Coastal farmers are being driven off land
Rising seas, punishing storms lead to more salt that poisons soil
CHAMP, Maryland — Eric Bedsworth’s day of reckoning arrived a year ago.
His soybean field got such a salty soaking from last fall’s tidal waters that he abandoned it mid-harvest. This season, the land sprouts only weeds. Unless researchers create a salt-tolerant crop to his liking, Bedsworth likely never will plant this soggy field again.
“I hate to see the land go out of production. But I’ve lost so much money down there,” said Bedsworth, a third-generation farmer in Somerset County.
His is a fate farmers increasingly confront amid rising seas and punishing storms, according to a study by the Howard Center for Investigative Journalism at the University of Maryland. Thousands of acres have been abandoned on the Eastern Shore. The long-farmed land was “the breadbasket of the Revolution.”
With seas rising, farmers along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts increasingly suffer from one of the initial impacts of climate change: saltwater intrusion. The plague of salt is arriving not just from storms and tide but also underground, where it can migrate undetected until crops shrivel. Often, the damage is compounded by farming methods ingrained over the years.
In North Carolina, rich coastal lands drained for farming are going barren as saltwater soaks
Attorney’s Office. The unit works to set free aging prisoners who pose no threat to public safety and are at-risk of the coronavirus.
“Ms. Pretty has served 42 years in prison. She has not only redeemed herself but exemplifies the need for second chances in our criminal justice system and while we recognize the hurt and trauma that lives everyday with the survivors of this unfortunate incident, we remain committed to ensuring restorative support as they heal,” State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby said in a statement.
Pretty had been serving a 60-year sentence for murder, handgun and accessory charges. She pleaded guilty to the charges in September 1978.
Her older boyfriend at the time had robbed and killed the Baltimore social worker Preston Cornish and police found the gun in her grandmother’s apartment. She pleaded guilty to the accessory charge in that case.
Two months after the murder, she helped two killers enter the all-night grocery store of Louis Thomas on Reisterstown Road. She had worked for Thomas and he opened the door for her. Her boyfriend and an accomplice robbed andshot andthe grocer and father of four. She pleaded guilty to the murder charge for his killing.
Family members of the two victims could not be found Monday.
Pretty’s old boyfriend, Ronald Brown, died in prison. His accomplice, Michael Coffee, remains locked up.
“I was a little scared kid. All I wanted was attention. I wanted somebody to love me,” Pretty told newsanchor
Diane Sawyer in a tearful interview in 2015.
While locked up, Pretty earned a bachelor’s degree in sociology from Morgan State University. She took computer courses and worked as a data entry clerk for more than 20 years. She organized self-help lunches and volunteered for charity work. In a news release from the State’s Attorney’s Office, correctional officers described her as a role model. Her record behind bars showed three rules infractions in more than three decades.
Her freedom was granted at the request of the Sentencing Review Unit. Mosby announced last week she has hired the former deputy public defender Becky Feldman to run the unit and review the cases of aging prisoners. Pretty becomes the second person released through the unit.
The first, Calvin McNeill, 56, was set free last summer. He had been serving life in prison for a dice game robbery andmurdercommitted while he was a teenager. McNeill was released in July and ordered to five years of probation.
An order in April from Maryland Chief Judge Mary Ellen Barbera opened the door for such releases. Barbera ordered trial courts statewide to identify and release prisoners who are at-risk of the virus and no threat. Under this order, prosecutors may ask the courts to reconsider the prison terms of men and women across Maryland.
Pretty’s case has been raised as a cause for prison reform. Twice the Maryland Parole Commission concluded she was sufficiently remorseful and no longer a threat. Gov. Martin O’Malley denied her release in 2011. Gov. Larry Hogan denied her again last year.