Patuxent River

A winter morning view of the Patuxent River from the Thomas Johnson Bridge offers a palette of gray and indigo, water tumbling under overcast skies. During rush hour, commuters have ample time to take in the bucolic scene as they creep across the narrow, two-lane bridge to St. Mary's County and the Patuxent River Naval Air Station. At least 2,500 Calvert County residents commute daily to the base, a fraction of the 20,000 defense industry jobs pumping up Southern Maryland. They're the economic payoff of the base realignment and closure (BRAC)

After 20 years, the annual Bernie Fowler show has become a parody of itself. Skinny stick of a man, amazingly boyish at 83 in his denim overalls and straw hat with a little American flag stuck in the brim, holding hands with his wife, Betty, and a group of state and local dignitaries as they march 70 or so abreast into the unappealingly brown water of the Patuxent River at Broomes Island to see how far they get before their white sneakers disappear....

New concerns about the environmental effects on the Patuxent River watershed - including those caused by a proposed Wal-Mart in Crofton - have prompted state and federal agencies to delay approvals on the long-awaited overhaul of Route 3, state highway officials said. The Maryland Department of the Environment, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service have begun re-examining state plans to construct a bridge over the Patuxent River and a "flyover" ramp linking Route 3 with Route 450. While state officials had previously expected to secure approvals by last fall and start construction by 2009 on the 9-mile stretch between Gambrills and Bowie, now they say federal highway officials may not sign off on the proposal until the summer of 2008.

Anne Arundel, Howard and Baltimore counties were three of the big winners yesterday, as a state board approved handing out millions of dollars to save environmentally prized lands.In action taken by the Rural Legacy Board yesterday and approved last night by Gov. Parris N. Glendening, 17 preservation projects across the state will collect a pot worth $25 million, while five came up empty-handed.All 23 counties, some of which submitted joint proposals, asked for money totaling more than $90 million in what has fast become one of the most competitive bidding for funding in the state.

Last Thursday afternoon, fisheries biologist Paul Piavis was removing ear bones from yellow perch caught earlier in the week in the Patuxent River, where once there was a thriving fishery for yellow perch and where one might be built in the future.By removing and sectioning the ear bones and counting the calcified rings, much as one might count the rings on a tree stump, Piavis said biologists can get a read on age and growth rates.But, he said, ear bones reveal only a part of the mysteries surrounding yellow perch, a species that inhabits the upper reaches of tidal rivers and creeks.

OJAI, Calif. -- Charles P. "Pete" Conrad, the Apollo 12 astronaut who was the third man to set foot on the moon, died Thursday night after losing control of his motorcycle on a mountain road near Ojai, authorities said.Mr. Conrad, a Huntington Beach resident whose lifelong aerospace career started with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration in 1962, died at 5: 07 p.m. at Ojai Valley Hospital, five hours after crashing his 1996 Harley, said James Baroni, a Ventura County deputy coroner.

With a name like Savage the last thing that comes to mind is a quiet, historic neighborhood tucked away in southern Howard County.The town, in fact, has had quite a peaceful existence."

A $1.5 million state grant approved Tuesday will be used to buy 250 acres along the upper Patuxent River, sparing the parcel from development, a Howard County official said yesterday.Exactly which 250 acres will be preserved has not been decided, said William Pickens, agricultural program administrator in the Department of Planning and Zoning. He said he would need to contact property owners and find out which ones are willing to sell their land.The Rural Legacy program, in its second year, has saved 26,200 acres from development.

BOWIE -- The Hazelwood mansion is different things to different people -- a Revolutionary War hero's home to some, a keyhole into the life of ordinary folks to others, a monument of three historic periods to architects.What it's not is the majestic farmhouse that once presided over the bustling Patuxent River port of Queen Anne's, south of what is now Bowie in Prince George's County.Hazelwood is a dilapidated symbol of that house. Its faded, whitewashed exterior and boarded-up windows -- with imitation panes painted on -- give it the look of a ghost house.

Maryland's muzzleloader hunting season for deer opens Thursday with a few new wrinkles, including an expanded season in all or parts of 19 counties."Maryland's General Assembly passed legislation in 1999 which provides for an additional two-day antlerless-only whitetail deer season in Regions C and D," said Mike Slattery, director of wildlife with the Department of Natural Resources.The statewide early segment of muzzleloader season will run through Saturday. The extra two days will be Oct. 29 and 30.Regions C and D include all areas except Garrett, Allegany, Washington and Carroll counties and northwestern Frederick County (Zone 1)

The latest round of state budget cuts is taking a couple of bites out of Maryland's efforts to restore the Chesapeake Bay, trimming plans to tackle polluted runoff from city and suburban streets and curtailing monitoring of the bay's health. State officials are cutting $2 million from the Bay Trust Fund, a special pot of money lawmakers had agreed on three years ago to earmark for curbing polluted runoff - a growing and particularly difficult problem for the bay. Originally meant to accelerate the pace of bay cleanup, the fund has been shrinking since its inception.

Anne Arundel County archaeologists have uncovered an Algonquian Indian camp on a bluff above a lush bend in the Patuxent River, a find that includes the oldest human structure ever detected in Maryland. Artifacts show that the campsite - in a location favored by native people for hundreds of years for its bounty of fish, shellfish and game - was in use two centuries and more before Christopher Columbus set sail from Europe. The dig has uncovered traces of oval Algonquian wigwams; rare tools of stone, bone and antler; fragments of a highly decorated pot; an intact paint pot; and a broken gorget, a dark stone polished and drilled for use as personal decoration.

When Nora O'Brien hosts guests at the secluded Victorian farmhouse she has painstakingly restored, friends have been known to carp about the deafening chorus of summertime tree frogs. "I've had dinner parties where people say, 'Can't you make them shut up?' " said the 49-year-old landscape company owner and mother of three. But she and dozens of other families across the state are willing to put up with such inconveniences. For them, living rent-free inside a Maryland state park outweighs getting chased by skunks, startled by snakes or clearing horse droppings from unpaved driveways that double as public riding trails.

A three-year, $100 million effort to cut levels of nutrients coming from Howard County's wastewater treatment plant in Savage got under way Thursday with a ceremonial groundbreaking. More than five years in the planning, the project will use waste from a nearby ice cream plant to help produce enough bacteria to sharply reduce the nitrogen being emitted with wastewater from 3,900 pounds a day now, to 830 pounds per day in 2012, when the work is completed. Reuse of some treated water will also help by diverting it from the Patuxent River.

A three-year, $100 million effort to cut levels of nutrients coming from Howard County's wastewater treatment plant in Savage got under way Thursday with a ceremonial groundbreaking. More than five years in the planning, the project will use waste from a nearby ice cream plant to help produce enough bacteria to sharply reduce the nitrogen being emitted with wastewater from 3,900 pounds a day now, to 830 pounds per day in 2012, when the work is completed. Reuse of some treated water will also help by diverting it from the Patuxent River.

Howard County announced yesterday that it has received a $35.5 million state grant to help pay for a $100 million county project to upgrade the county's Little Patuxent Water Reclamation Plant in Savage. The goal of the project is to reduce nitrogen and phosphorus runoff into the Patuxent River and ultimately the Chesapeake Bay, officials said. James M. Irvin, the county public works director, said the grant from the state Department of the Environment is double the anticipated amount and will enable the county to free up more local funding for other water and sewer projects.

A waterman with a long list of convictions on the Eastern Shore for poaching fish, crabs and oysters from the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries is scheduled to stand trial tomorrow in St. Mary's County on charges that he harvested undersized oysters from the Patuxent River. The charges against Joseph Janda Jr. in October touched off a flurry of protests from recreational anglers to the prosecutor and calls by a Baltimore County lawmaker for tougher penalties on repeat offenders. Natural Resources Police say Janda, 22, of Wittman, was oystering without a commercial license when they stopped his boat on the Patuxent River across from Solomons to check his catch.

BENEDICT - Walter Boynton knows all there is to know about the Patuxent River - how to find its guts and marshes, where it shifts from suburban stream into bay-like vastness, when the tide is slack and when it rises. But you don't need to be a University of Maryland biologist to see that the river is in trouble. As Boynton steers his boat underneath the Route 231 bridge near this Charles County town, a thin white film covers the water - part of a miles-long algae bloom. He lifts a dredge from the water to examine a sample of the bottom.

A St. Mary's County man has been charged in connection with illegal fireworks that police seized June 28 from a barge anchored in the Patuxent River off the Calvert County community of Patuxent View, the state fire marshal's office said yesterday. Jack R. Beckwith, 58, of the 28000 block of Three Notch Road, Mechanicsville, was charged Friday with possession of fireworks without a permit and possession of fireworks with intent to discharge. Both charges are misdemeanors and are punishable by fines of up to $250.

Environmentalists are questioning Howard County's management of its sewage system and plans to add a $66 million sewer pipe, both crucial to the proposed redevelopment of central Columbia. "We have suspicions about this leaky, stinky pipeline," said Fred Tutman, who represents the nonprofit advocacy group Riverkeepers on Maryland's Patuxent River Commission. County officials strongly defend their stewardship of the system and their efforts to preserve water quality, noting plans to spend $85 million to reduce nutrient runoff from the Little Patuxent Wastewater Reclamation Plant in Savage and the new 10.5-mile pipeline that is to run from Savage through Columbia north to Route 108. Construction is to begin next year.