April is Work Zone Safety Awareness Month, and I’m asking everyone to truly listen to the messages coming from state departments of transportation across the country on this topic. I started with the Maryland Department of Transportation in the 1990s in the Plats and...
Earth Day 2021: MDOT smart ponds use innovative stormwater management to help protect the Chesapeake Bay
As Sandy Hertz walked the perimeter of a small pond in Wicomico County one recent afternoon, a deer startled and bounded into the woods. Geese protected large eggs at the water’s edge. Frogs croaked and ribbited. And down a hill by the pond’s spillway, a tiny turtle...
Archaeology team led by MDOT SHA discovers homesite of Harriet Tubman’s father
Deep in the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge on the Eastern Shore, the Maryland Department of Transportation State Highway Administration (MDOT SHA) has made an important archaeological discovery. On Tuesday, Lieutenant Governor Boyd Rutherford, MDOT Secretary Greg...
MDOT SHA archaeologists work to unearth possible homesite of Harriet Tubman’s father
As fog burned off the wetlands at the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge one recent morning, Dr. Julie Schablitsky trudged deep into the muck. Water inundated the roads. Phragmites grew alongside. Trees that are succumbing to rising waters – collectively called...

