Magothy River

Anne Arundel County is not expected to start dredging Mill Creek until late 2009, nearly four years after 3 million gallons of sewage and sediment were dumped into the waterway. County officials will share with residents at a meeting tonight their plan to deal with the aftereffects of the spill and chronic urban runoff, which has raised the creek bed and narrowed the entranceway for boats into the Magothy River. The Department of Public Works will present a year's worth of monitoring studies and discuss progress in obtaining dredging permits to excavate the sand and sediment.

IF YOU THROW a lot of children's birthday parties, would like to entertain more, or just need to get into a good mood, attend the Party Providers Trade Show from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. May 2 at the YWCA building on Ritchie Highway in Arnold.Displays will include the latest in kids' parties, catered foods, florists creations, magic and music. For information, call Lisa Wiseman at 410-626-7800.Can't find Mother's Day gift?To put mom into a good mood, pick up something for her for Mother's Day at the annual spring craft and plant sale from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. May 1 at St. Martin's-in- the-Field Episcopal Church.

John Frank Marozza, founder and former owner of T.L.C. Horse Transport and a thoroughbred breeder, died May 9 from complications of diabetes at Anne Arundel Medical Center in Annapolis. The Severna Park resident was 69.A robust man who began riding horses as a 9-year-old growing up in Hagerstown, Mr. Marozza had bred thoroughbreds and appaloosas since 1970 at his 78-acre Windsor Hills Farm in Everett, Pa.In 1983, he began Tender Loving Care Horse Transport, better known as T.L.C. Horse Transport, with a Ford pickup and a trailer that could carry two horses.

The estimated 200,000 yellow perch, menhaden, mummichogs and silverside that died in the upper reaches of Magothy and Patapsco rivers' tributaries in the past week represent the worst such fish kill in 10 years, state officials said yesterday.And unless the weather changes, the fish kills will only get worse, said Charles Poukish, environmental specialist for the state Department of Natural Resources.The kill is another indication of a Chesapeake Bay ecosystem "living on the edge of severe problems," added Robert Magnien, DNR's chief of resource assessments.

The drought-driven fish kill that has sent perch, carp, pike and many other species belly-up on local river banks for the past week continued to mount yesterday, with waterfront residents in Cape St. Claire reporting thousands of dead fish along beaches there."

After an exhausting day working at the Annapolis office of Legg Mason Wood Walker Inc., Sally Branning goes home to her Bay Hill townhouse in Broadneck, swaps her briefcase for an oar and heads to the Severn River.It's there that she meets the rest of her crew team in the Annapolis Rowing Club for practice."I just started this summer," said Branning, who moved into her 2,200-square-foot townhouse in August. "There were just a lot of people I knew who were doing it, so I thought I would give it a shot."

The state Board of Public Works approved a $1.2 million Rural Legacy grant yesterday for southern Anne Arundel County.The state Rural Legacy Board had approved the project last month.The grant will be used to acquire easements on about 300 acres of privately owned land near Lothian, said H. Grant Dehart, director of Program Open Space for the state Department of Natural Resources.The Board of Public Works also designated 9,090 acres of farmland in South County as a Rural Legacy area."It's to keep the land the way it is," Dehart said.

Environmentalist Melvin Bender gazes out over North Gray's Bog as if he's looking for something."At any moment you expect to see a dinosaur's head coming out; it looks primeval," says Bender, peering across the still water topped with a layer of floating water lilies.This pristine setting exists a few miles from the bustle of Pasadena's Mountain Road corridor, where commuters, businesses and housing developments make suburbia hum. It's a quiet, green world with thousands of forested acres, fragile bogs and unspoiled waterfront.

This table shows composite index scores for Anne Arundel County middle schools over the past six years under the Maryland School Performance Assessment Program. The composite is roughly equivalent to the overall percentage of students who scored at a satisfactory level or better on the MSPAP tests. The last column shows the percentage-point change since the tests were first administered in 1993. The test results were released this week by the State Department of Education.................

A Central County environmental group has received a $500 grant to help it develop an inventory of local waterfront landowners.The Magothy River Land Trust received one of 14 checks issued by the Janice Hollmann Grant Fund, which supports land trusts in their protection efforts. It will be used to pay for a listing of land owners of 10 acres or more within the Magothy River watershed.The fund is named for Janice Hollmann, co-founder of the Severn River Land Trust and the Arundel Conservation Trust.

As the yellow perch begin their spawning runs up Chesapeake Bay tributaries, the state is set to implement regulations to protect the species from overfishing while giving recreational anglers a greater share of the annual allocation. The rules, developed over the past year after pressure from the General Assembly, will take effect Monday. "I think we made a lot of progress," said Tom O'Connell, head of the Department of Natural Resources Fisheries Service. "We learned that we have to be more conservative in management to allow the population to sustain itself and grow in time."

In a new twist in a battle for beach access between local boaters and an island owner in the Magothy River, the local environmental association has filed a lawsuit in an attempt to force the owner to negotiate. The Magothy River Association alleges in the suit filed Thursday in Anne Arundel County Circuit Court that Dobbins Island is public land, because residents have been using the beaches there for decades. David L. Clickner Sr., the association claims, has reduced public access since buying the 7-acre island in 2004.

Ralph Reitan turned a 33-foot "junk" sailboat into a sleek and speedy vessel, and he became a familiar face at the Wednesday night races on the Magothy River. The 59-year-old computer scientist was on the water for last week's competition, when, during the first leg, the weather suddenly turned. The winds kicked up - some say as high as 45 knots - and the waves became choppy amid a light rain. Fellow racer Joe Lombardo, trailing Reitan, headed to shore. "We waited for a lot of boats to come back after the race," Lombardo said.

Unconvinced that a local nonprofit can come up with enough money to buy his island on the Magothy River, the owner has resurrected plans to build a house on it. David L. Clickner Sr., who bought Dobbins Island in 2004, last week presented preliminary information at a required public meeting on how he'd put in a septic system and road. He didn't provide details on the house, but in 2005, Clickner submitted plans to build a home in the range of more than 4,500 square feet. Clickner said that he put his plans on hold for more than a year, since spring 2006, to give the Magothy River Association time to raise money to buy the island.

John Rush Crunkleton Jr., a retired bedding company executive who loved the sea and its sailing ships, died of multiple organ failure Tuesday at St. Joseph Medical Center. He was 89. Mr. Crunkleton was born in Baltimore and raised in Homeland and at a summer home on the Magothy River. He was a 1936 graduate of Polytechnic Institute. He attended the Johns Hopkins University until enlisting in the naval reserve in 1940. "He was sent to Guantanamo Bay in Cuba as a member of the naval cavalry.

The U.S. General Services Administration has put the Point No Point Lighthouse up for sale, giving any average citizen with at least a few thousand dollars the chance to own a piece of Chesapeake Bay history. The century-old lighthouse in Southern Maryland is about five nautical miles from Point Lookout and 15 nautical miles south of Solomons Island. The structure is 30 feet around and about 52 feet high, with the keeper's quarters, fuel storage area and lantern room all in one place.

Linda Lee Bernady, a retired advertising sales assistant for The Baltimore Sun, died of a heart attack Monday at Harbor Hospital. The Brooklyn Park resident was 64. Born Linda Lee Pitz in Colver, Pa., where she was raised, she moved to the Baltimore to attend the St. Agnes Hospital School of Nursing. She joined The Sun in 1968 and worked there until she retired in late 2005. "She was an excellent cook and baker, and spoiled us all," said Carol Longdon, a former co-worker. "She was always thinking of someone else."

To the protectors of the Magothy River, the 200-foot-long pier jutting out from Dobbins Island is the equivalent of a finger poking them in the eye. Island owner David L. Clickner Sr. recently constructed the pier for the boats he hopes to dock at the house he hopes to build. Environmentalists are questioning why the state and Anne Arundel County would give Clickner permission to build a pier while they are appealing the zoning variances that allowed its construction. "We thought it was irresponsible for construction to move forward when the [variances are]

Environmental groups attempting to block the construction of a lavish home on a private island in the Magothy River have until July to find the money to purchase the island, its owner said yesterday. David L. Clickner Sr., who owns Dobbins Island, a 7-acre island near the mouth of the river, said he agreed to postpone a two-day hearing before the Board of Appeals scheduled to begin today, at the request of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation. The Annapolis-based foundation, which has opposed the project along with the Magothy River Association, said it has several experts who are unavailable to testify this week, Clickner said.

Anne Arundel County is not expected to start dredging Mill Creek until late 2009, nearly four years after 3 million gallons of sewage and sediment were dumped into the waterway. County officials will share with residents at a meeting tonight their plan to deal with the aftereffects of the spill and chronic urban runoff, which has raised the creek bed and narrowed the entranceway for boats into the Magothy River. The Department of Public Works will present a year's worth of monitoring studies and discuss progress in obtaining dredging permits to excavate the sand and sediment.