NEWS
By Candus Thomson | July 23, 2009
Two decades after he successfully lobbied to turn the old U.S. 50 bridge over the Choptank River into a fishing pier, Bill Burton was honored Wednesday when the state named the popular site after him. At the urging of Gov. Martin O'Malley and the Department of Natural Resources, the Board of Public Works approved the measure Wednesday by a unanimous vote. "It overwhelms me to think that they think enough of me to do that," said Burton, 82. "There's a hell of a lot of pride in that." The Board of Public Works also voted Wednesday to rename the Overlook at Green Ridge State Forest after longtime DNR forester Francis Zumbrun.
NEWS
December 6, 2008
Heritage Society to hold its Christmas tours The Heritage Society of Essex and Middle River will hold its Christmas tours from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. today and tomorrow and Dec. 13 and 14 at 516 Eastern Blvd. The decorated Avenue of Shoppes will show how people shopped two generations ago. Featured gifts include Maryland jigsaw puzzles and 40th-anniversary apothecary jars. Information: 410-574-6934. Utility rate increase coming to the Shore DENTON: Choptank Electric Cooperative customers can expect a 5.46 percent rate increase starting next month.
NEWS
By Rona Kobell | January 23, 2008
Environmentalists are urging the state to act quickly to clean up Maryland's Choptank River, which has become more polluted due to farm runoff and development as well as a major drop in the oyster population. At a hearing on the state's rivers yesterday in Annapolis, several Choptank advocates asked legislators to consider new solutions to help the river. Among them: an effort to determine how much water quality damage is caused by each new development; a tax-incentive program to encourage homeowners not to pave along the shoreline; and a moratorium on oyster harvesting in the river.
NEWS
By Rona Kobell | December 9, 2007
CAMBRIDGE -- It looked like just another beautiful day on the water as Bill Dennison and his crew of biologists pushed off from their pier at the Horn Point Laboratory and sailed toward the mouth of the Choptank River. The sun glistened on the waves. In the distance, craggy, tree-lined peninsulas carved the river into jagged coves that have long been home to crabs and rockfish. But there were hardly any fishing boats. In fact, hardly anyone was on the river at all. It soon became clear why. The researchers passed large patches of brownish-white foam - so-called "mahogany tides" where the water is so thick with algae that no light can get through.
NEWS
By Chris Guy and Rona Kobell | August 28, 2007
CAMBRIDGE -- From a cramped office on the Eastern Shore, researchers Laura Murray and her husband, Michael Kemp, have spent more than two decades studying the decline of underwater grasses in the Chesapeake Bay and measuring what that means to the health of the estuary. All their work was lost yesterday in the flash of an early-morning fire that destroyed twin trailers that housed their offices, their computers, their research papers and irreplaceable data. "I just feel hollow," said Murray, after surveying charred rubble at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental and Estuarine Study.
NEWS
By Karen Hosler | June 16, 2007
After 20 years, the annual Bernie Fowler show has become a parody of itself. Skinny stick of a man, amazingly boyish at 83 in his denim overalls and straw hat with a little American flag stuck in the brim, holding hands with his wife, Betty, and a group of state and local dignitaries as they march 70 or so abreast into the unappealingly brown water of the Patuxent River at Broomes Island to see how far they get before their white sneakers disappear....
NEWS
By Tom Pelton | January 21, 2007
ST. MICHAELS -- The sun was rising in a ribbon of crimson over the Choptank River as Barry Yancosek lugged a veteran's wheelchair backward through sand and spartina grass along the shore. Yancosek, a therapist at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, helped Chad Kueser, who lost both legs in the Iraq war, hide behind camouflage netting with a shotgun. Next to him, three other servicemen with prosthetic or disabled arms hunkered down into a duck blind. During a morning of biting wind and numbing cold, they felt their spirits lifted by camaraderie and breathtaking scenery.
NEWS
By CANDUS THOMSON | January 5, 2006
You total your car by driving it off a cliff. The insurance company cuts you a check and you buy a replacement. Do you drive toward the abyss and tempt the fates? We might not, but the folks who manage Maryland's fish sure seem partial to playing at the edge of deep holes. How else do you explain the willingness of the Department of Natural Resources to pander to commercial fishermen and allow them to scoop from two Eastern Shore rivers yellow perch, a fish we used to know well but rarely see now. The agency held two meetings in late November to go over the yellow perch population numbers.
NEWS
By Candus Thomson | September 10, 2005
The operator of a cabin cruiser that struck a fishing boat anchored at the mouth of the Choptank River in July has been charged with six violations of Maryland maritime laws and regulations. Keith David Price, 42, of Landenburg, Pa., is accused of negligence and unsafe boat handling in charging documents filed by Natural Resources Police in Easton District Court. Several people fishing aboard the Jil Carrie were injured, and one was thrown overboard, when Price's 53-foot cabin cruiser, Price Pirate, rammed the stern of the charter boat at noon July 7. Price has been charged with operating a boat in a reckless or dangerous manner, negligence, speeding, failure to maintain a proper lookout, failure to take all risk-assessment measures and failure to take appropriate action in a narrow channel.
NEWS
June 17, 2003
Jamil Molock, a welder and Cambridge resident, drowned Wednesday while swimming in the Choptank River near the Caroline County town of Choptank. He was 23. Mr. Molock, a Cambridge native, was a 1998 graduate of Cambridge South High School. He developed an interest in underwater welding and construction while in high school, and attended Divers Academy International in Camden, N.J. Mr. Molock enjoyed playing video games and performing odd jobs around his home. He was a member of Christ United Methodist Church in Cambridge, where services will be held at 1 p.m. tomorrow.