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St. Mary's Pulls Plug on Water Use
The sites along the Star-Spangled Banner National Historic Trail mark some of the most important events of the War of 1812, often referred to as the second war for independence.
The trail, commemorating the only combined naval and land attack on the United States, begins with the June 1814 battles between the British Navy and the U.S. Chesapeake Flotilla at St. Leonard's Creek in Calvert County. It includes the British landing at Benedict in Charles County and the invading troops' march through Prince George's County to Washington. The trail ends at Fort McHenry in Baltimore, where the national anthem was composed and the British were ultimately defeated.
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The designation provides opportunities for resource protection, as well as active and passive interpretation. Sen. Benjamin L. Cardin (D-Md.) is the lead sponsor of the Senate companion legislation.
Park Unveils Boardwalk
Visitors to Point Lookout State Park will be able to view the life cycle of a salt marsh firsthand thanks to a new 420-foot boardwalk built by the Maryland Conservation Corps.
Designed by Point Lookout Park maintenance supervisor Jim House in 2006, the boardwalk was constructed to connect the Periwinkle Trail to a park camping loop and provide visitors unusual access to the marsh. Named for the periwinkle snail of the salt marsh, the trail follows a remnant railroad line, providing scenic views of the park's wetlands and tidal ponds.
Dawn Letts of the conservation group supervised the construction project, undertaken by the Greenwell corps crew and supported by volunteers, park staff and seasonal park trail workers. The project took 10 months to complete.
The Maryland Conservation Corps is an AmeriCorps program. People 17 to 25 spend 11 months serving Maryland's conservation needs. Members work in crews throughout the state to plant trees, restore shorelines and streams, provide environmental education programs and maintain and construct hundreds of miles of trails in state parks each year.
Bay Cleanup May Get Funds
The languishing effort to clean up the Chesapeake Bay could get a huge boost, $80 million a year to reduce pollution, under provisions of the federal farm bill moving through Congress.
The money included in a bill that won committee approval in the House last week would more than double the federal spending on measures to reduce farm pollution across the Chesapeake's watershed. Environmentalists have said for years that a funding increase on that scale was a dire need but had found little enthusiasm on Capitol Hill.
This year a group of lawmakers from across the watershed, which stretches from southern Virginia to Upstate New York, pushed for the bay to be singled out for federal money.
Among vocal backers were House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) and Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.). Pollution from farms accounts for more than 40 percent of the Chesapeake's two most troublesome pollutants, nitrogen and phosphorus. Those substances are present in chemical fertilizer and manure and often wash off farm fields and into bay tributaries during rainstorms. In the bay, they help create huge algae blooms, which consume the oxygen fish and crabs need.
Staff writer David A. Fahrenthold contributed to this report.
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