Nanticoke River

NANTICOKE - An enormous excavating crane aboard a 110-foot barge is plopping 200-pound rocks covered with baby oysters into the Nanticoke River. If all goes according to the Chesapeake Bay Foundation's plan, the craggy marine limestone - fossilized remains of prehistoric clams, oysters and other ancient sea life - will form the backbone of a new oyster reef. It will show scientists a new way to create sanctuaries for one of the bay's most threatened creatures. The hope is to provide an oyster habitat that resembles natural oyster bars yet raises the oyster larvae - known as spat - above the sandy bottom, said project manager Don Jackson.

VIENNA - Officials in this tiny Nanticoke River town have given up elaborate plans for annexing 400 acres and allowing enough homes to double the population of 280. Instead, Maryland's open-space program plans to spend $4.6 million to buy two-thirds of that land to preserve it as a "green belt." The purchase, to go before the state Board of Public Works for approval next week, would still give Vienna the chance to allow moderate growth on a separate 100-acre property if the owner wants to develop the site under the town's strict design standards, said Mayor Russ Brinsfield.

VIENNA -- Jill Stevenson is listening to fish. Headphones on, yellow data-recording book in hand, she is kneeling on a boat as she monitors the Nanticoke River's newest residents: 3,000 sturgeon born in New York, raised in Pennsylvania and -- as of yesterday -- Maryland residents."

Early morning, late summer, Nanticoke River, Eastern Shore. A flooding tide fills the marsh, and the rising sun gleams on smooth, brown water rising among the tangled roots and stalks. A photographer and I have come to make a classic "juxtaposition" picture - in this case a shot of the industrial, drab, angulated power plant by U.S. 50 in Vienna, set against a voluptuous foreground of lemony-gold wild rice and cream-petaled, scarlet-centered hibiscus. It's the contrast of industry and nature in such a picture that commands one's interest.

Fishing has been slow to develop, with ice and snow and high water levels, but there has been sporadic yellow perch activity on Tuckahoe Creek at Hillsboro, below the dam at Tuckahoe State Park, in the Nanticoke River near Seaford, Del., the Blackwater and in the Patuxent near Wayson's Corner.But with water levels high, especially in the Potomac River, great care should be taken by shoreline fishermen, and boating in some areas remains out of the question.

VIENNA - About 4,500 rockfish were released into the Nanticoke River yesterday by Delmarva Power's fish hatchery.The average length of the fish, which were tagged for identification and tracking, was 6 to 8 inches, said Matt Likovich of Delmarva Power.The fish, which were taken from a pond at the power company's plant in Dorchester County on the Eastern Shore, were part of a study by Maryland fisheries officials of winter mortality rates. About 8,500 fish were put into the pond last fall, and the 4,500 that survived were released yesterday.

The state Board of Public Works approved yesterday spending nearly $5.4 million to buy more than 4,000 acres of marsh, shoreline and river-front land as the first step in a drive to protect natural lands.Of the six properties being acquired, five are on the Eastern Shore and have a blend of waterfowl and rare plants.Three, totaling 2,400 acres, border Fishing Bay in Dorchester County; a 335-acre property is on the Nanticoke River in Caroline County; and the fifth is a 990-acre farm in Kent County.

Heavy rains last month filled rivers, streams, wells and reservoirs to capacity statewide and sent record amounts of water flowing into Chesapeake Bay, federal scientists said yesterday. An estimated 123 billion gallons of water flowed into the bay each day last month, the second-highest amount since recordkeeping began in 1937, according to the U.S. Geological Survey in Baltimore. The only month with higher streamflow levels was June 1972, when Tropical Storm Agnes flooded the region.

SHELLTOWN -- For the first time in four days, the state yesterday received no reports of fish kills on the lower Pocomoke River, where thousands of fish have died in the past week."

Suspected poisonings of people by the microorganism Pfiesteria piscicida have moved beyond the Pocomoke River, with seven new cases from the Chicamacomico River and one apiece from two waterways that have not yet been closed by the state -- the Nanticoke River and Wicomico Creek.TC All nine of the new patients, examined during the past week by a state-appointed medical team, reported symptoms including short-term memory loss, the apparent neurological trademark of Pfiesteria poisoning.Dr.

SEAFORD, Del. - Nylon ain't what it used to be for the Nylon Capital of the World. This town of 6,700, a few miles over the state line from Maryland, was transformed 64 years ago as the site of the first nylon factory. DuPont, which invented the man-made fiber used in products ranging from pantyhose to swimsuits to bedspreads, infused hundreds - and eventually thousands - of jobs into an economically depressed corner of southwestern Delaware. Just like nylon's impact on apparel, the plant shook some of the wrinkles out of the town, bringing money, a white-collar work force and cosmopolitan tastes.

Heavy rains last month filled rivers, streams, wells and reservoirs to capacity statewide and sent record amounts of water flowing into Chesapeake Bay, federal scientists said yesterday. An estimated 123 billion gallons of water flowed into the bay each day last month, the second-highest amount since recordkeeping began in 1937, according to the U.S. Geological Survey in Baltimore. The only month with higher streamflow levels was June 1972, when Tropical Storm Agnes flooded the region.

NANTICOKE - An enormous excavating crane aboard a 110-foot barge is plopping 200-pound rocks covered with baby oysters into the Nanticoke River. If all goes according to the Chesapeake Bay Foundation's plan, the craggy marine limestone - fossilized remains of prehistoric clams, oysters and other ancient sea life - will form the backbone of a new oyster reef. It will show scientists a new way to create sanctuaries for one of the bay's most threatened creatures. The hope is to provide an oyster habitat that resembles natural oyster bars yet raises the oyster larvae - known as spat - above the sandy bottom, said project manager Don Jackson.

PUCKUM BRANCH -- Larry Walton proudly showed off a few of his favorite spots among the almost 120 square miles of Eastern Shore forest and wetlands newly protected from development in a three-state land purchase made public yesterday.Walton managed the land for the past decade for the forest products division of Chesapeake Corp. of Richmond, Va.The land -- 58,000 acres of which are in Maryland -- was recently sold to a timber subsidiary of the John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Co., a pension fund manager, but will become public property.

Suspected poisonings of people by the microorganism Pfiesteria piscicida have moved beyond the Pocomoke River, with seven new cases from the Chicamacomico River and one apiece from two waterways that have not yet been closed by the state -- the Nanticoke River and Wicomico Creek.TC All nine of the new patients, examined during the past week by a state-appointed medical team, reported symptoms including short-term memory loss, the apparent neurological trademark of Pfiesteria poisoning.Dr.

SHELLTOWN -- For the first time in four days, the state yesterday received no reports of fish kills on the lower Pocomoke River, where thousands of fish have died in the past week."

PUCKUM BRANCH -- Larry Walton proudly showed off a few of his favorite spots among the almost 120 square miles of Eastern Shore forest and wetlands newly protected from development in a three-state land purchase made public yesterday.Walton managed the land for the past decade for the forest products division of Chesapeake Corp. of Richmond, Va.The land -- 58,000 acres of which are in Maryland -- was recently sold to a timber subsidiary of the John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Co., a pension fund manager, but will become public property.

VIENNA - Officials in this tiny Nanticoke River town have given up elaborate plans for annexing 400 acres and allowing enough homes to double the population of 280. Instead, Maryland's open-space program plans to spend $4.6 million to buy two-thirds of that land to preserve it as a "green belt." The purchase, to go before the state Board of Public Works for approval next week, would still give Vienna the chance to allow moderate growth on a separate 100-acre property if the owner wants to develop the site under the town's strict design standards, said Mayor Russ Brinsfield.

IT'S A FINE spring day a few decades in the future, and near your boat something swirls massively, a 10-foot dinosaur of a fish.Virtually extinct in Chesapeake Bay waters for a century, sturgeon have begun to prosper since they were restocked in the Nanticoke River back in 1996.And from overhead comes a loud calling, as piercing as a Klaxon horn, absent from Chesapeake skies for about 200 years.Trumpeter swans, the world's largest flying waterfowl, are heading north, their ranks swelled to thousands from the little flock reintroduced to Dorchester County in the autumn of 1997.

BIKING NEAR HOME the other afternoon, I passed a forest. Loggers were at work, taking it down. I waved a greeting. They are doing a pretty decent job, I thought.In an ideal world, I like my trees all standing, my forests undisturbed. The sound of a chain saw can spoil my day.I said as much to Tom Tyler shortly after I met him a few years ago. "Where the hell you think that paper you're scribbling on comes from?" he shot back.The sparring was good-natured, but with a dead-serious undercurrent.