They both live along St. Jerome's Creek, a beautiful little place about 15 miles south of the Patuxent Naval Air Station, and they know many other crabbers in St. Mary's and Calvert Counties.

Like many watermen working the Lower bay, the  brothers Norris are worried about the coming restrictions that will cut the harvests by one-third in Maryland and Virginia.

But unlike many of them, the Norris family hasn't gotten to say their piece.

The Department of Natural Resources has been on a restrictions road show for the past several months, talking to watermen in Baltimore, Annapolis, Cambridge and Smith Island about the new rules, and changing their proposals in part based on feedback. But DNR officials haven't made it to Southern Maryland, and consequently, they haven't heard from the crabbers there.

"We're not trying to ignore them," DNR spokeswoman Olivia Campbell said.

She added that they're close enough to Annapolis to have made it to their meetings -- much closer than Hooper's Island.

That may be true for anyone crabbing out of Lusby, but I'm not so sure it holds up for the Norrises and their watermen neighbors. It took me about two hours to get from Ridge to Annapolis in moderate traffic. Hooper's may seem more remote, but it is actually not much further. 

Like the Hooper's crabbers, the Norris brothers would like to see the pain spread more evenly. They suggest not allowing boats to have more than one license, so some crabbers would not get to fish 1500 pots while others only get 900.

They also said hte state should consider limits on peelers, though they do catch the lucrative soft crabs too. And Kenny, like most watermen here, thinks Virginia needs to address the sponge crab issue: he said Va. watermen could just wait a few weeks and catch the crab after it drops its sponge.

It's an interesting idea. But the plans seem to be pretty firm. The legislative committee will be reviewing the emergency regulations later this month, and we should know by then whether the rules will go into affect in June, or whether the department will have to put them in place later, and thus close the season in early October as opposed to late October.

"We all agree that something needs to be done," Kenny Norris said. "But we don't want to be punished because of whre we live and where we work."

Since then, we've posted nearly 400 entries, recieved nearly 1,500 comments. We've gotten to know our readers, recieved great tips for stories, and have been able to see that the newspaper has a readership far beyond Baltimore and Maryland. We've had "highs" -- such as when we got 90,000 page views in one week-- and lows, such as over Christmas, when it seemed no one was reading.

On a personal level, I've enjoyed it a lot -- far more than I thought I would. I'm excited to go to Onancock this summer, a place I only really know about because of the recommendations of blog readers. And I've learned a lot about you all -- where you crab, where you fish, what you see around you -- that has helped direct my coverage.

So, thanks for reading, and keep it up. Let's hope we can have this conversation for many more years to come.

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Recently, power companies have joined with environmentalists in calling for a national "cap and trade" pollution credit system to control global warming pollution. 
 
But a new warning to Congress by two EPA lawyers suggests that this kind of complex system would be impossible to enforce and verify -- and therefore ripe for abuse.  
 
“Cap and trade” systems set limits for how much carbon dioxide companies can release through their smokestacks.  The companies can exceed those limits, if they pay penalties of sorts (through the buying of credits) that provide financial rewards to cleaner firms whose emissions are under their limits.

A better approach, argue EPA lawyers Laurie Williams and Allan Zabel, would be more straightforward: impose fees on the burning of coal and other fossil fuels.

"A cap and trade approach alone (as is currently contemplated in most of the major bills before Congress) is an inefficient and ineffective strategy to address the most pressing problem of our time," Williams and Zabel wrote, expressing their own personal opinions, not the conclusion of the agency.  "We believe that failure by the United States to enact meaningful and escalating carbon fees in the near future will result in an unacceptable risk of devastating and irreversible global climate change."

To read the whole letter, released today, click here .

Why is this relevant locally?  Maryland and a dozen other northeastern states in January will start a similar but more limited "cap and trade" system with the goal of reducing carbon dioxide pollution from regional power plants by 10 percent.  It will be the first system of its kind in the U.S. How well will this system be policed?  Such questions leap to mind when you read the Williams/Zabel letter.

When Europe tried a "cap and trade" system for greenhouse gas emissions three years ago, the result was a ripoff to customers, according to Peter Barnes' recent book, "Climate Solutions: What Works, What Doesn't and Why." Barnes wrote: "The resulting scheme is widely considered a failure.  It has led to huge windfalls for companies that received free (pollution credits), higher prices for everyone else, and no reduction in emissions.  The EU is now trying to fix the problem."

Maryland's system is quite different than the original European system. For example, Maryland is auctioning off all of its carbon credits this summer, not giving them away.  But already there is talk of exempting certain power plants -- although which ones aren't yet clear.  And the issue of verification will be an interesting one to watch.

Here is a transcript of my most recent "Environment in Focus" radio program, which aired this morning on WYPR 88.1 FM in Baltimore.  To listen, click here.

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Irving Chappelear is a Chesapeake Bay eelman. His father taught him a long time ago that April when masses of eels swarm past their dock in Southern Maryland. That’s when it’s time to set the traps.

 Irving Chappelear (photo by Jed Kirschbaum)

So on a drizzly, cold morning, Irving sets off in a motorboat across the lead gray Patuxent River. He grips the wheel with his left hand, while with his right he swings a steel hook on a long pole. He snags a buoy, and hauls up the line until a wire basket breaks the surface. Inside the trap, three finger-sized green eels shimmer with slime. He can sell these little ones as crab bait for about a buck and a quarter a pound. He can get twice as much for big eels, which are sold as delicacies to restaurants in Asia and Europe.

But Irving’s next two traps are empty. And as rain started to fall, he throws the empty traps back into the river and wondereds: Where have all the eels gone?

Surrender meat to defeat global warming?  Many red-meat loving Americans would recoil at such a thought. (Some might even want to roast and eat anyone who suggested such a thing).

But it's hard to avoid the subject -- especially in light of a new report.  The Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production, working with the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, released a study today on the environmental costs of industrial-style livestock operations.  One of the facts presented in the report is that livestock worldwide produce 18 percent of all greenhouse gas pollution, mainly in the form of methane, carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide.  That's more pollution than is produced by the whole human transportation sector.

Think about it: cows and pigs are worse for the climate than cars and airplanes.

The report doesn't suggest that we give up meat to save the planet. But others have, including People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, which has publicly attacked Al Gore for eating meat and refusing to adopt their position. It's an extremely controversial idea...and frankly one that some environmentalists try not to even discuss, for fear of alienating mainstream voters. (The worry is that Average Joe will react by thinking, "What? Give up cheeseburgers and steaks?  Better to give up all this fuss about global warming." )

The anti-meat argument is expressed by the website "Go Veg" :

"Global warming has been called humankind's "greatest challenge" and the world's most grave environmental threat, and science shows that one of the most effective ways to fight global warming is to go vegetarian. Stars such as Sir Paul McCartney and Chrissie Hynde are lending their voices to share what science has already proven --that the meat industry is one of the leading sources of the greenhouse gases that lead to global warming."

Readers, what do you think of this?

My personal reaction: forget about the politics of the idea (this would be about as popular as outlawing more than one child as a method of fighting global warming).  Would human health suffer if everyone gave up meat?  Especially the health of children, who might have a hard time getting enough protein?  Would obesity rates increase even more if people abandoned meats and consumed more carbohydrates?  Give me your thoughts. 

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Exotic species sometimes inspire fear and loathing.  Think kudzu.

But in parts of the Chesapeake Bay watershed, non-native aquatic vegetation appears to be helping a resurgence of underwater plant colonies that are important habitat for fish and crabs.

A report from the Maryland Department of Natural Resources today said that underwater bay grasses increased 10 percent from 2006 to 2007.  Aquatic vegetation last year covered 65,000 acres of the Chesapeake Bay's bottom, up from 59,000 acres in 2006.  That's still only about a third of what a healthy bay would look like -- and down substantially from the 90,000 acres covered with aquatic vegetation in 2002.  But at least it got better last year instead of worse.

Among the areas that saw growth last year was the upper Potomac River, where an exotic Asian aquarium plant -- hydrilla -- is helping to stabilize the river system, clean the water and provide a healthy habitat for other plants.  That's not what was predicted in the 1980's, when hydrilla was denounced as an invasive, river-strangling monster, and the Army Corps of Engineers talked about bombing it with pesticides. 

"Hydrilla is seen as a scourge, but certainly it is providing a habitat," said Bob Orth, a scientist at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science.  "That's where the fishing boats line up for bass, right near the hydrilla." 

Nancy Rybicki, a hydrologist at the U.S. Geological Survey, published a study on hydrilla in the Potomac River last year that came to the same conclusion: that it's not overwhelming native plants, or suffocating the river, as many people expected.

And it's not just on the Potomac River where hydrilla is spreading, apparently with positive results.  The Asian aquarium plant -- first dumped from a fish bowl into a Florida river in the 1980's -- is also growing in the James, Pamunkey and Chickahominy rivers in Virginia, among others.

"Hydrilla is in every single tributary in the bay.  And you can't deny the fact that hydrilla facilitates the growth of a lot of native species, because it provides a filter for water. You have clear plumes of water coming out of the hydrilla beds," said Orth. "If you go back to the newspaper accounts in 1982, they called it the hydrilla gorilla... But now we're seeing healthy populations of both native and nonnative plants together."

An area that experienced even more growth in aquatic vegetation is at the northern end of the Chesapeake Bay, where the Susquehanna River empties into the estuary.  In that area, bay grasses covered 19,000 acres last year, up from 15,500 acres in 2006, according to the DNR report.

Most of the growth in the Susquehanna flats is in wild celery, a native plant.  But another exotic plant, milfoil, is coexisting with the celery and other species.  This peaceful cohabitation isn't what many people expect.  For example, just last June, The New York Times ran a story about milfoil sparking fear among boaters in the Adirondacks.  "A Battle Against an Aggressive Green Invader from the Deep," screamed the headline.

And that was from a newspaper often called the "gray old lady."  How about this for a headline: "Maligned Milfoil Sues for Libel, Battles Purple Prose."

The story is here.

Her blog has regular features, including themed weeks, a regular father's page and recipes, which I really should try one of these days.

Next week, she wants to have a "Green Week," and she's looking for topics that her readers might want to hear about. Already, she's posted something about what to do with all of that lovely kids' art that doesn't fit on the fridge. Do you recycle it? Keep it?

Here's a link to her blog. Just scroll down to get to the green week post and comment away...

They will be handing out literature and talking about the shorebird and its plight in honor of "Earth Week."

Mike Hudson, a 12-year-old bird-lover who lives in the city, learned about the beautiful bird, and how its numbers were decreasing substantially.

As noted previously on bayblog, the red knots fly from the Tierra Del Fuego to the arctic, stopping along thre shores of Delaware Bay (Sluaghter Beach, Bowers Beach, etc.) to gorge on fatty horseshoe crab eggs to fill them up for their long trip north. They arrive emaciated, they leave full.

But recent years of harvesting horseshoe crabs en masse has endangered the bird, and states such as Delaware and New jersey have tried to put in moratoriums on harvesting horseshoes to help the bird. Those have not held up in court, forcing the states to instead restrict the harvest.

Anyway, the kids are advocating for horseshoe crabbing to be banned in Maryland and Virginia, as well as Delaware. You can learn mroe about their platform on their web site.

Daily Press reporter Patrick Lynch has more today about politicians in the Old Dominion state asking the federal government to declare a state of emergency, and thus get federal disaster aid to help the crabbers.

Several legislators are behind the push, including Congressman Robert Wittman, who used to have a seafood-related job and has many watermen constituents.

With the early closure of Virginia's season, Maryland watermen won't be in the position they were in six years ago, when Maryland closed early but Virginia kept crabbing. As a result, Maryland watermen said, the "sooks" that the state sought to save went into Virginia baskets. Not that watermen in either state are happy about this: there's no doubt it will severely cut into their business.

They have a slate of very interesting programming, including a documentary about a guy that traversed the state eating all the blue crab he could. As previously mentioned on this blog, "Weary Shoreline" is worth checking out; there also is a program on the retracing of the Capt. John Smith journey in the shallop. I would have mentioned it earlier, but I've been on the road a lot this week and not at my computer.

The whole schedule is here.

Yours truly will be making an appearance on MPT Friday, or at least an appearance in its studios for a show called "State Circle." I'm not sure when it will air, but I've been promised it will focus on the Chesapeake Bay. Good thing, too, because if they started asking me about green-friendly products, as they did the last time I went on televsion in D.C., I'd have to swiftly change the subject to crabs, or something else bay-related.

If you are flying in from somewhere else and seeking to enjoy what the Eastern Shore has to offer. you might want to consider the BayRunner shuttle.  It takes passengers from Cambridge, Salisbury and Easton to BWI airport, and back. It's not cheap, and they do charge extra for your golf bag, but it might be nice to consider if you are staying in a town such as Easton, where the attractions are pretty walkable. Check their web site for schedules and fares.

On the other end, you can take the shuttle to BWI, then light rail from BWI into the city to explore soem urban sites.

I just heard about the shuttle a week or so ago, when the Chesapeake Bay Hyatt announced it had been added as a stop on the route.

It includes an obituary for Earth Day, story questioning whether we still need it and the paper's recent investigation into mountaintop mining in West Virginia.