Environmental Activists

A paved bicycle trail paralleling the Patapsco River on the Howard-Baltimore county border will be completed without appeal from environmental activists under an agreement reached yesterday between the Maryland Department of Natural Resources and local environmentalists and activists. The state agency agreed to build no more paved projects within Patapsco Valley State Park over the next 10 years, and the trail's opponents agreed to drop all administrative appeals. Since 1998, a dispute over the 1 1/4 -mile paved trail has pitted environmental activists who feared the effects of runoff and increased traffic against bicyclists who wanted greater access to park resources and developers who sought to improve tourism opportunities.

In a small office at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Russian chemist Valentin L. Rubailo speaks of perhaps the biggest hurdle in the effort to dispose of the world's largest stockpiles of chemical weapons."

LONDON -- They're dragging Ronald McDonald into a libel trial. And Happy Meals. And two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame seed bun.It's the McLibel Case. Goliath against David. The barristers in traditional black gowns and powdered wigs against a pair of radical environmentalists who dress in jeans and sweat shirts and forage for documents in dusty backpacks and used plastic bags.McDonald's Restaurants UK and McDonald's Corp. of the United States are suing Dave Morris and Helen Steel for libel because they participated in the production of a leaflet assailing McDonald's.

Environmental concerns apparently took a back seat to anti-incumbent fever in key Baltimore area local elections this week, as voters ignored "green" endorsements of Democratic county executive candidates to choose Republicans promising leaner government.Environmental activists are still shaking their heads over the losses of Baltimore County Executive Dennis Rasmussen, Howard County Executive Elizabeth Bobo and Anne Arundel County executive hopeful Theodore Sophocleus -- all of whom had promised to protect waterways and control development.

Carroll environmental activists fear that the pending abolishment ofthe Department of Natural Resource Protection will diminish the county's environmental protection efforts and squander the abilities of the agency's director.The year-old department is being disassembled, its components reassigned to four separate agencies, under a government reorganization plan unveiled last month by the County Commissioners.The commissioners say the restructuring is intended to make environmental operations and planning more efficient.

HSA test requirement upholds diploma's value Kudos to state schools Superintendent Nancy S. Grasmick, the Maryland State Board of Education and Baltimore schools CEO Andres Alonso for standing firm on requiring students to pass the High School Assessment tests to graduate from Maryland high schools ("Md. firm on tests," Oct. 29). Tenth-grade-level proficiency is the standard for these tests, so every student who graduates from high school should be required to pass them. If you cannot read at the 10th-grade level upon graduation, you will not be able to compete in the job market.

County government hallways are strewn with eggshells these days, andmost everyone is stepping lightly except the County Commissioners.The government reorganization plan secretly hatched by the commissioners and sprung a month ago on county employees and the public remains mysterious, greeted mostly by shrugs and a resignation to "wait-and-see" what unfolds.While county employees are familiar with the shifting of agenciesdiagrammed by the commissioners and made public May 10, many are uncertain of the rationale behind the changes and how they will alter their jobs.

Environmental activists met Saturday at the University of Baltimore to organize a push for a legislative ban on the natural gas drilling technique known as hydraulic fracturing — or fracking — casting the issue as a fight pitting the little guys versus the lobbyists. Del. Heather R. Mizeur told the crowd of about 200 activists that she wanted Maryland to show others that they can hold the gas industry accountable before drilling starts, rather than trying to clean up after any environmental problems.

ONE YEAR after everyone made such a fuss about Earth Day 1990, Mother Nature is in worse shape than ever. There is hope, though. Today's elementary and middle school kids are some of the feistiest environmental activists around, and several new books help encourage their passion for conservation.* ''Going Green: A Kid's Handbook to Saving the Planet,'' by John Elkington, Julia Hailes, Douglas Hill and Joel Makower (Puffin paperback, $8.95, ages 8 and up). This book starts out with a no-nonsense explanation of how we've gotten the Earth into this mess.

Lewis Winfield Bellinger, an environmental activist, died Saturday of pneumonia and complications of cancer at North Arundel Hospital. He was 86 and lived in Solley in Anne Arundel County.Regarded as a vigilant protector of his northern Anne Arundel County neighborhood -- as well as the Curtis Bay and Brooklyn sections of southern Baltimore -- for 20 years, he fought air, water and ground pollution."We called him the watchdog of the Marley Neck," said Del. Mary Rosso, a Democrat who represents northern Anne Arundel County.