Litter

It's taken many years, but it looks like Harford County finally has a good plan for dealing with those illegal commercial signs that litter roadsides and median strips throughout the county: volunteer sign removal crews. Meanwhile, the state law prohibiting the signs, which amount to little more than litter, has been strengthened and the new version goes into effect this weekend. Technically, putting signs in public rights of way like median strips has never been allowed, something to which any law-abiding citizen who has applied for and received a sign permit could attest.

WHO WOULD have thought a few years ago, when pfiesteria was afflicting fish and humans, and too much fertilizer running off farmland was suspected of causing it, that anyone would compete for the Eastern Shore's mountains of chicken manure? Since then, driven by imminent government crackdowns on the spreading of manure, two promising ventures are under way that would use some 400,000 tons a year of poultry litter, about 40 percent of what is cleaned out of chicken houses across the Delmarva Peninsula.

Diggin' Dogs Prairie dogs are not dogs at all! They are a member of the squirrel family. Prairie dogs earned their name because of the high-pitched barking calls used in prairie dog communication. Prairie dogs live in "towns" that are a network of tunnels and burrows underground. Some of these tunnels reach depths of 16 feet! what's for DINNER? Green grasses, seeds and insects. WILD FACTS 1. Prairie dogs only weigh 1.5 to 2.5 pounds. 2. Prairie dogs are considered endangered due to loss of habitat.

Editor: Do rocket bikes and massive amounts of traffic result in wrecks and death? Combine speed and inattention and booze, boredom, fatigue or a cell phone head and the result is often a wreck? Has Harford County become a wreck? Harford was once a rural, slow-paced, friendly, Democratic county. Harford has now become a place of massive projects of individual homes, condos, townhouses and apartments for overnight sleepovers. Harford is not a Republican county in a Democratic state.

Launching the next step in what is expected to be a larger media campaign, Baltimore officials said yesterday that they will soon emblazon trash trucks and garbage cans with new slogans intended to reduce littering. The campaign is more edgy than past anti-litter efforts. One sign pictures a bedraggled rat hunched over text, "He loves when you put your trash out too early." Another sign, to be posted on trash cans, says, "Pick up the litter, lift up the city." "We're going to deliver this message to the public in any way that we can," said Mayor Sheila Dixon, who has made cleaning up the city a major theme of her tenure.

Raleigh Medley is one of the workers charged with keeping Route 2 plowed, mowed, landscaped and litter-free."I've done the grass cutting with the hand weed whackers and with the tractor motors," said Medley, 44, who has worked for the Annapolis office of the State Highway Administration since 1971."

WASHINGTON -- Thousands of cigarette butts, glass bottles and plastic pieces were scooped up by volunteers who cleared 83 miles of Maryland beaches and river banks in September.Last summer's revelers left behind 201,000 pounds of litter -- enough to fill 699 trash bags.Nearly one-third of Maryland's trash consisted of various types of plastic, according to a report released Thursday by the Washington-based Center for Marine Conservation, which described refuse cleaned from beaches in 35 states and 12 countries.

Gina Spadafori has the week off. This column originally was written for Sept. 8, 1990. Hidden in the thicket behind the lovely old house, we sat together, my friend and I, and waited for the wild ones to come out and play.The sun had fallen, and between us and her house, a patio light spread a pool of brightness across the concrete, the light playing crazily off pie tins filled with cat food. The night was warm and quiet, all sound dampened by the dense foliage that embraced the property.

College Trust plan can help Marylanders pay for educationOn behalf of the Maryland Prepaid College Trust, I want to encourage Marylanders to begin investing now for their children and grandchildren's college education.The College Trust provides Maryland families the opportunity to start saving for college by purchasing a contract based in part on this year's in-state tuition and mandatory fees at Maryland public colleges.When it's time for the child to enter college, the program will pay full tuition and mandatory fees at any Maryland public college.

EDGEWOOD -- With the roar of trucks and front-end loaders in his ears and the stink of old coffee grounds and rotting cantaloupe tickling his nose, Mike Janouris roots through trash. For pay.He pokes at a cardboard box looking for paint cans, shakes a five-gallon can of deck sealant to make sure it's empty -- it's not -- and picks up a piece of junk mail to check the address on the label. It had better be in Harford County.Mr. Janouris is one of four attendants who prowl through every load of trash dumped on the huge tipping floor of Harford County's waste-to-energy plant at the edge of Aberdeen Proving Ground.