Left Flank

It gives with one hand, and takes away with another, it seems.

As the 100th anniversary of the Tunguska incident passed quietly (thankfully) on June 30, a meteoric event of a similar destructiveness 36 million years ago seemingly continues to do damage to the Chesapeake Bay.

The meteorite that formed it helped shape the bay, continues to affect water supplies in surrounding Virginia communities and is used by teachers in Maryland and elsewhere to spark interest in geology.

«It's very exciting stuff,» said Rachel Burks, a geology professor who lectures on the crater to students at Towson University.

The $1.5 million drilling project confirmed that the meteorite's impact created a «sterilizing pulse» that wiped out most of the microbial life at depths below 2,600 feet, said Mary Voytek, a USGS biologist.

Nutrients created by animals and plants wiped out by the blast were washed down into a cavity formed by the impact. Shock waves from the impact created pore-filled rock and sediments, Voytek said. The result: nooks and crannies at depths below 4,600 feet that harbor more mysterious microscopic organisms than anyone expected.

«What happened is, you've created a nice little incubator for life,» she said.

What else besides briny water will swim out of the Chesapeake now. That's even scarier than the prospect of another meteor that might fall in some remote swathe of Siberia.

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Maryland's Department of Agriculture can't just cut to the chase. After telling homeowners to treat their gardens and lawns like commercial farmers do, there's the hard truth.

And perhaps the boldest suggestion made today -- get rid of your lawn, or at least consider making it smaller. Trees and shrubs capture more carbon than grass, and they need less maintenance and fertilizer than a traditional turf lawn.

«In so many cases people are trying to grow turf where it doesn't grow well,» causing fertilizer overuse and pollution, Traunfeld said.

The backyard conservation tips being pitched by the Department Agriculture won't directly help farmers. But they could lead to water-quality improvements that help everybody, officials said.

«All of these small yards, put together, done properly, will have a huge effect on the Chesapeake Bay,» Hance said.

The fact that statistics rate homeowners as egregious a cabal of polluters as commercial farmers says a lot about the consequences of peer pressure in suburban America.

State environmental officials worry about the condition of the Chesapeake Bay. Or, is that the crabbing lobby? Anyway, more crabs, less vegetables, all make a Marylander smelly, healthy, and broke.

Everyone knows how much I love Chesapeake blue crabs and oysters! (And, if not, then read the last sentence again.) But, perhaps, this quote, and the story of how Yonathan Zohar has singlehandedly tried to save blue crabs and fishermen in the Chesapeake Bay through the cunning exploitation of Democratic Senator Barbara Mikulski's earmarks, reveals how ecologically misguided that pursuit might be:

"The program must continue, one way or the other," Zohar said. "The Chesapeake Bay needs it."

That maniacal plea follows this gem:

"There is no other way to conduct this type of program other than to get this type of federal funding. ... And for the blue crab, it was so well- deserved because we wanted to do something before it was too late."

It almost makes me feel swindled for all the backfin and claws me and my parents have consumed through the years.