Preserve

The future of America's great outdoors is in the hands of Congress this week. On Wednesday, it is likely both the House and the Senate will have a historic opportunity to support and reinvigorate the nation's key program for protecting our lands and waters. Since 1965, the Land and Water Conservation Fund has been instrumental in preserving iconic national landmarks, wildlife refuges, working farms and ranches, and state and local parks. With America now losing 3 million acres every year to development, ensuring full funding for the Land and Water Conservation Fund is more critical than ever.

Baltimore's Washington Monument in Mount Vernon Square is one of the city's most recognizable landmarks, a classical Doric column towering 178 feet above its elegant surroundings. But nearly 200 years after its completion in 1829, the building and its grounds are showing their age, and the city can't afford their upkeep. That's why an agreement signed last month between the Board of Estimates and the Mount Vernon Place Conservancy, a private group formed to raise money and plan for architectural repairs and improvements on the site, may be the only way to preserve this iconic structure for future generations.

Most people have collections of some kind, which might include grandma's quilt, grandpa's gold pocket watch, great-grandma's fine china, mom's wedding dress, old photographs or other antiques. But if not well-preserved, one man's treasure can become another man's junk, and Melissa Heaver knows it. As collections manager of the Historical Society of Baltimore County, Heaver offers workshops to teach people how to properly care for their family heirlooms. The workshops cover the care of wooden objects, decorative arts, textiles and paper products.

When Tamika Morgan developed red irritated eyes in the fall of 2010, she wasted no time heading to an optometrist at a local retail store who gave her drops for pink eye. Her eyes got worse over the next few days so she went to a local hospital to see an ophthalmologist, but a specialist wasn't available. A weekend passed and she landed in the office of a retina expert at another hospital, and by then she couldn't read the big E on the vision chart. She was legally blind. Dr. Lisa Schocket, the retina specialist at MedStar Union Memorial Hospital's Eye Center, suspected Vogt-Koyanagi-Harada syndrome, a rare disease that can turn a patient's hair and skin white in addition to hampering hearing and sight.

What would you say are the odds of this pair volunteering to work closely as leaders of a highly effective new environmental group?One is president of Pepsi-Cola of Salisbury, a prominent Eastern Shore business leader whose passion is hunting deer. Using only a bow and arrow, he has killed 65 to date.The other, a math professor at Salisbury State University until he retired recently, is a self-described radical environmentalist, with passion for animal rights. With real satisfaction, he clips articles about hunters who accidentally shoot themselves.

Memories were served up as gifts to the thirtysomething sons of Jean Oxer this Christmas. Two videotapes awaited Bruce, Bobby and Brian, who watched everything from their little sister Barbara, now 29, riding a motorcycle as a child to Bruce holding parrots during a family vacation in Florida when he was 3. The videotape concludes with a close-up of a portrait of Jean holding her granddaughter, 2-year-old Alexa.It was Barbara's idea to go through the footage of 8 millimeter and Super 8 film shot by her mother decades ago. Some of the color had started to fade, so Barbara had the film -- more than 3,000 feet -- transferred and edited onto videotape.

"Buy land, they're not making any more of it!" is the hoary investment advice cited by real estate pitchmen and barbershop sages.Increasingly, however, it's become the urgent slogan of those who would preserve the verdant swaths of agricultural land from development.Maryland's 12-year-old program of buying agricultural development rights -- the land stays in the working farmer's hands -- recently topped the 100,000-acre mark, setting a standard for the rest of the U.S. Buying these rights means the land's rural character is protected by easements.

DENTON -- Not only is a bird in hand worth two in the bush, a bird in the woods is worth two in the field. Especially if the bird is a ringneck pheasant, chukar, or Hungarian partridge.With regulated shooting preserves, the foremost drawback is that birds are usually released in cornfields. One can eye the terrain and quickly predict where much of the shooting will occur.You might say pay-as-you-shoot areas are predictable; I might add that not infrequently they are too predictable. Much of the element of surprise is missing, and to this writer that is an important part of a shoot.

Classic ballparks would become national parks if they are ever abandoned by their owners, under legislation introduced yesterday by U.S. Rep. David Bonior (D-Mich.)Citing the need to keep the dwindling number of "great historic baseball parks" from dwindling even further, Bonior introduced a bill in Congress that would allow the government to acquire them to prevent demolition.His bill mentions four pre-World War II parks -- Tiger Stadium in Detroit, Fenway Park in Boston, Yankee Stadium in New York and Wrigley Field in Chicago.

Baltimore County will receive nearly $660,000 from the state to preserve sections of north Baltimore County from development. Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend announced that $298,025 has been approved by the state Board of Public Works to pay two property owners near Piney Run not to develop their land. The board approved $254,448 to preserve an 82-acre former horse farm known as the Wendell property at Black Rock and Millender Mill roads. The move will protect farmland and forest while placing a buffer along 3,000 feet of streams that feed into Loch Raven Reservoir, Townsend said.

Lady Baltimore has withstood much in 189 years perched overlooking Courthouse Square. She has lost both of her arms over the decades — one of them, holding high a wreath that signifies service to the republic, was sheared off by a gust of wind in January 1938, shattering on the pavement. And though it may be hard to tell from the street 52 feet below, wind, rain, snow, hail and pollution have dissolved much of the marble statue's eyes, nose and ears. But a new effort will finally give Lady Baltimore a new home — for her own good.

•Cornell attackman Rob Pannell has returned to practice after receiving medical clearance to resume physical activity nearly two weeks ago, sources have told Inside Lacrosse. However, he's still wearing a walking boot at times outside of practice. Though there's no official comment from Cornell whether he'll play this week against Brown, a source indicated he will not. "Rob is in the process of rehabilitating," a Cornell spokesperson said Thursday. "There's been no decision about his ability to come back.

So one morning you're sitting at a traffic light on Harford Avenue in East Baltimore, three blocks south of North Avenue, and you notice something you missed on previous trips through the area: Torino's Subs & Pizza. It's a five-sided, brick, stand-alone carry-out shop on a triangular corner. It looks as though it landed on this concrete peninsula in 1946 and took root. If not always an eatery, it could have been a police station or post office. Because of its peculiar shape and location, the building certainly makes an impression.

Along Lyons Creek in southern Anne Arundel County are woods that offer perfect places for migratory songbirds to hide their young, native trees that provide a fruit buffet for critters, and marshes where ducks scour for snacks. One tract in the area recently took on added significance. When Pat Melville placed her land into a program to ensure that no development can occur on it, she created a milestone for a local nonprofit organization. Her 53 acres became the 50th property placed into a conservation agreement with the Scenic Rivers Land Trust, which is holding the easement jointly with the Maryland Environmental Trust.

What is the future for Baltimore's city-owned historic properties? The Baltimore Sun has reported that Baltimore City is hiring an appraisal firm to determine the "market value" of 15 city-owned historic properties. Baltimore Heritage has asked MayorStephanie Rawlings-Blakeand the director of the Department of General Services to make this process open and participatory to ensure that there is a seat at the table for the many citizens and volunteers who for decades have protected and celebrated these important landmarks.

The Department of Planning and Zoning in conjunction with the Harford County Historic Preservation Commission is seeking nominations for the 2012 Historic Preservation Awards. As part of this year's annual celebration, the Harford County Historic Preservation Commission will present preservation awards to individuals and organizations whose contributions demonstrate outstanding achievements in historic preservation in Harford County. Awards will be presented in May in recognition of National Historic Preservation Month.

Hannah, a "retired" greyhound who helped save Baltimore's Greyhound bus terminal on Howard Street, died suddenly on Tuesday. She was 13 1/2.After a year of racing under the name "Stakerunner," Hannah began a second career as a preservation advocate in 1987, when she was adopted by two local preservationists who were waging a campaign to save the 1941 bus terminal from the wrecking ball.Her owners, Fred Shoken and Donna Beth Joy Shapiro, began bringing her to the building with them to call attention to the need for preserving it.City officials eventually found a developer to convert the building to offices for the Metropolitan Planning Council and other agencies, retaining its distinctive Art Moderne lines.

State officials agreed yesterday to pay more than $2.7 million to buy development rights on about 360 acres of farmland and forest in three stream watersheds in the Baltimore area. The Board of Public Works approved spending $1.6 million to place conservation easements on four tracts totaling 192 acres along Deer Creek in Harford County. The easements will guarantee maintenance of green buffers along parts of the creek, a tributary of the Chesapeake Bay. In one Deer Creek case, the landowner agreed to accept state payment not to proceed with plans to build six houses on his tract, according to Ned Sayre, who works on farmland preservation efforts for the county.

Capt. Herbert Hamilton Ward III, a retired career naval officer who was active in Upper Chesapeake Bay environmental matters and other issues, died March 17 from complications of a blood clot at Gilchrist Hospice in Towson. The Broadmead retirement community resident was 91. The son of a lawyer and a homemaker, Herbert Hamilton Ward III was born and raised in Wilmington, Del., where he graduated in 1939 from Friends School. He was a member of an accelerated wartime class at the Naval Academy, from which he graduated in 1943.

The Maryland Department of Education is about to make a very big mistake. Under the Education and Secondary Education Act (better known as No Child Left Behind), low-income families whose children attend low-performing schools are eligible to receive supplemental educational services outside of the regular school day. These services include after school tutorial services. The Supplemental Educational Services Program is federally funded through Title I. Tutorial services can be provided by private companies that are preferred providers approved by the MSDE.