After a year of public flogging, Southern Maryland Electric Cooperative has agreed to replace behemoth power poles with smaller, less intrusive poles along Calvert County’s winding Bowie Shop Road and Route 2/4 in Huntingtown.     Smaller is relative.     The poles will still be as tall — 75 feet — but a thicker steel plate will allow for the poles to taper toward the top. That, says SMECO spokesman Tom Dennison, is because “The most...

Illegal gill nets continue to be hooked by Maryland Natural Resources Police, with two more on February 11 bringing the month total to eight thousand yards of illegal net and 25,000 pounds of illegally caught rockfish. The latest two 900-yard strings of illegal gill nets were anchored in Eastern Bay. Both were in the vicinity of Bloody Point Light, one about a mile south and other about two and a half miles northeast.     The poaching was bold and defiant, with the nets anchored...

Chesapeake Bay oysters were amorous last summer, and the seed they sent forth willy-nilly into the water has set into abundant spat.     Natural Resources researches examining the intimate lives of 53 key oyster bars last fall found spat — or oyster babies — about five times higher than the 25-year median. Instead of 16, spat count per bushel was nearly 80, the overall highest since 1997.     Oyster babies were most plentiful in saltier waters of the...

As more and more people are using firewood for heating their homes, I am often asked about differences between hardwoods. Yes, there are differences. There are soft hardwoods and there are hard hardwoods.     In general terms, conifers such as pine, spruce, fir, arborvitae and red cedar are softwoods. They all contain different levels of resins, most often referred to as pitch, which when burnt will create a smoke that can coat the inside walls of the chimney and can cause...