State environmental officials estimate 1.7 million gallons of raw sewage drained into Baltimore's Jones Falls this week, the latest in the city's long struggle to get a handle on wastewater overflows. www.thebanner.com/community/cl...

State environmental officials estimate 1.7 million gallons of raw sewage drained into Baltimore's Jones Falls this week, the latest in the city's long struggle to get a handle on wastewater overflows. www.thebanner.com/community/cl...

For the fifth time, effort to clean-up the Chesapeake Bay gets a new deal and a later deadline, pushing the goal line farther away. Vy @adampwillis.bsky.social www.thebanner.com/community/cl...

Maryland says Patapsco needs radio tower for safety. Neighbors call it a ‘Tower of Terror.’

An industrial menhaden fishery out of Virginia is the last of its kind on the Atlantic seaboard. Some say it's decimating a keystone Chesapeake fish with big fallout for other bay species. But, perhaps thanks to industry political donations, no one can prove it: www.thebanner.com/community/cl...

This little fish is the center of a big debate in the Chesapeake Bay

A must read, not for the portraits, but the uncomfortable question: How much power does any mayor of a legacy city have to reverse the harm caused by bigger forces outside his/her control: deindustrialization, white flight & the tax base “sucked out each time a commuter drives past the city limits?”

After putrid green waters overwhelmed the Baltimore harbor and triggered historic fish kills, local scientists remain stumped about why this season’s pistachio tide was so bad. But they think the billion dollar revamp of the downtown waterfront could help solve it: www.thebanner.com/community/cl...

After ecological crisis, could redevelopment stem Baltimore’s pistachio tide?

Had fun thinking out loud about the Baltimore harbor's huge, maybe historic? pistachio tide with Lindsay Smith Rogers at Johns Hopkins. A year ago, Lindsay did a deep dive into Baltimore's progress toward a swimmable harbor. Things have felt different the last few weeks...

A year after our episode on the fight to make Baltimore’s harbor safe for swimming, the harbor is recovering from “the ecological equivalent of a heart attack”. @thebaltimorebanner.com’s @adampwillis.bsky.social gives an update on the "pistachio tide". podcast.publichealth.jhu.edu/967-an-updat...

Millions of taxpayer dollars go toward restoring Chesapeake Bay beaches to their natural marshy state and cleaning the water. Signs on those shorelines also read: "RESIDENTS ONLY." Important story by @alexmann.bsky.social @leeosanderlin.bsky.social @adampwillis.bsky.social @thebaltimorebanner.com:

Alex Mann, @leeosanderlin.bsky.social and @adampwillis.bsky.social get at a central environmental tension in Anne Arundel County: A desire to protect the Chesapeake Bay and its shoreline meets the reality that almost all shoreline in the county is privately-owned. Read in @thebaltimorebanner.com —

Just one in 533 miles of Anne Arundel County shoreline is open to the public while taxpayers fund millions for private waterfronts. Can Maryland balance what’s best for the Chesapeake Bay with the public’s right to enjoy it? w/ @leeosanderlin.bsky.social &Alex Mann www.thebanner.com/community/cl...

The hidden cost of saving the Chesapeake Bay: millions for private waterfronts

Maryland, Constellation reach $341M deal over pollution through Conowingo Dam

With an email, Salisbury plant gets a pass on EPA rules for toxic gas

Hidden in the D.C. suburbs are thousands of acres of experimental farmland, home to the scientists who helped eradicate screwworm & invented the Roma tomato. USDA's Beltsville lab is the crown jewel of American farm science. Will Trump close it forever? www.thebanner.com/community/cl...

The crown jewel of American farm science is in Beltsville. Will Trump close it forever?

It's been a rough summer for Maryland's fledgling offshore wind sector. Trump wants to revoke approval for the state's only permitted farm, which also looks very unlikely to meet the admin's new deadline for huge tax breaks. Is offshore wind doomed in Maryland? www.thebanner.com/community/cl...

"The state’s fledgling industry may face its doomsday in President Donald Trump, who has a longtime grudge against turbines." Great read by @adampwillis.bsky.social

Is offshore wind doomed in Maryland?

Attorneys for Trump's Interior Department asked a federal judge today to cancel the permit for US Wind's wind farm off the coast of Maryland This is expected – the administration indicated last month that it intended to revoke the permit. Background here: www.thebanner.com/community/cl...

Trump attorneys told a federal judge yesterday that the administration plans to revoke the permit for the only approved wind farm off Maryland's coast – another major blow to a local offshore wind industry that was already on its heels: www.thebanner.com/community/cl...

Heat is the deadliest form of extreme weather. This is officially the deadliest heat year in Maryland since 2012 — and we’re only part way through the heat season. W/ @adampwillis.bsky.social in @thebaltimorebanner.com:

Maryland had drawn down less than $1 million of $62 million it was awarded through EPA's "Solar for All" when the Trump admin terminated the program this week The program was meant to lower utility costs for low-income households by building rooftop solar: www.thebaltimorebanner.com/community/cl...

On Tilghman Island, USDA announces $6M to stem blue catfish invasion of Chesapeake

Tubing down the Gunpowder River is the perfect way to spend a summer day— except when E. coli levels are soaring, as they have frequently this year. I spent time with the Gunpowder Riverkeepers to see how they’re working to protect the river. www.thebaltimorebanner.com/gunpowder-ri...

NEW: Maryland will issue its permit today for the CSX Coal Piers in Curtis Bay, the first since the facility's 2021 explosion. The permit requires CSX to build a "windscreen" to shield the neighborhood from dust. Neighborhood activists say it's not enough: www.thebaltimorebanner.com/community/cl...

In Baltimore’s hottest new race, ‘experience the suffering of the world we’ve created’

A new Baltimore marathon subjects runners to the worst the city has to offer: traffic, direct sun & the heat of a July afternoon "Experience the suffering of the world we’ve created," said its director, who presided over the carnage while sipping cold beer www.thebaltimorebanner.com/community/cl...

Fascinating look at a Hidatsa oral tradition contradicting the slim written record on Sacagawea. What if she was Hidatsa all along and didn't die soon after the Lewis & Clark expedition, but well into her old age? What if everything we know about Sacagawea is wrong? www.nytimes.com/2025/07/23/m...

In the Chesapeake Bay, blue catfish have all but taken over, multiplying prolifically and eating just about anything. One Eastern Shore scientist is on a mission to weed out the invasive river monsters. He hopes his annual fishing tournament can help: www.thebaltimorebanner.com/community/cl...

Sport fishing could help cure the Chesapeake’s catfish problem, but anglers need to bite

After Trump cut billions for FEMA disaster prevention, a declining & conservative town on Maryland's Eastern Shore is left to fend off rising waters on its own. “We will not be here if we don’t have a major intervention,” the mayor told me. “That’s it.” www.thebaltimorebanner.com/community/cl...

After FEMA axed aid, is an Eastern Shore town lost to the bay? This story from @adampwillis.bsky.social is really worth your time! www.thebaltimorebanner.com/community/cl...

a great story in The Banner today from @adampwillis.bsky.social on flooding, the future and the Eastern Shore town of Crisfield.

EPA says Maryland permit for Ocean City wind farm is invalid

‘He said he needs help’: Mourners honor Dontae Melton Jr. after his death in police custody, @adampwillis.bsky.social reports. (📸: Ulysses Muñoz)

New Chesapeake cleanup plan comes with soul searching and the Trump effect

‘He said he needs help’: Mourners honor Dontae Melton Jr. after his police custody death

If a forest closes, does it make a sound?

Once, Brian Matusz was seen as Orioles hope and “all-American kid.” In a matter of years, he lost his career, his community, his marriage and then his own life. Impressive, tragic reporting by @leeosanderlin.bsky.social & @danielleallentuck.bsky.social www.thebaltimorebanner.com/sports/brian...

New: How did a fuel company overfill two Johns Hopkins tanks so much that 5,000 gallons spilled into the harbor? Regulators require tank owners to monitor deliveries "constantly" & state records show the hospital tanks were outfitted with fail-safes: www.thebaltimorebanner.com/community/cl...

Trump finally leaves Chesapeake Bay cleanup funds alone — cold comfort to advocates

Hyattsville, MD's City Council will vote this afternoon on whether to pay $6.5 million to expand its biggest park. Some fear the city is about the overpay by millions and bail out a failed development, with the state subsidizing more than half the cost: www.thebaltimorebanner.com/community/cl...

Could a DC suburb bail out a developer to expand a park? Maryland would help

“If I died, and my body was never recovered, no one would ever know how desperately I had clung to life, how I’d fought to live even when despair felt absolute.” Alec Frydman was lost at sea for 13 days. How he survived: https://theatln.tc/cEfefBO1

"On my first time out as a commercial fisherman, my boat sank, my captain died, and I was left adrift and alone in the Pacific." Now that is a f'ing lede! What a crazy, crazy story.

On October 13, 2023, my friend Alec’s fishing boat sank, his captain died and he was left alone on a life raft in the Pacific for two weeks. That he survived to tell the story was almost impossible, but I’m grateful every day that he did. He wrote it here: www.theatlantic.com/magazine/arc...