Water

A scarcity of rain since mid-April has water in the Gunpowder Falls at two-thirds average flow. A cool and serene kayak run from Monkton to Phoenix on Sunday was often slow and rocky, and low water exposed lots of trash. We filled a bag with bottles and cans, but missed lots more. Tubers and other visitors, it seems, prefer light beer to heartier brews, coconut rum and vitamin water to soft drinks. A real cleanup day could net a truckload of refuse, shoes and tires.

The water crisis affecting Westminster and much of Carroll County goes beyond the concerns of pumping water from well to tap and could drastically alter growth plans in the county for decades to come, according to local officials and water experts. To brainstorm solutions to water deficits and the new state requirement that a water system meet its demand during the worst droughts on record, officials from Carroll's eight municipalities will gather for a countywide water summit Feb. 3. If the Maryland Department of the Environment continues to enforce water restrictions in those municipalities, that could undermine overall county efforts to contain sprawl, said Jesse Richardson Jr., an expert in water-rights law at Virginia Tech.

I boiled some red new potatoes for a salad dish, but the potatoes lost their color and came out rather dull gray. What was the reason? Did I do something wrong? Preserving or enhancing the color of foods we cook, particularly vegetables, is one of the holy grails of both home and professional cooks. Creating a dish that evokes voila! and wow! requires the happy convergence of many factors, including the heat, the quality of the cooking medium such as water, the utensils, the ingredients and even the weather.

Members named to Election Board Maureen "Molly" Neal and Leonard Wheeler have been appointed to the Harford County Election Board, and Russell Stansbury is returning as an alternate member. Their four-year terms will begin tomorrow. Information: 410-937-9005. Play It Safe camp offered for children The Level Volunteer Fire Company will offer a free Play It Safe Safety Camp from July 11 to 13. The camp is for children entering kindergarten to those completing fifth grade this year. The camp will teach children how to prevent accidents, prepare for the unexpected and react in an emergency.

Stevensville -- From a distance, the 644 swimmers who stroked and kicked their way 4.4 miles across the Chesapeake Bay yesterday looked like so many colorful bait fish thrashing the water to escape hungry predators. But up close, each was fighting an individual battle with his or her own body and the elements. And all enjoyed some measure of triumph as they stumbled, staggered or strode from the water alongside the east end of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge. "I used to be in better shape," said Mike Doyle, a 51-year-old electrical engineer from Pennsauken, N.J., who grabbed a pair of crutches as he left the water.

Baltimore area residents began drinking water from the Susquehanna River yesterday, easing the demand on the region's rain-starved reservoirs.Meanwhile, Maryland officials carved out a few new exceptions to the state's water-use restrictions, yielding to complaints from owners of newly sodded lawns and athletic directors worried about injuries on rock-hard fields.Even so, the curbs continued to pinch businesses such as nurseries and landscapers, who said flower and plant sales already hurt by the drought have suffered more since the governor clamped down on water use last week.

Gene Wolfe is a tall, thin, drink of a man who at 76 hunts for water as a hobby.He may seem more like a typical Towson retiree sitting on the deck behind his home, sunning his legs, shading his eyes and discussing his latest achievement.But Wolfe is a dowser, someone who hikes into fields and forests armed with a small pendulum to tap into his inner self in search of water in the earth.Dowsing is a centuries-old art practiced these days by people who freely discuss energy fields and psychic powers -- and one that has generated increased interest as Maryland's worst drought in 70 years dries up wells.

Marylanders flooded government switchboards with questions yesterday, while some residents poured bathwater on plants and carwash owners steamed as statewide water-use restrictions took effect.A telephone hot line set up by the state fielded 250 to 500 calls an hour yesterday, as homeowners asked whether they had to let their fish or flowers die (Answer: No) and business owners questioned how the curbs on outdoor water use applied to carwashes and golf courses and water parks.Police departments geared up to begin handing out warnings and citations to violators, even as complaints about water wasters started trickling in.In Baltimore, meanwhile, city officials announced they would start tapping the Susquehanna River early next week to supplement the shrinking reservoirs that serve 1.8 million people in the city and suburbs.

Does your water taste better? It should.Public works officials in Baltimore said yesterday the city's water distribution system is no longer using water from the Susquehanna River.Public works spokesman Kurt Kocher said the pumps were shut off soon after Hurricane Floyd swept across the region Sept. 16 and dropped more than 10 billion gallons into the city's reservoirs.Many consumers had complained that the river water made the city's normally pleasant reservoir brew taste bad. But the river additive should be gone from the pipes.

The drought has taught many gardeners at least one thing: The hassles of working with clay soil. Rather than despairing, though, there is a fairly painless way to improve the problem -- clay-busting plants.If you're still in doubt about what kind of soil you have, here are some diagnostic clues:* Has your garden soil turned into a brick with the lack of rain? We're talking about that cracked, solid surface in which wilting tomatoes and marigold seedlings are held so tightly they seem cemented in. (This isn't to be confused with the dry crust that forms over good dirt.

Harford officials announced Monday that the county will provide the city of Aberdeen with the additional water needed to meet its development. The city is growing rapidly along with Aberdeen Proving Ground, which will add about 10,000 jobs in the next two years as a result of BRAC, the nationwide military expansion. The city will require more water to meet the demands of commercial and residential development associated with the Army post's expansion. The new contract will allow Aberdeen to draw as much as 600,000 gallons a day from the county water supply, with an option to increase that amount by another 300,000 gallons in the future.

The consensus among experts is that the biggest polluter of the Chesapeake Bay is the nitrogen, phosphorus and contaminated sediments that move from the land into the bay's tributaries and ultimately the bay itself. Runoff from agricultural lands remains the largest source. However, estimates suggest that 16 percent to 19 percent comes from stormwater runoff from manmade surfaces, and while agriculture's share is decreasing, the pollution contributed by urban and suburban stormwater is increasing.

Mike Pell heard about the rising water when his cell phone rang. His wife was on the line, trying to tell the 33-year-old drywall contractor that the torrent from a water main break a few blocks away was flowing into the basement of their home in the 3500 block of McShane Way in Dundalk. Even more shocking were the piercing screams of his 2-year-old son Gavin. "He was flipping out," Pell said. He knew he had to get home. But when Pell got within a few blocks, he was stopped by police.

I haven't been able to jog this week because I have contracted a mild case of Weird Knee. Weird Knee presents itself as a vague sensation: Something doesn't feel quite right when you walk. You find yourself compensating, putting a bit more stress on the opposite hip, and before long, you're developing Weird Knee on that side, too. At this point, you'd better respect the condition and back off your exercise program, because everyone knows Weird Knee can rapidly progress into Mangled Knee.

Baltimore firefighters pulled a body from the water near Fells Point yesterday afternoon, but authorities said it was too soon to determine whether foul play was involved. It was the third time in two weeks that a body had been retrieved from the Inner Harbor. Yesterday, fire and police officials responded to a call of a body floating near the 1400 block of Thames St. about 12:30 p.m. and retrieved it a short time later, said Fire Chief Kevin Cartwright. The body, which appeared to be that of a Hispanic male age 20 to 30, seemed to have been in the water for some time, he said.

City needs funds to repair pipes The Baltimore Sun's article about the Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission seeking to claim a portion of the stimulus money available for water projects that would otherwise go to Baltimore cited the recent Montgomery County water-main break seen on national TV ("Md. to review water grants," March 6). But I, for one, think funding projects in one of the nation's richest counties, Montgomery County, by taking money from a poorer jurisdiction, Baltimore, is counterproductive.

Until recently, my plant and I didn't have much to say to one another. In fact, we had nothing. I didn't talk to the vegetation and it, most certainly, didn't talk to me. But now my little croton has let me in - informing me, delighting me, even almost pestering me with frequent updates on her health, happiness and general well-being. Maybe it's got something to do with sitting next to a computer all these years, but the plant is reaching me online, with short, sweet messages sent through the cutting-edge social network Twitter.

Dennis Ferguson writes from Easton to ask: "Do hurricanes pull their moisture from the Atlantic? ... If so, where does the salt in the water end up? Does the rain's composition become saltier during hurricane season?" Nope. Hurricanes do draw their energy from evaporation of ocean water. But evaporation leaves the salt behind. Hurricane rain is fresh water, but these storms can blow salt spray far inland, turning leaves brown.

Divers searching the waters of Bear Creek in Baltimore County yesterday for the missing occupant of a 16-foot aluminum motorboat, which was spotted circling in the water with no one on board shortly before 1 p.m. yesterday, will continue their search today, a Maryland Department of Natural Resources police officer said. "If we do not locate him or his body by dark, we will stop the search and start back up tomorrow morning," Sgt. Ken Turner, the DNR police spokesman, said last night. Natural resources police, Baltimore County fire and rescue personnel and the U.S. Coast Guard all responded to the site near Anchor Bay yesterday to find the unmanned boat, which was no longer circling in the open water but was lodged beneath a pier, Turner said.

Baltimore police said they are investigating the death of a Montgomery County man pulled from the Inner Harbor early Wednesday as suspicious, and detectives are continuing to interview potential witnesses in the case. The man was identified yesterday as Ankush Gupta, 22, who lived in Boyds, near Germantown. A close friend who was with him shortly before he died said the pair and three other friends had stopped at the Inner Harbor on their way back from a day trip to New York City. In an interview yesterday, the 23-year-old friend - who declined to be identified because of concerns about his safety - said he thinks that Gupta was pushed into the water, although he did not see it happen.