Way Downstream

As energy prices rise, Marylanders get one more good reason to convert to sun and earth energy. Investors in solar panels and geothermal equipment can recoup 20 percent of a new system’s cost from the Maryland Energy Administration. Grants return up to $2,000 for solar water heating, up to $3,000 for residential photovoltaic solar and up to $5,000 for a non-residential solar system. Apply asap after June 1: www.energy.maryland.gov/programs/renewable/solargrant …

From College Park, a new report from the University of Maryland Environmental Law Clinic points to serious shortcomings in the state’s Critical Area Law, Marylanders’ last line of defense in protecting the Bay’s shoreline. There’s too much flexibility rather than strict rule, and local enforcement is rarely proactive, allowing many violations to go unnoticed the study said. What’s more, nobody looks cumulatively at the impact of what developers are doing …

In Virginia, more on the brazen new harvest plans of Omega Protein, which is deploying 11 factory boats this season to mine the Chesapeake of menhaden, the food fish for rockfish, blues and sea trout. In an editorial this week, the Virginian-Pilot rejects the economic arguments for letting Omega continue, filleting members of the Virginia General Assembly for rolling over for Omega. “The fox guarding the chicken coop never had it this easy,” the editorial says of the Texas company …

Our Creature Feature is an amazing tale of black rats and Godzilla crabs from Tuvalu, a small Polynesian country in the central Pacific. This tiny island nation has enough to worry about with the rising waters of global warming. Now swarms of black rats are rampaging through the country and leaping from tree to tree to devour coconuts, Tuvalu’s economic lifeline.

There’s more: The rats are eating the lunch of huge, rare, valuable crabs, known locally as Robber Crabs, which grow two-and-a-half feet from claw to claw and weigh more than 50 pounds. Last week, the United Nations stepped in, contributing $200,000 for a pest management program to kill the marauding rat packs and protect the coconuts and the crabs.