Pittman and Friends Podcast
Welcome to Pittman and Friends, the curiously probing, sometimes awkward, but always revealing conversations between your host, Anne Arundel County Executive Steuart Pittman - that’s me - and whatever brave and willing public servant, community leader, or elected official I can find who has something to say that you should hear.
This podcast is provided as a public service of Anne Arundel County Government, so don’t expect me to get all partisan here. This is about the age-old art of government - of, by, and for the people.
Pittman and Friends Podcast
Saving Nature with Matt Johnston
What happens on the land ends up in the water. This simple truth drives the passionate work of Matt Johnston and the Arundel Rivers Federation, a small but mighty nonprofit making big waves in Chesapeake Bay conservation.
Johnston, the organization's Executive Director, shares how their team monitors water quality in three southern Anne Arundel County watersheds while advocating for policies that protect our precious waterways. From their popular pump-out boat program preventing recreational boat sewage from polluting the Bay to extensive restoration projects that transform degraded streams and shorelines, their work exemplifies environmental stewardship in action.
The conversation reveals a fascinating model where government funding—largely from the county's stormwater utility fee—powers nonprofit-led restoration work that employs local contractors and stimulates the regional economy. This partnership approach has become so successful that other jurisdictions now look to Anne Arundel County as a model for effective environmental protection.
Johnston's personal journey from curious child visiting national parks to environmental policy expert showcases how experiences in nature can shape a lifelong commitment to conservation. His previous role as Anne Arundel County's Environmental Policy Director allowed him to help craft landmark legislation like the Forest Conservation bill and develop the Green Infrastructure Master Plan—initiatives that continue to guide how the county balances development with environmental protection.
Most refreshingly, the discussion highlights how environmental protection transcends partisan divides. "There is no one who wakes up in the morning and says I want a polluted Chesapeake Bay," Johnston observes, explaining why conservation efforts often receive broad, bipartisan support when presented thoughtfully. This isn't about stopping growth, but ensuring smart growth that respects our natural systems.
The conversation concludes with a powerful call to action inspired by explorer Robert Swan: "The greatest threat to our planet is the belief that someone else will save it." Johnston reminds us that community organizing and collective advocacy remain our most powerful tools for creating the world we want to see.
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Welcome to Pittman and Friends. The curiously probing, sometimes awkward but always revealing conversations between your host, Anne Arundel County Executive Stuart Pittman - that's me - and whatever brave and willing public servant, community leader, or elected official I can find who has something to say that you should hear. This podcast is provided as a public service of Anne Arundel County, so don't expect me to get all partisan here. This is about the age-old art of government of, by, and for the people. Welcome, everybody. I am here today with my friend, Matt Johnston, who is the Executive Director of the Arundel Rivers Federation. Welcome, Matt.
Matt Johnston:Thanks so much, County Executive. It's great to be here and it's great to be back here at the Arundel Center, especially during Earth Month of April. Earth Month.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Wow, yes, okay. So, yeah, it's back here. We'll talk about that as part of the path that got you to where you are. But first, tell us what the Arundel Rivers Federation is and the scope of it, and we'll talk about that first.
Matt Johnston:Sure, sure. So the Arundel Rivers Federation, we're a small nonprofit in southern Anne Arundel County. We're based around the South River, the West River and the Road River. So if you think about the map of Anne Arundel County, basically everything from Crownsville South to Shadyside is basically the watersheds that we monitor. We monitor the water quality in those watersheds. We advocate for policies that will make the water quality better in those watersheds you sure do. And we do all kinds of, uh, of restoration work on the streams and the wetlands in those watersheds, and bring kids and communities out to plant trees and grasses and native plants in those watersheds. So we're watershed- focused, but actually a lot of our advocacy work is in Annapolis at the state level as well. So we don't just fight for clean water in our watersheds, we fight for clean water all across the state of Maryland.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:And I always think of you as a very local, grassroots, but also with professional staff. How many staff do you have?
Matt Johnston:Yes, we've got eight staff right now and then we flex to about 12 over the summer. Because if you see us out there with a pump-out boat probably our most well-known program we have a boat that goes around the rivers and pumps out sewage from your pleasure cruises so that it doesn't go into our rivers. So we have a few temporary staff that run that program every summer.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:And it is now illegal to dump that stuff in our rivers, correct?
Matt Johnston:That's correct.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:That was one of the pieces of legislation that you and I worked on in your previous life, which we'll get into. But so yeah, Arundel Rivers Federation, it is a very active organization. I was at your annual fundraising event. How many people were there?
Matt Johnston:I think it was over 250 this year at Camp Letts, the youth camp there on the Road River.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Yeah, yeah, and it is really neat to see. You know, in Anne Arundel County, a lot of the really vibrant community-based organizations are based around the water and the watershed. A lot of the reason people live here so well, and so you do the advocacy, but you also do some of the actual restoration projects. And how does that work? Because I know that we have, or most people know we also have in Public Works, the Watershed Protection and Restoration folks, the Bureau now. And so what part of it do you get?
Matt Johnston:Yeah, so great question. So I think that something the listeners should understand is when we talk about Chesapeake Bay restoration, while tax dollars support all the Chesapeake Bay restoration efforts, the majority of that work is done by your local nonprofits who partner with, as you said, the Bureau of Watershed Protection and Restoration. They will have a competitive grant. We will apply for a grant. We'll get that grant from the county. Sometimes we'll also go out and get grants from the state and from the federal government. We'll put all those funds together for, let's say, a 1,000-foot-long restoration of a stream to keep the mud in the valley and out of our oyster reefs. And then we'll go and we'll contract local businesses in your neighborhood to do that work and protect the Chesapeake Bay. So when you hear about Chesapeake Bay restoration, it is really your local nonprofits partnering with your government to deliver that work and protect the Chesapeake Bay.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Yeah, it's such a great model and we're so lucky. In Anne Arundel County, a lot of people look at the way we've done that and it's funded largely. A lot of it is funded by the stormwater fees, right.
Matt Johnston:That's right, absolutely. In fact, I have a board of directors who, of course, like all boards of directors for all nonprofits across the nation right now, are asking, "hey, what is our exposure to government grants if those government grants dry up? And I was very happy the other day to explain to my board of directors that, after taking a look at all of our funding, our largest piece of government grant funding comes from Anne Arundel County, which is supported by that stormwater utility fee. And so long as future elected officials and current elected officials, I'm looking at you, Mr County Executive defend that stormwater utility fee and say that we need to use those fees to restore our Chesapeake Bay and our local watersheds, then we think that that's a pretty consistent amount of funding that we'll continue to get the federal and the state. Well, that's a different question, but we're really proud to be partnering with the county.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Yeah, yeah, there's no question that the federal administration wants to dismantle a lot of the environmental protections. They think that's pro-business. But you know, when you ask our businesses now, many of them didn't like the stormwater fee when it came in. But if you ask them if they would want to remove it, I think people understand that is.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:What has made it this a great place to live is that we are making some progress on the bay and it's helped with the with preserving really important land as well. Because we understand how expensive it is when there is all that erosion. And so by having a fund to be able to restore our streams that go into the bay, it's absolutely essential, and it wasn't that long ago where this was a hot political issue. I mean, I remember the debates between candidates where some were saying no stormwater fee, they called it the rain tax. They wanted to stop it from ever happening, and I haven't heard a peep from anybody any elected official in a very long time in opposition. Because it's working, so congrats.
Matt Johnston:Well, thank you and, like I said, thanks for providing it. Because it's not a fee that just disappears into the government. It's a fee that is then used by nonprofits to hire local contractors to drive trucks with boulders to do the restoration on shorelines, to bring kids onto restoration projects, to plant native plants that we bought at local nurseries in Anne Arundel County.
Matt Johnston:So all those dollars just circulate back into the local economy.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Yeah, awesome. Okay, so we can get back into some of the work of Arundel Rivers Federation as we go here. But, I want people to know who you are and where you came from. How did Matt Johnston get into this work and how'd you end up being the director of this organization?
Matt Johnston:Yeah. So I think that all of us are a product of our upbringing, right. And so, if I think back to how did I get into environmental policy? I think back to my parents, and they made a point. We grew up in Missouri, in the middle of America, and I joke that it was eight hours to any beach anywhere. So we were always in the car crossing the nation for summer vacations and they made a point to take us to the bookstore at every national park that we stopped at the bookstore, huh. Always, it was the first stop and they said listen, you can go swimming tonight at the hotel, but you've got to pick up a book about the National Park. And so from a very young age, I remember sitting in a hot car for eight-hour drives, but reading about how did the Grand Canyon become the Grand Canyon? What happened in Yosemite with Teddy Roosevelt, etc. etc. Right.
Matt Johnston:So I just think that curiosity stuck with me and really showed me how our environment was formed.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:That's why you always have these social media pictures with your son taking him to these parks. Okay, okay, you're carrying it on, I get it.
Matt Johnston:Always question and stay curious, son.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:So, that's how you started. And then what?
Matt Johnston:So then after that, you know where do you go in school if you're interested in the environment and you're eight hours away from any coastline? Well, there's a great policy school in Indiana. So I went to Indiana University and studied public policy with environmental as an emphasis, and whenever I got out of school there, I was very interested in clean water, because one of my jobs over the summer in Indiana was to go all across the state and be the guy who pulls the government car over onto the side of the bridge. You're probably honking at me because I had to pull my car over, but I'm just over there taking a bucket of water out of every single river and sampling that water every single week in Indiana and reporting back to.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:They didn't have a boat for you.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:You had to go out on bridges.
Matt Johnston:n\o boat no boat, but I would pull up these samples of water and then I'd go back to the office and I'd get the results back and we would see the results immediately. Of hey, I was sampling downstream of a limestone quarry, all right, and the water quality was worse. Or I was sampling in a farmer's field and there was high nitrogen. Or I was sampling around an industrial area, and there was cadmium and lead in the water, and it was this instant education for a kid that water quality is the result of land use policy. Everything that happens on the land happens to the water, and I was set. That set my path from there on.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:That's the Matt Johnston mantra which I've heard many, many times. Yep, what happens on the land ends up in the water.
Matt Johnston:Yep, that's right.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Yeah, all right. So you got educated. Well, let's jump to a period where I was the new County Executive and make sure it was a focus and a lens through which we looked at all of our work. So we interviewed you. There were other strong candidates as well. You clearly knew your stuff and we hired you. Congratulations.
Matt Johnston:Thanks, it was.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:How long were you in the job?
Matt Johnston:I was in the job for about three years.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Three years, right.
Matt Johnston:And I got to tell you, it was such an honor to be hired because right before I got here, I was working as an extension specialist for the University of Maryland. But really, I was working with the US EPA.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:I didn't realize that you were actually in the extension specialist position. My wife used to be an extension specialist for the University of Maryland for agriculture, but okay.
Matt Johnston:Yeah, and I was hired into that position so that I could go around the whole Chesapeake Bay watershed and work with farmers and work with local governments to put in new policies. Places that didn't have a stormwater utility fee, places that hadn't ever planted a buffer of trees between a cropland and a stream, and to suggest all of these great things that were happening in Anne Arundel County, and in other places.
Matt Johnston:And I'm sitting around.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:So you were a policy wonk? I mean, you had seen all the jurisdictions and you knew what you wanted them all to have in place, and you got a job where you could actually do some of it.
Matt Johnston:Absolutely.
Matt Johnston:And I was sitting around one day, and I hadn't thought about it. Had not thought about jumping ship and going to the local level, until I heard this guy named Steuart Pittman say we need to have no net forest loss in Anne Arundel County.
Matt Johnston:And I said, "Oh, my goodness, you know, at the EPA Chesapeake Bay program we had scientists who had been measuring the changes to land use. You know how we use the land. Are we keeping the trees there, Are we keeping the agriculture there, or are we doing suburban sprawl? And it was clear as day for decades that the number one predictor of poor water quality was taking the trees down and the ag land down and urban sprawl.
Matt Johnston:And so here I hear my, a candidate in my county say I want to protect the forests, to protect the environment, and I went oh my gosh, this is different. I think he's onto something here. I want to be a part of making that happen, so thanks for the idea and thanks for hiring me so that we could deliver.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Well, I wasn't the first to come up with the idea. So let's talk about that three-year period where you were our environmental policy director a little bit. Yes, Forest Con was one of our first. Well, I remember looking at charts showing the rate of forest loss in Anne Arundel County compared to other counties and it was pretty alarming, and that was what we were hearing from our residents also. Some of them were focused on forest. Some of them just were focused on the fact that it just seemed like sprawl development everywhere without a plan, and there was a lot of truth in that and I ran on that, and so some people thought about it in terms of traffic. Some thought about it in terms of school capacity, and a lot of people thought about it in terms of the environmental impact.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:So I will never forget the process of trying to get a strong Forest Con bill through the county council and all of the organizing that we all did together. I mean, I often say the hardest things we ever did we succeeded at because we engaged people and I remember the Chesapeake Conservancy did a poll. What was the percentage of support for a strong forest con bill? It was through the roof and, what amazed me, it was up in the 80s but it was a little bit higher among Republicans than Democrats. And we always thought it was more of a Democrat issue than a Republican issue. It turns out it's an everybody issue.
Matt Johnston:But that's one of the most fascinating things about Chesapeake Bay policy. There are very few policies in America that are bipartisan by nature. There is no one who wakes up in the morning and says I want a polluted Chesapeake Bay. Right, there's nobody. There's nobody who wakes up in the morning and says I want zero forests in Anne Arundel County. There's nobody. And so we are so lucky here in Anne Arundel County, here in Maryland, to have this bipartisan policy approach. Everyone wants a clean Chesapeake Bay, yeah.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Well, and I will say that there were times where you and I both were disappointed that we had to accept amendments to the original bill that we introduced that weakened it and it was frustrating. We knew where a lot of those proposals were coming from in the development community. That were land speculators who owned forest hoping to be able to develop it and this was going to make it more expensive and in some cases, make it not worth the effort to develop that land and in other cases make it so that it was affordable for land trusts to purchase that land to protect it for perpetuity. But we did it. It was a big win. We got all seven votes right in the end.
Matt Johnston:We sure did. Bipartisan unanimous vote to protect forests in Anne Arundel County.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Yeah, and then you focused a lot of your time on a thing called the Green Infrastructure Master Plan. Tell us about that.
Matt Johnston:Yeah, sure. So you know, going back to what we were just talking about, how the science had been clear for many decades that the more gray, the more parking lots, the more roadways, the more pavement you have in a watershed, the poorer your water quality is going to be. Going off of that premise, we knew that we wanted to look to the future and say let's protect this green, let's add green here and let's limit the amount of gray that we had. You know being that simplistic about it. But then we got down into the weeds and we said what does that actually look like? And we worked with nonprofits like the Scenic Rivers Land Trust. And we worked with nonprofits like the Scenic Rivers Land Trust who had done an analysis across all of Anne Arundel County and had said hey, here are the affordable properties that we might want to one day conserve if the landowner is willing.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:I'll just say I met with them about a week ago and they showed me the map. It's still, and it's very much like the Green Infrastructure Network map that we ended up with.
Matt Johnston:Interesting, and I don't think that's by accident because, you know, whenever you have a land trust who knows their stuff and they're looking at the best forests, and then you have a whole group of government workers who are also trying to deliver on protections for the environment and are only looking at the best land to protect. It's no surprise that the two maps look similar, and what we did was the first cut is here are the largest, most important forests for water quality, for wildlife habitat, and they aren't zoned for a hundred houses per acre, 22 houses per acre, or whatever it may be. There's own for one houses per acre, 22 houses per acre, whatever it may be, they're zoned for one house per acre. So we weren't taking too much of the housing supply out of the equation by saying these would be good places to conserve in the future. So I'm really proud of that big, beautiful green map, yeah. But, I'm also proud of other pieces.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Well, I will say something about that map, which is that some people think all of that land is in the rural parts of the county. In South County it is very spread out across all seven council districts, and a lot of those parcels are quite small. They're little areas that really should be protected. And then it's got the stuff that's already protected often in county parks and things and then it's got the stuff that's not. And I want to make sure, before I leave this office, that we do more to strengthen our protections for those areas so that while now maybe we're not doing modifications to our environmental protections. But, the next county executive or the one after that might, because we know that in the past they gave those modifications out willy-nilly and developers and land speculators knew they could get the mod, they could get that environmental protection waived. And so you did. Green notices, the green notices of plan and zoning. That explained to potential developers, land speculators, buyers of land how the county was interpreting the law and what did it say about environmental protections. Your green notes.
Matt Johnston:Yeah, so I realized that in Anne Arundel County, we don't have regulations on the books. So you go back to the exact letter of the law, right? And in our laws it says you can apply for a modification or I call it a waiver to the law, as long as you justify that there is, for example, no undue harm to I'm paraphrasing but to water quality. Well, that's pretty ambiguous. I'm paraphrasing, but to water quality. Well, that's pretty ambiguous. So we wrote notices to tell everyone: landowners, developers, government workers, what does that mean? Right, and so we would set up. Hey, what it means to us is, if you are approved for a waiver to disturb this forest, we need two to three times the amount of trees that you cut down, planted over here, because on paper then, and probably in reality then, you'll have a net benefit to the environment after a few more years.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:So you need to offset the damage that you're proposing. That's right.
Matt Johnston:You need to mitigate the damage. Because I think that one thing that we can confuse, the current environmental movement of being is against all development. I cannot tell you how far that is from the truth. At Arundel Rivers, we say that we are not anti-growth, we are pro-smart growth. We want to grow in the right ways, in the right areas for the right reasons. We don't want to say no to everything, and so those green notices were kind of the first step in that direction of it's not a no to everything, but when it is, we're going to drive a harder bargain. We're going to say if you're going to disturb the environment, here's how you make it whole for future generations.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:And one of the things that it was addressing is the developers were saying they wanted certainty. They want to know what their land can be, what they can build on their land. They want to know, going in, that they're going to get the permit that they're applying for, and they're hiring all these consultants to do the plans and engineers and by putting down in the green notice, how we interpret the law and how it's going to be handled, it gives them certainty. So, I actually believe that it's been successful enough that it makes sense to codify some of that, and I'm hoping that, before I leave this job, that there will be legislation introduced to the council to do exactly that, and people will then trust that these environmental protections are real.
Matt Johnston:Wow, we'll see. Mr. County Executive, I can tell you Arundel Rivers will definitely be behind you, if you decide to bring that forward and we'll advocate and we will work very hard to bring the community forward, to advocate for those changes.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:And I think we'll get the votes too. I think when you separate out the issues, people's values. They understand the need for housing. They understand the fact that we have a housing shortage, and I want to thank you, and really most of the environmental advocacy organizations in the county and the growth organizations too, have come around to understanding that smart growth, rather than no growth, is the solution and that you can actually increase the stock, particularly of affordable housing. Because that's what the shortage is there's enough housing. I mean, there's plenty of places for wealthy people to move to. They got choice. Working people don't, and so thank you for your support for a lot of our affordable housing legislation along the way, and the redevelopment bill is another example. I know you worked on that back when you were in the job that it was smart growth. It was a way to encourage the development community to focus on places that already had impervious surface rather than greenfields.
Matt Johnston:So absolutely so. Going back to the things we know about water quality we've already talked about, we know that if you bulldoze forests and you pave over ag land, that will negatively impact a stream. So we know sprawl development is bad. So the best water quality policy for land use is protect those open spaces. The second best and I've always said this. I said this to you many times across the table in your office while I was working for you, county executive, the second best water quality policy on the land use side is redevelop. Put the pavement where you've already got the pavement. Right, right.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:So you? I will just say that you did amazing work while you were in the job and we were disappointed that you chose to take this new position, but I completely understand why. It is always an amazing opportunity to run a vibrant organization and to grow an organization, and I see Arundel Rivers Federation growing. So what's next over there? What do you got planned for that organization?
Matt Johnston:We continue to do a lot of restoration around our watersheds. But one of the things that we are so proud of is that some of our funders from the state and the federal level are now noticing that we do stream restoration, wetland restoration, well, shoreline restoration. And they're saying, hey, can you help outside your watersheds? So we're going around Anne Arundel County. Can you help outside your watersheds? So we're going around Anne Arundel County. We're going even into Calvert County and managing restoration projects right now.
Matt Johnston:So we're managing the first large shoreline restoration project in Calvert County right now. That'll get underway in just a few months or a few weeks, and Lake Marion, a stormwater pond in the Severn River watershed. We partnered with that community, our colleagues at the Severn River Association and the funders so that we could help them manage that multi-million dollar restoration project so that that stormwater pond can actually hold the storms that we have today, rather than being overwhelmed with water and sediment that will just go flying downstream and cloud the oysters in the Severn River. So at Arundel Rivers, while we're deeply rooted in the southwestern road, increasingly we're helping out wherever anyone needs assistance, because we've built the programs that are known for delivering in our watersheds, and we're happy to deliver if you need the help in other watersheds.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:So I got a question. In this moment, when we are facing major, major changes in the way government operates the federal government, its priorities, the economy, it's in my view, it's a scary time. It's sort of like the beginning of COVID. We didn't know how many people were going to die and everybody had to mobilize. Why the environment? Why the environment? I mean, why do we humans really have the ability to change the course of what some would say is progress, of the way that we develop, the way that we grow? Is it even winnable? What can we win?
Matt Johnston:It's absolutely winnable. Yeah, is it even winnable?
County Executive Steuart Pittman:What can we win?
Matt Johnston:It's absolutely winnable.
Matt Johnston:Yeah, so every morning I wake up and there's this quote on my mind from Robert Swann.
Matt Johnston:He's a British explorer who's the first human to walk to the North Pole and walk to the South Pole. Obviously, whenever it was frozen, to walk to the North Pole. But he said after seeing this world. He said "the greatest threat to our planet is the belief that someone else will save it, and that's a rallying cry. I think it should be a rallying cry not just for those of us who call ourselves conservationists, environmentalists, to rally and do the hard things that we need to do together to protect the environment and pass it along better than how we found it, but I think it's a rallying cry for any kind of community advocacy, whether that's for affordable housing or for civil rights or for the environment. The belief that someone else will do it is a threat. You need to believe in yourself, and if we all wake up every morning and believe that we have the power, then I got to quote Senator Cory Booker from a few days ago the power of the people is greater than the people in power.
Matt Johnston:No offense, Mr. County Executive. But I know that if we pack the room and we ask for something, that eventually the elected officials will deliver.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:I'll have to give in, right.
Matt Johnston:You'll have to give in.
Matt Johnston:I hope so, right.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Good, yeah. Yeah, yeah, you know it's funny. You say that because when we talked about doing this podcast and I asked you what you wanted to talk about, one of the things you said was the theme of community organizing; that the work that you do is really it's community organizing. My feeling as well, that anything that motivates people to care about each other and to work for the common good is all building towards a better future. And if you can't understand, I like to say that the biggest challenge facing humanity is figuring out how we can thrive without destroying that which created us, which is nature, Mother Nature, and there is a very deep-seated desire among most humans all humans, I think to protect nature. I mean, we go out in nature and we fall in love with it and we feel peaceful, we feel better, and so it's scary to think that not everybody is out working to do this, but it's really important to me that we have some wins along the way.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:You know little local stuff. You know even changing our Anne Arundel fleet to electric. I know you worked on that too. The executive order we did. All the things protecting our little Chesapeake Bay and restoring more life to our little Chesapeake Bay, and it's got. It's a part of the big earth, and I'm down for the battle. I'm glad you're down for the battle.
Matt Johnston:I am down for the battle, and you know, whether or not it's winnable. Let me speak for just a moment on that. It's absolutely winnable. We see it all over the world. When a community changes decisions in one small pocket, they see immediate changes in the wildlife in a forest or the water quality in this small little embayment. This is winnable, but only if we all get together and act and organize our communities to do it.
Matt Johnston:I'm reading right now a lot about a very imperfect man in our history, as a lot of our figures are in American history. But Teddy Roosevelt, and he once said one of the fathers of conservation back at the turn of the century. He once said, and I paraphrase our grandchildren won't blame us for what we used, they'll blame us for what we misused. So I think that's another rallying cry for us. Let's not misuse things when we're talking about what kind of communities do we want to see in the future? Let's design a new growth pattern, that's not the sprawling growth pattern that leads to destruction of the environment. Let's design a growth pattern that adds green spaces in our urban centers. We can make those decisions and if we don't, 400 years from now, our grandchildren will be blaming us for how we misused Anne Arundel County's lands and this Chesapeake watershed, not how we used it.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Absolutely.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Al right, well, let me just end by saying I will see you this summer on multiple weekends at the Anne Arundel River Days. Matt Johnston is often one of the people on the boats. We do boat rides for all, and we try to make sure that we get kids, maybe who've never been out on the water, families who've never been on the water, out there so that they can feel it, they can see it and they can learn about it on the water out there, with Matt Johnston as the boat tour guide, talking about water quality and the rivers that you're responsible for.
Matt Johnston:It is great fun and we talk about all kinds of things like pizza box gardens. And if you want to know what a pizza box garden is, you got to come to River Days.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Okay, and ride on a boat with me. Yep, it's a hoot, no question about it. Well, great, we will keep up the work. And if people want to get in touch with the Arundel Rivers Federation, where do they go?
Matt Johnston:Absolutely. So you can go to Arundel Rivers dot org, read all about the work that we're doing across the watersheds, and, if you feel the need to, you can donate to us. That's one of the things that all of us nonprofits need in this day and age. If we're under threat from the government stepping back from Chesapeake Bay restoration or stepping back from anything, then we need supporters like you to step up and keep us going.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Absolutely. Al right. Well, thank you for doing what you're doing and, for those of you who are listening, if you see a subscribe button, you can touch it and we'll send you an email. Or, you give us your email address and we'll send you emails that tell you who our next guest is going to be, and what the next topic is, and how we're going to make the world a better place. Thanks.
Matt Johnston:Thank you.
