Maryland And Virginia

The first Potomac Challenge, matching senior golfers from Maryland and Virginia, will be held Thursday and Friday at the Country Club of Fairfax.The Maryland team will come from the Free State Seniors Association.The format calls for 12 players for each side in two nine-hole pairings each day, with one point for each match. Thursday's play will be alternate shot and fourball and Friday's team aggregate and individual. Two 70-over golfers must play for each side in each nine-hole match and will go head-to-head in the singles.

The Maryland Department of Human Resources will step up efforts to find people who sell their food stamps for cash or otherwise defraud the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, under a pilot program with the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced Wednesday. The agencies will sign enhanced data sharing agreements to monitor the more than 754,000 Marylanders who receive food stamps and the nearly 3,800 retailers that accept the benefits. Virginia will also participate in the initiative, which will gradually expand to other states over time.

When the Supreme Court agreed last month to decide if Virginia can take water from the middle of the Potomac River, it took on an issue that echoes with the voices of the Founding Fathers speaking on fundamental concerns of their young nation - navigation and trade, tariffs and transportation. Down through the years, arguments over where Maryland ends and Virginia begins along the Potomac and the Chesapeake Bay have been the stuff of high drama and low comedy. They have led to august declarations and assemblies involving Thomas Jefferson, George Washington and James Madison.

When the critical vote to approve same-sex marriage in Maryland was coming down, I happened to be in Virginia — not that far geographically, really, but at the moment seemingly a world, and a time, away. There I was, in a state where legislators were trapped in a womb with no view, considering whether a microscopic, fertilized egg is a person, and whether a woman who wants an abortion must have an ultrasound first. Meanwhile, my home state was out there in the real world, dealing with a real issue involving actual people and their right to equal protection under the law. To which I can only say: Maryland, my Maryland!

Maryland and Virginia Milk Producers Cooperative Association Inc., the largest dairy cooperative serving the state's farmers, announced yesterday that it plans to merge with a competitor serving six Southern states.The proposed consolidation with Carolina Virginia Milk Producers Association would create a business that serves more than 1,550 dairy farmers in 11 states and markets about 3 billion pounds of milk a year.Maryland and Virginia Milk Producers Cooperative, based in Reston, Va., serves about 1,150 farms in Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia and Delaware.

WALKERSVILLE - Dairy farmers from three states registered strong opposition yesterday to the proposed merger of the Maryland and Virginia Milk Producers Cooperative with three other co-ops, including Land O' Lakes Inc., to form the nation's second-largest milk marketing enterprise. The proposed merger was announced earlier in the month. It would combine the Maryland and Virginia co-op, based in Reston, Va., with Land O' Lakes of Arden Hills, Minn.; Lone Star Milk Producers Inc. of Wind- thorst, Texas; and Arkansas Dairy Cooperative Association of Damascus, Ark. The merger would create a co-op that operates in 19 states and have sales of about $1 billion annually.

ARDEN HILLS, Minn. - Land O'Lakes Inc., the second-largest U.S. dairy cooperative, abandoned merger talks with three other farmer-owned milk cooperatives yesterday in the wake of objections from farmers in Maryland and Pennsylvania. Land O'Lakes, which had $5.76 billion in sales last year, signed a letter of intent last month to develop a merger agreement with Maryland and Virginia Milk Producers Cooperative Association Inc. Lone Star Milk Producers Inc. and the Arkansas Dairy Cooperative Association.

The proposed merger of four dairy cooperatives, including the largest serving Maryland farmers, would create the nation's second-largest milk marketing organization but force the closing of a Laurel butter-making plant, officials said yesterday. Executives of Maryland and Virginia Milk Producers Cooperative Association, Land O' Lakes Inc., Lone Star Milk Producers Inc. and Arkansas Dairy Cooperative Association have signed letters of intent to combine their operations. The merger would create a cooperative that operates in 19 states and has sales of about $1 billion annually.

The General Assembly should curtail spending on a proposed Washington bypass until its environmental effects are studied more, the Chesapeake Bay Commission recommended yesterday.State Sen. Gerald W. Winegrad, D-Annapolis, said he will introduce legislation to carry outthe commission's recommendation and halt spending on the bypass whenthe General Assembly reconvenes Jan. 9.The commission's Maryland delegation nominated Winegrad as its chairman yesterday.The 21-member panel, which met in Annapolis this week, is expected to approve his nomination today.

Men's Wearhouse Inc., the men's discount clothier with more than 370 stores in 36 states, plans to expand in suburban Maryland and Virginia, the Houston-based retailer said yesterday.The company, which has opened 21 stores in the region since entering the market in 1996, plans to open about 10 more stores -- at least five this year.The retailer is considering sites in Frederick, Montgomery and Prince George's counties, said John Meyer, retail leasing specialist with KLNB Inc., the real estate brokerage firm assisting with site selection.

For some people, "The road goes on forever and the party never ends," as Robert Earl Keen sings. But for government, the party is clearly over as tax revenues plummet across the country. Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley must cut about $1 billion from the current budget because of falling tax revenue. And the most recent economic outlook from the Board of Revenue Estimates shows the state expects less revenue next year than originally anticipated. Mr. O'Malley repeatedly stresses that things could be worse, and are much worse in other states.

Top officials from Maryland, Virginia and Washington met Tuesday to coordinate plans for fighting the swine flu, taking advantage of a structure set up after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks to try to sharpen the region's response to outbreaks expected this fall. The governors of Maryland and Virginia joined District Mayor Adrian M. Fenty and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano on a day when President Barack Obama said "every American has a role to play in responding to this virus."

At the risk of being the killjoy at the next crab feast, let us suggest some restraint over the comeback of the blue crab is in order. While the winter dredge survey results released last week by Maryland and Virginia officials suggest the number of blue crabs in the Chesapeake Bay has rebounded over the past year, it appears the number of young crabs has only held steady. The lesson here is that restrictions imposed last year on crabbing have made a difference, but the long-term impact isn't entirely clear.

The U.S. Commerce Department declared the Chesapeake Bay's blue crab fishery a federal disaster yesterday, marking the first time the industry has received the designation and making the state's watermen eligible for millions of dollars in aid. Blue crab stocks in the bay have declined 70 percent since the early 1990s, according to state officials. The sharp decline prompted Maryland and Virginia to curb the harvest of female crabs by a third this year to bolster the bay's crab population - a move that is expected to significantly hurt watermen's ability to earn a living.

Tolls help recoup the cost of driving Before citizens get up in arms over the potential $200 per week cost of new high-occupancy toll lanes (HOT), it's important to remember that driving is not a cost-less transaction ("Driven away?" Sept. 7). From wear and tear on the roads and damage to the environment to added sprawl and added consumption of finite resources, the cost to the world of highway driving is much greater than the cost of a gallon of gas. HOT lanes help people to understand the true cost of driving.

In the Chesapeake region, the blue crab is king. But uneasy rests the crown. The Maryland Department of Natural Resources is predicting that harvests of female crabs will need to be reduced 20 percent to 40 percent to ensure a sufficient spawning population. The science behind the proposal is clear enough: Surveys show blue crab stocks are down and in danger of falling much lower. Crabs have been at risk for much of the decade despite conservation efforts. If further action is not taken, the species could go the way of once-abundant oysters or yellow perch.

Roger Mason, a premier shooting guard prospect whose college choice was between Maryland and Virginia, made an oral commitment to the Cavaliers late Sunday night.Mason, 6 feet 4, has starred at Good Counsel High in Wheaton. During a visit by a Virginia assistant to his Gaithersburg home Sunday, he committed to the Cavaliers, the last-place team in the Atlantic Coast Conference last season. He is the first major recruit for new coach Pete Gillen."There's more of an opportunity for him to play at Virginia, but that's not the only reason he's going there," said Joe McCall, the coach at Good Counsel.

REP. THOMAS M. Davis III of Virginia first floated the idea of charging Washington, D.C. college students in-state tuition at Maryland and Virginia public colleges last month.The idea is a good one. So good, in fact, that before the Republican congressman could fine-tune his proposal, President Clinton included it in his budget request to Congress last week.Never mind that the $17 million the president requested was $10 million more than Mr. Davis had envisioned in the program's first year.

Chesapeake Bay blue crabs are in serious danger of being over-fished this year and are not reproducing well enough to rebound from the kind of pressure being placed on them, Maryland natural resources officials say. Rather than impose regulations to deal with the possible crisis, the Department of Natural Resources is asking watermen for their help in figuring out a solution. Officials say they want to find a way to sustain a healthy population of the Maryland crustaceans and a robust crabbing industry, one of the state's last viable fisheries.

GIRDLETREE -- Under the briny waters of this rural Worcester County hamlet, Maryland's fledgling aquaculture industry is getting its sea legs. Here, along the sandy bottom of Chincoteague Bay just south of Ocean City, Steve and Christy Gordon have planted millions of clams on beds leased from the state. The couple hope to take a piece of an industry that, in neighboring Virginia, produced close to $30 million for clam farmers during the past year alone. The Gordons' plan to eventually grow and sell enough clams to become a significant supplier to East Coast businesses might seem like a pipe dream in a place where the waters are known more for rampant pollution and shellfish diseases.