Hooper’s Island – Baltimore Magazine

J.M. Clayton Seafood Celebrates 125 Years in Maryland

Jess Mayhugh — Wed, 15 Jul 2015 13:05:00 +0000

The first day of crab-picking season at the J.M. Clayton Seafood Company in Cambridge this year was the morning after your tax returns were due. That’s April 16, a little later than usual, thanks to a long winter’s freeze.

The crack of the first claw at Clayton marked the start of eight months of processing crabmeat on the Choptank River, a season that almost exactly parallels baseball season. And, just like the national pastime, the big prizes come in September and October, the month of the greatest blue-crab harvests in the Chesapeake Bay.

Autumn—far removed from the imaginations of those who equate steamed hard crabs with Fourth of July cookouts and vacations downy ocean—“is when the crabs are migrating,” says William “Bill” Brooks, whose great-grandfather, John Morgan Clayton, known to all as “Captain Johnnie,” founded the company. September and October, says Brooks, 62, “is when the crabs are moving.” The same can be said for five generations of the Clayton family and many thousands of employees over the years, who, since the late 19th century, have moved ton upon ton of oysters and crabs from Maryland waters to kitchen and picnic tables.

Now in its 125th year, J.M. Clayton Seafood was founded on Hoopers Island the same year a Baltimore shipyard produced the first steel tanker ship in the United States and is believed to be the oldest working crab-processing plant in the world. Clayton’s crabmeat is coveted by high-end restaurants, including Wit & Wisdom and Gertrude’s. It is marketed under the name Epicure, the name of Captain Johnnie’s boat. “J.M. Clayton is vital to the survival of the state’s crabbing industry,” says Steve Vilnit, former director of fisheries marketing at the Maryland Department of Natural Resources. The man behind the state’s True Blue program—which urges restaurants using Maryland crabmeat to label their cakes as local—Vilnit is a great booster of all the Free State’s 22 crab processors. “These picking houses allow watermen to harvest and sell their product throughout the season,” he says. “Without them, the history and tradition of crabbing would not survive.”

On Cambridge Creek, once busy with picking houses and now a cove of condos, the tradition is held together by a trotline of gentlemen’s agreements reaching back to the start of the company. J.M. Clayton works with 30 to 40 watermen, some of them the grandsons of men who dealt directly with Captain Johnnie.

Now at the helm of J.M. Clayton are three of Captain Johnnie’s great-grandsons. They are the sons of John Clayton Brooks: Jack, Bill, and Joe. Jack Brooks, 63, the current president, took over in 1989. Brother Joe “can do it all,” and Bill works the books, directs the wholesale market, and proudly describes his title as “family member.”

“I’m a seat-of-the-pants businessman,” says Bill Brooks of the unpredictable crab industry. “Every day we wake up and react to what comes our way.”

Jack’s son, Clay—age 36, fifth generation, and the guy who oversees operations—possesses a very valuable skill: He can speak a very passable Spanish to the mostly Mexican workforce of 60 or so and gets more proficient at the language by the day.

“J.M. Clayton is vital to the survival of the state’s crabbing industry.”

A few summers ago, Joe Brooks gave a tour of the plant to a writer from a Chesapeake Bay boating magazine. The story famously quoted Joe saying, “We always tell [the watermen], ‘We will buy all of your crabs.’”

“All” at Clayton ranged as high as 483,000 pounds of crabmeat in the bountiful 1980s, and dipped as low as 200,000 during a bad spell in the 1990s. In the past five years, the trend has fluctuated between 234,000 and 350,000 pounds per season. Explaining the handshake deal with watermen, Bill Brooks says, “We don’t want them looking for hot markets and then just selling us what they cannot sell other places. They have a market for all their crabs here every day they fish, and we expect them to sell us all of their catch.”

Though Clayton handles both oysters and crabs before shipping them out again for sale, it is the meat locked inside the hard shell of callinectes sapidus—most especially the sweet and delicate backfin of the beautiful swimmer —for which it is known.

Ask Bill Brooks to take a taste test by giving him visually identical crab cakes—perfectly rounded, with only enough filler to bind, golden brown, either fried or broiled—with everything the same except the source of the meat. Have one made from crab spawned in the waters of the Chesapeake, known by the Algonquians as Chesepiooc, a word akin to village “by a big river.” Make the other from an Asian crab, the portunus pelagicus, a blue crab native to the Pacific and Indian oceans with a bright black-speckled shell. Then ask him if he can discern the difference. “Asian crabmeat is denser, sort of pearly and has a definite aftertaste because of chemicals they use to preserve it for shipping,” says Brooks. “Ours has that yellow tinge of crab fat. That’s the cream—cream rises to the top.”

Captain Johnnie, a native of Accomack County, VA, started the company that bears his name in 1890 along a wooden pier on Hoopers Island. Business was good for the next 30 years. After the advent of telephones, trucking, and trains, Captain Johnnie realized that things could be even better if he had greater access to major markets such as Wilington, DE, the Midwest, and, with its plentiful rail connections, Baltimore. So in 1921, he packed up the whole kit-and-caboodle—including his workers and their families—and moved the operation some 30 miles north to Cambridge.

Among those who uprooted their lives to follow the work was Fronie Dorothy Jones. “That was my mother,” says 81-year-old Nicie (pronounced Nice-y) Jones, a recently retired Clayton picker. As a child, Nicie recalls, “I went out to pick crabs early in the morning, go to school, and then come home and crack more claws in the afternoon. I loved it, loved all the carrying on with my mama and the women I knew in the picking room. Oh honey,” she says, summing up her long life of work, “it was lovely down at that crabhouse.”

Both of Nicie’s parents worked at Clayton’s. Her mother picked there for eight decades before her death in 1992, starting as a child on Hoopers Island and staying at it—paid by the pound, what was called “piece work” in factory parlance—until she was nearly 90. In her prime, Nicie could pick about 40 pounds of crabmeat in a day and says her mother was even faster. The hours were long, the pay was modest, the season only lasted a half to three-quarters of the year, and workers’ hands took a gouging. Just like today. “People worked until they couldn’t work anymore,” says Brooks.

“Oh, honey, ” says Nicie Jones, “it was lovely down at that crabhouse.”

If the crabbing season follows the baseball season, its pickers are as competitive as the athletes who play ball. Each picker is given a number and their totals are put up on a white board as the day goes by. The number is also printed on each can of Clayton’s retail crabmeat for reference when complaints (“I found a shell”) or compliments (“best I’ve ever had”) come in.

Fronie was number 10 and Nicie labored under the number 12. “We have retired both of those numbers,” says Brooks.

“I wasn’t the best, but I was right there with ’em,” says Nicie, noting that the men steamed the crabs and the women picked them. “My mama was the best. She didn’t do too much talking, didn’t take many breaks. She just worked.” How fast was Nicie—who swayed rhythmically as she worked, as though singing a hymn—in her prime? “Oh my goodness,” she says. “When I started to rocking, look out!” For almost all of Nicie’s career, the other women at the picking tables were virtually all African-Americans from the Eastern Shore. The last African-American in the picking room today is Cornelius Johnson, a man on the other side of 80. Cornelius retired from regular picking a while back but comes in now and again to crack claws and keep busy.

By the 1970s, with workers leaving for jobs at a new industrial park in Cambridge, the challenge of finding Americans to work the crabhouse became so difficult that John Clayton Brooks and a couple of buddies invented and patented the “Quik Pik,’” a mechanical crab-picking machine. Although it was never as good as the human hand when it came to unlocking top-shelf lump meat from the baffles of a blue crab, it could pick 100 pounds in an hour. And while those machines are no longer in use, the company still uses mechanical pickers today.

The first year Clayton brought seasonal laborers from Mexico to keep the business alive was 1997. Without the federally approved “guest worker” system, which allows foreigners to work in the U.S. on a temporary basis, the Clayton firm would be packing it in instead of shipping it out. There are other signs that the crabbing industry is far more precarious than it was in peak times from the Depression through WWII, when Clayton employed more than twice as many pickers as it does today. Brooks observes that the average age of watermen is older than ever and their children are less likely to follow the family tradition.

Pollution from a range of sources, loss of habitat like vital bay grasses, over-fishing, and disease have all contributed to the decline of the Chesapeake Bay blue crab.

But that thing that wants to pinch the hell out of your finger if you get too close is a hardy scavenger, and Brooks has kept an old scrapbook of newspaper clippings from the 1950s through the 1970s that his great uncle cut out as a bellwether—it reported that things were dire for the crabbing industry.

Bill takes it all in stride.

Will there be Maryland steamed crabs on your grandchildren’s picnic table on some far off Memorial Day? “Absolutely,” he says. “Nobody wants to be the guy who catches the last crab.”

Source

The Sea Also Rises

Jess Mayhugh — Mon, 05 Jan 2015 12:00:00 +0000

The Sea Also Rises

The Eastern Shore is already facing the dire consequences of global warming. Baltimore, Annapolis, and the rest of the region are on deck.

Ron Cassie - January 2015

The Sea Also Rises

The Eastern Shore is already facing the dire consequences of global warming. Baltimore, Annapolis, and the rest of the region are on deck.

Ron Cassie - January 2015

The Hooper's Island Road Causeway at High Tide. —Greg Kahn

The first thing you notice is the standing water in the roadside gullies, even though it hasn’t rained in a week. Then, you notice the small houses and churches all teetering on concrete blocks or bricks four or five feet above the muddy, soft ground. But driving down Maryland Route 335 toward Hooper’s Island, it’s the trees that give you the deepest pause. Thousands of pine trees have been stripped bare of their needles, branches, and brown bark in this part of south Dorchester County. Ramrod straight, white as ghosts, the hollow trunks look like some kind of zombie deadwood, the staggering aftermath of an unfolding calamity.

Which, it turns out, is exactly what they are.

The land here is sinking beneath a fast rising Chesapeake Bay and the pine trees can’t survive the encroaching saltwater. Look closer, says Shawn Riley, a local waterman who makes his living harvesting oysters and blue crabs, and you can see that the process has been picking up speed. “Out on the boat, you’ll see trees leaning like this,” Riley says, holding his arm at a 45-degree angle. “There are tons of stumps, too, in the water. We have to maneuver around ’em.”

Riley, 53, grew up in the nearby small town of Crocheron and has lived on Hooper’s Island—the original home of the state’s century-old, family-owned Phillips Seafood—for 20-plus years. Technically, he lives in Hoopersville, the middle of Hooper’s string of three islands. Well, two islands now.

Or maybe one and a half.

The lower island, known as Applegarth, once a thriving village with its own post office, washed away decades ago. And Riley will tell you that Hoopersville, where it seems half of the remaining few dozen homes are for sale, probably isn’t long for this world, either. With rising sea levels accelerating erosion, Hooper’s Island is losing about two acres of land a month. “The street in front of my house is named Steamboat Wharf Road because there used to be a wharf down the way where the steamboats came in,” he says, pointing maybe two hundred yards away. Today, little remains of the old thriving wharf area, or of nearby Hickory Point. “That’s been [eroding] since I’ve been here.”

A Dorchester county pine tree withering in encroaching saltwater. —Greg Kahn

A dozen years ago, Hurricane Isabel swept the bay across the island, flooding and destroying Riley’s house, among many others. He says he considered leaving, but ultimately rebuilt with the help of a Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) grant and a low-interest loan. “They only offered the money if you built on the same site,” he says. “What else was I going to do?” His home now sits on a foundation that’s five cinderblocks high, but other issues press. The causeway from the upper island, known as Fishing Creek, to Hoopersville has begun flooding at high tide most of the year. A couple of years ago, when Riley needed to replace his old Chevy truck, he went with a bigger, taller Silverado, in large measure just to get home safely from work.

“I know those Arctic glaciers are melting and that water has to go somewhere,” Riley says, shrugging in his driveway on a recent, unseasonably warm afternoon. “I guess it’s coming here.”

It is not just Maryland’s Eastern Shore islands that are in danger of disappearing beneath the surface because of global climate change and rising sea levels. In truth, 13 of the lower bay’s charted islands, many of them once inhabited, are already gone. Even more alarming are stories foretold by the interactive displays at the visitor center at the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge in nearby Cambridge. Those models show that by the end of the century more than half of Dorchester County, the third-largest county in the state in terms of land area, will be under water. Of course, much of the Eastern Shore—most urgently, the lower counties of Dorchester, Wicomico, Somerset, and Worcester, which includes vacation haven Ocean City—is threatened by rising seas, erosion, tidal flooding, and storm surges. So, too, are western shore small towns in Anne Arundel, Harford, and eastern Baltimore counties.

The question really isn’t what will be lost anymore, but what we will decide to save.

Due to the region’s geology and Atlantic Ocean currents, sea levels in the Chesapeake Bay are rising twice as fast as the global average and are projected to jump by as much as two feet in the next 35 years, and up to five feet or more by the end of the century. That leaves the state’s two largest cities on the bay vulnerable: Baltimore, with its iconic waterfront and port, and the state capital, Annapolis, with its historic city dock, will be challenged like never before in the coming decades by near constant flooding. So-called “nuisance flooding,” when storm drains get overwhelmed and water pools two or three feet deep, has already become more commonplace here than anywhere else in the country. Floods have already increased by more than 900 percent in both cities since 1960. Some projections call for 225 or more such floods a year for Baltimore and, essentially, daily inundation for Annapolis by 2045, according to a recent study based on National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration data.

“The question really isn’t what will be lost anymore,” says Jim Titus, a Maryland resident and leading sea-level-rise official at the Environmental Protection Agency, “but what we will decide to save.”

The last house on Holland Island, which succumbed in 2010. —David Harp

Annapolis, facing a growing crisis, is already one of cities most susceptible to flooding in the U.S. —Amy McGovern

The Inner Harbor, Fells Point, and the greater Baltimore Harbor area will be challenged by ever-stronger storm surges. —Baltimore City

Dundalk, in Eastern Baltimore County, is regularly forced to close roads today after storms. —John Long

With 3,190 miles of shoreline and 265,000 acres of rural and urban land situated less than five feet above the high-tide line, Maryland, along with Louisiana and Florida, is among the states most vulnerable to sea-level rise. With slowly sinking land around the Chesapeake (still settling from the last Ice Age, ironically enough), rising seas will eventually necessitate the need for revised or completely ne

Going by the upper-end projections of sea-level rise—which we’re likely headed for as atmospheric carbon-dioxide levels surpass concentrations not seen in millions of years—more than 440,000 acres of land, $42.3 billion in property, and 94,000 homes in Maryland will be in increased danger of inundation.“By our estimate, we should prepare for a sea level that’s going to come up to our knees by 2050 and then chest-high by the end of the century. It’s no longer a question of ‘if’ sea levels will rise that high, but ‘how fast,’” says Donald Boesch, president of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science and technical chair of a 2013 Maryland Climate Change Commission report that updated sea-level-rise projections. “Houses are going to have to be raised, and you do not want to locate firehouses, police stations, hospitals, and schools—buildings that are meant to last—in places that are going to be destroyed in every flood.”

Nothing in either the Climate Central or the Maryland Climate Change Commission report would come as a surprise to Mary McCoy, 60, who lives not on the bay, but about 90 feet up from the Chester River outside the small Eastern Shore town of Centreville in Queen Anne’s County. McCoy readily recalls the early morning hours of Sept. 19, 2003, when she and her husband decided to ride out Hurricane Isabel at home. When the winds finally quieted, they went downstairs, hoping damage to the home, previously owned by her grandparents, was minimal. That is, until McCoy looked out her first-floor windows. “The lawn was glistening in the dark,” she says. “The Chester River was in our front yard. We were moving the furniture as it began seeping through the floorboards. When it receded, there were jellyfish and sticks and things all over the grass.”

Water entering the house was something that had never happened in the 80-year history of McCoy’s home. The ductwork in the basement needed to be replaced, and soon she and her husband, like certainly thousands more in the coming years, had to start making decisions about a future that they hadn’t considered previously. Initially, they discussed landscaping options, and then, later, sought a bid from a contractor to move the house further from the river. Ultimately, moving the home, though probably necessary in the long run, was too costly at the time. McCoy had hoped to pass the family home onto her younger cousins, but now she’s doubtful that will happen. “I ‘Googled’ and found a Maryland Department of Natural Resources map showing that the Chester River will eventually be lapping at the foundations of my house,” she says.

By our estimate, we should prepare for a sea level that’s going to come up to our knees by 2050 and then chest-high by the end of the century.

Even more than the compelling data and science—the past year also recorded the warmest global temperatures since they began being measured in 1880—such anecdotal evidence, says Mike Tidwell, director of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, is at least helping Marylanders recognize that climate change is undeniable. The change in sea level may be imperceptible year by year, but when a flood comes rushing in like never before, the message gets driven home, he says. “It’s something that is difficult to wrap your mind around when scientists talk about projections in 2050 or the end of the century,” Tidwell says. “But when you hear more people say, ‘That never happened before’—and we’re hearing a lot of ‘that never happened before’ these days—people begin to connect the dots.”

One recent “never before” was Superstorm Sandy 26 months ago, which flooded the Inner Harbor, but mostly spared Baltimore City. Sandy walloped much of the Eastern Shore, including Ocean City and Salisbury, where the mayor instituted a civil emergency and a curfew during the storm. Sandy hit Crisfield, a town of 2,726 and the self-proclaimed “crab capital of the world,” very hard, with waves of white caps literally pouring into the heart of downtown and driving caskets up from their graves. At the Captain’s Carry Out on Main Street, which remained without power for days, the Little Annemessex River, at the mouth of the Tangier Sound, came rolling in halfway up the counter.

With devastation to Long Island, NY, and the Jersey Shore grabbing the national attention, the fallout in Crisfield has been widely overlooked. The storm displaced hundreds of local families, some of whom never returned home, and, eventually, residents there began thinking about climate change in relation to the town’s precarious location on the Delmarva Peninsula. “It made believers out of everyone,” says former mayor Percy Purnell, whose own property, as far away from the shoreline as you can get in Crisfield, was inundated with two feet of water. “There’s no question sea levels are rising, in my mind. Every time you rebuild a dock here, it has to be built two or three feet higher than it used to be when I was a kid growing up.” The town has received money since Sandy from the Maryland Emergency Management Agency to install tidal gates in the town’s storm drains and is working with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to drop a series of breakwaters near the town’s shoreline. Two nearby barrier islands need be rebuilt to protect Crisfield as well.

The town is also close to passing legislation requiring that the first floor of all new structures be elevated above ground. New homes receiving FEMA money have been elevated four to seven feet off the ground, in accordance with their regulations.

[In terms of climate change], Sandy made believers out of everyone.

“Sandy completely changed the community’s consciousness around climate change,” says James Lane, a Crisfield minister and community historian. “People recognize that we are, and will be, consistently challenged by rising sea levels now. And we will have hard choices to make. We lost a lot of people who moved after Sandy, elderly people who didn’t feel like they could deal with something like that again, as well as young families and newer residents, who don’t want to face these issues their whole lives. So, what do we do? Abandon and move? Those people become climate-change gypsies, as I call them, or refugees,” Lane continues. “Then again, what about the people who can’t leave because they’re poor and have no place to go? We have a lot folks who make a living on the water or in the maritime industry, struggling to get by as it is.”

In many ways, Crisfield, in making decisions where and how to rebuild, is on the forefront of a complicated, multi-pronged process that will play out over and over again across low-lying areas of the state.

More than 40 percent of the homes and assets of Somerset and Worcester counties lie below the five-foot high-tide line, and more than half of Dorchester County lies below 4.9 feet above sea level. In Baltimore City, low-lying areas include dense commercial and residential districts such as the Port of Baltimore, Canton, and Fells Point, where most residents and business owners have already become dedicated sandbaggers in the wake of various hurricanes and tropical storms. Models show that the whole Inner Harbor would be at risk during 8-foot storm surges, which are projected to be a fairly common event by the end of the century.

Other populated areas in Baltimore County, such as Middle River, Bowleys Quarter, Dundalk, and Edgemere, which already face severe flooding problems, will see an increase in storm surges, too. In Anne Arundel County, Glen Burnie is expected to see greater flooding and some residents of Shady Side and Deale could find themselves underwater by the end of the century. In Harford County, places like Joppatowne and Havre de Grace will be in greater harm’s way.

TWO feet high and rising

CHESAPEAKE BAY FACTS MAP

Led by the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, the most recent state report recommends Maryland plan for up to two feet of sea-level rise by 2050, highlighting the need to build adaptation into the state’s natural and built environments. The study’s assessment only worsens moving forward, with a “best estimate” of sea-level rise of 3.7 feet by 2100 and the possibility of a 5.7-foot sea-level rise by the end of century. With 3,100 miles of tidal shoreline and 265,000 acres of rural and urban land situated less than five feet above the high-tide line, much of the state faces a significant increase in flooding in the years ahead.

Of course, Queen Anne’s County, especially vulnerable near Kent Narrows just over the Bay Bridge; Talbot County, which includes scenic St. Michaels and Tilghman Island; and Kent, St. Mary’s, and Calvert counties; also have a lot of hand-wringing to do about where and how to protect shoreline, infrastructure, and homes. (On a related note, consider that Garrett County in Western Maryland was a center of the U.S. maple syrup industry before rising temperatures pushed the industry farther north.)

In fact, the mantra often heard in response to climate change and sea-level rise from federal, state, and local officials and planners these days is not prevention, but adaptation. The choices are generally presented as “defend, retreat, or accommodate.” The euphemism “managed retreat”—a mixture of the three, but not a phrase many politicians will want to be associated with—has also been thrown around among planners and climate scientists.

In general, sea-level rise planning efforts for most counties and municipalities largely remain in the early assessment stages. Considered at the forefront, however, the Baltimore City Department of Planning has created a new initiative: the Disaster Preparedness and Planning Project (DP3), which is addressing, among other issues, existing flood problems and expected higher sea levels. The city has already set new building guidelines to offset higher sea levels, including lifting the base elevation of new structures from one to two feet above the 500-year tidal flood plain. The DP3 also recently completed a report identifying vulnerable assets and critical facilities.

At the same time, Baltimore City is considering other projected climate-change and natural hazards, including more frequent and more intense precipitation episodes, as well as droughts and potentially deadly heat waves. According to a 2013 DP3 report, average air temperatures are expected to rise by 12 degrees in Baltimore by 2100, at which point the city will feel more like New Orleans. “It gets overshadowed by the attention on sea-level rise, but we have ‘hot spots’ in many parts of the city, like in East and West Baltimore, that are of an immediate concern, especially for senior citizens and children in those neighborhoods,” says Kristin Baja, the city’s climate change czar within the Office of Sustainability. “Heat waves like we’ve experienced in the past and other cities have experienced can be life and death situations.”

While the powers that be in D.C. work to protect the national monuments on the Mall and New York City plans the initial construction of “The Big U,” a 10-mile, $335-million fortress of berms and moveable walls to safeguard lower and midtown Manhattan, compromises on the Eastern Shore (as the minister from Crisfield referenced) are already underway.

Several months after Sandy, state officials offered controversial buyouts to a number of homeowners on Smith Island, which is eroding and sinking into the bay. The buyouts seemed more practical than reinvesting in an island with 276 residents that, in the long run, appears doomed. On Kent Island, Gov. Martin O’Malley and the state Board of Public Works have sparred with local officials and developers over the addition of a big condominium project because of the potential impact on what they consider an already at-risk flood area and over-burdened environment.

You can look at the Gulf of Mexico. You lose wetlands and you have Hurricane Katrina.

Following an executive order by O’Malley in 2012, two months after Sandy, new formal guidelines for state construction projects were published last year, recommending that future state and/or other major infrastructure projects should avoid, wherever possible, areas likely to be inundated by sea-level rise in the next 50 years. By setting the guidelines, says Zöe Johnson, director of resiliency planning and policy for the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, the state is trying to lead the way for counties and municipal government planning. She also notes that Maryland needs to keep working on maintaining and building natural protections against sea-level rise, such as wetlands barrier islands, because they remain critical to protecting shorelines. "You can look at the Gulf of Mexico,” she says. “You lose wetlands and you have Hurricane Katrina.”

Along with Baltimore City, Johnson adds that Annapolis and Anne Arundel County have been working with the state in developing flood mapping, planning, and mitigation efforts for the past several years. “We really want to work with every jurisdiction and provide all the technical assistance and financial assistance that we can,” Johnson says. “We are supporting them as much as we can, but we really can’t do it for them. In the end, it’s going to be up to each county and community.”

Tidwell, of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, believes that recent polls indicating support for additional clean-energy goals in Maryland at least offer hope for the future. He’s also pleased the state is at the forefront of reducing carbon emissions, noting that outgoing Gov. O’Malley made dealing with climate change a priority, signing legislation to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions by 25 percent by 2020. Now, Tidwell and his organization are trying to raise the bar on clean energy, pushing a new goal of 40 percent by 2025.

Even with new Republican Governor Larry Hogan, who has criticized the state’s sustainability and alternative-energy goals, taking office, Tidwell believes there’s opportunity to make progress. “[Former Republican Governor] Bob Ehrlich actually signed the state’s first greenhouse gas emissions bill, the Maryland Healthy Air Act, and one of the original clean-electricity mandates into law,” he says. If the state legislature is willing to act, he says, legislation can get passed. “If you walk around the state house in Annapolis, about 90 percent of the pictures from around the state include water,” Tidwell continues. “Maryland is a water state, and it only makes sense that we should be leaders in dealing with climate change and sea-level rise.”

High Water Mark

THIS GRAPH CHARTS THE PROJECTED FREQUENCY OF TIDAL FLOODING IN THE NEXT 15 AND 30 YEARS.

U.S. coastal communities, including those in Maryland listed to the right, are already dealing with more tidal-flooding episodes than in the past. As climate change pushes sea levels higher — through melting glacial ice and rising ocean temperatures, which expand water volume — flooding over the next 15 and 30 years is projected to occur much more frequently. With rising sea levels also creating higher tides and greater storm surges, flooding will reach previously “safe” ground as well, and cause more disruption, particularly along the East Coast and Chesapeake Bay region, where sea levels are rising twice as fast as the global average.

Courtesy of Union of Concerned Scientists

But so much climate change and sea-level rise is “baked into the cake” at this point, says Boesch, that in reality, any action taken in the next 40 years likely won’t make any major impact in Maryland until the next century. “There’s little we can do now to reduce sea-level rise by the middle of the century, but we can potentially help by stabilizing global temperatures and sea-levels by the end of the century, for the next century,” Boesch says. “I can tell you one anecdote about this that’s funny but also a little sad at the same time,” he continues. “There’s an elderly couple on the Eastern Shore that I visit from time to time. They used to always ask me, ‘How much longer is our house safe?’ Well, the last time I saw them, they didn’t ask about the house. They told me they’re going to be buried in Oxford, and they wanted to know if their graves would be safe. I told them, ‘Probably until the end of the century, I can’t make any promises after that.’”

Unfortunately, this means that much of what we consider quintessentially Maryland on the Eastern Shore, including significant state natural treasures, such as the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge and the Assateague Island National Seashore will be lost. Historic landmarks, too, such as Harriet Tubman’s birthplace and the museum planned in her honor are at tremendous risk.

In Anne Arundel County alone, 422 archaeological sites, including four historic lighthouses, as well as historic downtown Annapolis and its centuries-old city dock are at risk in the next decades. “A few of these sites are 3,000 years old, Native American sites, that will inundated by flooding over next 100 years,” says county contract archeologist Stephanie Sperling, who participated in a two-year study of the county’s threatened assets. “A huge part of our cultural legacy, will just wash away.”

Historically, of course, Marylanders have long had to struggle with rising water levels and erosion. Before the 20th century, this was largely due to the slow subsidence of the land along the Chesapeake and Atlantic. With climate change accelerating the process since the Industrial Revolution, the problem is taking on a more serious existential threat for many Marylanders.

On Smith Island, where the official Maryland state dessert, Smith Island cake, is still made by local women at the Smith Island Baking Company right off the dock, the looming threat to home, community, and a way of life, is never far from the minds of the remaining residents. A 45-minute boat ride from Crisfield, the island remains happily isolated from the harried pace of modern life and people here like the sunsets. It’s the last of Maryland’s inhabited lower bay islands not accessible by car.

The post office is only open four hours a day and the public school, with 11 students, is the smallest in the state. Home to watermen, a few retired folks, and a couple of bed-and-breakfasts mostly catering to summer visitors, the island rallied after the state offered buyouts, turning them down and instead organizing a group called Smith Island United to fight for grants to build badly needed sea walls and jetties to slow down erosion, and, at least, delay what is most likely its fate.

Erin Pruitt, who grew up on nearby Tangier Island, on the Virginia side of the bay, is one of the bakers at the Smith Island Baking Company, and like all the women working in this friendly atmosphere, she doesn’t want to leave. Only 26, she lived in Ocean City for a while before falling in love with a young man and moving to Smith Island. She admits occasionally missing the convenience of living inland, but she cherishes the slower pace and strong sense of community here.

“It’s the people here I love more than anything else, and if the island ever disappears, the culture and community will, too,” she says. “And that’s what I grew up with.”

Lively and thoughtful, a white apron tied around her waist as she removes the nine-layer chocolate and coconut cakes from the baking racks, Pruitt pauses and looks down for a moment. “People ask, from time to time, ‘Do you think when you have kids and grandchildren that Smith Island will still be here?’” she says. “‘I hope so,’ I say.

“But the truth is, and the reason it takes me a while to answer that question,” she continues, “is that I don’t want to think about it. That’s the harsh reality.”

Source

Guide to the Eastern Shore Islands

Jess Mayhugh — Tue, 24 Jun 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Given nature’s perversity, what are the odds that this summer will be a scorcher? Well, we know just the place to escape—an island. Islands are offshore cooling centers, oasises where we go for beaches and breezes, then stay for the chance to disconnect. And they’re as close as the Eastern Shore.

We’ve picked five islands well worth visiting, each with bona-fide credentials (e.g. tiki bars, sandy beaches, native seafood, and more). We’ve also rated them on a “separation-from-civilization” scale, awarding an Order of the Palm Trees for remoteness, water vistas, number/size of beaches, personal space, and freedom from e-mail, with four trees denoting the top getaway.

KENT ISLAND

Nearest City:Annapolis (15 miles)Island Cred: Dock bars and tiki huts.

Our closest island, Kent, is known for the lively strip of seafood restaurants, dock bars, upscale marinas, and wholesale fish operations lining either side of its eastern channel, Kent Narrows. But in between rearview glimpses of the Bay Bridge and the Narrows’s chockablock summer revelry, Chesapeake Bay’s largest island also offers scenic cycling, Fido-friendly beaches, a historic hamlet, and a Joe Biden-approved sub shop.

Terrapin Nature Park. - ForsakenFotos

Stay
Several hotel chains serve the Kent Narrows waterfront. Hilton Garden Inn rooms have private balconies suited for gazing at endless Bay views (hiltongardeninn3.hilton.com). Prefer greater isolation? Stay at the Historic Kent Manor Inn, an elegantly restored 1820 manor house amid 200 undeveloped acres hugging Thompson Creek. Beloved by bridal parties, the inn wows with water vistas, lush gardens, and luxury service (kentmanor.com). Island rentals: Expect to pay about $2,000-2,500 a week for a four-bedroom condominium.

Feast
Crab is king (natch), invariably served with mesmerizing water views, especially at Kent Narrows. Perennial fine-dining favorite The Narrows Restaurant earns raves for its cream-of-crab soup, jumbo-lump cakes, and lengthy wine list ( thenarrowsrestaurant.com). Frosty pitchers of beer pair best with steamed crabs at nearby Harris Crab House (harriscrabhouse.com). In a sea of crowded dock bars, seek out Big Owl Tiki Bar, a little oasis prized for its family-recipe crab cakes and Parrothead vibe (thebigowl.com). For lunch, try Capriotti’s in Chester, a branch of the popular Wilmington, DE, sub shop (reportedly a fave of the Veep’s). Its best seller packs Thanksgiving into a bodacious “sammich” featuring roast turkey, cranberry sauce, and stuffing (capriottis.com). And get your steamed crabs to go at Mr. B’s Seafood, a family-run market in Stevensville.

Do
Begin your odyssey at the Chesapeake Exploration Center, a visitor center/nature museum near Kent Narrows. From there, bike or hike at least part of the super-scenic Cross Island Trail, a paved six-mile passage through woods and over wetlands. Benches along the way invite lingering. At the trail’s west end, Terrapin Nature Park features more trails, one leading to a small public beach with spectacular views of the Chesapeake Bay and its iconic bridge. Leashed dogs are permitted to roam Terrapin’s sands, but for unbridled doggy paddling, visit Matapeake State Park, where dogs have their own beach (parksnrec.org). Shopping opportunities range from the small art galleries and gift shops in historic Stevensville’s Arts & Entertainment District (stevensvilleartsandentertainment.org) to major retailers at Queenstown Premium Outlets on the mainland, where Tommy Bahama and Izod stores can outfit you for the islands (premiumoutlets.com).

TILGHMAN ISLAND

Nearest City: Easton (23 miles)
Island Cred: Boats have the right-of-way at the drawbridge.

Minutes away, but a world apart from swanky St. Michaels, Tilghman has aged like sea glass into a burnished reflection of its vibrant past. Workboats still putter through Knapps Narrows, the busy-yet-bucolic channel separating the island from greater Talbot County, but old cottages built by farming and fishing families increasingly shelter newcomers lured by Tilghman’s natural serenity.

Two If by Sea Café. - Margaret J. O'Keefe

Stay

The unpretentious Tilghman Island Inn offers deluxe rooms overlooking picturesque Knapps Narrows, special dog-friendly accommodations, and nouvelle-cuisine dining. Its tree-shaded deck/bar makes a placid perch for boat watching (tilghmanislandinn.com). Gloriously remote, Black Walnut Point Inn lies between a gated bird sanctuary and open water at Tilghman’s southern tip. Comfy lodgings include riverfront cabins with kitchens, plus guestrooms in a mansion where Truman Capote once stayed (blackwalnutpointinn.com). Island rentals: A three-bedroom house goes for about $1,500 a week.

Feast
Visiting anglers dined and dreamed of seafood at lodges that were abundant during the steamboat days. Only one survives. Harrison Chesapeake House, a fourth-generation country-inn/fishing-charter empire, serves the real deal, from family-style Shore dinners (plump crab cakes, fried chicken, and local veggies) in its dining room to fresh steamed crabs at dockside picnic tables (chesapeakehouse.com). Mike & Eric’s Bay Hundred Restaurant at the Tilghman Island Inn provides a fine-dining experience with dishes like grilled duck breast and seared rockfish. Don’t miss the chocolate-chip pancakes at the breakfast mecca Two If by Sea Café. The retro-looking BYOB eatery also serves dinner on Fridays and Saturdays (twoifbyseacafe.com). Select a fine bottle at the Tilghman Island Country Store, where Friday evening wine tastings highlight the social calendar. Also recommended: its delicious local ice cream and house red-velvet cake (410-886-2777).

Do
View authentic Tilghman workboats and listen firsthand to their former skippers, who drop by unannounced at the must-see Tilghman Watermen’s Museum. New this summer: an exhibit of carved trail boards (ornate bow embellishments) rescued from abandoned bay workboats (tilghmanmuseum.org). Continue your cultural enlightenment at another locally run nonprofit, Phillips Wharf Environmental Center, popular for its aquatic touch tanks, oystering exhibits, and environmental tours (pwec.org). See Tilghman the way islanders do—from the water. Sail into the 19th century aboard the Chesapeake’s oldest skipjack, piloted by veteran waterman Capt. Wade Murphy (skipjack.org), fish with the patriarch of Harrison’s charter fleet (captnbuddy@chesapeakehouse.com), book a lighthouse cruise (chesapeakelights.com), or enjoy a romantic sunset sail aboard a 1935 Bay-built ketch (ladypatty.com). To create your own Tilghman souvenir, register for a weekend landscape-painting workshop with noted artist and instructor Walt Bartman at his island studio (yellowbarnstudio.com/classes.htm).

SMITH ISLAND

Nearest City: Crisfield (9 miles)
Island Cred: The school bus is a boat for some local students.

There’s only one way to reach the group of islands called Smith—by boat—making this Maryland’s most isolated, inhabited island. Its 240 hard-working residents harvest crabs and oysters from the Chesapeake, welcome visitors but spurn automobiles and alcohol, speak with the dialect of their ancestors, and live in an achingly beautiful place slowly surrendering to the waters that surround it.

Smith Island view. - Lee Cannon

Stay

Day-trippers hop an air-conditioned cruise boat or traditional passenger/supply ferries leaving nearby Crisfield to spend several hours on the island. To enjoy an overnight getaway, take the ferry serving Tylerton, Smith’s most isolated village, and unplug at the waterfront Inn of Silent Music. This edge-of-the-world B&B (a former waterman’s cottage) offers gourmet breakfasts, multi-course seafood dinners, and boundless peace (innofsilentmusic.com). Island rentals: You can get a three-bedroom cottage for about $600-800 a week.

Feast
Crabmeat doesn’t get any fresher than from Smith Island, where the crustaceans are caught, picked, and processed. Island dining options are somewhat limited, with only the Inn of Silent Music offering regular evening meals. You don’t have to be an overnight guest, however, to enjoy the inn’s three- and four-course dinners, featuring locally sourced produce and entrees such as fennel-crusted rockfish. For lunch, try Drum Point Market, a sub shop in Tylerton that serves one of the best crab cakes around (410-425-2108), or Ruke’s Seafood Deck in Ewell, noted for its cream-of-crab soup, crab cakes, and frozen-in-the-1940s ambiance (410-425-2311). Top off any meal with a slice of the famous Smith Island cake, a wondrous, architecturally impressive confection of nine layers. Smith Island Baking Co. sells the cakes to go (smithislandcake.com).

Do
After disembarking at the county dock in Ewell, head for Smith Island Cultural Center, a cultural museum/visitor center. It features enlightening exhibits and a short film that examines island life (smithisland.org). And be sure to engage island residents as you explore their home territory on foot or a rented bicycle or golf cart. Chat up the local ladies picking crabs at the Crabmeat Co-op in Tylerton (410-968-1344). Hire a guide (many of whom are retired watermen) to go fishing, bird-watching, or “progging,” an Eastern Shore term for foraging the shoreline for arrowheads, old coins, and other partially buried treasure. Kayakers will fall in love with the island’s miles of marshy water trails. (Ferryboats will haul your kayak for a small fee.) Birders take note: Don’t miss the island’s offshore pelican rookery, where hundreds of the big-billed birds raise their young.

ASSATEAGUE ISLAND (MD)

Nearest City: Ocean City (9 miles)
Island Cred: Number of residents: 0.

Known for its sugary-white beaches and abundant wildlife, this more-than-37-mile-long barrier island spanning Maryland and Virginia has been entirely preserved as parkland. On Maryland’s end of the island, compact Assateague State Park and the expansive Assateague Island National Seashore offer visitors swimming and sunbathing, fishing, hiking, camping, kayaking, and chance encounters with Assateague’s shaggy celebrities, wild horses.

Water fun at Assateague State Park. - David Colwell

Stay

With peach-colored sunrises and waves whispering good night, camping is the best way to experience Assateague’s primal beauty. Tent and vehicular ocean-side campsites in both parks are highly coveted. Reserve them early (reservations.dnr.state.md.us), (recreation.gov). Several backcountry tent sites serve backpackers and kayakers. Tent rates range from $20 to 30 a night or $40 a night for campsites with electrical hookups. If you prefer a Serta to sand, the restored Victorian-era Atlantic Hotel (atlantichotel.com) and B&Bs in nearby Berlin offer comfy snoozing.

Feast
Channel your inner hunter-gatherer: Dig for clams in Assateague’s shallow coastal bays. It’s fun, you don’t need a license, and with minimal effort or luck, you’ll have a super-fresh meal steaming away on the campfire. Ask park rangers about the best clamming spots and where to rent rakes and buckets. National park nature programs include clamming and crabbing classes.

Not into Survivor tactics for dinner? Three miles away, Assateague Crab House (assateaguecrabhouse.com) serves local delicacies like steamed crabs and clams, crab cakes, and fried chicken in a festive, family atmosphere. The Atlantic Hotel’s casually elegant Drummer’s Café also features fresh local seafood. Grab a table on the screened porch overlooking Main Street, prime seating for sampling the chef’s flash-fried soft-shell crabs and seared scallops with local succotash.

Do
Swimmers and sun worshippers love both parks’ windswept, lifeguarded beaches. They are the island’s main attraction, so arrive early (before 10 a.m.) or late (after 2 p.m.) to avoid parking gridlock. Anglers can try surf-casting for bluefish, summer flounder, red drum, and other species anywhere outside the swimming beaches. If beachcombing is your thing, you’re allowed to gather up to a gallon of seashells. (“Empties” only, please.) Get acquainted with local sea life in aquariums at the national park’s visitor center and the state park’s nature center. Pony peeping? A fence at the state line separates Assateague’s wild-horse herds. Maryland’s steeds roam freely. Look for them in marshes, on the beach, even in campgrounds. People once lived on Assateague, too. Tour the restored Rackliffe House, a lovely 18th-century plantation house overlooking Sinepuxent Bay (rackliffeHouse.com).

CHINCOTEAGUE ISLAND (VA)

Nearest City: Ocean City, MD (52 miles)
Island Cred: Walk to the beach.

Home to one of the nation’s “happiest” seaside towns (says Coastal Living magazine), this marsh-lined island is the commercial portal to beautiful Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge, Virginia’s portion of Assateague Island. Visitors to the refuge’s undeveloped shores will find lodging, dining, guided tours, and horse lore galore in the charming town of Chincoteague, host of July’s famed wild-pony roundup.

Wild ponies. - Shutterstock/Stephen Bonk

Stay
Check into Miss Molly’s Inn, the lodgings where Misty of Chincoteague was written. Besides historic cachet, enjoy the B&B’s porch views and British touches, like afternoon tea (missmollys-inn.com). Sheltered by woods, Refuge Inn offers modern amenities (indoor/outdoor pool, fitness center, and whirlpool suites) in a rustic setting near Assateague bridge. The hotel boasts its own herd of Chincoteague ponies (refugeinn.com). Island rentals: Weekly rates go from $1,400-2,200 a week for a four-bedroom, pet-friendly house. (Expect to pay 20 to 25 percent more during pony-penning week in July.)

Feast
Surfboards, potted palms, old workboats, and a rooftop peace symbol festoon Woody’s Beach BBQ, a funky ’cue shack serving wood-smoked pulled pork, barbecue ribs, and barbecue chicken. Slather on some Memphis- or Carolina-style sauce and chow down at picnic tables amid the islandy décor (woodysbeachbbq.com). A more upscale option, AJ’s on the Creek, specializes in seafood dishes such as bouillabaisse made with fresh local shellfish, crabmeat Alfredo, and oysters Rockefeller. For maximum romance, dine on the screened porch overlooking a languid creek. Mix with the locals at AJ’s Lounge, which features live acoustic music (ajsonthecreek.com). Don’t let the queue daunt you: The homemade ice cream and waffle cones at Island Creamery are worth any wait. Try densely chocolately Marsh Mud or the Kentucky-sweet treat Bourbon Caramel Crunch (islandcreamery.net).

Do
A short bridge separates Chincoteague from the refuge’s attractions. Don’t miss the still-active Assateague Lighthouse with its spectacular views (assateagueisland.com/lighthouse). The refuge has two visitor centers. Register there for guided marsh walks, photography hikes, and talks about local pirate lore. Enjoy the lifeguarded beach. Watch for ponies and other wildlife along hiking/biking trails (fws.gov/refuge/chincoteague). For even closer critter viewing, book one of the guided boat trips leaving Chincoteague. Assateague Explorer (assateagueexplorer.com) offers pony- and bird-watching trips into the refuge. Outfitter SouthEast Expeditions (southeastexpeditions.net) leads kayak tours and rents kayaks. If you miss this year’s pony swim, parade, and auction (July 26-31), you can still get your pony fix anytime. See Misty-the-movie-star’s hoof prints in the sidewalk outside Chincoteague’s recently renovated Island Theatre, where the 1961 film premiered (islandtheatres.com). Or watch Misty’s descendants at Chincoteague Pony Centre’s evening horse shows (chincoteague.com/ponycentre).

More Islands

Three smaller Chesapeake islands are worth a visit as well.

Kayak rentals on Janes Island - David Colwell

HOOPER’S

Nearest City: Cambridge (25 miles)
Island Cred: The most vital infrastructure is a seawall.

The birthplace of the Phillips seafood empire, Hooper’s consists of three low-lying islands that still live and breathe fishing (Upper, Middle, and the now-uninhabited Lower Hooper’s).

Feast on fresh seafood and homemade pie at Old Salty’s, serving locals and tourists in Fishing Creek (oldsaltys.com). The Hooper’s Island Lighthouse lies off shore, but view it and five other beacons via tour boat from Upper Hooper’s (sawyercharters.com). For longer visits, rent a house for about $600 wee.

JANES

Nearest City: Crisfield (2.5 miles)
Island Cred: Main Street is a water trail.

Part of Janes Island State Park, this marshy island is laced with 30 miles of shallow-water trails, perfect for kayaking.

Paddlers can enjoy bird watching, fishing, crabbing, or swimming and sunbathing on a remote sandy beach accessible only by boat. Park lodging includes serene waterfront campsites and family-sized cabins on the mainland or three backcountry island campsites. Full-service cabins are about $88 a night or $520 for a full week. Camper cabins are about $55 a night on weekdays and $56 a night on weekends (dnr.state.md.us/publiclands/eastern/janesisland.asp)

TANGIER (VA)

Nearest City: Crisfield (13 nautical miles)
Island Cred: Its motto is “Crab City, USA.”

The Crockett family and Methodists first settled this southern Chesapeake Bay fishing community reachable only by boat and airplane.

A mini Smith Island, tiny Tangier offers tranquility, island hospitality, and crabmeat everything. Hilda Crockett’s Chesapeake House, a B&B/restaurant, serves family-style lunches and dinners featuring crab cakes, clam fritters, Virginia ham, and all the fixings (tangierisland-va.com/cheshouse/). You can stay the week in a three-bedroom house for about $1,000.

Source

Hooper’s Island – Baltimore Magazine

J.M. Clayton Seafood Celebrates 125 Years in Maryland

“J.M. Clayton is vital to the survival of the state’s crabbing industry.”

“Oh, honey, ” says Nicie Jones, “it was lovely down at that crabhouse.”

The Sea Also Rises

Science & Technology

The Sea Also Rises

The Eastern Shore is already facing the dire consequences of global warming. Baltimore, Annapolis, and the rest of the region are on deck.

Ron Cassie - January 2015

Science & Technology

The Sea Also Rises

The Eastern Shore is already facing the dire consequences of global warming. Baltimore, Annapolis, and the rest of the region are on deck.

Ron Cassie - January 2015

The Hooper's Island Road Causeway at High Tide. —Greg Kahn

The question really isn’t what will be lost anymore, but what we will decide to save.

The last house on Holland Island, which succumbed in 2010. —David Harp

Annapolis, facing a growing crisis, is already one of cities most susceptible to flooding in the U.S. —Amy McGovern

The Inner Harbor, Fells Point, and the greater Baltimore Harbor area will be challenged by ever-stronger storm surges. —Baltimore City

Dundalk, in Eastern Baltimore County, is regularly forced to close roads today after storms. —John Long

By our estimate, we should prepare for a sea level that’s going to come up to our knees by 2050 and then chest-high by the end of the century.

[In terms of climate change], Sandy made believers out of everyone.

TWO feet high and rising

You can look at the Gulf of Mexico. You lose wetlands and you have Hurricane Katrina.

High Water Mark

Courtesy of Union of Concerned Scientists

Guide to the Eastern Shore Islands