Volunteers Needed For Chesapeake Bay Cleanup

On Saturday, June 4, thousands will take to the beaches along the Chesapeake Bay to partake in one of Virginia's largest volunteer cleanup efforts - "Clean the Bay Day."

The 23rd Annual Clean the Bay Day is scheduled to begin at 9:00 AM and goes until 12:00 noon. Currently the Chesapeake Bay Foundation is looking for more volunteers to join in and help the bay clean up.


Individuals, families, businesses, and groups will help cleanup litter along the coastline and beyond. Citizens will work on foot and by boat to restore and protect the Chesapeake Bay and its watershed.

The event hopes to raise awareness about pollution issues beneath the surface.

Last year 7,430 volunteers removed 217,641 lbs of debris at 245 sites along 419 miles of Chesapeake Bay watershed shorelines.

Those who wish to volunteer should visit http://www.cbf.org/clean.  Cleanup sites are available throughout Virginia's Eastern Shore.

Source;  shoredailynews

The last house on Holland Island, a once-thriving fishing community, has fallen, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation says.

Photos from the organization show the delapidated house crumpled amid the bay waters, chimneys gone and sides collapsed. Water reached to the second floor of the house.

The foundation says strong winds over the weekend brought down the house on the lower Eastern Shore island north of Crisfield.

The last time I saw the house, it was perched on kind of a brick pier, and water was washing underneath," said Donald Baugh, the bay foundation's vice president for education. "We knew its time was coming." Reportedly settled in the late 17th century, the island was once five miles long. It was home to a fishing community of 250 to 360 people, with more than 60 homes, a church and other buildings. But erosion forced the residents to leave — with the last fleeing in 1922 — and for decades now only one abandoned home has remained, increasingly threatened by the bay.

A minister and former waterman, Stephen L. White, bought the island in the 1990s and attempted to preserve it from further erosion. But wind and waves from Tropical Storm Isabel in 2003 severely damaged the house and undercut the sand beneath it.

"It's really heartbreaking," said Tom White, 50, Stephen White's son. "He gave it his best shot."
www.baltimoresun.com

Orioles and Nationals go to bat for the Chesapeake Bay Foundation

BALTIMORE—Some Orioles and Nationals players are going to bat for a new team—the Chesapeake Bay Foundation.

MASN, the television network that broadcasts the Baltimore and Washington games, was to announce Friday that it is launching a "Go to Bat for the Bay" public service campaign with the foundation.

The spots featuring players such as Orioles pitcher Jeremy Guthrie and Washington's Adam Dunn are designed to educate viewers about the bay and its restoration. Tips include using less lawn fertilizer and chemicals and planting trees.

In Guthrie's pitch, he tells viewers the Chesapeake produces 500 million pounds of crabs, oysters and other seafood.

"A cleaner bay means better seafood and more jobs for those who bring the Chesapeake's bounty to our dinner tables," Guthrie says in the spot, which cuts from scenes of crabs, oysters and boats on the bay, to the pitcher standing in his uniform at Camden Yards.

In another commercial, Nationals manager Jim Riggleman tells viewers the bay has lost half of its forested shoreline, more than half its wetlands and 90 percent of its underwater grasses.

"The health of the Chesapeake is in jeopardy. Go to bat for the bay," Riggleman says.

The bay is the nation's largest estuary and was once a major producer of oysters and crabs. However, pollution and development have spurred oxygen-robbing algae blooms, killed bay grasses that provide habitat for many species, and hurt the seafood population. The bay watershed covers Maryland, the District of Columbia, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia, almost all of MASN's seven-state territory. MASN spokesman Todd Webster said the network is available to 7 million households from Harrisburg, Pa., to Charlotte, N.C. On an average night during baseball season, about 175,000 people watch the Orioles and Nationals.

Foundation President Will Baker said the partnership will "enhance awareness and educate millions of sports fans who live in the Chesapeake region."

www.eveningsun.com