Susquehanna River

Thomas Hartley Marshall III, a retired insurance executive, died of a heart attack Dec. 28 at his northern Baltimore County farm. He was 61. Born in Baltimore and raised on Circle Road in Ruxton, he was a 1963 graduate of Calvert Hall College High School and earned a bachelor's degree in political science at Villanova University. He had been a surety bond underwriter and vice president at United States Fidelity & Guaranty Co. before joining General Accident Insurance in Philadelphia in 1995.

WILLIAMSPORT, PA. / / Williamsport makes national and international news once a year -- when the Little League World Series is played here in August. But it's unfortunate that this north-central Pennsylvania city gets forgotten almost as quickly as the last Little Leaguer rounds the bases at Howard J. Lamade Stadium. That's just wrong, because Williamsport is too rich a place to leave unexplored. I know, because I've spent some of the happiest times of my life there. In fact, Williamsport is more like my home than my hometown.

In the midst of Maryland's worst drought in 70 years, Del. C. Richard D'Amato is probably one of the few people worried about floods.But D'Amato, who took the lead last spring in pushing the state and county to clean up debris carried downstream by Susquehanna River flooding to local beaches, is continuing in the dry season to push for federal help tackling the recurrent problem."

The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the crash of a small plane into the Susquehanna River on Sunday night that sent the pilot and his three passengers to the hospital.Craig Kerr of Columbia suffered a leg fracture, hypothermia and other injuries when the single-engine Cessna 182 he was flying slammed into the river just north of the Conowingo Dam shortly before 10 p.m.Bob Gretz, an air safety investigator with the NTSB, said preliminary information from the Federal Aviation Administration showed that Kerr reported losing power shortly before the crash.

Fishermen angling for tarpon or pompano usually have to go to Florida, or the Carolinas, or at least to the lower Chesapeake Bay. But not this year.Wildlife authorities have verified catches of both species this month in Maryland's portion of the Chesapeake.They're among a growing list of creatures said to be venturing up the bay as the deepening drought pushes water temperatures and salinity levels higher."We've had a hot summer and very salty conditions in the Chesapeake Bay, and it makes good conditions for these semitropical fish," said Phil Jones, resource management director for the state Department of Natural Resources.

The body of an unidentified woman was pulled from the Susquehanna River in Harford County yesterday, a spokeswoman for the Department of Natural Resources said.Two fishermen, Frank D. Gallucci of Oxford, Pa., and Steve Miller, a retired police officer from Rising Sun, discovered the body shortly before 10 a.m. about a mile downstream from the mouth of Broad Creek and notified authorities.Susan O'Brien, a Department of Natural Resources spokeswoman, said the body was pulled from the water at 10: 32 a.m.O'Brien said the body is believed to be that of a white female, 20 to 40 years old, wearing blue jeans and a black Hard Rock Cafe T-shirt.

In the midst of Maryland's worst drought in 70 years, State Del. C. Richard D'Amato is probably one of the few people worried about floods.But D'Amato, who took the lead last spring in pushing the state and county to clean up debris carried downstream by Susquehanna River flooding to local beaches, is continuing in the dry season to push for federal help tackling the recurrent problem."

PERRYVILLE -- Promise followed promise. A high-tech future for a dusty old chemical site. Several hundred well-paying jobs. Enough new tax revenue to take care of much of the town budget.Company officials figured they were making an offer this hard-luck Susquehanna River town couldn't refuse.But Perryville, while eager for economic revival, decided the last thing it wanted was a power plant, even a newfangled one.Just as they were rallying to stop the out-of-state company from building a large wood-burning plant at the entrance of their little town, the people of Perryville won.Providentpower, a start-up energy producer from Wilmington, Del., abandoned its plans this week for a $55 million plant that would have generated electricity from mountains of scrap wood and construction debris.

It's legal to water your lawn again.Gov. Parris N. Glendening yesterday lifted the water use restrictions he ordered nearly a month ago, but said the state's persistent drought remains a problem and the public should continue voluntarily conserving water.Glendening said he decided to lift the restrictions -- the first ever imposed in Maryland's history -- because "we no longer face an immediate crisis." He said recent heavy rains and cutbacks in water use by homeowners and businesses over the past four weeks have raised water supplies to more comfortable levels.

A body believed to be that of a man swept away while rockfishing with a friend in the Susquehanna River was found yesterday morning, authorities said.An aerial search found the body along the shore at Susquehanna State Park about 1 1/2 miles south of Conowingo Dam, said Rick McIntire, communications officer of Maryland Natural Resources Police.``The body was taken to the medical examiner in Baltimore for an autopsy and positive identification,'' McIntire said.He said the body matched the description of Christopher N. Fedor, 25, of the 5600 block of Leiden Road in Cedonia.

Last call for the Maryland darter. The elusive little fish, one of the rarest in the world, hasn't been seen in 21 years. Now, government and university biologists are teaming up for one more, perhaps final search for it in Harford County, where it's never been spotted more than sporadically since it was first noticed almost a century ago in a fast-flowing creek near Havre de Grace. Named for the only state in which it's ever been found, this bottom-feeding member of the perch family has been seen in just three creeks off the lower Susquehanna River.

Recent inspections have found "advanced deterioration" of the pier foundations of the Maryland Transportation Authority's two bridges over the Susquehanna River on Interstate 95 and U.S. 40 - forcing the agency to put repairs to the supporting structures on a fast track. Dennis Simpson, the authority's capital planning director, said the deterioration poses no immediate danger. "It's safe. We need to do the work to keep it safe," he said. "If it was a situation where the bridge couldn't stay open, we would have closed the bridge.

Man dies in Laurel crash; passenger critically injured A 20-year-old man died Wednesday after his car veered off a road and hit a utility pole in Laurel, Anne Arundel County police said. Oscar Ivan Patrinos Lara was driving his 1997 Volkswagen Golf with one passenger, Angelica Guillen Tovilla, 18, police said. Lara and Tovilla shared an address on Shiloh Court in Laurel, according to police. Lara was driving north in the 8300 block of Brock Bridge Road about 1:15 p.m. when the car crossed into the oncoming lane, nearly hitting other cars, police said.

The Havre de Grace Maritime Museum was started in 1988 to help preserve the maritime traditions and history of the Susquehanna River and Chesapeake Bay area. After more than a decade of sharing space with another organization, the museum moved in 2001 to its own building in Havre de Grace. Now, to accommodate the growing number of people who use the museum and its programs, improvements and additions are being made to that building. "Our programs are growing substantially," said Ann Persson, curator and director of programs at the museum.

More zebra mussels have been found in the Maryland portion of the Susquehanna River, state environmental officials confirmed yesterday. The alien mussels, which can cause millions of dollars in damage to water supply and hydroelectric intake pipes and upset the local ecology, were attached to a boat at Glen Cove Marina in Harford County. Earlier this month, a single mussel was found within the intake hydroelectric station at Conowingo Dam, the first sighting in the state. More mussels have been found six miles upstream in Pennsylvania at Muddy Run Reservoir.

For the first time, Maryland waters have been invaded by an alien mussel capable of fouling public water systems, destroying native aquatic life and causing millions of dollars in damage. A single zebra mussel was scooped from inside a water intake pipe upstream from the Conowingo Dam that spans Harford and Cecil counties by a fish survey team on the Susquehanna River. The mussel, about a half-inch in size, was sent to a Pennsylvania laboratory for positive identification. "Finding just one doesn't make sense," said Jonathan McKnight, an invasive species expert with the Maryland Department of Natural Resources.

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.

On Sept. 23, 1908, a portion of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad bridge span between Garrett Island and the Cecil shore collapsed just as the last of a freight train of loaded coal cars passed over. One span of 377 feet across the Susquehanna River at Havre de Grace and all the falsework supporting the bridge structure fell into the deep water. Twelve coal cars at the end of the train dropped into the river, but the locomotive had successfully crossed and remained intact. Only one person was injured.

By next spring, anglers will likely cast their lines into the Susquehanna River from a $4 million fishing wharf now under construction near Conowingo Dam. Exelon Power, the utility company that operates the Conowingo Hydroelectric Station on the river, has launched construction of an expansive walkway with wide steps leading to the beach at the base of the dam. The area has long been a favorite fishing spot, especially when the shad run in the spring....

Deer Creek will be increasingly stressed by population growth in the next two decades, much of it caused by expansion at Aberdeen Proving Ground because of BRAC, according to a new regional study. The communities that rely on Deer Creek should develop additional water sources, the study by the Susquehanna River Basin Commission said. The Deer Creek watershed, a 171-square-mile area that begins in York County, Pa., and continues through Harford County to the Susquehanna River, includes a 73-mile stream that supplies about 50,000 people with water.