting of shark species. When hooked, they leap six to 10 feet above the water, make exceptionally long and strong runs and never give up.

It was in this tournament’s third year that New Yorker Grace Czerniak caught a 1,201-pound tiger shark, which remains both a Fishing-In Maryland and tournament record catch. Also, it’s the biggest hook-and-line catch ever while fishing out of a Maryland port. The best mako taken off Ocean City was just shy of 700 pounds.

The upcoming tournament stresses releases. Last year 30 makos were taken, but only seven brought back to be weighed in. The days when the stereotype shark fisherman was a fellow chumming with leftovers from a chicken processing plant to reel in sharks to sell or just kill is a thing of the past. Indiscriminate killing of any living species should not be tolerated in this age. That includes the killing of cownose rays, which incidentally are nothing more than primitive sharks that resisted the evolutionary process to long, sleek and fast configuration that make predators so efficient. Enough said .x

Fish Finder by Bill Burton

What’s with the mid-Chesapeake bluefish? For a week they were in fairly good numbers at Sharps Island Flats, then suddenly they virtually disappeared, as waters farther up the Bay got their first run of the year. Did “our” blues go there? The void has been filled by a return of black drum and the best hardhead fishing in many years. A closer look:

MID-CHESAPEAKE: Pretty much confined to a rejuvenation of the black drum run at the Stone Rock at Sharps Island Flats. Best drum so far, an 88-pounder. Get into the mouth of the Choptank, and hardheads are plentiful for bottom fishermen, especially in the area of Cooks Point. Some spot and white perch are mixed in with them. Headboats are doing well. More schools of blues are needed, though, to make up for the slack days of drum fishing.

Drum can’t be relied on to bite everyday, but this is the peak of their season so maybe they’ll be available most days. Surprise, a few red drum have been mixed in with schools of blacks. They’re not as big but are excellent scrappers and the same for table fare. If you decide to troll for blues, use green and red surgical hoses.

Crabbing badly needs a shot in the arm.

LOWER BAY: The bluefish remain here, mostly two to four-pound fish, with the best action off the mouth of the Potomac and at the Middlegrounds. Chumming is still the most effective for the blues. We need more of those blues to work up the Chesapeake, which they probably will — but when?

Flounder fishing is improving gradually, spot are fair at best. The hardhead run remains excellent in Cornfield Harbor, Tangier Sound, Hooper Straits and the Honga River. Most of the hardheads are keepers, some go 12 to 14 inches, and they remain the most popular catch for those fishing from the public pier at Point LookoutState Park.

UPPER BAY: Some bluefish have been taken as far up as Love Point, a few at Swan Point, but otherwise trollers must settle for catch-and-release rockfish, which appear abundant. The hardhead fishing is very good, especially off Hacketts. At the mouth of the Magothy it’s mostly white perch, the same at Hart and Miller Island. Anglers are catching many medium and large catfish, more than in a decade. The same with big eels, prompting the question of why eels and catties are coming on so strong. Is there any significance to this?

OCEAN FRONT: If you’re heading for the beach, headboat fishing is picking up a bit for sea bass, tautog and ling, and inshore sea trout fishing is improving at the South Jetty for those jigging bucktails. The first of the tuna have arrived at the far offshore canyons; marlin can’t be far behind. Bluefish runs at the Jackspot and just inshore of there are erratic. An increase of a few degrees in water temperature should get things really perking.

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Laughing Gourmet

Cold Soups for Hot Summer

The discovery that savory, comforting soup could be enjoyed in summer as well as winter stands as a bright memory in Laughing Gourmet’s gustatory education.

It was, I remember, a white-glove kind of day. I chaffed at white gloves and promptly smudged their seamed, fingertips. But Mother, I understand now, required them for the badge of extraordinariness they pinned on everyday events. It was not, however, the white gloves that made this hot summer day special.

It was the startling soup Vernon Dalton served us for lunch that day at his St. Louis restaurant, The Ranch House. Vern was a familiar family friend: how could he concoct something so special, I wondered, as I savored the icy thick potato soup, so creamy, with currents of spice submerged the way a vein of cold water will run through the warm waters of the Bay.

I have loved Vichyssoise ever since, just as I’ve long since come to expect the extra- in ordinary life.

Here are a handful of cold soups to put savor in your summer.


Vichyssoise
Back in the Roaring Twenties, when refrigeration and cuisine were first getting together, chef Louis Diat of New York’s Ritz Carlton put a cold spin on a hometown taste. The result was was Vichyssoise, named for his French home. Here are both the very rich classic recipe and a lighter, modern version.

1 med onion
4 leeks — only the white
2T butter
5 med potatoes
4 C chicken broth
1 T salt
2 C each milk, medium cream
1 C heavy cream

Brown sliced vegetables in butter before boiling in stock — or skip the first step and simply boil together. Zap thru blender. Add milk and cream over light heat, bringing almost to a boil. Season to taste, cool. Add cold heavy cream at end and garnish with chives.

To cut down on fat while enjoying nearly as delicious a soup, use skim milk and no-fat sour cream (beaten in with wisk) in place of milk, medium cream and heavy cream.

For an extra tingle, season mildly with curry and/or cayenne during cooking.

Gazpacho,

Gazpacho, meaning “soaked bread” in Arabic, was invented in Andalucia, a southern province of Spain, during the Moorish occupation between 700-1500AD. Most people in the northern provinces of Spain have not even tasted gazpacho because the difference in climate calls for a warmer cuisine. The phrase “sunny Spain” only refers to the south.

Gazpacho should be prepared at least an hour before serving to let the flavors blend and chill. You may also prepare extra chopped vegetables to serve so your dinner guests can personalize their soup.

In more modern recipes, a food processor is used, but traditionally the vegetables are chopped by hand to preserve the flavor.

11/2 white onion, peeled and quartered
11/2 medium cucumbers, peeled and cut in pieces
2 small green peppers, seeded and cut in eighths
6 large tomatoes, peeled and cut in eighths
5 garlic cloves
1 C tomato juice
1/2 C light olive oil
3/4 teaspoon chili powder
1 small piece chili pepper
1 T salt
(This recipe makes 11/2 qts.)

Chop the onion in the food processor, turning on and off rapidly, for 4 or 5 seconds until finely chopped. Transfer to a large bowl. Repeat with cucumbers. Add to onions. Repeat with green peppers.

Skin tomatoes by boiling them for half a minute. Process 5 tomatoes until evenly chopped into small pieces. Add to same large bowl. Process remaining tomatoes with garlic, tomato juice, olive oil, and chili powder to form smooth liquid. Combine with chopped vegetables in a covered container.

Chill and add salt.

And, when you eat, dunk your bread.

Sunset Soup

1 1/2 C fresh tomatoes, peeled and seeded
1 C orange juice
dash Tabasco
pinch salt
fresh ground black pepper
sour cream (optional garnish)

In a processor or blender, puree the tomatoes. Add orange juice, Tabasco and salt; whirl to blend. Chill for at least two hours. Taste and add seasonings if desired. Serve in chilled bowls topped with a spoonful of sour cream.

Apple and Onion Soup
1 large Vidalia onion, sliced thin
2 large Granny Smith apples, cored and sliced thin
3 C beef bouillon
1/2 t curry powder
dash Tabasco
1 C lite sour cream

In a microwave bowl, put onion; cover with paper and cook for three minutes, until softened. Add apples; cook another three minutes or until soft. Add broth, curry and Tabasco . Cook 10 minutes, stirring every three minutes. Puree in processor or blender. Stir in sour cream and chill at least three hours. Taste. Adjust seasonings.

Chilled Black Bean Soup
1 can black bean soup
1 soup can cold water
3 T sherry or tequila
2 dashes Tabasco
1/4 C finely chopped onion (Vidalia preferred)

Heat all ingredients. Chill for four hours. Taste; adjust seasonings to your liking. Serve topped with sour cream and chopped green onion.

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Politalk

Burton on Politics at the Top of DNR

Col. Franklin Wood’s sudden resignation as commander of Natural Resources Police raises speculation throughout Chesapeake Bay Country. Curiously, Wood, of Deale, is succeeded by John W. Rhoades, a crony of Parris Glendenning, who is now considered the front-runner in the race to be Maryland’s next governor.

Could there be any connection between this choice and fears that a new administration will clean house at DNR? Can it be that some DNR officials serving at the pleasure of the governor would like to be able to tell an incoming Glendenning (if he makes it) “Hey, we looked out for one of your guys x”

Wood’s resignation came out of the blue. He was doing a great job; he had started a Citizens Police Academy and was establishing safe boating programs better than any on the East Coast. In his 26 years with the force, he was known as a hard and effective worker.

DNR claimed no connection between the abrupt resignation and several complaints and lawsuits filed by minority DNR police personnel alleging racial discrimination and sexual harassment. Problems on those two fronts were inherited by Wood when he took over the top spot two years ago upon the resignation of Col. Jack Taylor.

Morale on the 223-member force has been low for years, but not primarily because of racial discrimination and sexual harassment issues. Instead the rank and file of DNR Police complain the department has bent over so far backward to avoid such charges that non-minority groups endure reverse discrimination.

Many DNR policemen are coming to the defense —anonymously, of course — of Wood, but the deed is done. His resignation is effective July 1. Then Rhoades will have all the headaches.

—Bill Burton

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Earth Journal

Animal Stories

We hear such good animal stories that we can’t help reporting them to you occasionally. We offer this one under the heading of

In Rapport.

Bramhalls’ Family Farm, in Lothian, is Signore’s estate. Give Signore the Italinate trill he deserves, dropping the g and “aying” his final e. Roll his r if at all possible, for he is a dashing character.

Signore, a Bantam rooster, preens a fine iridescent coat of green and brown. He appears chesty with pride; so might you in such a coat and with such an estate on which to strut your stuff.

But Signore’s life has not been easy. His mother and father, Beth and Bob, were improbable refuges, intended to be sacrificed in Satanic rites, or so the Bramhalls assure me. If I sound doubtful, it is because I can find no corner of my consciousness inclined to the ritual sacrifice of chickens, though animal rights purists might doubt me, for it is true that I eat chicken.

Be that as it may, the rescued Beth and Bob prospered; Signore began life as one of a clutch of eggs. All those chicks hatched, and the goodhearted Bramhalls scooted them into a portable dog caddy at night to keep them safe. But Beth and Bob’s progeny fell on hard times. One by one, “something” plucked them out of the trees, leaving only Signore — and a freefall of gorgeous feathers — behind.

Signore is not unaware of the danger. He has abandoned the lower trees in which foolish young chicks and roosters roosted for the night. Now of a night, he sleeps in the front yard, high in the branches of 40-foot tall pines.

Signore is now unique; he might be lonely, except that he is cultivating a friend.

Bob Bramhall (this Bob is the farmer, not the paternal rooster) is also, in a way, unique. Lately retired for perhaps the second time, his daily world has become the organic farm he and his wife Pat cultivate with the finest of care. As Bob tills and mows and mulches, as he sharpens blades and refits handles to the heads of axes and mauls, he finds Signore more frequently in his sight.

From watching, Signore has moved closer and closer until he follows Bob from chore to chore. Not infrequently, Bob will walk into the kitchen for a graham cracker. The cracker is for Signore, who in turn comes closer and closer. Pat says that rooster would come right in the kitchen if she let him. Bob says “He’s come that close,” and the distance he measures is about the length of a man’s arm.

The man and the rooster are becoming friends. They share the summer and the estate.

Landscaping for the Bay

If you think your perfect, well-fertilized, weedless, emerald rug of a lawn is a thing of beauty, you may want to take a Sunday afternoon ride down to some of the backwaters along the Bay. Here, you’ll see small estuaries, shallow bodies of water that are home to wintering swans and a myriad of ducks, nursery to billions of crabs and the Happy Hour haunt of kingfishers.

If you look closely, you’ll see that the run-off from over-fertilized lands is changing some of these lovely vistas. You’ll see thick yellow-green scum in huge rafts. These rafts do many things, none of them good.

First, they cut off light, killing the bottom grass. Next, the scum dies and sinks to the bottom, turning the water into a cesspool unfit for even such an unpicky critter as the blue crab.

What does this have to do with your gorgeous lawn, you ask? The lawn you slave over endless weekends, water daily and fertilize regularly, spray for disease, unwanted pests and noxious weeds? The lawn that is the envy of your neighborhood?

What do these dying little backwaters have to do with me, you ask?

The Alliance for Chesapeake Bay can tell you.

In a meeting last week to give a push to its Bay Scapes program, the Alliance had plenty to say about lawns, gardens and the health of the Chesapeake Bay.

The ambitious program of lawn-lover education can make a difference in the Bay’s waters, participants learned. If we’re careful, fish, crabs, and other aquatic life will be healthier and more plentiful. Ugly blooms of scum will vanish. Bottom grass will return. Erosion will diminish. And that’s just for starters.

Maryland has more acres of lawn under cultivation than acres of corn. These acres are, in many individual cases and in entire communities as well, over-tended. Many long-held practices have proved to be wasteful of both water and pesticides and fertilizers, to say nothing of time and money. Here are two examples:

• Commercial spraying is quite often overkill. A regularly scheduled spraying is frequently not only expensive but unnecessary. What’s more, the runoff from spraying can be deadly; the water you see running along the gutters in many communities is a soup of nutrients gets into the Bay through the storm drain system.

• Routine watering wastes time, money and water. Daily watering encourages a shallow root system, making the lawn vulnerable to disease and drought. Your lawn will tell you when it needs water: when you step on the grass, it doesn’t spring up.

This is what dying estuaries are all about: Excess fertilizer and excess water have drained off the surrounding land and found their way into the estuary, unbalancing the tender ecology of the water.

In other words, that immaculate pampered lawn you love is a deadly weapon against the Bay.

For more information or a Lawn Evaluation Kit, call the Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay: 800/662-CRIS.

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Commentary

For Future Fish Fillets, Better Look To The Farm
by Anne E. Platt and Hal Kane

All 17 major fishing areas in the world have either reached or exceeded their natural limits, according to the United Nations. Nine of these areas are in serious decline. With fish catch declining in two of the past four years and the population expanding, the per-person catch in the world is falling fast.

Most countries face the effects of overfishing, overpollution and destruction of coastal habitat. An estimated 200 million people worldwide depend on the fishing industry for their livelihoods. Many of them fear for their jobs. Almost 50,000 Canadians have lost theirs since 1992 because of vanishing cod stocks in the North Atlantic.

Last year, commercial fisheries spent nearly $124 billion to catch $74 billion worth of fish. Governments financed the difference of $54 billion with low-interest loans and subsidies for boats and operations — expenditures that encourage overfishing rather than effective management.

If fish stocks are given time to replenish themselves, the global catch could stabilize in the future. Even so, the world now faces the prospect of declining seafood catches and rising seafood prices for as far as we can see into the future.

Fin Farms for Food

Aquaculture produces 90 percent of all oysters sold on the market. Almost half of all salmon are raised on fish farms. More than a quarter of all shrimps and prawns are farmed.

About two-thirds of aquaculture production comes from inland rivers, lakes, ponds and artificial tanks. The rest is coastal — grown in bays or the open ocean.

China dominates world fish farming, producing almost half the world total. Production from fish farms there is as large as the wild catch. Indian overtook Japan in 1988 to become the second largest producer. With those three countries in the lead, Asia produces 80 percent of the farmed seafood worldwide.

Aquaculture has an advantage over its competitors — the pork, chicken and beef industries — because fish farming is more efficient. Growing a pound of beef takes about seven pounds of feed. A pound of pork takes four pounds of feed. Chicken is the most efficient of the land-raised meats, requiring about 2.2 pounds of feed per pound of meat produced.

But fish need two pounds or less of food. Suspended in the water, fish do not have to expend many calories to move about, and since they are cold-blooded, they do not burn calories trying to heat their bodies.

Despite its advantage, fish farming shares many of the problems of the livestock and poultry industries. Each depend on feed, water and land to grow. For aquaculture, the required land often is expensive coastal, lakefront or riverfront property. Shrimp farming especially often requires the clearing of coastal forests that are the sanctuary, nursery and breeding grounds of many kinds of life.

As with other meats, farmed fish produces wastes that have to be either disposed of or used. Organic waste from farmed fish can ruin clam beds and produce algae that consumes the water’s oxygen, causing fish to suffocate. And a fish farmer, like any other, has to buy supplies and equipment — antibiotics, vaccines, hormones and equipment. That’s in part because dense populations make fish, like people, more vulnerable to the spread of disease.

Despite these problems, there is strong incentive to grow fish. But if fish farming continues to increase at present rates, it will require roughly two million additional tons of grain every year — a high cost to pay.

In the future, aquaculture could be constrained by this need for grain as well as its requirements for land and water.