Chesapeake Bay Watershed

RICHMOND, Va. -- Virginia has lost 699,000 acres in the Chesapeake Bay watershed to development since 1982, more than any other bay state. New federal figures show that 699,000 acres of Virginia land that drains into the Chesapeake were developed in the years from 1982 to 1997. Pennsylvania was next with 619,000 acres, and Maryland lost 376,000 acres in the same period. As a percentage of total acres, Virginia is in the middle. Maryland lost 7.8 percent of its watershed to development, compared with 6.5 percent in Virginia and 4.6 percent in Pennsylvania.

Every time it rains, buildings in the Chesapeake Bay watershed contribute to the bay's pollution. The culprit is stormwater runoff. Our impervious, hardscaped environment acts as a funnel for contaminants that speed down the sewer system into streams and lakes, eventually emptying into the Chesapeake. There just isn't enough greenery in the built environment to act as a natural filter for all the runoff. An important part of the path toward a healthier bay is to let the bay "build" the houses of the watershed - to design and construct bay-friendly homes.

Heather O'Donnell of Bowie writes: "I've read many places that the watershed for the Chesapeake Bay goes all the way up to near Cooperstown in New York. Yet, when I'm driving up I-95 toward New Jersey, I see a big billboard that tells me I'm leaving the Chesapeake Bay watershed. Who is right?" Tom Zolper of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation replies: "The sign is correct. The Chesapeake Bay watershed encompasses parts of six states (Delaware, Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia)

Now I know how those White House party crashers felt. I received an e-mail Wednesday addressed to "Dear Chesapeake Bay colleague" inviting me to listen in on a "special briefing for the watermen and recreational fishing communities on a new federal strategy for protecting and restoring the Chesapeake Bay watershed." Earlier in the day, the Obama administration announced a "we really mean it this time" plan to restore the bay that involves tons of federal tough love and forces the six states in the watershed to break a sweat on enacting and enforcing stricter pollution and development laws.

Outdoors Maryland Saturday, 5:30 p.m. MPT "Oysters." At the turn of the 20th century, oyster harvests from the Chesapeake Bay numbering in the millions of bushels were commonplace. Last year, harvests approached just 23,000 bushels. Oysters are responsible for filtering the Chesapeake's water. This segment explores the latest efforts of scientists and policymakers as they attempt to determine whether to release the Asian oyster, keep the native Chesapeake oyster in place or wait until more studies are completed.

A new program aims to match local governments so they draw expertise from one another about how best to protect the Chesapeake Bay and its rivers. The Chesapeake Bay Program, a federal-state partnership that guides bay restoration efforts, recently launched the Peer Match program to share information among communities. Christopher Conner, a spokesman for the program, said the idea was to get counties, cities and towns that have adopted bay-friendly programs to assist other communities.

THE ISSUE An Anne Arundel County hearing officer heard last week the case of Daryl C. Wagner, who built a 3,500-square-foot home five years ago on Little Island without county approval. Wagner is seeking retroactive variances for the house on the nearly 2-acre island. County zoning officials are backing the request on the grounds that the house was built farther from the shoreline than the structure that had stood there. But the county law office has filed suit, seeking to tear down Wagner's buildings, which are located within 1,000 feet of the Chesapeake Bay watershed, a state-regulated critical area.

The Anne Arundel County Board of Appeals will convene Wednesday the first of what could be several hearings concerning Daryl C. Wagner, the homebuilder who built a more than 5,000-square-foot house without permits on a small Magothy River isle known as Little Island. The state Critical Area Commission, along with two environmental groups -- the Magothy River Association and the Chesapeake Bay Foundation -- filed an appeal after a county official granted retroactive variances in October allowing Wagner to keep his home.

If you're going to an outdoors function with a group of nature-type scientists, do not assume they have any influence over the conditions in the immediate area. That was a take-away message Thursday morning as about 100 members of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and 50 volunteers from Harford County and the Department of Natural Resources gathered for some do-gooding at the Anita C. Leight Estuary Center in Abingdon. Slabs of clouds the color of fireplace ashes had dumped buckets of rain in the pre-dawn hours.

Heather O'Donnell of Bowie writes: "I've read many places that the watershed for the Chesapeake Bay goes all the way up to near Cooperstown in New York. Yet, when I'm driving up I-95 toward New Jersey, I see a big billboard that tells me I'm leaving the Chesapeake Bay watershed. Who is right?" Tom Zolper of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation replies: "The sign is correct. The Chesapeake Bay watershed encompasses parts of six states (Delaware, Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia)

If you're going to an outdoors function with a group of nature-type scientists, do not assume they have any influence over the conditions in the immediate area. That was a take-away message Thursday morning as about 100 members of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and 50 volunteers from Harford County and the Department of Natural Resources gathered for some do-gooding at the Anita C. Leight Estuary Center in Abingdon. Slabs of clouds the color of fireplace ashes had dumped buckets of rain in the pre-dawn hours.

The Anne Arundel County Board of Appeals will convene Wednesday the first of what could be several hearings concerning Daryl C. Wagner, the homebuilder who built a more than 5,000-square-foot house without permits on a small Magothy River isle known as Little Island. The state Critical Area Commission, along with two environmental groups -- the Magothy River Association and the Chesapeake Bay Foundation -- filed an appeal after a county official granted retroactive variances in October allowing Wagner to keep his home.

THE ISSUE An Anne Arundel County hearing officer heard last week the case of Daryl C. Wagner, who built a 3,500-square-foot home five years ago on Little Island without county approval. Wagner is seeking retroactive variances for the house on the nearly 2-acre island. County zoning officials are backing the request on the grounds that the house was built farther from the shoreline than the structure that had stood there. But the county law office has filed suit, seeking to tear down Wagner's buildings, which are located within 1,000 feet of the Chesapeake Bay watershed, a state-regulated critical area.

Outdoors Maryland Tomorrow, 5:30 a.m. and 5:30 p.m. MPT "Planet Chesapeake." Using data from the Earth Observing System of satellites, scientists at the NASA-Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt are compiling data on topics that directly influence the climate and ecology of the Chesapeake Bay watershed: sea surface temperature, deep ocean temperature, rainfall, hurricane anatomy, sea level rise and an array of other subjects. This segment looks at the Chesapeake on a planetary scale.