Chesapeake Bay

Reading about the rain water tax, I see that government buildings do not have to pay this tax. The government evidently knows how to keep their runoff from causing pollution in the Chesapeake Bay. Why not tell the rest of us their secret so we can keep our rain water from being contaminated and the Bay will quickly become pristine clean? Believe that and I'll tell you another one. Mary Chesney Schwind Cockeysville

For decades in Maryland many things have been done in the name of saving the Chesapeake Bay, but the degree to which tangible progress has been made is something of a disappointment. To be sure, there have been some successes. The mid-1980s ban on catching rockfish in an effort to allow the Chesapeake stock of the state fish to make a recovery has resulted in reasonably healthy stocks of the fish being available for watermen and sport anglers alike these days. Substantially stricter regulation of blue crab harvests seem to have helped avert a rockfish-like population collapse in Maryland's signature table fare.

As part of Baltimore Green Week, the Nature Conservancy and the Oyster Recover Partnership are hosting an Earth Day "mix and mingle" event tonight at McCormick & Schmick's Staff from both organizations will introduce the new One for the Bay campaign, a new awareness and fundraising campaign that will support the organizations' ongoing efforts to help restore the Chesapeake Bay's oyster population. The One for the Bay reception is 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. tonight at McCormick & Schmick's , 711 Eastern Ave. For information about the reception go to the Nature Conservancy website . And find more Baltimore Green Week events here . And B&O Brasserie is hosting an Earth Day oyster happy hour tonight from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. Oysters will be available for $1 for guests, and all collected oyster shells will be donated to the Oyster Recovery Program.

A preliminary report on the deaths of two anglers on the opening day of the Chesapeake Bay rockfish season says all six persons aboard the boat that capsized off Point Lookout had life vests, but not all wore them, according to the Maryland Natural Resources Police. David Fletcher, 43, and David Chase, 55, both of Lexington Park in Southern Maryland, died Saturday morning when a friend's fishing boat took on water and capsized. Four persons, including the owner-operator of the boat, were rescued.

Two people died and four were rescued in a boating accident on the Chesapeake Bay Saturday when their 25-foot boat capsized two miles south of Point Lookout State Park in St. Mary's County, according to Department of Natural Resources Police. Sgt. Brian Albert, a spokesman for the DNR police, said authorities were still on the scene and were trying to recover the boat. The victims were identified as two Lexington Park, Md., men - David Chase, 55, and David Fletcher, 43. "We think that the accident was due to rough seas, but we're not positive," Albert said.

With a new survey finding the Chesapeake Bay's crab population at its lowest level in five years after a poor spawn last year, Maryland officials announced Friday they would move to tighten catch limits on the region's iconic crustacean. The annual winter survey of Maryland and Virginia waters tallied 300 million crabs, the Department of Natural Resources reported. That's down nearly two-thirds from the number seen last year, when Gov. Martin O'Malley held a press conference at a crab house in Annapolis to declare crabs had rebounded from near-collapse in 2008 and were more plentiful than they'd been in nearly two decades.

The Baltimore County Chamber of Commerce is member-driven, member-supported organization that has been the voice of business in Baltimore County since 1966. On behalf of our members, we have been following the impact of the stormwater fee legislation, passed by the state last year, which mandates Baltimore County to pass enabling legislation by July. A clean Chesapeake Bay is essential for all Marylanders and especially so for businesses in Baltimore County who depend on it for their livelihood.

The U.S. Coast Guard suspended a search of the Chesapeake Bay on Thursday for a vessel that sent out a distress call Wednesday evening. Coast Guard and local officials roamed 180 square miles over a 12-hour period, focusing on two places in the Bay where the call originated, in the mouth of the Choptank River and between Deale Beach and North Beach, Petty Officer Jason Stanley, a search and rescue controller working the case, said in a statement....

The Chesapeake Bay and its rivers have lost 44 percent of their underwater grasses over the past three years, scientists reported Thursday, reducing vital habitat for crabs and fish to a level not seen in nearly three decades. Scientists blamed weather and storms for much of the decline seen last year, but they said an as-yet unexplained long-term decline in the bay's water clarity has played havoc with this key indicator of the Chesapeake's health. An aerial survey flown from late spring to early fall last year found 48,191 acres of submerged vegetation, down 21 percent from the extent of grasses seen in 2011, according to scientists from Maryland and Virginia.