Wetlands

Water flows downhill. From that basic law of physics, it follows that anything dumped into a water source - including pollutants - will eventually wend its way downstream through the interconnectedness of wetlands, tributaries, streams, rivers, ponds and lakes. For this reason, Congress passed the Clean Water Act of 1972 to set a national standard protecting all the nation's waters. For more than three decades, the agencies charged with enforcing those safeguards have viewed the aquatic system as a whole, realizing that the capillaries connect to the bloodstream.

Crofton Wal-Mart withdraws plans Amid a groundswell of community opposition, Wal-Mart announced Thursday that it has backed out of a plan to build a 121,000-square-foot Supercenter in Crofton. After meetings with County Executive John R. Leopold and property owner William Berkshire, a spokesman for the retail giant said that despite making several concessions, "it has become clear to us that there are various views about a project of this size and scope at this specific site and its relationship to the county's long-term development profile."

Three decades ago, hundreds of acres of county-acquired land became the home of a county-run gem, with its rolling landscape of farms, fields and forests forming the Hashawha Environmental Center. Melissa Boyle was born the same year. Like most other Carroll County students, Boyle spent a week at Hashawha in the county's Outdoor School when she was a sixth-grader. But she also returned - again and again - working as a counselor in her senior year of high school and as a naturalist for four years.

Maryland's environment agency is reviewing hundreds of past wetlands and pollution complaints after discovering that officials waited nearly a year to make an Eastern Shore businessman correct a wetlands violation. "We are really focusing on enforcement because it's a core part of our mission," said Environmental Secretary Shari T. Wilson, who was appointed in January by Gov. Martin O'Malley. Wilson said she ordered the review of all pending enforcement cases after a citizen complained last week that her agency had failed to force action to fix a problem in Caroline County.

BLACKWATER NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE-- --Digging through the muck of a marshy island, Brian Needelman is hunting for an antidote to global warming. The University of Maryland scientist is measuring how much carbon dioxide has been trapped in the soil of wetlands planted four years ago. Needelman hopes to prove that creating salt marshes is better than planting trees for removing global warming gases from the atmosphere. If he's right, power companies in search of pollution credits might be willing to invest millions of dollars to build more wetlands here, which could mean a corporate-financed reconstruction of the Chesapeake Bay's largest breeding ground for birds, fish and crabs.

Now that they have saved the marshy fields of Franklin Point from bulldozers and an influx of newcomers, south county environmental activists are fighting to defend the area from what they see as another threat -- farming.South Arundel Citizens for Responsible Development (SACReD) prevailed after a 12-year battle against Washington developer Dominic F. Antonelli, who had proposed building 152 luxury houses amid the lush green wetlands and pines of the Shadyside Peninsula property. Instead, Antonelli sold his land, some of the last remaining undeveloped property on the peninsula, to the state for $5.8 million in February.

IN PROTECTING OUR environment, no part of it is more complex than the land -- "the animal that contains all other animals," writer Barry Lopez once called it.And no part of the land presents a more complicated challenge than the fecund melange of swamps, bogs, glades, sloughs, potholes, pocosins, vernal ponds and marshes.These once covered 11 percent of the lower 48 -- and now are 5 percent, many degraded in quality. Maryland was once a quarter wetlands. Now it's about a fifteenth.Where they went is no mystery.

Now that they have saved the marshy fields of Franklin Point from bulldozers and an influx of newcomers, south county environmental activists are fighting to defend the area from what they see as another threat -- farming.South Arundel Citizens for Responsible Development (SACReD) prevailed after a 12-year battle against Washington developer Dominic F. Antonelli, who had proposed building 152 luxury houses amid the lush green wetlands and pines of the Shadyside Peninsula property. Instead, Antonelli sold his land, some of the last remaining undeveloped property on the peninsula, to the state for $5.8 million in February.

Developers of the 1.4 million-square-foot Arundel Mills mall have won approval from the Army Corps of Engineers to begin filling in wetlands on its 400-acre wooded site -- the final hurdle to the $250 million complex under construction near Route 100 and Baltimore-Washington Parkway.With the issuance Friday of the permit to build in federally regulated wetlands, Mills Corp. plans to fill in 1.4 acres of wetlands and more than 3,000 feet of stream channels in the Piny Run watershed in Hanover, two miles west of Baltimore-Washington International Airport.

When the Anne Arundel County Council approved legislation a year ago giving developers the go-ahead on a 1.4 million-square-foot shopping complex on 400 acres in Hanover, no one spoke against it.Now, critics of the Arundel Mills mall have found their voices and intend to speak out tonight at a public hearing before the Maryland Department of the Environment and the Army Corps of Engineers.Worried about the environmental, economic and aesthetic impact of the mall, they have been preparing for weeks to testify before the agencies whose approval is needed for the developer to build on regulated wetlands and forests.

Man dies in Abingdon when pickup hits tree 3 A man was killed in Abingdon early Friday when his pickup truck hit a tree, according to state police. The crash was reported at 1:47 a.m. on southbound Emmorton Road just before Porter Drive, according to police. The man was not immediately identified, pending notification of relatives. - Liz F. Kay Bankruptcy filing unlikely to harm communties' ratings 4 Fitch Ratings said this week that Catonsville-based Erickson Retirement Communities' Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing should have "no effect" on the bond ratings of the Baltimore-area communities it developed, Charlestown and Oak Crest.

Woman, 2 students fight with schools police officer A woman and two students - one of whom is the woman's son - had an altercation with a school police officer yesterday at Maritime Industries Academy in West Baltimore, according to city schools officials. The incident occurred shortly before 1 p.m. at the school, which is in a strip mall on North Avenue, according to schools spokeswoman Edie House. The officer suffered minor bruising to his hand, House said. Both students were taken to the Department of Juvenile Services, while the mother was taken to Central Booking and Intake Center, House said.

SHA completes project to restore wetlands The State Highway Administration recently completed a $764,000 environmental project to restore more than six acres of forested wetlands at the Magness Farm in northern Harford County to help improve water quality from highway runoff as well as provide a vital habitat for native wildlife. The project was part of Gov. Martin O'Malley's "Maryland: Smart, Green & Growing" environmental initiative. "The planting of more than 1,600 trees and restoration of wetlands will help provide a natural filter to reduce the impact of contaminated water due to highway runoff," O'Malley said.

If the Chesapeake Bay were a hospital patient, it would need major surgery, not just a tweak to the medicine it's been getting. After 25 years of cleanup efforts, the bay is barely holding its own against the tide of people who have moved into the region - drawn to the very body of water they're fouling. The prognosis is not encouraging, with Maryland's population expected to grow by another million-plus people in the next 20 years. The Chesapeake is so large, its ultimate recovery depends on actions by all the states whose waters drain into it. But scientists and advocates say there are steps Maryland could take on its own to revive its rivers - and thus the bay. Most experts agree, for instance, that there must be a sharp reduction in polluted runoff from farms.

Federal and state officials have scheduled a hearing on Charles County's proposal for a new highway that would require the destruction of 7 acres of wetlands around Mattawoman Creek. The Army Corps of Engineers and Maryland Department of the Environment have scheduled the hearing for 7 p.m. July 31 in the auditorium of the Charles County Government Building, 200 Baltimore St. in La Plata. The agencies will consider whether to allow Charles County to destroy wetlands to build a $60 million roadway called the Cross County Connector, a major east-west road that would replace 74 acres of forest with a strip of blacktop linking proposed subdivisions to the malls in Waldorf.

Kirkpatrick Marsh looks a picture of environmental health, its waters fringed by waving grass and swarming with fat minnows. But seeping out of these Anne Arundel wetlands into the Chesapeake Bay is a pollutant - methylmercury - that causes brain damage in people. "It's quite crazy," says Carl Mitchell, a scientist at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center in Edgewater. "These areas are so beautiful and pristine looking, but they also produce a lot of methylmercury." Mitchell is among a growing number of researchers documenting the little-known role that wetlands play in transforming air pollution from coal-burning power plants into a form of mercury that contaminates fish.

Amid the vast fields and hiking trails and the miles of shoreline along the Patuxent River at the Jug Bay Wetlands Sanctuary in Lothian sits a modest two-story home that was in dire need of repair a few years ago. Named the Plummer House for a family that once tilled the section of the sanctuary now called the Parris N. Glendening Nature Preserve, its shingles were falling off and the stairs were rotting. Now the Plummer House has been renovated through nearly $200,000 in federal and county grants and thousands of hours of volunteer work.

Maryland baseball fans headed to Florida over the next couple of weeks to see the Orioles in action might want to check out the other birds in the area. No, not the St. Louis Cardinals. About 20 miles north of Fort Lauderdale Stadium, where the Orioles roost for spring training, visitors can find purple gallinules, pied-billed grebes and more than 100 other species of birds at two somewhat unlikely tourist destinations. Every day, Palm Beach County Water Utilities Department pumps millions of gallons of reclaimed wastewater into two man-made ecosystems: Wakodahatchee Wetlands in suburban Delray Beach and Green Cay Wetlands in suburban Boynton Beach.

Initiatives imperil birds Bush backed On Oct. 20, President Bush announced a new initiative to finance migratory bird habitat conservation ("Bush supports fish, fowl," Oct. 21). It is ironic that he announced these protections even as two of Alaska's - and the world's - most critical bird habitats face imminent threats. Teshekpuk Lake in Alaska's Arctic region is threatened by an administration bid to allow oil and gas drilling in its fragile and irreplaceable wetlands. Izembek National Wildlife Refuge, located at the tip of the Alaska Peninsula, faces the destruction of internationally recognized wilderness lands for an unnecessary road project supported by Alaska's congressional delegation.

BLACKWATER NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE-- --Digging through the muck of a marshy island, Brian Needelman is hunting for an antidote to global warming. The University of Maryland scientist is measuring how much carbon dioxide has been trapped in the soil of wetlands planted four years ago. Needelman hopes to prove that creating salt marshes is better than planting trees for removing global warming gases from the atmosphere. If he's right, power companies in search of pollution credits might be willing to invest millions of dollars to build more wetlands here, which could mean a corporate-financed reconstruction of the Chesapeake Bay's largest breeding ground for birds, fish and crabs.