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Way Downstream

The Old Man of the Bay, Bill Burton, is bouncing back after an April 24 fall in the yard of his home on Stoney Creek in Pasadena. Doubling his bad luck, injuries to Burton’s hip socket and pelvis will knock him out of his 50th Annual Woods and Water Ball April 28 and 29, a rockfish tournament and banquet at Harrison’s Chesapeake House on Tilghman Island. While he’s healing, we’ll be running columns from his 13-years with Bay Weekly …

In Northern Anne Arundel County, last weekend’s drenching won’t stop water rationing ordered by the County Department of Public Works. From May 3 through October 1, citizens and businesses in 10 zip codes can be fined or disconnected from the public water supply if they wash their cars (except at commercial carwashes); water lawns or plants with a sprinkler; fill or top off a private swimming pool or pond. The restricted zips are 20701, 20724 and 20794; 21061, 21076, 21077 and 21090, 21144, 21225 and 21240. The valve will be tightened to allow for repairs on the five-inch water main that carries water from Baltimore County …

In Maryland, more trees will shade cities and some city buses will go green, with two new initiatives by Gov. Robert Ehrlich. With $300,000 from the Chesapeake Bay Trust, the new Urban Canopy Initiative will award grants of up to $50,000 to local governments or non-profits to plant and maintain urban trees. Tree cover in the Baltimore-Washington area declined 14 percent between 1973 and 1997, according to American Forests.

Ehrlich’s plans also call for converting 10 of MTA’s bus fleet to electric-diesel hybrids, beginning with service in Baltimore this spring. If all goes well, another 300 will be added over the next six years so that roughly half the MTA bus fleet will be hybrids by 2012 …

Our Creature Feature comes from Virginia, where the state this week leapt headlong into the world of oyster farming by approving three large projects that could harvest some 25 million native oysters yearly. The Virginia Marine Resources Commission said it would grant permits for farms along the Coan and Yeocomico rivers on the Northern Neck peninsula and in the Ware River in Gloucester County, the Virginian-Pilot reported.

One of the companies involved, Cowart Seafood Corp., was eager to grow oysters in steel and mesh cages after seeing what often happens during attempts to seed baby oysters in Chesapeake Bay and tributaries: Hungry cow-nosed rays rise up like magic and enjoy oyster lunch.