Eastern Shore

U.S. Sens. Barbara A. Mikulski and Ben Cardin publicly challenged on Wednesday a federal decision not to provide aid to Maryland residents affected by Hurricane Sandy - calling on President Barack Obama and federal emergency officials to rethink the decision. "It's a sad day in Maryland," Mikulski said at a hearing on storm relief efforts before the Senate Appropriations Homeland Security Subcommittee, holding up a copy of The Baltimore Sun reporting the Federal Emergency Management Agency's decision Tuesday to deny Maryland families aid. The areas hit by the storm are some of the most "cash poor" in the state, she said - and people can't recover on their own. "We understand the collective damage issue," Cardin said, noting the many fronts of storm damage FEMA is handling.

The Obama administration has denied Maryland's request for federal aid for hundreds of Eastern Shore residents affected by superstorm Sandy, prompting an outcry from state officials, who vowed to appeal the decision. Though the federal government issued a disaster declaration for Maryland and is helping cover costs for repairing public property, Federal Emergency Management Agency officials said the storm did not cause enough damage to justify assistance to individuals who lost homes or businesses.

Lawyers squared off one last time Friday in a packed Baltimore courtroom to wrap up the long-running trial of a bitterly contested pollution lawsuit with ramifications for water cleanup efforts and the poultry industry in Maryland and nationwide. Jane Barrett, the lawyer for the Waterkeeper Alliance, told U.S. District Judge William M. Nickerson that the New York-based environmental group had amassed overwhelming evidence during more than two weeks of testimony in October that chicken manure from Alan and Kristin Hudson's farm near Berlin had washed into a drainage ditch that ultimately empties into the Pocomoke River, a tributary of the Chesapeake Bay. But lawyers for the Hudsons and for Perdue countered that the environmental group had failed to make the case that the high levels of disease-causing bacteria found in the ditch came from chicken manure.

A month after Hurricane Sandy crashed ashore, hundreds of Marylanders affected by the storm are still waiting for the federal government to provide funding for housing and living expenses. Federal assistance has been flowing for weeks to families in hard-hit counties of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, but the Federal Emergency Management Agency is still reviewing a formal request for aid that Gov. Martin O'Malley submitted to the White House on Nov. 8. That has left hundreds of Eastern Shore residents affected by Sandy in Worcester, Dorchester and Somerset counties waiting for relief.

Protenergy Natural Foods Corp. expects to add as many as 100 workers to its Eastern Shore operations by next spring, the state announced Tuesday. The Canadian food processing company, which currently employs 53 in Cambridge, is ramping up faster than originally anticipated. When it opened the site a year ago as its U.S. headquarters, Protenergy told the state that it expected to have 100 employees by 2016. As part of the expansion, the company purchased the 67-acre site it had been leasing.

A nor'easter storm was billed as Maryland's first potential snow event of the season, but if any flakes fell, they were only in flurries, according to National Weather Service reports. No reports of snow were posted by the weather service's Baltimore/Washington forecast office. Forecasters there  said Wednesday the storm tracked slightly too far east  to affect central Maryland, and with a narrow band of precipitation to its west. The weather service's Mount Holly, N.J., office, which covers the Philadelphia area including northern Eastern Shore counties in Maryland,  reported anywhere from a trace of snow to a foot  of it. Traces were measured just over the Maryland/Delaware border in Bear, Del., and further up Interstate 95 in Wilmington, Del. But no snow was reported in any Maryland counties.

Storm trackers are continuing to refine their predictions for a nor'easter set to strike Maryland later this week, calling for strong rain and wind on Wednesday - most heavily along the Eastern Shore - and possibly snow on Thursday. "We're not looking at Sandy-type numbers, but it looks like this thing could pack a pretty good punch," said Steve Goldstein, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service, about what residents can expect from the storm on the heels of superstorm Sandy's pounding.

A nor'easter appears poised to rumble over Maryland next week, as residents on the state's eastern and western edges are still shoveling out snow and sand from this week's massive storm. The nor'easter could swoop across the state as early as Wednesday, spilling an inch or two of rain and pushing seawater onto a coastline already saturated by Sandy, a hurricane turned post-tropical cyclone. "If we didn't just have Sandy, we'd probably still be talking about the chance of minor coastal flooding," said Kristina Pydynowski, a senior meteorologist with Accuweather.

As J.C. Barbely looked at Assateague Island in his rearview mirror Saturday night, he was pretty sure his seaside home away from home wouldn't escape Sandy's fury. But Wednesday morning, the assistant manager of the Maryland Park Service's biggest money-maker readied to reopen the park for day use before the week was out. Bulldozers plugged ragged holes in the dunes with sand washed into the parking lots, inspectors checked buildings, bridges and walkways, and crews gathered debris and counted wild ponies.

If a tree falls in a Maryland forest, does anyone know its value? State Forester Steve Koehn threw back his head and laughed when asked that question. And then he jumped at the chance to shed some light on what he calls one of Maryland's best-kept secrets. "Forest products are a $4 billion-a-year industry in Maryland," he said. "For comparison, seafood is a $950 million industry. " Koehn stood on a gentle slope in the middle of a towering stand of poplar trees, their golden leaves electrified by a bright fall sun. Eighteen months ago, loggers harvested that private plot in western Baltimore County, removing about half of the trees.