Leaders from Baltimore and other parts of Maryland are uniting to restore the Chesapeake Bay and associated rivers and wetlands. The Chesapeake Bay watershed is one of the largest and most ecologically important of its kind in the United States.
The watershed has been under increasing threat for decades due to pollution, development and overfishing, among other things.
These leaders, which include Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley and Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon, have put forth a vision for rescuing a large part of the water system around Baltimore City, the middle branch of the Patapsco River.
As a result, the southern gateway to Baltimore is currently experiencing a transformative process towards a goal few Hopkins students can imagine: being able to swim in the harbor.
The vision is to "restore the Middle Branch to fishable and swimmable levels by 2020 and protect and restore wildlife habitat to historic conditions."
This is a lofty goal in the Middle Branch Master Plan, a comprehensive framework to restore the waters that run under I-695, I-895 and underneath the bay of I-95 entering the city.
Wetlands are a unique environmental commodity because they allow water run-off to be filtered, like a kitchen Brita system. If the 900 acres of the watershed are restored to wetland conditions, they would be able to support native vegetation and animals like crabs and oysters, turning the harbor into an ecological cleaning system.
Baltimore is encompassed by Watershed 263, an area of land that can be thought of as a sponge that soaks up precipitation, such as rain and snow. A sponge can also be wrung out into a sink, and the sink is the Baltimore Harbor.
The Harbor currently collects our water runoff, which has negatively affected the Bay enough for it to be categorized as a Category 1 watershed "in need of restoration" under the guidelines of the Maryland Department of the Environment.
Funding and support must come in environments of serious commitment. "For years, this was an area that was unclean, unkempt and unsafe," O'Malley said in a 2008 press release.
"Very soon, it will be a place to learn about the environment, to spot wildlife and enjoy outdoor recreation using some of our state's beautiful natural resources," O'Malley said.
The Chesapeake Bay Foundation (CBF) gave the Chesapeake Bay, which is far larger than our own Baltimore Harbor, a grade of D in 2009.
This assessment categorized 13 different areas of wetland health, of which nitrogen levels, dissolved oxygen, water clarity and oyster and shad presence all scored grades of F. This score represents no change from the rating given to the Chesapeake last year.
The Chesapeake Bay is fed by the Patapsco River, which has two Baltimore Harbor branches: the Inner Harbor and the Middle Branch. The Middle Branch is more southern, shallower and more conducive to major wetland restoration.
The means by which habitat restoration of the Middle Branch of the Potomac Rivers will be achieved involves collaboration between many Baltimore City, Maryland state and institutional research centers. These organizations value the Middle Branch because it can be restored into a viable wetland.
As an urban ecosystem, Baltimore uses a "patch dynamic" framework for urban design and planning. Imagine that Baltimore city is a quilt: Each square of the quilt is your local park, city block or residential area. The stiching that separates these squares represents the sidewalks or roads. Just as the stitches hold the patches of the quilt together, these urban boundaries and buffers are what hold the patches in an urban watershed together.
Encouragingly, the Chesapeake Bay scored an overall B+ in the specific category of "forested buffers." Buffers are important in controlling the exchange of water, chemical pollutants, sewage, plant debris, animals and humans.
Some boundaries may be architectural, such as walls or footpaths. Other boundaries, like vegetation and pebbling, allow water to drain into the proper streams and storm drains that move water from a watershed into a basin effectively and with minimal ecosystem stress.
Boundary concepts are being taught in architectural, urban planning and environmental sustainability graduate courses at schools like Columbia University.
However, the problem of pollution, which influences nitrates, dissolved oxygen and water clarity, is not being effectively regulated, according to the Chesapeake Bay Foundation.
At the April 16 press conference in which the CBF revealed the 2009 Chesapeake Bay rating, representation from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency declined to comment on pushing for more stringent legislative caps on pollution.
Two programs, Revitalizing Baltimore and the Baltimore Ecosystem Study, seek to provide Baltimore with a comprehensive plan to restore it to a sustainable urban habitat. The Baltimore Ecosystem Study is only one of two urban ecosystems sponsored by the National Science Foundation's Long-Term Ecological Research Network.
Revitalizing Baltimore is a collaboration between the United States Department of Agriculture Forest Service, Parks and People Foundation and the Maryland Department of Natural Resources.
These agencies are pushing for Middle Branch restoration on the city, state, federal and community levels. The Middle Branch Master Plan was adopted in September of 2007 by the Baltimore City Planning Commission, but for now the pressure is still on for significant change to occur in the waters of the Chesapeake Bay.
