Chesapeake Bay Environmental Legend Fowler Speaks at SU Wednesday, October 29

SALISBURY, MD---For a quarter-century, former Maryland Senator Bernie Fowler has hosted wade-ins on Southern Maryland’s Patuxent River to help others understand the importance of Maryland’s longest river.

On Wednesday, October 29, Fowler discusses “Bernie’s Toes: 90 Years in the Life of a Chesapeake Bay River and Its Legendary Defender.” His presentation, rescheduled from last spring, is 7 p.m. in Henson Science Hall Room 243.

Fowler was elected as a Calvert County commissioner in 1970, holding the office until 1982. That year, he was elected to the Maryland Senate, serving until retiring from public office in 1994.

Throughout that time, he was a proponent for bettering the health of the Patuxent, spearheading a campaign that resulted in new pollution control measures from the state and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. From 1985-2004, those controls helped reduce the amount of sediment deposited annually in the Chesapeake Bay by an estimated 70,000 tons.

In 1997, the Environmental Protection Agency declared Bernie Fowler Day in honor of his efforts to clean up the Patuxent. The following year, the Chesapeake Biological Laboratory in Solomons, MD, dedicated a building in his honor.

His talk at SU is hosted by Tom Horton, award-winning author and former environmental writer for the Baltimore Sun, who has chronicled Fowler and the Patuxent River for four decades.

Sponsored by the Environmental Studies Department, admission is free and the public is invited. For more information call 410-543-6030 or visit the SU website at www.salisbury.edu.