Following reports by our own Danny Jacobs and others that the Maryland Department of the Environment had decided to lift some of Exxon’s remediation requirements in the area of the massive 2006 Jacksonville gasoline leak — a decision made without input from those who live near the site, and which the agency seemed loathe to revisit — MDE Secretary Shari T. Wilson heard from her boss.

The upshot was an after-business-hours e-mail to the media from Wilson’s office. Received here at 6:24 p.m. Tuesday, it says, in part:

MDE today received a request from Governor Martin O’Malley to carefully and expeditiously review the citizen’s request to reconsider the decision allowing ExxonMobil to discontinue supplying bottled water. MDE will, of course, do so. This review, and previous decisions, are reviewed by scientists with expertise in groundwater, public health, and subsurface remediation.

Just to be clear, Wilson isn’t saying MDE has changed its mind, or that it will change its mind — only that it will think about the homeowners’ request that it change its mind.

During my days in College Park, I accumulated a pile of free Terps T-shirts that I would wear to football and basketball games. Some may have been a little big, and roughly 5,000 other students would be wearing the exact same shirt, but hey, they were free.

I say this because we all probably did something similarly resourceful while in school to save a few bucks. Two recent stories about law school students have reinforced my point.

First is Julia Neyman, a student at Columbia Law School. Neyman has a blog, the cleverly-titled “Buns of Steal,” in which she chronicles her attempt to work out at health clubs in New York City for an entire year without paying once.

Neyman found gym memberships too expensive upon moving to New York to start law school but soon noticed gyms around the city gave out free passes and coupons. Enter her blog and her goal.

“Most people aren’t cheap enough to do this for a whole year,” she told The New York Daily News. “But I am.”

Next is University of Baltimore School of Law student Burke Miller, who posted an ad on Craigslist seeking tickets to Wednesday night’s Duke-Maryland basketball game in exchange for providing a certain number of billable hours to the seller upon passing the bar.

Miller told The Baltimore Sun one ticket seller contacted him but declined the offer.

“I’m still hopeful,” he said. “I’d sit down with [a seller] and make a contract and look at the standard billable rate for a young attorney. I’ve got full faith that I’d be a good attorney.”

I wish them both the best. (Incidentally, I’d be willing to part with some of my Terps T-shirts for a ticket to the game.)