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.

Cellphones and the Internet have not only altered the way we communicate, they have changed the way we can injure one another. The telecommunications revolution has created the capability of causing far greater harm to children than the bullying many of us remember from when we were young. The omnipresent nature of the Internet means that there is no place for the child who is victimized to hide. Not even one's home is a safe haven when repeated, vicious attacks appear on Facebook and Twitter.

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.

Saint Agnes Hospital and the Cal Ripken Sr. Foundation said Friday that they have raised $1.4 million to renovate the baseball field of the former Cardinal Gibbons School, preserving a site where Babe Ruth once played. The hospital, meanwhile, is firming up plans to add homes and offices around the field, on the campus of the Catholic school that closed in 2010. Saint Agnes plans to break ground on the baseball field within the next year, launching what officials have envisioned as Gibbons Commons, a mixed-use development on Caton Avenue, across the street from the hospital.

"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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Alex Hekimian exemplifies the best qualifications to represent Oakland Mills on the CA Board of Directors! I have known Alex for over 15 years and he has consistently impressed me with his dedication. He is honest, knowledgeable and tireless in his efforts to maintain the highest standards for our city and its citizens! In 2011 as CA was finalizing plans for a $6 million clubhouse construction at Hobbits Glen, they were also planning to close three pools and some tot lots in Oakland Mills.

Gov. Martin O'Malley and gun-control advocates launched an offensive Thursday to protect his proposed ban on assault-type weapons from a House committee's efforts to scale it back. "Military-style assault weapons belong on the battlefield, NOT on the streets of our cities and towns," said an email O'Malley's political action committee sent to gun-control supporters, urging them to lobby against efforts to exempt some guns used in recent mass shootings. "We need you to ACT NOW. " Lt. Gov. Anthony G. Brown, flanked by police chiefs and state's attorneys, held a news conference Thursday morning calling for lawmakers to pass the "common-sense, balanced approach" that has already been approved by the state Senate.

We have a treasure that some may not appreciate. There are very few remaining stands of old trees, not only in Columbia but in the whole state of Maryland. We once took a special trip to northern Michigan to visit a virgin forest. We are so fortunate to have such a stand of trees in the middle of Columbia and should be thankful to those that had the foresight to preserve it for us and future generations. It should be left in its natural state. Business ventures should be up to those risking their capital and have knowledge of what potential may be derived from that investment.

The centerpiece of Gov. Martin O'Malley's gun control bill survived the Maryland Senate intact Wednesday, though opponents vowed to keep fighting the proposal to give the state some of the nation's strictest gun laws. A new licensing provision at the heart of O'Malley's bill would require handgun buyers to give their fingerprints to the state police and to complete a training course. The law also would ban the sale of assault weapons and further limit access to guns by people with some mental illnesses.

A draft of the 2013 Land Preservation, Parks and Recreation Plan has been released and a public information session on the plan will be held next week in Bel Air, the Harford County Department of Parks and Recreation has announced. The 2013 Land Preservation, Parks and Recreation Plan sets forth several major goals for the department, including: • Acquiring land and developing facilities, including trails, to meet the recreation needs of current and future residents; • Ensuring the availability of program opportunities; • Addressing citizens and participants safety; • Incorporating appropriate environmental stewardship in department activities and projects; and • Marketing facilities and programs in cooperation with other public and private sector partners.

The Department of Planning and Zoning, in conjunction with the Harford County Historic Preservation Commission, is seeking nominations for the 2013 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 within Harford County. Awards will be presented in May in recognition of National Historic Preservation Month.

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.

A HOUSE becomes a home when a family moves in and fills it with life. A housing development becomes a community when people move in and fill it with life. The Piney Orchard neighborhood in Odenton has taken another significant step toward becoming a strong community through the efforts of the Piney Orchard Nature Preserve Committee. With more than four miles of walking paths and a two-mile bike path, the nature preserve has drawn thousands of nature lovers to the beauty of Maryland's countryside.

When Eddie Bartee started working at the Sparrows Point steel mill in 1955, about 35,000 men toiled at the eastern Baltimore County plant. Over the next four decades, he made a comfortable life for his wife and their six children as he moved through the ranks at the mill. Now, with the plant closed and machinery being sold for scrap, Bartee and other steelworkers are teaming with University of Maryland Baltimore County students and professors to record their stories. The students are making a website and helping with a documentary to preserve the history of the plant.

The first rule of preservation is that you must have something valuable to preserve. In the case of buildings, they should have value to the community through their use, and/or their historical nature. In the case of land, preservation means protecting an important natural habitat. Symphony Woods, as it stands today, is none of these. 1) No buildings valuable to the community through meaningful public use; 2) No buildings whose historical significance makes them worthy of protection/restoration; 3)