"Seventeen million people live in the Chesapeake Bay watershed. The place we're falling short is when it comes to the thousands and millions of decisions being made every day that cumulatively make an impact," Schwaab said. "We need to put information into the hands of children and communities so that they make the right decisions."
That's where places like the estuary center, with its programs and volunteer work, come in.
The center is one-third of the Chesapeake Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve (the other parts are Jug Bay, between Anne Arundel and Prince George's counties, and Monie Bay, a tributary of Tangier Sound).
The Otter Creek facility and Jug Bay both have outreach efforts: otterpointcreek.org and jugbay.org.
Imagine what 17 million volunteers could do.
The right thing
DNR employees can no longer moonlight in jobs that are in conflict with their state duties, according to a new ethics policy.
The change came as a result of information gathered in the investigation into the largest striped bass poaching case in Chesapeake Bay history that showed a biologist in the striped bass program held a tidal fish license and allocation that was used by one of the guilty watermen.
Although the state ethics policy governs activity in most circumstances, DNR Secretary John Griffin approved the additional measure June 9 to provide "specific, proactive guidance."
For example, the policy prohibits Fisheries Service employees and Natural Resources Police officers from holding commercial fishing licenses or Forest Service employees from engaging in a private forestry consulting business that applied for state permits. It also would have prevented the apparent conflict several years ago, when the deputy fisheries director continued to hold his commercial license.
Under the policy, employees had until Friday to tell their supervisors that they would discontinue their business within 60 days or apply to Griffin for a waiver.
