Susquehanna River

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.

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.

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.

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.

As he led about 50 people on a trail walk along a creek that flows into the Susquehanna River, County Councilman Richard C. Slutzky offered insights into the history of an area that humans have frequented since pre-historic times. He spoke of paleo-Indians and the tribes who came later and whose stone artifacts are still found today. He described hunting and fishing grounds that warring tribes shared peacefully for centuries and recounted the 1608 Chesapeake Bay voyage of John Smith from Jamestown to the Susquehanna.

When the gangway to the Lantern Queen is down, the owners of the riverboat docked in Havre de Grace never know who might wander aboard. It could be a couple planning a wedding; a family organizing a reunion, birthday or anniversary celebration; or just a group looking for a party with food, drink, music and dancing against a slightly different background. It also might be a visitor who wants a look at a riverboat. The boat is a replica of those that plied the Mississippi. When it was launched in 1983, the Lantern Queen sailed the Missouri River.

St. Patrick's Chapel, a simple frame building in a remote area of Cecil County, has endured for nearly 200 years, most likely due to the solid framework built into it by Irish immigrants working along the Susquehanna River. The names of many members of those families who dug the canals and manned the barges that allowed 19th-century commerce to flourish between Baltimore and Philadelphia are etched on the simple tombstones that fill the graveyard surrounding the chapel. Their descendants - the Glackins, the Pooles, the McGuigans - have long since moved on from Pilottown, a small enclave near the Pennsylvania border.

Ann S. Persson ran her hand gently across a primitive sunburst design carved into rock thousands of years ago. She traced lines radiating from the center to the rock's edge. "It's like touching history, our connection from the past to the present," said Persson, curator of the Havre de Grace Maritime Museum, which today opens an exhibit of ancient rock art, known as petroglyphs. Charlie Hall, the state's terrestrial archaeologist, will introduce the collection of rocks that he called "powerful communications devices" that date back about 4,000 years.

In the latest response to the impact that months of dry weather have had on water supplies, Harford County will change the source of its water supply this week from Loch Raven Reservoir to the Susquehanna River. Residents should not notice any change in the quality or taste of their water but might see a slight increase in their quarterly bills, county officials said. Starting Tuesday, water will be diverted from the river through pumps at Deer Creek for the first time in almost six years.