I once told Rick Hutzell, the former Editor-In-Chief of the Capital Gazette newspaper, that while he was on the job I felt like he was looking over my shoulder at everything I did. That’s how local press should feel to local elected officials.
During my first year in office, Rick was responsible for publishing this hard-hitting Eric Smith cartoon on the Capital’s opinion page. The public water access advocates at the time brought a blow-up print of it when I met with them.
I was inspired by those advocates, and also by that cartoon. Each year since, I have eagerly sought out ways to expand access to the Chesapeake Bay for people who don’t live in what we now call “water-privileged” communities.
Our Office of Community Engagement and Constituent Services can testify to the battles and bruises we’ve endured along the way. When folks have invested their life savings in a piece of heaven by the water, they tend not to welcome the public at nearby sites. We also have user groups competing with each other for access sites.
On Monday, I took stock of progress. Why? Because Rick Hutzell didn’t go away. He reports on Anne Arundel County for the Baltimore Banner, and he interviewed me - on public water access. I asked both the Budget Office and Recreation and Parks to collect information on the dozens of recent, current, and future investments that we’ve made in public water access sites. I even invited their directors, Chris Trumbauer and Jessica Leys, to join me via Zoom for the interview.
Hutzell always has a thoughtful and entertaining angle, so I encourage you to look for his take on the topic when it comes out next week, but here’s my own assessment.
The Schuh administration responded to the water access advocates with a primary focus on what they were seeking: public boat ramps and kayak launch sites. At the start of that administration, there was only one county-owned boat ramp. Today we have four, plus the city ramp at Truxton Park and the State ramps at Sandy Point, for a total of six public sites. When I took office, there were 17 kayak launches, or car-top launch sites, on county property. Today there are 22.
Kayak launch sites are easy. They cost very little, and we will continue to add them wherever we can get cars close to calm water without major damage to the environment.
Boat ramps are hard. They require parking lots near the water, adequate depth, and an investment of $2 million for each. While boaters like to have a variety of places to launch for free, some marina owners make the case that the public ramps are competition. They offer ramps for a fee - usually in the $25-$30 range.
I took some heat from the kayakers and trailerable motorboat owners when I told them that I was shifting the water access focus to people who don’t own boats. We rebuilt fishing piers (Green Haven, Galesville, and Carr’s Wharf), added amenities for visitors at parks with beaches (Ft. Smallwood, Beverly Triton, and Mayo), and advocated for public access on properties where it had been promised (Holly Beach Farm, which will soon be opened for low-intensity visitation by DNR) or threatened (Greenbury Point, which Congress has weighed in on and must now remain open to the public).
In the pipeline, we have a new dock at Londontowne, a new dock at Jug Bay, campsites and cabins at Emory Waters Nature Preserve, shoreline repairs to improve six waterfront parks, a master plan in design for improvements at South River Farm Park, improvements at Valentine Creek, and a feasibility study to identify county-owned waterfront locations where additional improvements can be made to facilitate public access. When you add it all up, we’ve invested $40 million dollars in public water access.
But what if nobody shows up at these sites? What if the next generation of residents shifts its passion to online entertainment and away from a relationship with nature, away from our Bay and its tributaries? We don’t want that to happen, so we’re enticing them to the water with what I believe is the most effective public water access program we do: Anne Arundel River Days.
On five weekends this summer we offered free boat rides, live music, food trucks, face painting, and information booths from organizations and county agencies dedicated to the health of our waterways. They attracted more than 4,000 people, and the last one was this past weekend at our most magnificent waterfront park, Fort Smallwood.
With two boat ramps, a kayak launch site, a swimming beach, a fishing pier, trails, picnic sites with fire pits, a historic fort, a view of the Francis Scott Key Bridge, and a brand-new concession and restroom facility, Fort Smallwood is where people make connections to the Chesapeake Bay that stay with them for life.
This week, the door opened to a whole new water access opportunity when our Office of Transportation was awarded a $3.9 million federal grant to purchase two electric passenger ferries for a route connecting Annapolis City Dock to Baltimore Harbor and Metapeake State Park across the Bay in Queen Anne's County. It’s the beginning of what was envisioned in the five-county feasibility study just released by Visit Annapolis and Anne Arundel. Jurisdictions up and down the Bay on the eastern and western shore want to offer families an affordable way to explore our great estuary by water.
And our Congressional Delegation shares the vision. Together we are advocating for Congress to establish the Chesapeake National Recreation Area, with waterfront sites that are accessible and memorable for all.
The Chesapeake Bay and the rivers that feed it nurtured humanity for many centuries. The fact that a small number of our neighbors today own most of its 530 miles of Anne Arundel coast must not prevent the rest of us from experiencing the magic. So we’ve created the concept of public water access, and it turns out that it’s about much more than meeting the needs of specific user groups. It’s about instilling the will to nurture the nature that nurtures us.
Thanks, Rick Hutzell and public water advocates, for pushing this county executive to never give up on that pursuit.
Until next week …