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Way Downstream

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In Anne Arundel, a new poll by the Center for the Study of Local Issues at Anne Arundel Community College found that county residents view growth and high taxes as their most pressing problems. By a healthy majority (61 percent), folks in Anne Arundel favor Gov. Martin O’Malley’s proposal to bring slots gambling to Maryland. And 70 percent said they support a $1 increase in cigarette taxes to help pay the costs of health insurance for those who don’t have it. A surprise? Just one percent identified terrorism as the most pressing problem — which doesn’t bode well for White House candidates running fear campaigns …

In Annapolis, some 50 global warming activists celebrated the National Day of Climate Action by gathering for the second Step It Up rally. That day, Annapolis’s troops joined over 500 other rallies backed by activist Bill McKibben, author of The End of Nature. Annapolis ralliers dressed up as animals affected by climate change — like polar bears — and chalked the waterline where a 20-foot sea level rise would hit Annapolis sidewalks. Alliance for Global Warming Solutions organized the Annapolis rally to gear up early support for the Global Warming Solutions Act in the General Assembly …

In Maryland, Rep. Wayne Gilchrest got Maryland League of Conservation Voters’ first endorsement of the election season. Gilchest’s big race comes not in November but in February, when the Republican environmentalist must fight off the primary challenges of two more conservative Republicans — Andrew Harris and Joe Arminio — to keep his seat in the First Congressional District. State Sen. Andrew Harris has his own big supporters, including former governor Robert Ehrlich. But Gilchrest is the green guy in the race, winning the Maryland League’s first-ever federal endorsement plus the endorsement of the national League of Conservation Voters.

Gilchrest sealed the green partnership by working to protect open space and wetlands and by introducing the Climate Stewardship Act in Congress, said Maryland League executive director Cindy Schwartz.

“Anybody that’s sensitive to the environment and that thinks we need to do more will lend an ear to this [endorsement],” Gilchrest told Bay Weekly …

Knuckleheads in the News: It’s a tie this week. Maryland Natural Resources Police charged David Kittle, of Pasadena, with multiple hunting violations on Wye Island Nature Resources Management Area after finding the antlered head of a deer in the back of his truck, which was stuck in a field. Among alleged violations: He had not checked in his kill with the Maryland Big Game Registration System. Meanwhile, in Charles County, a Virginia man, Arnold Wallace, was charged with hunting while intoxicated — at night. Police say he was released “to a sober friend at the scene” …

Our Creature Feature comes from Connecticut, where there’s a new product that your dog may already have heard about from his pals: Woof Water, billed by bottlers at Avery Beverages in New Britain as “hydration for hounds and their humans.”

We know that some dogs enjoy just about any water they can find, like from mud puddles and, yes, even toilet bowls. Then there’s the “canine conoisseur,” as Avery puts it, who might give you an extra nuzzle for purchasing Woof Water at $1 a bottle or $4.50 a six-pack. Observed Avery’s Rob Metz: “Woof Water is requested by name by more dogs than any other bottle water.”