NEWS
By Michael Dresser | January 12, 2009
For Asa Erickson, the Maryland Transportation Authority's proposal last week to charge a $1.50-a-month fee for an E-ZPass account is reason enough to drop the service. And he believes he's going to have a lot of company. "I'm not going to pay that fee," the 32-year-old northern Baltimore County resident said. "They're going to have a huge number of people dropping their accounts." Perhaps. But Maryland motorists are going to face two trends in the coming years: Toll roads are becoming more common, and toll booths are going extinct.
NEWS
By Candus Thomson | May 7, 2008
Maryland's premier trout stream, Gunpowder Falls, is under attack from an algae strain feared worldwide for its ability to coat the bottom of rivers and lakes and smother the habitat and food supply of fish. Heavy, with the consistency of a wool coat, Didymosphenia geminata is a recent invader of East Coast waterways. It begins as microscopic organism that travels from stream to stream on boats, fishing gear and the bottoms of felt boots and waders. The algae is not hazardous to humans, but could have a "profound" effect on fish and the quality of freshwater streams and recreation, upsetting the delicate balance of nature, said Jonathan McKnight, coordinator of the Department of Natural Resources invasive species team.
NEWS
By Meredith Cohn | June 14, 2007
An identification system intended to cover 750,000 port workers, including 20,000 in Baltimore, that was supposed to be put in place in 2003 is now slated to make its debut in the fall at the port of Wilmington in Delaware. The Transportation Security Administration was supposed to implement the program at 10 ports by July, but an official said this week that the agency will miss another deadline. The Transportation Worker Identification Credential, or TWIC, has been scorned by terrorism experts who consider harbors a weak link in homeland security, by ports that continue to pay for their own gate security, and by lawmakers who approved millions of dollars for the program after the 2001 terrorist attacks only to see it languish.
NEWS
By FREDERICK N. RASMUSSEN | March 4, 2006
The recent death of Capt. Paul J. Esbensen, 76, of Stevensville, who was a highly respected wreck investigator with the National Transportation Safety Board and a well-known port figure, recalled his role investigating the loss of the SS Poet more than two decades ago. He had spent 15 years as senior marine investigator for the NTSB before retiring in 1996. During his tenure with the NTSB, he investigated 25 major maritime accidents, including the Poet and the loss of the Pride of Baltimore.
NEWS
December 23, 2005
In Brief: Nature Snakeheads found in Delaware River "Frankenfish" are swimming in the Delaware River. Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission officials have confirmed what they long suspected: Northern snakeheads - aggressive, predatory fish imported from Asia - are in the river and probably growing in number. "This is certainly not a shocking discovery," said agency spokesman Dan Tredinnick, noting that snakeheads showed up in Meadow Lake at Philadelphia's FDR Park in July 2004. Snakeheads were first found in a Crofton, Md., pond in 2002.
NEWS
By Greg Barrett | April 6, 2005
TRENTON, N.J. -- The second major flood of the Delaware River in six months has left more than 1,000 residents in New Jersey's capital temporarily homeless, exhausted and demanding answers. In meetings yesterday with city officials at an American Red Cross shelter here, evacuees repeatedly asked, "Why?" They wanted to know why a waterway that seemed so tame for so long has overflowed its banks twice since September. No river was affected more by the weekend downpours than the bulging vein of the Delaware that cuts through prime real estate in Trenton, where the Delaware's 25-foot flood crest sent people scurrying Saturday night.
NEWS
By David Zucchino | December 5, 2004
NEWARK, Del. - Like a mutant blob in a bad horror movie, an oil slick first thought to be relatively small has grown bigger and more menacing over the past week, oozing its way down both banks of the Delaware River. When the Greek tanker Athos I began leaking heavy Venezuelan crude oil into the river the night of Nov. 26, it appeared to be a manageable spill confined to a riverside terminal - 30,000 gallons, according to estimates. But authorities now are warning that it could be as much as 473,000 gallons, a gooey mess that has stained 70 miles of shoreline across three states.
NEWS
November 28, 2004
NATIONAL Oil spill fouls Delaware River A tanker spilled 30,000 gallons of crude oil into the Delaware River yesterday, creating a 20-mile-long slick between Philadelphia and southern New Jersey that threatened birds and fish. The tanker, registered in Cyprus, was carrying 325,000 barrels of oil from Venezuela. [Page 3a Two hunters mourned in Wis. Mourners remembered a father and son in rural Rice Lake, Wis., yesterday - two of six hunters killed in a confrontation with another hunter last week.
NEWS
By Lucie L. Snodgrass | October 26, 2003
ON A LATE summer afternoon, a huge oil tanker bearing a Liberian registry glides past Chesapeake City. A lone man fishing from the banks of the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal barely looks up as the ship slips by, its wake slapping against the banks. Passing ships are as common as flies in this part of Cecil County. They have been since 1829, when the canal first opened with the aim of increasing commerce in the mid-Atlantic region. Since then, almost everything about the canal has changed -- but its purpose has not. Then, as now, it linked the Chesapeake Bay and the Delaware River, allowing ships to speed their way between Baltimore and Philadelphia, cutting nearly 300 miles from the voyage.
NEWS
BY A SUN STAFF WRITER | June 21, 2003
Crumbling into the soft sands of Delaware Bay off Cape May Point, N.J., is the last tangible remnant of the failed dreams of a now long-forgotten Baltimore entrepreneur known as Col. Jesse Rosenfeld. The 1926 grounding of the steamer Atlantus dashed Rosenfeld's hopes to establish a ferry service on Delaware Bay. Since then, the hulk of the Atlantus has rested several hundred yards off Sunset Beach where it continues to be something of a maritime curiosity. The old tan-colored ship, now broken into several pieces with its bow still clearly visible, is bereft of its funnel and deck house.