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Time to go...somewhere

If you're looking for a place to go that's still unspoiled, check out the Local Travel feature tomorrow. And remember, now is a great time to go exploring -- rates are cheap, towns are bound to be less crowded than in the summer and it's not too cold...yet. If only the rain would stop.

Local travel: Nanticoke

Nanticoke does not have a hotel. It does not have a restaurant. It has a red-brick thrift store that is open once a week for maybe two hours.

Local travel: Rock Hall

As we've pointed out before too many times on this blog, the oyster harvest is dismal this year. But if there’s hope of seeing anyone coming in from a day of oystering, you’ll probably see it in Rock Hall, the old watermen’s town that is almost directly across the bay from Baltimore but a world away.

The $2,500 car

India's Tata Motors introduced its

Ask, and you shall receive

Thank you all so much for the great recommendations on Onancock. I've gotten a lot of great responses, and I will post them Thursday in the Local Travel feature.I was worried, at first, because there was only one response last week, but a flood came in today, saving me from major embarrassment. We'll have to do this again sometime.

Electric cars to hit road

Imagine plugging your car into an outlet in your garage and then driving without a drop of gas.Okay, electric vehicles, like ethanol-powered cars, aren't exactly new -- people have been tinkering with them since the early 1900's.But actually getting affordable "plug-in" vehicles onto the market with powerful enough batteries to make them practical has been a real challenge for car manufacturers, with several starts and stops. They could be low pollution and very quiet. But of course, their overall environmental impact would depend on where you're getting the electricity -- from burning coal or using a cleaner source.Anyway, you may finally see them these zero-emission cars on the roads in less than two years, according to a report from The Los Angeles Times from the North American International Auto Show in Detroit.The paper says a Toyota executive announced that the Japanese automaker planned to market a test fleet of rechargeable hybrid vehicles by the end of 2010, "putting more pressure on US rival General Motors Corp., which has faced obstacles in rolling out its own plug-in vehicle, the Chevy Volt."Toyota President Katsuaki Watanabe said at the auto show that Toyota, which created the popular hybrid Prius, "expected to have several hundred of the rechargeable vehicles operating in the fleets of large companies or government agencies in less than two years. ...Detroit-based GM has been increasingly vague about the debut of its Volt, which initially had a 2009 release date. The company now puts the debut at late 2010, but last week GM Chief Executive Rick Wagoner called the Volt's battery technology a 'stretch.'"The Wall Street Journal is reporting from the auto show that Ford has been behind the times in reacting to record oil prices. Ford is heavily promoting its big, gas-guzzling F-150 pickup truck. Its new compact, fuel efficient car, the Verve, is still a few years off -- with initial marketing planned for overseas. I guess they figure Americans still like big."The reality is most of the vehicles at the show that will actually hit US roads this year are gas hogs," the Journal reports. "Like Ford, Chrysler's main new model is big pickup truck, the redesigned Dodge Ram. GM will show a super-powerful Corvette and a 550-horsepower Cadillac CTS."GM is promoting the fact that its new Hummers and other vehicles can run on ethanol. But there are very few gas stations in the US that sell ethanol, so these "flex fuel" vehicles don't necessarily mean that less gas will be burned. But they do mean that GM will get fuel-efficiency credits from the federal government that will allow them to build larger, less efficient vehicles.

Back River - Scenic and Wild?

Lawmakers in Annapolis are being asked to add Back River to the state's list of scenic and wild rivers. The twin golden domes of the city's sewage treatment plant along the river surely are eye-catching, but few would see much wild about one of the Chesapeake Bay's more polluted tributaries.The Back River watershed is mostly developed, though upstream in eastern Baltimore County some has stayed farm and forest. Water quality has improved, but nutrient and bacteria levels remain problematic in the lower reaches, and the river is still plagued by occasional sewer overflows. Toxic contaminants linger in its sediments from past decades of industrial discharges. For more about the river's condition, look here.State Sen. Norman R. Stone Jr., a Baltimore County Democrat, says the county's legislative delegation hopes adding Back River to the state's scenic and wild river system will speed its recovery by requiring officials to develop plans for protecting and restoring it. If approved, it would join nine other waterways designated scenic, including the Anacostia, Deer Creek, Patuxent, Potomac, Severn and Youghiogheny. A stretch of the Youghiogheny in Garrett County is the only one officially classified as "wild." For more about the state's scenic and wild rivers, look here.The aim for Back River is to make it more scenic, at least, says Stone. "It's past the wild stage, I'd say."

Calling Natural resources Police...

OK, so it's freezing out, or more accurately, below freezing, when we arrive at the South River Federation's office around 10 a.m. to ride around in an open boat for an upcoming story. Riverkeeper Drew Koslow, who graciously agreed to take us out, is dressed in more layers than an oysterman would wear - at least two fleece jackets and coveralls. I'm in the most expensive pair of pants I own - which, by the way, are SWEATPANTS, but really nice warm ones - and our ace photographer, Jed Kirschbaum, is waxing poetic about how this trip reminds him of when he was sent out to the St. Lawrence causeway in the mid-1990s to photograph an ornery postman. The temperature there? About 70 below zero. Needless to say, we're not expecting to see anyone else out on the river, and for a long time we don't. Then we spot a small oyster boat with a patent dredge. Koslow sees it first, when the dredge is in the water. Immediately, he dials Natural Resources police on his cell phone. Patent tonging for oysters is not allowed in the river, period. By the time I get a look at the boat, the dredge is not in the water anymore, but it's not something I see everyday so it would be hard to tell. Anyway, as it turns out, this boat is known to us; its owner has been cited many times for oyster infractions, such as using the wrong gear in the wrong areas. The dispatcher at DNR takes Koslow's information but doesn't seem to understand what the problem is. Koslow has to keep telling him/her that the dredge is not allowed in the river, and that he shouldn't have the gear there even if he's not using it, because that makes enforcement tricky. Dispatcher said he'd look into it; they have officers near there inspecting for duck-hunting. About an hour later, we see the oyster boat again, gillnetting. Koslow calls DNR back to report he's engaged in a legal activity and to give his location. So, all's well that ends well? Not exactly. Why couldn't the police come in the hour between Koslow's calls and check it out? Or, because this guy is known to have a history of infractions, why not sit on the situation a bit and see what happens? Because, Capt. Bob Davis said, the DNR police force is so short-staffed that it sometimes takes more than an hour to respond to calls, and when they do, the infractor is long gone. The police used to have a force of 280; now it's 230 - and there's no training academy for more officers. "We're so shorthanded, and our units are so far apart, that to get from one river to another takes a lot of time," Davis said. "We're lucky enough to have enough people to do the job at all."--Rona Kobell

Global warming rally in Annapolis

RISING WATERS FLOOD ANNAPOLISThey're rolling out a green carpet to stop a flood.Almost 500 global warming activists are expected to wave signs and unveil a long green carpet at 11 a.m. tomorrow (1/17/08) on Lawyers Mall outside the State House in Annapolis.Their goal: convince state lawmakers to stroll down the symbolic rug and endorse a law that would reduce global warming pollution by 25 percent by 2020 and 90 percent by 2050. The sponsors of the "Global Warming Solutions Act" are state Sen. Paul Pinsky, a Democrat from Prince George's County who is chairman of the senate environmental matters subcommittee, and Del. Kumar Barve, also a Democrat and the House majority leader. They proposed a similar bill last year -- but it got bottled up in committee after power company lobbyists argued it could hurt the state's economy. Skeptics of such limits worry they would drive up costs of energy for consumers and impose burdensome regulations for business, while supporters argue that Maryland's economy would be hurt more by the storms and rising sea levels brought by climate change. Those urging action to fight global warming hope that Gov. Martin O'Malley will stroll the green with them tomorrow. O'Malley appointed a commission, which is meeting in Annapolis tomorrow, that has advised him that the state needs to cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 90 percent by 2050. But O'Malley hasn't yet said whether he supports that goal -- or the Global Warming Solutions Act."This would be the strongest limits in the country if it passed," said Dawn Stolztfus, deputy director of the Maryland League of Conservation Voters. "This might also be one of the largest environmental rallies ever in Annapolis."For more on the proposal, click here to visit the Alliance for Global Warming Solutions.

Oyster report is in...

Today, the Department of Natural Resources held a media briefing to unveil the Oyster Commission report, as well as new regs for yellow perch and a warning about summer flounder. Oh, and also to tell everyone who didn't already know that Harley Speir -- he of the great name and long agency tenure -- has been promoted to acting fisheries director. Speir, who joked he'd been doing this work for as long as there have been fish in the water, has always been an accessible and easygoing guy, but it's not clear he'll be in the director's chair long, as DNR is launching a national search for both a new director and a new deputy director of fisheries.Anyway, about the oysters...before the report came out, there had been a lot of talk that it was going to be groundbreaking and would call for an end to the vast amounts of money that have been shoring up the oyster industry for decades. Those programs are better known as "repletion", where the state spread seed and shell around the bay, and "reserves," where millions of oysters were planted in areas where watermen could harvest them. There was also some talk of the "M" word.But by yesterday, when commission members finally saw a copy of the thing just a day before it was officially released to the press, it was clear that the report wouldn't go that far. But where it did go is in a different direction than two decades of talk on oyster recovery has gone to date -- it acknowledged that ecological and economic benefits are at cross-purposes, and it said we have to move to aquaculture.It may not sound that dramatic, because the commission hasn't actually recommended doing anything yet. But it's significant in a few key ways:1. Maryland has long talked about aquaculture -- the means by which nearly every other oyster fishery sustains itself -- but has been slow to act. State officials have enthusiastically helped those entrepreneurs that came to them by helping them navigate the once-byzantine permit system. The problem is that there are not many comers. Fewer than a dozen oyster aquaculutre businesses exist in Maryland. None are run by watermen, who have been cold to the concept. But, as oyster biologist Mark Luckenbach told me a couple of years ago, aquaculture isn't the future, it's the present. Everywhere there are oysters-Long Island, France, virginia - there is aqauculture, and it is productive and profitable and sustainable. DNR officials indicated to me that it's time the state changes its lease-bottom system to encourage more of this. 2. The committee included some, but not all, of the usual suspects, therefore enteratining fresh ideas. Though Larry Simns and Russell Dize asked DNR to put another waterman on the committee, the agency declined to do so. So, representing the seafood industry were Ben Parks, a waterman who has been friendly to aquaculture, and Jason Ruth, a seafood processor. And from the science side, they did include Don Boesch, president of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Scieces, but they also had different voices, including Bill Eichbaum, a former Maryland environmental official who has been out of the game for years as a veep for the World Wildlife Fund. New people meant they wouldn't reach the same conclusions they always do, which is, basically, we need to restore oysters for ecological and economic benefits.3. The report captured the complexities of oyster restoration, pointing out that you can't just institute a moratorium in a vacuum because the oysters are so far gone it wouldn't work. That's not to say the commission won't eventually lean towards one, just that it won't be the answer in and of itself.So, while they didn't recommend anything groundbreaking yet, it will be worth watching where they go.

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Local Travel: Onancock

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