Ben Fertig of the Severn River Association stands along the Severn River at Wardall Community Beach in Annapolis.
Editor’s note: This article is part of a series. our waterwaysexamines the health of some of the small streams and rivers in the Chesapeake Bay watershed. To suggest a waterway, please contact Jeremy Cox. jcox@bayjournal.com.
Despite more than 40 years of cleanup efforts, the Chesapeake Bay still suffers from ecological problems, including massive algae blooms, oxygen-depleted waters, and oyster populations that are a fraction of their historic size.
Perhaps the efforts were too ad hoc?
U.S. Rep. Sarah Elfreth, a Maryland Democrat and a leading supporter of the Bay cleanup, said restoration projects that focus on specific watersheds within the Bay’s watershed typically create a lot of fuss.
“But then we move to another watershed and do another random restoration action there. And then we come back and wonder why we haven’t done any substantial water quality improvements in the Chesapeake Bay,” she said.
Mr. Elfreth made the remarks at the edge of the parking lot of a Giant supermarket in Annapolis. She and other state and local VIPs gathered there May 29 to celebrate the completion of two “bioretention cells,” similar to man-made swamps, intended to reduce nutrient and sediment contamination in parking lot stormwater runoff.
Access to stormwater drains in new stormwater management area at Wardall on the River Severn
Elfreth said this is not a “random restoration act” but one of the first steps in a carefully orchestrated five-year plan to improve the health of Anne Arundel County’s Severn River. Supporters hope that by concentrating funding and improvements in one watershed, they can achieve faster and better environmental responses.
And Mr. Severn is not alone. Similar upgrades are being made in four other Maryland watersheds. Antietam Creek in Washington County, the Port of Baltimore, Newport Bay near Ocean City, and the upper Choptank River on the eastern shore.
These represent the first class of waterways to receive assistance under the state’s watershed laws. The measure was inspired by a landmark scientific report in 2023. Written by the Bay Initiative’s Scientific Advisor, Overall evaluation of system response It promoted a shift in focus to improving shallow waters, which in theory would provide more direct benefits to people and aquatic life.
“What we learned from that was we needed to move faster,” said Josh Kurtz, director of the Maryland Department of Natural Resources. “We needed to make sure the solution was tied together.”
Elfreth, who sponsored the Watershed-Wide Act of 2024 as a Maryland state senator at the time, described the effort as a “fully coordinated watershed-wide approach.”
Ben Fertig of the Severn River Association jumps over a small river near the Severn River in Annapolis.
“Imagine,” she said, pointing to the newly installed project behind her. “However, they are located in all City of Annapolis parking lots within the Severn River Basin.”
The law required that the five watersheds selected represent a mix of urban, suburban, and rural areas, and that at least two were in “overburdened or underserved areas.” Severn, which has an 80-square-mile watershed that includes communities such as Annapolis, Severna Park and Arnold, was selected in the suburban category.
“Unlike, for example, Baltimore City, which has a very developed urban center, there are scattered impervious surfaces,” said Ben Fertig, restoration manager for the Severn River Association, a member of the coalition coordinating the Severn River Basin-wide program.
Impervious surfaces are hardened land covers, such as roads and rooftops, that prevent rain from penetrating into the ground. But Fertig noted that suburban areas contribute to the Bay’s problem in their own way, even though they have less concentrated water shielding than urban areas.
“We have lawns and gardens and fields here,” he said. “But they also present nutritional challenges because they (landscapes) require water, fertilizer and large amounts of pesticides and herbicides.”
The Severn watershed is home to the state capital and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Chesapeake Bay Planning Office, from which bay-wide cleanup efforts are coordinated. And the United States Naval Academy stands guard where the river joins the bay.
But even with electricity so close, water quality hasn’t improved significantly. Among the lowlights,
Ben Fertig of the Severn River Association sits near a step pool in Annapolis’ Wardall neighborhood.
- Once home to the Chesapeake oyster industry, the river was closed to harvest for a century due to bacterial contamination.
- The river’s water quality received a C-plus in the most recent report card for 2023. This was a slightly higher rating than the previous year, due in part to the dry weather.
- During the summer, vast expanses of water with almost no oxygen occupy much of the river, killing aquatic life that cannot escape. This is especially true in the wide, slow-flowing section of the river known as Round Bay.
The $250,000 project at Giant on Bay Ridge Road should not only reduce pollutants in stormwater, but also lower the temperature of the stormwater before it reaches the Severn tributary called Back Creek, said Jesse Iliff, executive director of the Severn River Association. As the water temperature rises, algae are more likely to grow, and when the algae die, the oxygen in the water is taken away.
Two bioretention cells capture rainwater runoff from the one-acre parking lot and filter it through layers of sand, soil, and organic matter. Designed to withstand up to 1 foot of rainwater before excess water spills into the raised overflow inlet.
This is not the first time state officials have tried a coordinated approach to watershed-level restoration.
For example, the Targeted Watershed Program, launched in 2005 under Republican Gov. Robert Ehrlich, spent about $20 million to restore the Corsica River on Maryland’s eastern shore within five years. The 2020 assessment found improvements in nutrient management and habitat, but little progress in water clarity, underwater grass cover, and algae bloom levels.
These half-hearted results have Bay scientists questioning whether restoration projects, even when done en masse, can have a measurable impact on the health of waterways, especially large waterways like the Severn, which have more land to treat.
The goals of the Whole Watershed Act are open-ended. The legislation defines its purpose as “accelerating the restoration of the Chesapeake Bay and Atlantic Coast bays and their watersheds” in a manner that is “cost-effective” and “likely to demonstrate a rapid, coordinated response.” This response could include removing the waterway from the federal list of impaired waters.
Each of the five watersheds received $2 million to cover this year’s work. Future funding is uncertain, but state officials say the goal is to maintain at least that level of funding.
No one involved in the Whole Watershed initiative expects the Severn’s pollution problem to be solved within five years. If things don’t work out, they say, just find a way to keep going.
“The whole watershed act is an important piece of the puzzle, but it’s not that“It’s not enough to do it alone,” Iliff said.
