Blog entries

Federal legislation update

Mon, 30 Aug 2010 22:53:17 +0100

The Chesapeake Clean Water and Ecosystem Restoration Act of 2009, proposed by Senator Ben Cardin of Maryland, is currently in the Senate. We are all frustrated with the slow pace of the Chesapeake Bay cleanup, and this bill, which would amend the Clean Water Act, seeks to provide new measures to help speed up the effort. However, despite the good intentions, recent amendments to the bill - made to get the votes needed to move it out of committee - significantly we...

River Otter on the West River

Chris — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 17:58:51 +0100

We all love the West and Rhode Rivers for numerous reasons. One of the reasons for many of us is that they support an abundance of wildlife. This summer, we had another visit from a pod of dolphins (see here). Also this summer, former Director and long-term supporter Adam Hewison captured this video of another fun critter: a river otter.

[video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-0B_z_kIZc 480x385]

The video is taken from his dock on the West River, near...

Dolphins visit us again

Chris — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 05:53:44 +0100

I got a very cheerful call from water quality monitoring volunteer Linda Lawrence this morning - she had spotted a pod of dolphins in Tenthouse Creek (near Galesville) in the West River. Our volunteer monitoring team on the Rhode River reported seeing them later this morning, too. Last summer we also had these marine mammal visitors come up the river. Yesterday, my friend and colleague Drew Koslow (Choptank Riverkeeper) reported seeing dolphins in the Choptank River on the Eastern Shore. Coul...

Video: A Day in the Life of Muddy Creek (Rhode River)

Chris — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 19:16:54 +0100

Recently, a member sent us a video he put together of scenes he captured on the Rhode River. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

[video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Txp7S6SGCzY 480x385]

Volunteer Army

Chris — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 20:41:45 +0100

Staff at West/Rhode Riverkeeper were able to breathe a huge sigh of relief this weekend, after we pulled off another successful Rhythm on the River fundraiser. To those of you who were in attendance, I hope you'll agree it was a great party.

Rhythm could not be possible without the tremendous support of our volunteers. We had ...

Gulf Oil Spill

Chris — Mon, 03 May 2010 21:14:47 +0100

I'm sure many members of West/Rhode Riverkeeper are following the Gulf Oil Spill situation. The devastating impacts of this spill demonstrate once again how easily we can destroy an ecosystem.

As we watch the oil inundate Gulf marshes and cover fish, turtles, birds and other wildlife, we are reminded of the effects of poor regulat...

Earth Day: Have We Earned the Right to Celebrate?

Chris — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 18:58:15 +0100

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This is the 40th anniversary of Earth Day, founded in 1970. Much is being made in the media of the significance of Earth Day and its meaning today. As someone with a passion for environmental issues, I thought I’d lend ...

Sine die

Chris — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 20:35:27 +0100

"Sine die" is Latin for "without day". Essentially it means that there is no further meeting scheduled. This is the name given to the final day of the Maryland General Assembly session.

This year was my first experience getting heavily involved in the state legislature. It gave me a great excuse to wear my one and only suit.

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State Legislators Bullying Environmental Law Clinic

Chris — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 23:44:31 +0100

As part of the budget process, the University of Maryland School of Law is being ordered by Maryland General Assembly to produce a list of all the plaintiffs their students have represented over the past two years or lose hundreds of thousands of dollars in funding.

This is clearly bullying by some key lawmakers because they are upset that the...

Parish Creek Dredging

Chris — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 23:56:08 +0100

When I got to the office this morning, I was greeted by the site of heavy equipment in Parish Creek. The mouth of the creek is teaming with barges, pipes, and dredging rigs. This is all for the long-planned dredging of Parish Creek. The dredging will begin this weekend (March 13) and continue through the end of the month. The dredge material will be "sucked" from the bottom and pumped through a pumpline to the Idlewilde Dredge Material Placement(DMP) site.

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Welcome to our new Website!

Chris — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 01:36:53 +0100

Welcome to our new website - I hope you like it! Here at West/Rhode Riverkeeper, we have a lot of information to provide. We tried to setup this site to provide that information to you as best we could. You'll also notice that we made it simple to connect with us through social media (like Facebook and Twitter) and we have a new interface for our newsletters.

The design is by Annapolis Web Publishing - they did a great job. I'd also like to thank Steve Gauss, who maintained our former ...

Snowmaggedon, Snowpocalypse, SnOMG

Chris — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 05:00:00 +0100

Snowmaggedon, Snowpocalypse, SnOMG... call it what you will, but the double blizzard definitely affected us all over the last couple weeks. Now, as the snow starts to melt and make it's way into our rivers, it's important to remember what might be in that snow. As you drive to work or to the grocery store, no doubt you have noticed that the...

Piper Cherokee

Chris — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 05:00:00 +0100

All this snow has many of us cooped up. One good thing is I have been able to catch up on a couple things I hadn't had time to do. In January, local pilot and W/RR member Jerry Hill took me up in his Piper Cherokee to check out the Rivers from the air. I just uploaded some of the pictures on line. You can vi...

The Maryland General Assembly

Chris — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 05:00:00 +0100

The Maryland General Assembly started up this week. I hope everyone is paying attention to the Legislature this year. In such a tough budget climate, we are all going to need to tell our elected officials to protect funding for environmental initiatives. Combine a dire economic forecast with an election year, and w...

Waterkeeper organizations in Maryland petition to the Environmental Protection Agency

Chris — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 05:00:00 +0100

Today, 12 Waterkeeper organizations in Maryland (including West/Rhode Riverkeeper) along with the Waterkeeper Alliance submitted a petition to the Environmental Protection Agency. The petition calls for EPA to withdraw Maryland's delegated authority to administer the Clean Water Act's pollution permitting program for dischargers in the state unless the State takes the necessary corrective action and improves its performance. Maryland Department of the Environment and Governor O'Malley's offic...

Executive Director for West/Rhode Riverkeeper, Inc

Chris — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 05:00:00 +0100

On December 1, I assumed the responsibilities as Executive Director for West/Rhode Riverkeeper, Inc. When I was hired as Riverkeeper in July 2008, the intention was always for me to eventually serve as both Riverkeeper and Executive Director, and allow Bob Gallagher, the organization's founder and former Riverkeeper to transition to become Chair of our Board of Directors. It is appropriate at this point to thank Bob for his amazing vision and dedication to the program. I am very excited about...

Center for Watershed Protection

Chris — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 04:00:00 +0100

On Friday, Oct 23 the Center for Watershed Protection will present the findings from our West River Watershed Assessment. This is an important step for us as we will now have a "game plan" for improving the health of the West River. I hope you can join us at the meeting (6 pm at Discovery Village). One outcome of this Assessment is that we will now have a prioritized list of restoration and pollution prevention options. We can take this list and match them up with funding opportunities to rea...