Wildlife Refuge

THE REPUBLICAN congressional drive to weaken environmental laws continues with riders tacked onto crucial agency appropriations and budget bills. Near the top of this list is the budget reconciliation provision to allow oil drilling and exploitation in the fragile coastal plain wilderness of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.Pushed by Alaska politicians to restore their dwindling oil-revenue kitty that pays annual $1,000 entitlements to all state taxpayers (who also pay no sales or income taxes)

Ronald M. Tillier, a retired Ford Motor Co. executive and longtime Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge volunteer, died Sunday. He was 72. Mr. Tillier, who enjoyed competitive clay and skeet shooting, was attending a meet Sunday afternoon in Kennedyville on the Eastern Shore when he was stricken. "He was just preparing to call for targets to be thrown by the trapper when he simply dropped where he was standing," said his wife of 48 years, the former Margaret "Peggy" Clare.

A wait of nearly three decades may be nearing an end for naturalists and ornithologists seeking the establishment of a wildlife refuge in the Middle Patuxent valley.By the middle of next week, Rouse Co. expects to transfer a 1,000-acre parcel known as the Middle Patuxent Environmental Area to Howard County's Dedpartment of Recreation and Parks -- the department's largest acquisition.The transfer of the land between Columbia and the Village of River Hill will cost the county about $1.8 million.

The Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge - home to migrating ducks and geese along with the bald eagle and Delmarva fox squirrel - will be taken over by a bunch of sweaty bicyclists when the USA Triathlon National Long Course Duathlon Championship comes to the 27,000-acre preserve in Cambridge next June. "It's a great place to hold an event," said TriColumbia president Robert Vigorito, whose organization also hosts the Iron Girl Columbia Triathlon as well as the the Ironman 70.3 EagleMan, a qualifying event for the world's most famous Ironman event in Hawaii This marks the second time that Vigorito's organization has held a duathlon in the refuge.

THE DECISION to drill for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge will have an enormous impact on the residents of Alaska -- and on that fragile wilderness environment. Oil from Alaska's North Slope has transformed the lives of people living in that remote, vast state, as The Sun's Marego Athans reported in the series "Wilds vs. Wealth" that concludes today. Oil profits fund schools, health clinics, satellite TV and air transportation links in long-neglected, isolated villages. Oil provides a yearly $2,000 check for residents, pays 80 percent of the state budget, and lets Alaskans forgo state income and sales taxes.

Local officials have told the developer of a proposed resort and conference center near the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge to modify his plans, a move that is expected to delay the project for several months. The Cambridge City Council had been scheduled to vote on the final plan for the 3,200-home subdivision last night. But the vote has been put off while the developer, Duane E.E. Zentgraf, prepares a redesign that moves about 180 homes so they are at least 1,000 feet from the Little Blackwater River, said Anne Roane, city planner.

IT'S AN EASY choice for the departing president: Preserve America's last great wilderness in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge or let it be laid to waste for a six-month supply of oil. Under repeated siege from oil companies clamoring to drill in this unique coastal plain -- as they may already do in the other 95 percent of Alaska's North Slope -- the northeast corner of this refuge deserves immediate, permanent protection as a national monument....

Cambridge -- The Chesapeake Bay Foundation joined local residents yesterday in calling on the governor to intervene and stop a 3,200-home subdivision planned on the doorstep of the Chesapeake region's largest wildlife refuge. William C. Baker, president of the environmental group, said it is "ironic and cynical" for the Blackwater Resort project to hijack the name of the nearby Blackwater Wildlife Refuge that would be harmed by the suburban sprawl. "There comes a time when you have to draw a line in the sand, and say, `No not here,'" Baker said, standing in front of the 1,080 acres of farms and wetland that would be consumed.

As a state commission considers voting today on whether to allow a 2,700-home golf resort near Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge, it must weigh whether state law prohibits such intense development in an area surrounded by protected wetlands and farms. But even as debate over the $1 billion Blackwater Resort continues, Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. - whose administration had called approval of the project a mostly local decision - is studying requests to preserve some of the land with state money, an aide said yesterday.

Fierce four-inch talons grip a perch at the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center.As visitors pass the iron-girded cage, Moose the bald eagle turns away disinterestedly.Twenty-five years ago, a young boy captured her near Moosehorn National Wildlife Refuge in Maine. Today, she is all that remains of the Patuxent center's efforts to save the bald eagle.The center's research solved the mystery of DDT, a pesticide that decimated eagle populations two decades ago, and has led to the resurgence of a species once threatened with extinction.

Birdwatchers, hikers, photographers and angles will have more hours to enjoy the Patuxent Research Refuge facilities in Laurel as the refuge extends its hours for public visitation this summer. Beginning Friday, June 10 and continuing through Aug. 13, the North Tract entrance to the refuge on Route 198, in Anne Arundel County, will remain open until 7 p.m. on Friday and Saturday evenings. Then entrance opens at 8 a.m. daily. The walking trails of the National Wildlife Visitor Center, off Powder Mill Road between Route 197 and the Baltimore-Washington Parkway, will remain open until 7 p.m. on Tuesdays for "Twilight Tuesdays," June 14 through Aug. 16. The visitor center grounds open at dawn so that birdwatchers, wildlife photographers and others can enjoy the trails.

Release of proposals for bay cleanup is delayed a day The promised public release Wednesday of new federal proposals for jump-starting the lagging Chesapeake Bay restoration was delayed by a day and is now planned Thursday, officials said. The state and federal bay "partnership" had announced that it would release a series of draft reports outlining proposals for accelerating the pace of cleaning up the Chesapeake and safeguarding its fish and wildlife Wednesday. But late in the morning, Jim Edwards, deputy director of EPA's bay program office, said the documents were still being finalized, particularly one report that focuses on restoring and maintaining the bay's "living resources," including bay grasses, oysters, crabs, fish and other wildlife.

Events scheduled at Patuxent center The Friends of Patuxent will present the 20th annual Patuxent Wildlife Art Show and Sale from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Saturday and 11 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. March 29 at the recently reopened National Wildlife Visitor Center, 10901 Scarlet Tanager Loop, Laurel. An artists' reception, with hors d'oeuvres, live music and a silent auction fundraiser, will be held from 6:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. Friday. Tickets are $40 in advance; $45 at the door. Information or to order tickets: 301-497-5789 or www.friendspwrc.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will hold the second in a series of planning meetings for the Patuxent Research Refuge to help develop a plan for improvements in transportation for the refuge. Comments from members of the community are being sought to help with planning. The meeting will be held from 7 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. Thursday at the National Wildlife Visitor Center, 10901 Scarlet Tanager Loop, near Laurel. brad_knudsen@fws.gov. Youth corps The Patuxent Research Refuge will be host to a Youth Conservation Corps program this summer.

Birds -- Artist Ernie Muehlmatt is showing his life-size and miniature wooden sculptures of birds (one of which is shown above) at Patuxent Research Refuge's John Hollingsworth Art Gallery in the National Wildlife Visitor Center until early next month. During a 25-year career, he has made more than 6,000 carvings of songbirds, wildfowl and birds of prey. Showing with him is sculptor and painter John Neal Mullican, a featured sculptor/carver at the Chesapeake Wildlife Art Expo, Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge and other venues.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's Patuxent Research Refuge will hold a centennial celebration of the birth of environmental pioneer and author Rachel Carson. The celebration is sponsored by the U.S. Geological Survey, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Rachel Carson Council. The celebration will begin with a ceremony at 10 a.m. Saturday at the refuge's National Wildlife Visitor Center, near Laurel. After the ceremony, programs will include live animals, hands-on activities, nature hikes and habitat tram tours.

State and federal officials plan to start restoring Poplar Island in the Chesapeake Bay next month to serve as a wildlife refuge and dredge deposit site, with final approval expected today from the state Board of Public Works.The board's approval would finalize a private corporation's sale of four remaining fragments of the eroding island to the state. The Maryland Port Administration, with federal assistance, plans to replenish the former resort using mud and silt scooped from the port of Baltimore shipping channels.

ST. MARYS, W.Va. -- Smack in the middle of the Ohio River, two federal agencies are proving that it's possible to save a refuge with refuse.The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is teaming up with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to prevent parts of the Ohio River Islands National Wildlife Refuge from washing away. To cut costs, corps planners are using materials that ordinarily have been burned or trucked to some faraway landfill."We're pretty proud of the approach we're taking," says Mike Spoor, an engineer and hydrologist for the corps.

BLACKWATER NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE -- This splendid stretch of mucky marshland along the Blackwater River is Ted Abbott's winter domain, a remote sanctuary that never fails to deliver a dose of frigid solitude that is his idea of a vacation. Abbott, a muskrat trapper for most of his 67 years, revels in the stillness he shares with his prey - an unseen army of furry nocturnal rodents that paw through a maze of flooded tunnels, pausing to raise their heads to breathe amid Blackwater's brackish rivulets.

Cambridge -- The Ehrlich administration announced yesterday that it plans to spend $10.4 million to preserve about two-thirds of a contested development site near the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge. The effort to save 754 acres of Eastern Shore farmland marks a change in direction for the administration, which previously declined to get involved in what it called a mostly local land-use decision. The purchase agreement will still allow developer Duane Zentgraf to build more than 600 homes, marketed to senior citizens, on 326 acres of farmland on the southern fringe of this city.