Magothy River

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.

Stormwater is the only source of pollution to local waterways that is growing. There has been much talk lately of stormwater fees as a "rain tax. " While catchy, the moniker really doesn't tell the story. The story begins when those raindrops hit parking lots, roads and other paved surfaces. As they flow downhill, they pick up pollution - oil and grease from automobiles, fertilizer from our yards, and dog waste that wasn't picked up. That pollution flows into storm drains, then into local streams and creeks, then into local rivers.

Three boys from Arnold were blown across the mouth of the Magothy River to Gibson Island in a small dinghy and capsized yesterday afternoon as a sudden storm whipped across the county. The boys - two of them 16 years old and one, 12 - capsized just off Gibson Island about 4 p.m., said Division Chief John M. Scholz, a county Fire Department spokesman. An island resident dried their clothes while paramedics checked the boys for hypothermia. But all appeared fine after the close call in their 8-foot boat, and their parents declined to have them transported to a hospital for checkups.

Jutting out from Persimmon Point on the Broadneck Peninsula, the view from 1128 River Bay Road is expansive and expensive. From the private dock, the Magothy River stretches to the left as far as you can see and to the right to where the river empties into the Chesapeake Bay. Across the way the homes on Gibson Island dot the shoreline. Built in the 1950s as a shore home for the Pumphreys, one of Cape St. Claire's prominent families, the home was sold to a son, who replaced it five years ago with a contemporary home.

Her land has received a lot of attention, but Beverly Looper has avoided it. Yesterday the longtime Pasadena resident stepped briefly into the spotlight as county and state officials gathered to mark the acquisition of 460 acres in the Magothy River watershed - 390 of them owned by Looper until last month. The county bought her land for nearly $5 million and placed most of it under a permanent conservation easement. The purchase ended four years of delicate negotiations with the Looper family, and preserves one of the last large pieces of open space between Baltimore and Annapolis.

A wooded 410-acre tract on Pasadena's Mountain Road peninsula - described as the single-largest piece of open space left between Annapolis and Baltimore - will be purchased and preserved, thanks to a $2.5 million state grant announced yesterday. The purchase, if all goes as planned, would save from development an environmentally sensitive area that is considered the linchpin of a proposed 1,000-acre pristine stretch called the Magothy River Greenway. Gov. Parris N. Glendening said the state will contribute $2.5 million in transportation funds to help buy most of the so-called Looper property on the congested peninsula.

For someone who just took the helm of Magothy River Middle School, Christopher Mirenzi has a vivid memory of when it opened in 1974 - the colors, the carpeting, the open classrooms. To this day, he speaks of its principal back then with the highest respect. That man was his father, Joseph Mirenzi. "At no point in time did I ever think I would be a principal in the school he was at," said Christopher Mirenzi, who has been in Anne Arundel public schools for 24 years, most recently as assistant principal at Arundel Middle School.

DOBBINS ISLAND - These steep, sandstone cliffs form the great memory bank of the Magothy River, holding within them centuries-old tales of buried treasure and budding romance. Throughout history, boaters have flocked to this crescent-shaped wisp of land across from Pasadena where an 18th-century Dutch ship reportedly wrecked and wild goats once roamed. As the shoreline around it rapidly develops, Dobbins Island has remained unchanged, the sort of place where a newcomer could be forgiven for half-expecting TV's Gilligan to emerge from the carpet of greenery for a marshmallow roast.

A wooded 410-acre tract on Pasadena's Mountain Road peninsula - described as the single-largest piece of open space left between Annapolis and Baltimore - will be purchased and preserved, thanks to a $2.5 million state grant announced yesterday. The purchase, if all goes as planned, would save from development an environmentally sensitive area that is considered the linchpin of a proposed 1,000-acre pristine stretch called the Magothy River Greenway. Gov. Parris N. Glendening said the state will contribute $2.5 million in transportation funds to help buy most of the so-called Looper property on the congested peninsula.

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.

Del. Donald H. Dwyer Jr. said Thursday that he had been drinking alcohol when a motorboat he was operating collided with another boat in the Magothy River — an accident that left six people with serious injuries. In a brief news conference outside a Baltimore hospital, the Pasadena Republican said his blood-alcohol content was measured at 0.2 percent after Wednesday's crash. The legal limit is .08, according to state law. "I deeply regret my actions and ask for your forgiveness," Dwyer said, adding that no one should operate a car or boat while under the influence of alcohol.

A woman in a red bikini danced giddily on a big floating trampoline in the Magothy River, at one point turning a graceful back flip — without losing her straw hat. Her apparent carefree delight captured what fans consider the true spirit of Bumper Bash, a yearly convergence of boat-borne revelers. But on Saturday, the men in blue were no less a part of the story at the party's fifth-annual installment. Spurred by multiple fights and drunken rowdiness last year, authorities stepped up the police presence considerably, both along the Dobbins Island beach and in the river.

The body of James Robert Kane, 25, of Pasadena, was recovered from the Magothy River near Dobbins Island by Maryland Natural Resources Police, officials said in a statement Thursday. Kane went missing after a boating accident on July 4. Kane and a woman were thrown into the water after turning their 17-foot boat too sharply, police said. The woman was picked up, uninjured, by a second boat. Kane's body, which was recovered Wednesday morning, was taken to the medical examiner's office for an autopsy.

The Coast Guard suspended its search early Tuesday afternoon for a missing 25-year-old boater who was thrown into the Magothy River Monday from a 17-foot skiff and is believed dead, while other agencies pressed on. "This is an important service that we provide … it gives closure to the families," said Sgt. Art Windemuth, spokesman for the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, which is leading the investigation. Windemuth expected rescuers, which included the Anne Arundel County Fire Department and the Maryland State Police, to continue searching "throughout the day" despite the Coast Guard's departure.

The Maryland Natural Resources Police are investigating a fatal boating incident after a 25-year-old Pasadena man fell off a 17-foot skiff into the Magothy River in Anne Arundel County, near Dobbins Island Monday. James Robert Kane and a friend were thrown from a Carolina Skiff around 4:30 p.m. after it made a sudden sharp turn, according to NRP. NRP, Anne Arundel County Fire Boat, and the Coast Guard searched the area until sunset using divers and side scan sonar. A Maryland State Police helicopter was also deployed, but the man was not found.

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."

Stormwater is the only source of pollution to local waterways that is growing. There has been much talk lately of stormwater fees as a "rain tax. " While catchy, the moniker really doesn't tell the story. The story begins when those raindrops hit parking lots, roads and other paved surfaces. As they flow downhill, they pick up pollution - oil and grease from automobiles, fertilizer from our yards, and dog waste that wasn't picked up. That pollution flows into storm drains, then into local streams and creeks, then into local rivers.

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.