Floating wetlands, green roofs, porous pavement and "living" retaining walls.  Those are just some of the environmentally beneficial things engineers and scientists trotted out this week at "Technologies That Can Save the Bay," a one-day seminar in Annapolis put on by the Maryland Technology Development Corp. and the Chesapeake Bay Foundation.   The Daily Record published a story about it you can read here.

Several of the ideas presented are already in use or being tried out.  The Inner Harbor, for instance, is getting a pair of small floating wetlands.  It's hoped they'll soak up at least a little of the nutrients that fuel algae blooms there and restore a bit of the long-lost wildlife habitat along the water's walled edge.  In an ironic twist, one of the islands (a piece of which is pictured above) gets its buoyancy from some of the trash that's littering the harbor - discarded plastic bottles that have been collected from a storm drain outfall.

Such ideas alone won't cure what ails the bay - a choking surplus of nutrients and sediment from (treated) sewage discharges, from farm and urban and suburban runoff, and from the fallout of air pollution from power plants and vehicle exhaust.  But they can help, and the bay needs all of that it can get. 

Do you have any bright ideas you think can give the bay a lift?  Here's your chance to exercise your inner inventor.  Send them in, we'll air them here, and let you vote on which you think shine the brightest.  

(Baltimore Sun photo by Kenneth K. Lam)