The Chickahominy Report

Recent Posts

Safe Haven: The Delmarva Fox Squirrel and Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge (0)

11/12/12 •

MECHANICSVILLE, Va. — Back in March 2012, I took part in the Amer­i­can Uni­ver­si­ty Cen­ter for Envi­ron­men­tal Film­mak­ing’s Class­room in the Wild: Chesa­peake Bay. Over the course of a week, we immersed our­selves in a crash course in doc­u­men­tary film. We learned the basics of get­ting good footage, researched poten­tial top­ics, and went to Black­wa­ter National […]

So much for open government: National Biological Information Infrastructure program to get axe (0)

10/06/11 •

MECHANICSVILLE, Va. — My apolo­gies to those who have already seen my Face­book pages and list­serv posts about this.  I just learned from David Inouye, mod­er­a­tor of the ECOLOG‑L list, that the Nation­al Bio­log­i­cal Infor­ma­tion Infra­struc­ture pro­gram will be ter­mi­nat­ed in Jan­u­ary. Accord­ing to the NBII Web site: In the 2012 Pres­i­den­t’s Bud­get Request, the […]

A GOP war on the environment, II: Ken Cuccinelli vs. climate change (0)

3/30/11 •

MECHANICSVILLE, Va. — Last year, Vir­ginia Attor­ney Gen­er­al Ken Cuc­cinel­li made him­self a hero to cli­mate change scep­tics world­wide by call­ing into ques­tion the sci­ence of cli­mate change. One of his first shots against cli­mate change occurred in Decem­ber 2009 before he took office. In his newslet­ter, Cuc­cinel­li Com­pass, he claimed that sea­son­al win­ter weather—snowstorms—was […]

A GOP war on the environment? (1)

3/09/11 •

MECHANICSVILLE, Va. — Envi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion pro­grams took a dis­pro­por­tion­ate hit in the recent con­gres­sion­al debate over H.R. 1, a con­tin­u­ing res­o­lu­tion to fund the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment the rest of the cur­rent fis­cal year. The core res­o­lu­tion pro­posed to slash fund­ing for the Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion Agency by 30 percent—the largest cut, per­­cen­t­age-wise, of any fed­er­al gov­ern­ment agency. […]

The Chesapeake Bay funding vote: Reaction and accountability (0)

2/23/11 •

MECHANICSVILLE, Va. — Check out how the The Fred­er­icks­burg Free Lance-Star began an edi­to­r­i­al response to the House approval of Rep. Bob Good­lat­te’s (R‑Va.) amend­ment to pre­vent fed­er­al fund­ing of the EPA’s Chesa­peake  Bay restora­tion effort: REP. BOB GOODLATTE, R- Roanoke, seems the sort of fel­low who would pre­fer Pot­tersville to Bed­ford Falls. In the […]

House approves amendment to prohibit federal funding of Chesapeake Bay restoration plan (0)

2/19/11 •

MECHANICSVILLE, Va. — The House vot­ed late tonight to approve a bud­get amend­ment by Rep. Bob Good­lat­te (R‑Va.) that would pro­hib­it fed­er­al fund­ing for the U.S. Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion Agen­cy’s Chesa­peake Bay restora­tion plan. Good­lat­te’s amend­ment to the House con­tin­u­ing res­o­lu­tion (H.R. 1), man­dates that “None of the funds made avail­able by this Act may be used […]

Budget amendment may torpedo Chesapeake Bay restoration plan (0)

2/18/11 •

MECHANICSVILLE, Va. — Weeks after the U.S. Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion Agency announced a plan to restore the Chesa­peake Bay by putting it on a strict “pol­lu­tion diet,” a Vir­ginia con­gress­man has intro­duced a bud­get amend­ment that would pre­vent the use of fed­er­al funds to car­ry the plan out. Repub­li­can Rep. Bob Good­lat­te, who rep­re­sents Vir­gini­a’s 6th District, […]

Editorial reflection: Why this Blog? (0)

2/13/11 •

MECHANICSVILLE, Va. — Every now and then a news pub­li­ca­tion (in the tra­di­tion­al and 21st cen­tu­ry sens­es) should rethink its mis­sion. Why does it exist? What audi­ence does it serve? Does it serve that audi­ence well? The time for such reflec­tion (per­son­al inven­to­ry for those of you famil­iar with 12-step pro­grams) has come to The Chickahominy […]

Review: Shooting in the Wild (0)

11/24/10 •

Chris Palmer Shoot­ing in the Wild: An Insid­er’s Account of Mak­ing Movies in the Ani­mal King­dom San Fran­cis­co: Sier­ra Club Books, 2010 ISBN: 978–1‑57805–148–91. 223+xxiii pp. $24.95 (US) MECHANICSVILLE, Va. — On Sep­tem­ber 22, an arti­cle in The Wash­ing­ton Post touched off a vig­or­ous dis­cus­sion on ECOLOG‑L, a pop­u­lar sci­en­tif­ic list­serv spon­sored by the Ecological […]

Flooding leads to closure of shellfish harvesting in two Va. rivers (0)

1/29/10 •

MECHANICSVILLE, Va. — The Vir­ginia Depart­ment of Health has closed por­tions of two Vir­ginia rivers to shell­fish har­vest­ing because of poten­tial pol­lu­tion in flood­wa­ters trig­gered by heavy rains in west­ern Vir­ginia. The affect­ed rivers are the James and Rap­pa­han­nock. All of the low­er James Riv­er, from the vicin­i­ty of Hog Point in Hog Island State […]

Explosives spill shuts down North Carolina port (0)

1/12/10 •

MECHANICSVILLE, Va. — The port of More­head City, N.C., has been closed this morn­ing because of a leak of the explo­sive PETN. More­head City May­or Jer­ry Jones told CNN about noon today that the leak has been con­tained. Chief Pet­ty Offi­cer Mike Hvoz­da (USCG) said the PETN was released from nine heavy card­board-sided containers — […]

Apologies for the hiatus (0)

1/10/10 •

MECHANICSVILLE, Va. — Any­one who has looked at this blog has noticed that noth­ing has been post­ed here in a long time. Some of you have e‑mailed me and asked “Why?” I face the same prob­lem that many free­lance jour­nal­ists do: These days, it “pays” to blog, yet it real­ly does­n’t $PAY$ to blog. In […]

N.C. legislature passes plastic bag ban for Outer Banks (0)

6/22/09 •

EDITOR’S NOTE: The sto­ry was mod­i­fied on June 23 to update the lede with more recent devel­op­ments con­cern­ing the bill. MECHANICSVILLE, Va. — Despite oppo­si­tion from busi­ness and indus­try groups, the North Car­oli­na leg­is­la­ture Tues­day passed a bill to ban some uses of plas­tic bags in the three Out­er Banks coun­ties. The Sen­ate ver­sion of the […]

New climate change report suggests dire effects in Mid-Atlantic (0)

6/19/09 •

MECHANICSVILLE, Va. — “Human-induced cli­mate change is a real­i­ty, not only in remote polar regions and in small, trop­i­cal islands, but in every place around the coun­try — in our own back­yards. Cli­mate change is hap­pen­ing. It’s hap­pen­ing now.” So said Dr. Jane Lubchen­co, under­sec­re­tary of Com­merce for Oceans & Atmos­phere and NOAA Admin­is­tra­tor, at a […]

FEMA warns of lingering hazards from West Virginia flooding (Comments Off on FEMA warns of lingering hazards from West Virginia flooding)

6/12/09 •

MECHANICSVILLE, Va. — The Fed­er­al Emer­gency Man­age­ment Agency warned res­i­dents of flood-strick­­en areas of south­ern West Vir­ginia that, even though the water has gone, lin­ger­ing threats remain. Heavy rains trig­gered flash flood­ing in south­ern West Vir­ginia on Fri­day, May 8, and Sat­ur­day, May 9. More than 300 build­ings were destroyed, mud and debris lit­tered miles […]

Mid-Atlantic governors sign pact to protect ocean environment (0)

6/11/09 •

MECHANICSVILLE, Va. — Last Thurs­day, just a week­end before the first offi­cial obser­vance of World Oceans Day, the gov­er­nors of Delaware, Mary­land, New Jer­sey, New York, and Vir­ginia signed an agree­ment com­mit­ting the states to a coop­er­a­tive effort to pro­tect the ocean waters of the Mid-Atlantic. The “Mid-Atlantic Gov­er­nors’ Agree­ment on Ocean Con­ser­va­tion” estab­lish­es the […]

It’s Official: Today is World Oceans Day (0)

6/08/09 •

MECHANICSVILLE, Va. — Today, June 8, 2009, is the first offi­cial World Oceans Day. Cana­da pro­posed hold­ing a World Oceans Day in 1992 at the Earth Sum­mit in Rio de Janeiro. The Unit­ed Nations dithered ini­tial­ly, but the Cana­di­an idea inspired many to unof­fi­cial­ly cel­e­brate the day since. Per­sis­tent sup­port­ers even­tu­al­ly forced the UN to […]

Hormone may link fish kills, intersex fish in western Virginia rivers (0)

6/05/09 •

MECHANICSVILLE, Va. — The mys­te­ri­ous fish kills that have afflict­ed the waters of west­ern Vir­ginia the past few years have returned, but this year fed­er­al and state researchers appear clos­er to deter­min­ing their cause. In May, anglers and fish­eries biol­o­gists began report­ing small num­bers of dead fish and larg­er num­bers of live fish with skin lesions […]

Ocean acidification threatens shellfish in estuaries, coastal ecosystems (0)

6/01/09 •

MECHANICSVILLE, Va. — The shell­fish of the Chesa­peake Bay and oth­er estu­ar­ies in the Mid-Atlantic region face a host of threats to their sur­vival. Over­fish­ing, pol­lu­tion, sed­i­men­ta­tion, habi­tat destruc­tion, and intro­duced species have tak­en a toll on many shelled species, such as the east­ern oys­ter (Cras­sostrea vir­gini­ca), that play impor­tant roles in main­tain­ing the health […]

Older Posts

• Expect a near normal hurricane season, but…
• VMRC: Despite signs of blue crab recovery, catch restrictions to continue
• Mysterious bat disease forces closure of caves, mines
• TNC says shellfish reefs most endangered marine habitats
• New study suggests U.S. coasts may see greatest sea-level rise
• Welcome to The Chickahominy Report

Featured Categories

Book Review»

• 11/24/10 •

  Review: Shooting in the Wild

Chesapeake»

• 11/12/12 •

  Safe Haven: The Delmarva Fox Squirrel and Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge

• 2/23/11 •

  The Chesapeake Bay funding vote: Reaction and accountability

• 2/19/11 •

  House approves amendment to prohibit federal funding of Chesapeake Bay restoration plan

• 2/18/11 •

  Budget amendment may torpedo Chesapeake Bay restoration plan

• 6/01/09 •

  Ocean acidification threatens shellfish in estuaries, coastal ecosystems

Climate»

• 3/30/11 •

  A GOP war on the environment, II: Ken Cuccinelli vs. climate change

• 6/19/09 •

  New climate change report suggests dire effects in Mid-Atlantic

• 5/29/09 •

  Expect a near normal hurricane season, but…

• 5/23/09 •

  New study suggests U.S. coasts may see greatest sea-level rise

Disease»

• 5/26/09 •

  Mysterious bat disease forces closure of caves, mines

Hazards»

• 1/12/10 •

  Explosives spill shuts down North Carolina port

• 6/12/09 •

  FEMA warns of lingering hazards from West Virginia flooding

Health»

• 1/29/10 •

  Flooding leads to closure of shellfish harvesting in two Va. rivers

Oceans»

• 6/11/09 •

  Mid-Atlantic governors sign pact to protect ocean environment

• 6/08/09 •

  It’s Official: Today is World Oceans Day

• 6/01/09 •

  Ocean acidification threatens shellfish in estuaries, coastal ecosystems

• 5/27/09 •

  VMRC: Despite signs of blue crab recovery, catch restrictions to continue

Rivers»

• 1/29/10 •

  Flooding leads to closure of shellfish harvesting in two Va. rivers

• 6/05/09 •

  Hormone may link fish kills, intersex fish in western Virginia rivers

Waste»

• 6/22/09 •

  N.C. legislature passes plastic bag ban for Outer Banks