Md. officials should throw lifeline to depleted stock of brook trout

Right now, there are worse things than being a Maryland brook trout, I suppose.

A Republican strategist. A Ford salesman. A Detroit Lions fan.

At some point, presumably, all of the humans will bounce back.

But the clock is running down on the fate of Salvelinus fontinalis.

Study after study show brook trout are in trouble through no fault of their own. Brookies love cold water, clear water and lots of little critters floating by to eat. But overdevelopment, loss of buffers and habitat, and climate change are proving to be the trifecta of doom.

Every time we force a stream through a culvert to make way for another shopping center and megaplex, every time a planning board approves more sprawl, every time we decide to build another ribbon of asphalt for cars, we are signing another death warrant for brook trout.

The problem is not new. Sixteen years ago, my colleague, Tim Wheeler, wrote a story about saving brook trout streams in Baltimore and Anne Arundel counties. At that time, the state was paying $260,000 to restore two stretches of water, Jabez Branch in Anne Arundel County and Goodwin Run near Timonium.

Nice story as long as you don't flash forward to 2008 and a new study by the Department of Natural Resources.

Biologists compiled more than three decades of aerial photos and ground surveys to show that brook trout have lost their fin-hold in six streams in the Baltimore area: Baisman Run in Cockeysville, Sawmill Branch near Phoenix, Stillwater Creek near Eldersburg, Timber Run near Reisterstown, Red Run in Owings Mills and, oh yes, Goodwin Run.

As for Jabez Branch (not part of the study), one day last year volunteers hauled out 7.5 tons of trash - 10 truckloads - from stream side.

The DNR study follows one done several years ago by the Eastern Brook Trout Joint Venture that found that more than half of Maryland sub-watersheds have lost brook trout entirely, and only three sub-watersheds - all in western Maryland - have intact populations.

So all these smart people are telling us there's a problem. What's the solution?

Scott Stranko, the biologist who led the DNR study, hopes to poke the massive Annapolis bureaucracy into action to help protect what's left. That's no small task in the face of shrinking budgets and frozen government.