In Annapolis, Towne Centre, the vaunted new development at the old Parole Plaza, hasn’t gotten off the ground yet. But Greenberg Commercial broke ground Sunday on a project to sweeten the pot for Parole. After services at Mount Olive AME Church, politicians — Gov. Robert Ehrlich, House Speaker Michael Busch and Annapolis Mayor Ellen Moyer — joined the Rev. Johnny Calhouse and Greenberg executives in turning over a dozen shovels of earth for a new 11,500 square foot community center. The church owns the land, as it will the $1.3 million center

In Calvert County, the citizens’ group called CAPE (Concerns About Pipeline Expansion) is upset with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s conclusion that a gas pipeline from the Chesapeake would have little environmental impact. Among other things, CAPE notes that it would disturb more than 80 acres of fragile wetlands and 700 acres of forests while using eminent domain to force landowners to give up property

In Prince George’s County, biologists from Maryland Department of Natural Resources and Mirant, which operates power plants, took a step this week toward restoring huge Atlantic sturgeon in the Chesapeake. They transferred around 70 of the fish — four feet long and tipping the scales at 50 pounds or so — from indoor tanks into ponds for winter

Our Creature Feature is a new chapter in a creature conflict in Virginia, where the Army is conducting a criminal investigation into how its Corps of Engineers spent $8 million on a Chesapeake oyster restoration program with little success, the Virginian-Pilot reports.

The newspaper has alertly disclosed blunders in the program, among them the infamous cow-nosed ray feeding project, in which the corps carpet-bombed tens of thousands of tiny oysters into the midst of hungry rays. Now, the paper reports, investigators are looking at spending, contracting and billing during the five-year-old program.