Letters to the Editor
We welcome your opinions and letters – with name and address. We will edit when necessary. Include your name, address and phone number for verification. Mail them to Bay Weekly, P.O. Box 358, Deale, MD 20751 • E-mail them to [email protected]. or submit your letters on line, click here
The Multiplying Power of One
Dear Bay Weekly:
Thank you for the editorial some weeks back about each person trying to do his/her little bit to help save the Bay [Junk Packaging: Where Do You Draw the Line? Vol. xvi, No. 17: April 24]. I would never buy Brawny, in any case, so I didn’t figure that would count.
Since both the Maryland legislature and Gov. O’Malley gave in to the soap company lobbyists about giving them more time to get rid of phosphates in dishwashing detergents, my idea is that we as consumers have the most power anyway.
I found an excellent detergent, called Palmolive Gel ECO, with zero phosphates, at Kmart, and at a reasonable price. I used this Palmolive ECO for my last load of dishes and they came out sparkling.
I have resolved never to buy or use phosphates. Today I sent out emails to almost 50 friends and acquaintances, telling them of my decision and inviting them to join me — and to tell their 50 best friends about it!
–Barbara Miller, Fairhaven
Tearman Knows Elbow Grease
Dear Bay Weekly:
Margaret Tearman’s article “Fresh Paint, New Mulch and a Little Elbow Grease” [Vol. xvi, No. 18: May 1] is wonderful! I love it. You so captured the experience of getting ready to show a home on Maryland Home and Garden Pilgrimage. It made me laugh out loud with delight. Thank you so much.
–Nita Walden, Public Relations Director: Maryland Home and Garden Pilgrimage
New Regs Hurt Recreational Crabbers
Dear Bay Weekly:
This letter is in reference to the new Maryland Fisheries 2008 Blue Crab Regulatory Proposals.
The regulations are punishing recreational crabbers. I feel that if commercial crabbers were required to remove their commercial pots [overnight} as the recreational crabbers are, the Bay would replenish the blue crab population in one year.
The state’s solution is to prohibit all recreational crabbers from harvesting females. This solution does not apply to the commercial crabbing industry. Make the same rules apply to the commercial crabbers as the recreational crabbers.
The crabbing industry is allowed to take female crabs all season until September and October with restricted bushel amounts. This does not seem fair. The recreational crabber does not put hundreds of pots out or dredge the Bay for crabs during the winter months.
The recreational crabber has to comply with regulation by not crabbing on Wednesdays and [abiding by] the 51⁄4-inch blue crab rule July 15 thru December 15. The recreational crabber must carry a ruler to measure the crab to make sure no laws are broken.
[Better to] restrict the amount of crab pots to five traps or strings per person.
We pay all the fees required by the state that help support the industry. So please be fair and allow the recreational crabber to have fair regulations that are consistent compared to the rules for Maryland commercial crabbers.
–R. Morrison, Solomons
Department of Corrections
Don’t Eat that She-Crab!
Thanks to a reader with good eye-mind attention, we see that we’ve not pictured what we preach. In a photo on page 31 of Bay Weekly’s Indispensable Guide to Summer 2008 on the Bay, the Atlantic blue crab apron-up (and oval, ending in a point) above the sink is a female, which friends of the species should eliminate from their diet and catch. Under a bi-state emergency effort to restore the once-abundant species by cutting the catch of female crabs by 34 percent, Maryland now forbids recreational crabbers from taking hard-shelled she-crabs. No she-crabs may be taken by commercial crabbers after October 22, and bushels of females will be limited from September 1 until that date.
