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, 1629 Forest Drive, Annapolis, MD 21403 •E-mail them to [email protected]. or submit your letters on-line by clicking here.

A Second Grader’s Plea

Dear Bay Weekly:

Please reduce, reuse, and recycle. Please reduce using plastic. If you do, you will save oil. Please reuse broken toys. You can make them into something else. Please recycle paper. You can save trees. We need to save the environment. Please reduce, reuse and recycle.

–Steven Calabrese, Second Grader: St. Leonard Elementary School

The Story Behind This Week’s First Letter

Dear Bay Weekly:

I am a second-grade teacher with Calvert County Public Schools. As a culminating assignment for our unit on protecting the environment, I challenged my class to write a letter to the editor to persuade the community to reduce, reuse and recycle. I promised my students I would send the best letter to you, which was highly motivating for them.

Attached is the winning letter. This assignment was a huge accomplishment for author Steven Calabrese, and I’m sending it in hopes that it will be published. Seeing his work in print would be such a proud moment for him. I hope you will agree that it is a well-organized letter worth of being published.

–Catherine Presler, St. Leonard Elementary School

Editor’s note: The editor wholeheartedly agrees.

The Law on the Side of Osprey

Dear Bay Weekly:

On Saturday there was a fishing boat tied to an osprey nest. The only reason I could guess was that they were too lazy to drop anchor. Needless to say, the osprey were flying around very unhappy. I went over and asked the guy on the boat if he was aware that it was against the law to be near an osprey nest.

He gave me one wise-guy answer after another when I told him I was heading in and would call DNR. He had no numbers on his boat so I pointed out to him that he didn’t have his boat registered to which he gave another wise-guy answer. I was shocked when my sister Cindy called Natural Resources Police and was told “I’ve never heard of such a law” and “our people are busy on priority calls.”

Have we been wrong all these years about a law protecting osprey? Appreciate your input.

–Paula Schlichter, Fairhaven

Editor’s note: Here’s Maryland Department of Natural Resources spokesman Sgt. Art Windemuth’s take on harassing osprey: “Unfortunately, no law exists that would prohibit a person from fishing near an osprey nest. Destroying the eggs or osprey itself is prohibited under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. Although not the law, we would advocate observing wildlife from a distance not to disturb them, especially during nesting season. It is incumbent upon all of us to be good stewards of our natural resources and do whatever we can to ensure their continued existence for future generations.”