President Barack Obama's proposed budget for fiscal 2011, released yesterday, includes $63 million for the Chesapeake Bay Program - a $13 million increase over the current year.

Congress will have to approve the spending - and could increase or decrease the amount of bay funding - before the new f...

The idea was to create an artificial base for new oyster reefs.

But no one ever tested the steel slag - a rock-like byproduct of the steel-making process - for heavy metals or other contaminants.

Now some local environmentalists are asking how the proje...

During rainstorms, water rushes along rooftops, sidewalks, driveways and pavements, picking up nutrients, dirt and chemicals on the way to streams that feed the Chesapeake Bay and its rivers.

Awareness of the problem of urban and suburban runoff is increasing, and so are the attempts to fix them. But...

Whatever happened to the supposed Chesapeake Bay monster? Are there manatees in the bay?

While the state has received reports of bay or sea "monsters" over the years, none of them were documented to be anything other than marine mammals, or sea turtles, fish, sharks, etc.

In 2006, a sei whale was found dead on the bow of a ship in the upper Chesapeake Bay, and in 2008-2009, two dead humpback whales ...

While the review process is still underway and formal regulatory actions have not yet been finali...

WASHINGTON - A local forestry expert has graduated from the National Conservation Leadership Institute.

Sally Claggett, program leader at the U.S. Forest Service in Annapolis, was one of 33 people nationwide selected for the program.

The nonprofit institute aims to the next generation of leaders in the world of conservation.

Claggett is the U.S. Forest Service's liaiso...

Saturday

Legendary bay folksinger Tom Wisner will be honored with a tribute concert at 7:30 p.m. at the Annapolis Maritime Museum, 723 Second St. in Eastport. Info.: www.amaritime.org or 410-295-0104.

Thursday

Severn River Commissio...

There aren't many watermen out on this day, but Peck and partner Capt. Rick Starliper finally find several white boats with crews hauling up small dredges filled with oysters. One by one, they check all the boats, and don't find any undersized oyst...

But as one organizer put it, now's the time for activists to take their lemons and turn them into lemonade - to make the best of a bad situation by promoting cost-effective, well-thought-out laws.

The hundreds of activists who turned out for the 16th annual ins...

The DNR is also...

From now on, though, those types of evidence will be de rigeur in Courtroom Five at the District Court building in Annapolis on the third Friday of the month.

The day is being set aside for a docket of natural resources cases - oyster poachers, illegal hunters, drunk boaters. Anne Arundel County launched a test program yesterday that could go stat...

But this year - with no spare state money and elections looming - environmental advocacy groups are scaling back their wish lists for the current session, which began on Wednesday.

They said they still think they can pass meaningful bills to help the environment. But they aren't expecting a windfall of money to start new programs - in...

How many oysters are left in the Chesapeake Bay and how are they counted?

In 2007, the number of small and market-sized oysters in Maryland's portion of the Chesapeake Bay was estimated to be 1.25 billion.

The Chesapeake Bay is so large that it is impossible to count every oyster individually. Therefore, DNR estimates the number of oysters in the bay.

Because different parts of the bay have differen...

The first resolution would be that each of the roughly 16 to 17 million people who live in the bay watershed would recognize how fortunate we all are to be the stewards of this country's most important estuary and that each of us would com...

Saturday

Learn about blackbirds and woodpeckers at Jug Bay Wetlands Sanctuary at 1 p.m. Ages 10 and older. Info.: www.jugbay.org or 410-741-9330.

Join a winter wildfowl walk at 9 a.m. at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center. Ages 10 and...

Speaking to a packed room at the "Choose Clean Water" conference, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said cleaning up the Chesapeake Bay can be challenging because there are many diffuse sources of pollution, such as paved-over cities an...

EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson is now officially chairwoman of the Chesapeake Executive Council, taking over for Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine, whose term ends this month.

The council sets the policies for the joint fed...