Weekly Bacteria Monitoring Results | 5/29

Los Niveles De Bacterias De Esta Semana

Along with summer swimming comes ShoreRivers Bacteria Monitoring season. It is advised that people not swim 24-48 hours after a major rain.

Every summer, ShoreRivers deploys a team of community scientists to monitor bacterial levels at popular swimming and boating sites, providing vital information on human health risks to the public. Their samples are then processed, according to standard scientific protocols, in ShoreRivers’ in-house labs. The program follows the Environmental Protection Agency’s standard protocols for collecting and analyzing samples. It makes the results of that testing public, informing people about current bacteria levels as they plan their recreational activities in our waterways. Results are posted every Friday, between Memorial Day and Labor Day, at shorerivers.org/swim and on both the organization’s and its individual Riverkeepers’ social media pages.

A second page, shorerivers.org/swimmable-shorerivers-espanol, was established in 2023 to share this program with the Spanish-speaking community. Additionally, 14 signs can be found at public sites around the Eastern Shore that explain the goals of the Swimmable ShoreRivers program and indicate where users can find weekly results in both English and Spanish. These signs (and the program at large) are made possible thanks to funding from the Cornell Douglas Foundation, and ShoreRivers’ Riverkeepers will continue working with local county officials to install more.

Join ShoreRivers this summer for its beloved big-tent party on the banks of the Chester River!

Scheduled for Saturday, June 28, at Wilmer Park in Chestertown, ShoreRivers’ annual Solstice Celebration includes an open bar with Ten Eyck beer, Crow Vineyards wine, and a signature cocktail and mocktail; hors d’oeuvres and a full buffet dinner and dessert; and live music and dancing. The celebration begins at 6pm and continues through dusk with a rousing live auction where guests will bid on exceptional artwork, trips to enticing destinations, and more.

“It’s our privilege to host this signature annual event to celebrate the start of summer,” says Isabel Hardesty, Executive Director of ShoreRivers. “Coming together at the riverside drives home our mission — and our collective duty — to protect our waterways. This year’s event will be particularly special as we honor Captain Andrew McCown with the ShoreRivers Award for Environmental Stewardship in appreciation for his lifelong pursuit to share his curiosity and reverence for the Chester River with students of all ages.” This custom-designed award is given annually to an individual or entity in the Chesapeake Bay watershed in recognition of their transformational accomplishment as a steward of the environment.

The celebration will feature the culinary talents of Chestertown favorite and friend of ShoreRivers Occasions Catering, who believes in providing food that’s locally sourced, lovingly prepared, and elegantly served. Throughout the evening, guests will enjoy live music by Judd Nielsen and Friends, and admire stunning floral arrangements courtesy of Wildly Native, a family farm in Chestertown, Md., that focuses on hand-selected, in-season flowers that are harvested locally at the peak of bloom.

Following the live auction, all guests are invited to raise their paddle in support of science-based advocacy, education, restoration, and engagement efforts led by our Riverkeepers. All funds raised during this event will go directly to support ShoreRivers’ work for thriving waterways cherished by all communities. Buy your tickets, secure your table through a sponsorship, and find more information at shorerivers.org/events.

ShoreRivers protects Maryland’s Eastern Shore waterways through science-based advocacy, restoration, education, and community engagement.

shorerivers.org

Thanks to the generous support of Bruce Wiltse and Bill Davenport, Eastern Shore Land Conservancy (ESLC) and Plein Air Easton (PAE) will host “Forever For Everyone,” a plein air invitational celebrating public parks and trails conserved and enhanced by ESLC. A new round of PAE award winners will paint spring scenes at Bohemia River State Park, the Chesapeake Bay Environmental Center, Oxford Conservation Park, and Friendship Park. These properties were partly funded by Program Open Space, which was at risk of being zeroed out in Maryland’s most recent General Assembly.

Paintings will be on display July 17-19 during the Avalon Foundation’s 21st PAE festival, the largest and most prestigious juried plein air painting competition in the United States. ESLC and PAE will host a free preview reception and award ceremony on Wednesday July 16, 2025 from 5 to 7 p.m. at the Eastern Shore Conservation Center in Easton—an excellent opportunity to get a first look at the artwork, meet the artists, enjoy refreshments, and learn more about ESLC’s conservation work.

More than 10,000 of the 67,000+ acres ESLC has helped to protect are open to the public. ESLC has a long history of purchasing properties before they can be developed and then transferring the conserved land to become parks, preserves, and extensions of public-access Wildlife Management Areas. This work began in 1992 with the transfer of saltmarsh and woodland to expand the Maryland Ornithological Society’s Irish Grove. And it continues today with the restoration of Camp Grove Point, which will expand Grove Farm WMA’s 1,000 acres of forest, farms, marshes, and beaches that provide public access for hiking, fishing, birding, and hunting. 

“Forever for Everyone puts our public lands—made possible through Program Open Space and the conservation work of ESLC—right in front of people’s eyes,” said ESLC President & CEO, Steve Kline. “These places aren’t just scenic—they’re state investments in public access, community health, and local economies. ESLC is deeply grateful to PAE, the Avalon Foundation, Bruce Wiltsie and Bill Davenport, and to the exceptionally talented artists who bring our unique landscape to life.”

Marie Nuthall, Plein Air Easton’s Outdoor Event Coordinator commented, “We are deeply grateful for our collaboration with ESLC, which has brought to life a vision celebrating the beauty of our Eastern Shore landscape. We’re thrilled to welcome back exceptional PAE alumni artists for the exhibit from July 16-19 which is free and (like the featured properties) open to the public. Come by enjoy inspiring art, support our talented artists, and celebrate the Eastern Shore landscapes we cherish. Your support enriches our community culture and helps protect the environment we love.”

ESLC is grateful to Cameron Davidson, Dave Harp, Ashley Stubbs, Dylan Taillie, Hillel Brandes, Jill Jasuta, Kirk Marks, and Susan Hale who photo-documented these parks, enabling some artists to paint from home locations.

Those interested in attending the July 16th preview can register for free at www.eslc.org/events.

Established in 1990, Eastern Shore Land Conservancy’s mission is to conserve, steward, and advocate for the unique rural landscape of Maryland’s Eastern Shore, forever a special place of diverse and abundant natural resources and thriving rural communities.

Join ShoreRivers this summer for its beloved big-tent party on the banks of the Chester River!

Scheduled for Saturday, June 28, at Wilmer Park in Chestertown, ShoreRivers’ annual Solstice Celebration includes an open bar with Ten Eyck beer, Crow Vineyards wine, and a signature cocktail and mocktail; hors d’oeuvres and a full buffet dinner and dessert; and live music and dancing. The celebration begins at 6pm and continues through dusk with a rousing live auction where guests will bid on exceptional artwork, trips to enticing destinations, and more.

“It’s our privilege to host this signature annual event to celebrate the start of summer,” says Isabel Hardesty, Executive Director of ShoreRivers. “Coming together at the riverside drives home our mission — and our collective duty — to protect our waterways. This year’s event will be particularly special as we honor Captain Andrew McCown with the ShoreRivers Award for Environmental Stewardship in appreciation for his lifelong pursuit to share his curiosity and reverence for the Chester River with students of all ages.” This custom-designed award is given annually to an individual or entity in the Chesapeake Bay watershed in recognition of their transformational accomplishment as a steward of the environment.

The celebration will feature the culinary talents of Chestertown favorite and friend of ShoreRivers Occasions Catering, who believes in providing food that’s locally sourced, lovingly prepared, and elegantly served. Throughout the evening, guests will enjoy live music by Judd Nielsen and Friends, and admire stunning floral arrangements courtesy of Wildly Native, a family farm in Chestertown, Md., that focuses on hand-selected, in-season flowers that are harvested locally at the peak of bloom.

Following the live auction, all guests are invited to raise their paddle in support of science-based advocacy, education, restoration, and engagement efforts led by our Riverkeepers. All funds raised during this event will go directly to support ShoreRivers’ work for thriving waterways cherished by all communities. Buy your tickets, secure your table through a sponsorship, and find more information at shorerivers.org/events.

ShoreRivers protects Maryland’s Eastern Shore waterways through science-based advocacy, restoration, education, and community engagement.

shorerivers.org

In 1991, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proclaimed May as American Wetlands Month to highlight the crucial role of wetlands in supporting water quality, wildlife habitats, the economy, and our social well-being. Today, numerous partners, including Environmental Concern, continue this mission, celebrating the beauty and importance of wetlands. American Wetlands Month is the ideal time to learn about the wetlands in your community; explore at a nearby park or nature trail; and most importantly, take action to benefit wetlands.

LEARN. Wetlands are “areas that are inundated or saturated by surface or ground water at a frequency and duration sufficient to support, and that under normal circumstances do support, a prevalence of vegetation typically adapted for life in saturated soil conditions.” (www.epa.gov/cwa-404/) 

Wetlands are among the most productive ecosystems on Earth, with over one-third of threatened and endangered species relying on them for survival. Over 138 bird species and 200 fish species depend on wetlands for food, nesting, and protection. Wetland plants take up harmful pollutants and nutrients, and act as giant sponges, absorbing flood waters and waves from storms.  One acre of wetlands can store over one million gallons of floodwater!

EXPLORE. Living in the Chesapeake Bay watershed, one might overlook the richness of its wetlands and the diverse species that inhabit the area. The vital functions of wetland ecosystems can easily be taken for granted by those who reside in this region. 

The best way to learn about wetlands is to visit one in person. If your community has a natural public shoreline—one without riprap or bulkheads—this is an ideal location to experience a wetland habitat through sight, touch, and smell. Take the opportunity to appreciate the beauty of a living shoreline and its benefits for your quality of life. Use a net to dip into the water and observe the many creatures inhabiting the surface and the depths below. Be prepared for a unique aroma in the air; it’s the natural scent of organic matter breaking down, one of the many fascinating functions that make wetlands so essential. Paddling in a kayak or canoe is a fantastic way to discover wetlands from the water. You can also drive through Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge, a Wetland of International Importance in Dorchester County, and observe wetland plants and wildlife from land. Embrace this chance to learn, explore, and cherish our invaluable wetlands!

TAKE ACTION. How can you become a wetland steward? One beneficial activity we can all participate in daily is picking up trash in and around wetlands, shorelines, ditches, and streets. This action will prevent trash from entering rivers and creeks. The most common litter in local waterways is household trash, including plastic cups, bags, fast-food wrappers, and bottles. Plastics can be especially hazardous to wildlife. Depending on their form, they can be ingested, or wildlife may choke on the plastic. Turtles and birds frequently become entangled in fishing lines and 6-pack carriers.

Installing rain gardens and planting native plants on your shoreline and roadside ditches will help filter pollutants and provide a wildlife habitat. In celebration of American Wetlands Month, take action in your backyard—plant native species when planning your garden or landscape design. Native plants need less care and attention and provide beneficial habitats for native birds, bees, and butterflies.

Environmental Concern (EC) will celebrate America Wetlands Month by spreading the word about the wonders of wetlands through wetland training, living shoreline restoration, and the cultivation of native plant species. 

To learn more, please visit www.wetland.org or e-mail Julie Phillips, Environmental Concern’s Outreach and Education Coordinator, at [email protected]. 

About Environmental Concern: Environmental Concern is a 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation established in 1972 to promote public understanding and stewardship of wetlands with the goal of improving water quality and enhancing nature’s habitat. For the last 53 years, Environmental Concern has been working to restore the Bay…one wetland at a time. 

ShoreRivers is pleased to announce its Swimmable ShoreRivers bacteria testing program will return for the season on Thursday, May 22, and that weekly results from this annual program will once again be available this year in both English and Spanish.

Every summer, ShoreRivers deploys a team of community scientists to monitor bacteria levels at popular swimming and boating sites to provide important human health risk information to the public. Their samples are then processed, according to standard scientific protocols, in ShoreRivers in-house labs. The program follows the Environmental Protection Agency’s standard protocols for collecting and analyzing samples and makes public the results of that testing to let people know about current bacteria levels as they make their plans for recreating in our waterways. Results are posted every Friday, between Memorial Day and Labor Day, at shorerivers.org/swim and on both the organization’s and its individual Riverkeepers’ social media pages.

A second page, shorerivers.org/swimmable-shorerivers-espanol, is designed to share this program with the Spanish-speaking community, and bilingual signs can be found at public monitoring sites around the Eastern Shore that explain the goals of the Swimmable ShoreRivers program and show users where to find weekly results in both English and Spanish. These signs (and the program at large) are made possible thanks to funding from the Cornell Douglas Foundation.

Weekly results are also shared on theswimguide.org, where descriptions of testing sites are available in both languages. This public service is a true community effort: this summer, nearly 70 SwimTesters will monitor 54 sites on the Choptank, Miles, Wye, Chester, and Sassafras rivers; Eastern Bay; and the Bayside Creeks. Special thanks go to our generous site sponsors, who include towns, marinas, homeowners’ associations, and families.

The Swimmable ShoreRivers program serves our community in a way that no other program, organization, agency, or data set does. In Maryland, if the state or local government designates an area as a swimming beach, then bacteria monitoring and reporting is required. However, a major gap exists on the Eastern Shore as very few areas are designated swimming beaches, and the results from those that are, are rarely posted publicly or in a timely manner.

“We work with our local community every day, and we know they’re interacting with our rivers in dozens of locations from Dorchester to Cecil County,” says Matt Pluta, Director of Riverkeeper Programs at ShoreRivers. “It’s our goal to make sure those individuals have available to them the information they need to know — namely, whether the water is safe for them to recreate in from a bacteria pollution standpoint. Swimmable ShoreRivers strives to enhance physical access to our local rivers, as well as access to data and information to help our community make informed decisions about how, when, and where we choose to enjoy our incredible natural resources.”

Also returning for the 2025 season is ShoreRivers’ Pumpout Boat. The Pumpout Boat is a free service offered on the Miles and Wye rivers that docks at the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum in St. Michaels and operates from May to mid-November. Through this service, we’re ensuring that every boater on the Miles and Wye has the means to safely and properly pump out — we can all help to keep marine waste out of our waterways. To schedule a pump out, contact Captain John Carlsson at 410.829.4352, on VHF Channel 9, by emailing [email protected], or by using the form at shorerivers.org/programs/pumpout-boat.

ShoreRivers protects Maryland’s Eastern Shore waterways through science-based advocacy, restoration, education, and engagement.

Gov. Wes Moore (D) signed what he called “the most comprehensive piece of Chesapeake Bay legislation that Maryland has seen in years,” at a time when federal cuts threaten environmental programs for the estuary.

The Chesapeake Bay Legacy Act was signed Tuesday, one of 171 bills signed into law at the fourth and next-to-last bill signing ceremony following the 2025 legislative session.

The wide-ranging Legacy Act allots “up to $900,000 per year” to a new certification program for farmers who use sustainable practices that decrease runoff into the bay, establishes a water quality monitoring program to unify current testing efforts and aims to streamline oyster aquaculture leasing, among other provisions.

“At a time when we see how our federal administration has stepped back from protecting our air and our water, Maryland is stepping up,” Moore said.

The governor also signed an abortion grant program that will help fund abortion services for uninsured and underinsured individuals, and a bill allowing individuals with autism and other nonapparent conditions to add an identifying symbol to their state IDs. That, and Tuesday saw the approval of a new state mineral, chromite, and a new state cocktail, the Orange Crush.

Chesapeake Bay Legacy Act

President Donald Trump (R) and his Department of Government Efficiency have already cut positions at the Chesapeake Bay Program, which administers the bay cleanup, as well as at agencies whose work touches the bay, such as the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. DOGE also threw environmental grant programs into chaos by freezing funds, some of which were later unlocked.

But advocates say Trump’s proposed “skinny” budget for fiscal 2026 would go considerably further, and “devastate” efforts to clean up the estuary, according to the Chesapeake Bay Foundation.

The bill would hack $5 billion from the EPA, including $2.46 billion in cuts that would “cripple” programs that help sewage treatment plants reduce pollution into waterways like the bay, according to CBF. Trump’s proposal would also slash $1.3 billion in grants and research programs at NOAA and $564 million at the U.S. Geological Survey, eliminating climate-related work to “focus on achieving dominance in energy and critical minerals.”

Allison Colden, the bay foundation’s Maryland executive director, said the federal losses make Maryland’s Bay Legacy law even more important.

“With federal cuts and rollbacks looming heavily on our state, Maryland’s environmental leadership is more important than ever,” Colden said in a statement. “This Act will help maintain forward momentum and ensure that investments in clean air, clean water, habitats, and local economies are secured.”

The new law came in a challenging budget year, during which lawmakers had to correct a multibillion-dollar deficit by cutting programs and raising fees.

As drafted, the bill would have allocated $2 million to the Leaders in Environmentally Engaged Farming, or LEEF, program, but budget-conscious lawmakers cut that to “up to $900,000” a year. The budget reconciliation process further reduced the sum to $500,000 for next fiscal year, with some of that money contingent on the Maryland Department of Agriculture submitting a plan for program spending.

“Unfortunately, we saw less coming out of the state budget for that program than maybe we would have liked to see,” Colden said. “But the point is, we have that program established. They have some initial seed funding.”

With funding and other incentives, Agriculture Secretary Kevin Atticks said the LEEF program will encourage farmers not only to pursue environmentally friendly practices, but to engage the community and share information about the practices with others.

“It incentivizes them in a way that we believe farmers and the community will rally behind and will make extra progress,” Atticks said.

As he signed the bill, Moore was backed by Nia Nyamweya, who brought a basket of leafy greens harvested from her Beauty Bloom Farms in Montgomery County. The produce and flower farm aims to regenerate the soils, formerly used for corn and soybean farming, with organic practices and cover cropping, according to its website.

Nyamweya leases her farm land from the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, Moore said. The bill codifies the practice in state law.

“That kind of partnership is rare, but the Bay Legacy Act will make these kinds of lease agreements easier,” Moore said.

The bill drew some early concerns for its massive scope, touching on everything from agricultural practices to a Japanese fish processing technique called ikejime. Delmarva Fisheries Association Chairman Robert Newberry called it “an ag bill with a side salad of fishery management and aquaculture.”

He initially balked at a provision that would have removed DNR’s obligation to produce its own fishery management plans for a variety of species, from white perch and blue crabs to croakers and horseshoe crabs, deferring to plans created by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission.

The final law requires DNR to keep producing state-level plans for blue crabs, oysters, white and yellow perch, and a few other species, but it lifts the requirement for others, such as menhaden, spot and black sea bass.

In the end, Newberry supported the Bay Legacy bill. In particular, he appreciated an amendment that added specificity to an existing law preventing discrimination against groups of fishermen, adding fishing guides and charter boat captains.

Newberry has been among a group of fisherman fighting rules from the Atlantic States Commission limiting charters to one rockfish per person, beginning last year.

“I wanted to have the fisheries specifically defined,” Newberry said. “So that protects us.”

Abortion grant program

Maryland will also have a new grant program that will help fund abortion services for uninsured and underinsured individuals using a stockpile of unused premium surcharges, now that Moore signed House Bill 930 and Senate Bill 848 into law.

“Maryland will always be a safe haven for abortion access,” Moore said.

The legislation prompts the Department of Health to tap into about $25 million in premium surcharges that were required as part of the federal Affordable Care Act but have not yet been spent down.

That money is the $1-a-month fee that insurers in the ACA marketplace are required to collect on every policy to fund abortion services for their policyholders. But that fund has been growing by about $3 million annually as collections have outpaced need.

Moore said the legislation builds off previous efforts to expand abortion access in the state, calling it the “next chapter in our work to protect and defend basic health care rights.”

Eric’s ID

Moore also signed legislation known as “Eric’s ID Law” that will let people with nonapparent disabilities, including autism, have a butterfly icon added to their driver’s licenses, to alert police officers and other officials that they are interacting with someone with a disability that may not be immediately visible.

Lt. Gov Aruna Miller noted that the “thoughtful and compassionate initiative” was inspired by Eric Carpenter-Grantham, a 20-year-old Montgomery County resident with autism, one of the nonapparent disabilities identified in House Bill 707 and Senate Bill 618.

Eric’s Law has been in the works for several years, in collaboration with members of the disability community, finally receiving House and Senate approval this past session, Senate President Bill Ferguson (D-Baltimore City) noted.

by Christine Condon and Danielle J. Brown, Maryland Matters
May 14, 2025

Maryland Matters is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Maryland Matters maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Steve Crane for questions: [email protected].

The U.S. Department of Agriculture in April announced the termination of its $3 billion “climate smart” program, a grantmaking initiative that was supporting hundreds of millions of dollars in conservation work in the Chesapeake Bay watershed.

An April 14 USDA press release called the Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities, which promoted farm conservation measures with climate benefits, as a “slush fund” with high administrative costs and often low payouts to farmers.

It said some of the projects may continue under a new initiative called Advancing Markets for Producers, but only if 65% or more of the project’s funds were going directly to farmers and the work aligns with Trump administration priorities.

Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said the Biden administration’s climate smart program was designed to “advance the green new scam” and benefited nongovernmental organizations more than farmers.

“We are correcting these mistakes and redirecting our efforts to set our farmers up for an unprecedented era of prosperity,” Rollins said.

The climate smart program was launched in 2022 as part of a “once-in-a-generation investment” that would enable universities, businesses and nonprofits to work with farmers to promote conservation measures that would help them adapt to climate change and market the products they produced.

Most projects did not begin until 2023 or later because of delays in paperwork, and some had just started up last year.

But the USDA froze funding for the program in January, leaving organizations that had incurred costs unable to recoup their expenses. In its announcement, the department clarified that it would honor eligible expenses incurred prior to April 13, 2025, but would review existing grants to determine whether they could continue.

Some working with the program said it appeared they would be able to successfully reapply under the new program, but others were unsure.

Pasa Sustainable Agriculture, a Pennsylvania-based nonprofit, was managing a $59 million climate smart grant that supported work it was carrying out with a dozen other organizations on farms from Maine to South Carolina. With funding stalled, it laid off 60 employees in early April, leaving it with fewer than 10.

“We are honestly not sure what the announcement means for our project,” said Hannah Smith-Brubaker, Pasa’s executive director. “They said we can reapply, but we don’t know if that means for our current project or a completely new project under the new program.”

Smith-Brubaker said Pasa’s project did not meet the 65% farmer payment threshold because the USDA was not counting costs of providing technical assistance to farmers for planning, implementing and maintaining projects.

She said about 45% of the project’s funding went directly to farmers, but if the technical assistance were included, farmer support under the grant would be between 75%-85%.

Richa Patel, a policy specialist with the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, also said it was “disappointing” that the department was not counting technical assistance as part of the farmer support funding.

With the USDA already reducing its own staff, she said, “the administration must take every opportunity going forward to increase access to technical assistance and support the staffing levels necessary to provide efficient and dependable customer service for our farmers — those working directly with USDA and those working with the farmer-serving organizations it partners with.”

Lack of technical support is considered a major impediment to widespread adoption of conservation measures by farmers.

Mike Lavender, the national coalition’s policy director, said he welcomed the ability to continue some projects under the new initiative, but said the USDA did not provide any clarity about whether grant recipients can make modifications to meet the new criteria.

As a result, he said the announcement brings “unnecessary hardship nationwide to farmer-serving organizations and likely farmers as a result of USDA changing program requirements and cancelling projects midstream.”

Nationwide, the climate smart initiative made awards to 140 organizations, businesses and institutions, which were supposed to benefit more than 60,000 farms and cover more than 25 million acres of farmland. The USDA estimated that, if successful, the work would sequester an amount of carbon equivalent to removing more than 12 million gas-powered cars from the road.

Hundreds of millions of dollars of that work was to have taken place in the Chesapeake watershed, managed by nonprofit organizations, universities, agribusinesses and others. The five-year program was one of the largest investments ever made in support of conservation measures on farmland in the Bay region.

It supported many traditional conservation practices such as nutrient and manure management techniques that reduce emissions of nitrous oxides, a powerful greenhouse gas. It also supported measures that curb runoff, such as cover crops, stream fencing and no-till farming. Those measures also help build organic matter in the soil, which allows it to absorb and store carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

Smith-Brubaker noted that just a 1% increase in organic matter in a farm’s soil absorbs 22,000 more gallons of water per acre, keeping it from washing nutrient-laden runoff into local streams.

The climate smart program also promoted monitoring efforts to quantify how well the conservation efforts were working, and it supported marketing efforts to inform consumers about the environmental benefits of that work — which could increase the value of those products and expand markets.

By Karl Blankenship, Bay Journal

Eastern Shore Land Conservancy and Native Shorelines, a Davey Tree Company, are excited to announce that we will be the first in Maryland to implement an innovative new living shoreline material called QuickReef! Our pilot project, managed by ESLC Enhanced Stewardship Manager Larisa Prezioso, will protect a beautiful expanse of tidal saltmarsh habitat fronting a 357-acre ESLC conservation easement in Dorchester County. This project is funded through the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation’s National Coastal Resilience Fund (NCRF) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

QuickReef is comprised primarily of native coastal materials including limestone marl and recycled oyster shells, all sourced from North Carolina. The resulting blocks can be arranged in many different formations and are an ideal substrate for oyster recruitment and aquatic environment enhancement. Placed in the shallow waters of the intertidal zone in a configuration that attenuates wave energy, the resulting structures create calm space for marsh to establish itself, and the nooks and crannies inherent to QuickReef’s design create aquatic habitat for fish, crabs, barnacles and oysters. This new material has the potential to make living shoreline projects on the Eastern Shore both quicker and more affordable, essential qualities considering the Chesapeake Bay can lose two million metric tonnes of sediment due to erosion in a single year.

Living shoreline restoration can successfully mitigate this loss, proving itself as a frontier resilience activity. But further implementation of living shoreline projects lags behind due to accessibility and affordability, no matter how high the interest or how desperate the need to protect vital infrastructure. Finding ways to quickly overcome these barriers is essential as more county comprehensive plans and coastal resiliency impact reports depend upon living shoreline strategies.

More than half of ESLC’s 332 protected properties are located along major rivers in six counties in the mid- and upper-Chesapeake Bay region, amounting to 935,961 linear feet (or 177 miles) of vulnerable shoreline. In 2021, ESLC surveyed conservation easement landowners and found that more than a third of respondents were concerned about shoreline stabilization and loss of habitat. With these needs and county comprehensive plans in mind, ESLC is working to accelerate the adoption of living shorelines from both private landowners and municipalities in a cost-effective and timely manner across a large geographic range. QuickReef living shoreline implementation would create a new, affordable opportunity for landowners to access a fast, cost-effective shoreline resiliency solution while simultaneously providing living shoreline benefits.

The Dorchester County pilot project will be utilized as a demonstration site for further transferability and scalability of QuickReef living shorelines. Site-assessments will also gauge suitability for twenty further QuickReef installation projects on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. ESLC will also lead an in-person living shorelines educational workshop later this year to plan for future adoption of QuickReef as a shoreline resiliency tool on the Eastern Shore.