In Washington, the identity of America’s most endangered river was announced this week, and we in Chesapeake Country should listen up. It’s the Susquehanna, which provides half the fresh water of the Chesapeake Bay, water often fouled by aging urban sewer systems and farm runoff, according to the advocacy group American Rivers. Read at AmericanRivers.org about the goofy plan on the Susquehanna for a giant inflatable dam for jet skis and party barges …
Virginia follow-up: State officials believe now that it wasn’t pfiesteria but probably gill-net fishing responsible for heavy kills of menhaden and shad along the James River, the Virginian-Pilot reported.

Reports of discovery of pfiesteria in Virginia prompted concerns of a breakout of the dangerous dinoflagellate that killed millions of fish in North Carolina and invaded Chesapeake Bay eight years ago …

In Baltimore, WBAL-TV last week was honored with a Peabody Award for a series of reports on Chesapeake Bay. It was the first time in a half-century a Baltimore station had won the prestigious prize. WBAL was in good company: Cable’s Comedy Central’s The Daily Show with Jon Stewart also took home a Peabody …

Our Creature Feature comes from New York, where some hard-hitting journalism proves something we’ve long suspected: that a majority of salmon sold as wild actually are farm-raised. The New York Times used laboratory tests to show that six of eight New York fish markets were fooling customers. In addition, 23 of 25 stores called their salmon wild even though 90 percent of salmon sold in the U.S. is farm-raised.

Why is this important? Studies have showed that salmon from farms contain more PCBs, dioxins and other contaminants than fish from the wild. The EPA recommended last year that people eat no more than one serving of farm-raised fish per month.