Estuary

There is a place, a sanctuary, a refuge where I sometimes go, on a tidal creek near home, to drift in a canoe, greenwalled by wild rice and swamp maples from all sight and sound of humanity.It is not the quiet and solitude that renew me there so much as the power -- all-encompassing, throbbing; though at first you might scarcely notice.But listen. Wings whir -- the vanguard of blackbirds, flown clear from New England to stoke their little engines with a summer's-worth of seed production from the fecund marsh.

UNDERWATER grasses make up the forest of the Chesapeake Bay. They nurture and shelter the estuary's creatures, hiding vulnerable young fish and crabs and feeding the geese and ducks. They are a powerful indicator of the health of the Chesapeake.After years of slow progress in restoring these submerged plants, the latest survey shows a slight setback. That's understandable given the uncontrolled vagaries of nature, such as weather, that don't stay neatly on a trend line.The worst news from the annual submerged grasses survey is that losses are occurring in places most important to blue crabs, notably Tangier Sound, the major nursery of juvenile crabs.

THE CHESAPEAKE BAY blue crab lost a lifelong friend last week, as did all creatures of the estuary, great and small.L. Eugene Cronin, a pioneer in bay research and pre-eminent student of the enigmatic crustacean, died at age 81. Until recent weeks, he had been busily editing a series of scientific papers on the Callinectes sapidus, or blue crab, for a definitive 'u encyclopedia of the bay's signature shellfish."

THE DIVERSE plant and animal life and natural conditions of the Chesapeake Bay have repeatedly proven too complex for humans to directly manipulate. Nature frequently finds a way to frustrate well-intentioned cleanup plans and to teach us a new lesson in the dynamics of the bay.The latest example is in the report that levels of nitrogen and phosphorus, two key pollutants of the bay, have not declined over the past decade despite major efforts to curb their...

Maryland's extraordinarily hot, dry summer has gotten the least attention in the one-fifth of the state that always is wet -- the Chesapeake Bay.But the effects on the bay and its tidal rivers have not been trivial. Take Baltimore Gas and Electric Co., whose Calvert Cliffs nuclear plant depends on sucking 2.4 million gallons a minute from the bay for cooling.For a few days in July and August, one of its two units had to run at half power, because even at the 40-foot depths from which it draws water, the temperatures rose above the 85 degree level needed to meet safety standards.

FORKED RIVER, N.J. -- Piece by piece, salt marsh by salt marsh, environmentalists and the federal government are pushing to preserve the last tracts of undeveloped shoreline along Barnegat Bay, the shallow 75-square-mile estuary that is one of the least heralded but most important coastal resources in the northeastern United States.The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, aided by local and national conservation groups, has expanded its Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge northward along the New Jersey coast to acquire open marshland squeezed between condominiums and expensive waterfront homes that have spread along the bay over the last four decades.

MATAPEAKE -- Chesapeake Bay is half empty, the remaining water covered with scum. The eastern end of the Bay Bridge has been yanked from its pilings. Maryland, Virginia and the nation's capital are a sandy wasteland.The scene of devastation is not some environmentalist's nightmare. It is the hulk of a walk-around, working model of the bay built nearly 20 years ago by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.Out of sight in a dark, cavernous warehouse on Kent Island, the model has been unused and all but forgotten since 1984.

Wooded swamp walls the river, cloaking it in blackness save for a band in midchannel where one star reflects on the slatey surface. Then, something large under the river's skin bulges, swallows that star whole.Soon the river corridor echoes to acres of thrashing and splashing as huge cow rockfish wallow on the surface, spurting gobs of translucent amber eggs, attended by smaller, leaping, males, jetting sperm.It is especially good, when you make your living chronicling all the very real ills the Chesapeake Bay is suffering, to spend a night in early May on the spawning grounds, listening to its rivers resound lustily with life.

Beneath the murky waters of the Chesapeake Bay lies an unseen jungle of grass. It nurtures the teeming vessel of aquatic life that sustains the Land of Pleasant Living for 14 million humans above ground. The underwater grass feeds and protects fish, mammals and birds; it cleans the estuary waters of sediment and pollutants.Both man and nature have destroyed much of this submerged vegetation over time, but the fecund beds have staged a remarkable comeback over the the past decade and the entire bay has benefited.

Is it too late to save the Chesapeake Bay? Walter Cronkite asks the question rhetorically at the close of a provocative new educational film about the degraded estuary -- and answers his own question with uneasy equivocation."

If you're going to an outdoors function with a group of nature-type scientists, do not assume they have any influence over the conditions in the immediate area. That was a take-away message Thursday morning as about 100 members of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and 50 volunteers from Harford County and the Department of Natural Resources gathered for some do-gooding at the Anita C. Leight Estuary Center in Abingdon. Slabs of clouds the color of fireplace ashes had dumped buckets of rain in the pre-dawn hours.

About a dozen children watched as a giant fishing net was pulled out of the Otter Point Creek and placed inside an ice chest. The bounty included a largemouth bass, which was tossed back into the water, and a blue crab, which the children gathered around to touch. The remaining fish were sorted and placed into ice chests partially filled with water. One by one, the children reached into the net, caught a slippery creature in their hands and held it up to be identified. "That's a straight bass, that's a bluegill and that's a pumpkin seed," rattled off Margaret McGinty, a Maryland Department of Natural Resources employee.

On Thursdays, Wendy Baker Davis secures her 16-foot sea kayak to her car. Next, she packs her personal flotation device, a water pump and a pair of water shoes. Then she sets out from her home in Lancaster, Pa., to meet up with 20 other kayaking enthusiasts at Jean Roberts Park in Havre de Grace. Davis' bunch, known as the Pirates of North, is a northern Maryland offshoot of the Chesapeake Paddlers Association, a volunteer nonprofit group based in Greenbelt. The weekly outings by the Pirates are one of several paddling ventures available in the county for beginning to experienced kayakers and canoers.

Summer camp at a pristine estuarine research center in Abingdon is all about appreciating nature. The staff at the Anita C. Leight Estuary Center on Otter Point Creek teaches children to paddle a canoe, build a shelter and light a fire. Campers hike along the shore, chase a frog hopping through the marsh and identify an animal by its tracks. Or, maybe, if they are a tad too young for the more strenuous activities, they decorate picture frames with leaves and milkweed pods, capture small insects in a bug box and race mealworms on paper plates.

Lake Pontchartrain, the brackish estuary that flooded New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina, is likely to suffer environmental damage as water fouled by sewage, bacteria and corpses is pumped from city's streets back into the estuary, officials said yesterday. "There is no question that this water is contaminated, and it will have an impact on the lake," said Jean Kelly, spokeswoman for the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality. "We've got dead bodies, cars, human waste, household hazardous chemicals, all kinds of pollutants in that water."

With the first night of Passover less than a week away -- it begins Saturday night -- there's still time to find some new and interesting items to dress up your holiday table. At area shops and online stores, find various handcrafted, unique and decorative items for the Passover table, as well as fun and educational Pesach items for the kids. Events Celebrate Earth Day, 6:15 p.m.-8 p.m. Friday at Irvine Nature Center, 8400 Greenspring Ave., Stevenson. Visitors can enjoy Earth-friendly activities, watch the movie The Lorax, tie-dye a shirt, enjoy snacks, receive an Earth Day gift and more.

It's only a short drive from Baltimore, but when you pay a visit to the nearby banks of Otter Point Creek, the city's streets -- and maybe even civilization -- will feel as if they're miles away. Take to the fresh water in a canoe, and you'll be at one with the seemingly untouched area, where beaver, bald eagles, osprey and great blue herons live. "There's this really neat oasis within the developed world we live in," said Heather Helm, who manages Harford County's Leight Park, which surrounds and protects the waterway.

HOW FAR DOES $2.50 go each month? A gallon of milk? A gallon and half of gas? A couple of orders of French fries? A small-sized designer coffee? It's not much, really. Yet if everyone in Maryland pays an extra $2.50 a month on sewer and septic tank bills, they can finance the most substantial water quality improvements in the Chesapeake Bay since cleanup efforts began with phosphate bans of the mid-1980s. Sewage treatment plants could be outfitted with the latest technology to remove nitrogen.

Be a junior scientist Check out the Be a Junior Scientist event from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Sunday at the National Aquarium. Children can study shark behaviors in the galleries with aquarium staff and handle live animals, going behind the scenes to learn how these fearsome underwater predators are cared for. A tour of the Rain Forest exhibit will complete the morning. The program is suitable for children ages 8-10 and does not include admission. The aquarium is at 501 E. Pratt St., Baltimore.

Sixteen-year-old Justin Bender hopes to become an actor one day, or maybe a director, and also loves playing volleyball. But lately, his weekends have been spent trimming brush, laying mulch and lifting logs. Bender, of Aberdeen, is the driving force behind the building of a new trail at the Anita C. Leight Estuary Center, a nature preserve east of Edgewood. The teen is earning his Eagle Scout status by organizing a community project to build a quarter-mile path that will allow access to the center's new property.