Erik Michelsen on Watershed Protection and Restoration

What if there was an environmental restoration movement you could see from your backyard? In the latest episode of the Pittman & Friends podcast, County Executive Steuart Pittman sits down with Erik Michelsen, Deputy Director of Public Works and Chief of Watershed Protection and Restoration, to unpack how Anne Arundel County is working to clean our water, protect our forests, and implement smarter growth along the Chesapeake Bay.

Erik explains how a dedicated stormwater fee now funds rigorous maintenance of aging drains, ambitious stream retrofits in older neighborhoods, and living shorelines that replace failing bulkheads with native marsh. We revisit the Berrywood project that reconnected yellow perch spawning habitat, explore a South River marsh stabilization that could reuse dredge material to rebuild wetlands, and highlight strategic land preservation wins at Quiet Waters Retreat, Glebe Heights, and more. With the Green Infrastructure Master Plan guiding acquisitions and stronger forest conservation rules reshaping development, the county is stacking long-term water quality gains.

Community power runs through every story. The Watershed Stewards Academy trains residents to lead projects and pursue grants. We also touch on the new Whole Watershed Act, which is focusing state dollars on the Severn River watershed via a nonprofit-led coalition. Behind the scenes, tighter interagency coordination keeps land deals, tree protections, and restoration moving.

If you care about the Chesapeake Bay, our rivers, forests and open spaces—this conversation offers practical models and real results. Follow for more grounded stories of restoration, share this with a friend who loves the environment, and leave a review to help others find the show.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:10

Welcome back to Pittman and Fred's podcast. I'm here with my friend Eric Michelson. Welcome. Thanks for having me. Eric is the chief of he's deputy director of the Department of Public Works, but the Chief of the Bureau of Watershed Protection and Restoration. So let's get into that. We're really going to talk about kind of all things environment and Anna Rundle, the watershed, the bay, everything that you and I work on. I will also say that Eric is our environmental policy go-to that we meet every month and review a lot of things on environmental policy. But tell us what the Watershed Protection and Restoration Bureau does.

SPEAKER_00 0:46

Sure. So the Watershed Protection and Restoration Bureau in the Department of Public Works was created about 12 years ago after the county put in place a dedicated stormwater fee essentially for this work. There had been a little bit of stormwater restoration work that had gone on prior to that, but it was competing in the general fund for dollars and was prior to us getting a much more rigorous permit from the state that required a great deal of additional work.

SPEAKER_01 1:11

Trevor Burrus That was really controversial at the time, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:15

Yes, it was the rain tax.

SPEAKER_01 1:18

Trevor Burrus, Jr. That was what it was called. Yes. Not controversial anymore because you've done I I say because you've done such amazing work with the projects you've done. But go ahead and tell us what you do with that money and how it I will.

Turning Controversy Into Transparent Results

What The Bureau Actually Delivers

SPEAKER_00 1:30

I just want to say one point on that front, which is that a couple- it was two years ago now, 2024, we had a piece of legislation before the council, basically our financial assurance plan, to describe what we were doing, how the county was funding that work for our permit. And Councilman Volkey at the time actually said he he took sort of took an aside and said, I wanted to tell you, I was really skeptical and opposed to this idea of a stormwater fee at the time. It went into place. He wasn't on the council, of course, but I think it was, you know, still aware of it. But he said as a result of the actions and the transparency of the program that he had really, you know, changed his mind, which was huge. So in any case, our program is set up to do a couple of things. Again, respond to the regulatory mandates from the state and the federal government in terms of the county's clean water goals, really around the Chesapeake Bay and local rivers, but also to address our stormwater infrastructure. So the closed storm drains under roads and under, you know, communities and that sort of thing that really had been funded, if they had been funded at all, sort of on a on a as-needed basis for maintenance. And so there had really been no deliberate intentional way to maintain that infrastructure, which has a really fixed lifespan. And as a result of having this program put in place, we now have dedicated money, about$12 million a year from the capital program that goes to inspecting, maintaining, and replacing that closed storm drain network. So in addition to that, we're doing all the environmental restoration work that you see on our social media. We've got Facebook pages and Instagram and all that good stuff. But doing projects, basically going into the developed landscape, back into the developed landscape, and providing stormwater treatment for neighborhoods or businesses that were developed prior to contemporary stormwater management regulations to make sure that the pollutants coming off those surfaces aren't getting into our local waterways.

SPEAKER_01 3:29

Yeah, because we hear often about how new development is in a lot of ways, well, certainly better than old development. Redevelopment is good for that reason because we have higher standards for how the stormwater is done. So you're going back in outside of where the development was done, I guess, where there's streams and places where erosion is happening and addressing the failures of the past.

Retrofitting Neighborhoods For Clean Water

SPEAKER_00 3:51

Trevor Burrus, Jr. That's right. So it's very it's fundamentally opportunistic. We're not using eminent domain to go in and do stormwater projects like you would with a roadway or something like that. We're going back into neighborhoods ideally where they want us there, and less ideally, perhaps, where they're at least tolerate us being there, and doing these projects to try to improve not just water quality, but really to create quality of life features for the communities as well. And sometimes that takes a little bit of patience and understanding to get there. But uh we've had a lot of cases where we've been able to do that, and uh the communities have been a lot happier at the end of the day.

SPEAKER_01 4:25

Well, and the ones that I've seen, maybe it's the ones that you bring me out to or the ones that I get invited to go out to, it's it's often a community group that initiated the project. I remember my very first week in office, I went to Berrywood where there was a project underway under construction, and uh hearing about how many residents were engaged and how many organizations and nonprofits it took with you all really taking the lead on the project. And it was, you know, it was specifically to help some some fish, and you can tell me where that was exactly and what the impact has been, but uh it creating nature or or you know, fixing what humans broke to recreate nature so that we have better water quality.

Community-Led Success At Berrywood

SPEAKER_00 5:03

Yeah, that that's a great project, and it was funded through our grant program with the Chesapeake Bay Trust, but the Community Association of Berrywood approached the county many, many years ago and basically said, hey, we've got this situation where we've got a marina that's right on Catell Creek in that case on the Maggothee River, and the bulkhead's failing, we've got a big parking lot here. We'd really like to do something that is more environmentally sensitive. And at the end of the day, and a lot a lot of work and effort by the community, they removed their bulkhead, they installed a living shoreline, which is basically like a naturalized feature with vegetation right down to the water's edge. They rebuilt their marina at the same time, not with grant money, but with their own dollars. Uh and then they also did stream work up towards its Asbury Drive in that area, which is uh an area where there had been fish passage in historical Yellow Perch spawning area. So they're they're very happy that project has really become a model for great ways to recapture, reclaim those areas.

SPEAKER_01 5:59

It's working.

SPEAKER_00 5:59

Good.

SPEAKER_01 6:00

Good. And you've you mentioned a couple others. Are there I mean we have reports, and anybody can go to your website and see the list of all the projects all around the county that are underway. Any that are happening now that are particularly exciting?

New Projects On The South River

SPEAKER_00 6:12

We do have a couple of really cool projects going on right now. One is, again, another grant project with the Arunda Rivers Federation on the South River. It's at South River Farm Park, which is on the south side of the South River, just uh just in front of Selby Bay. So I know well. You know that area. Turkey Point, near Turkey Point. And there's a point of land, a peninsula of land that was marsh, that is marsh, that was eroding away quickly over time that's going to be stabilized as a result of this. The end goal is ultimately to actually have it maybe be a receiving site for uh dredge material for local creeks and whatnot to create recreate marsh in that area. So we're not hauling it off to a landfill, we're actually putting it back as a natural resource feature and sort of uh, again, piloting uh a technology that's of a lot of interest to the core and MDE these days.

SPEAKER_01 7:01

Wow. Okay. So there's a bunch of those. Great. And that's what you do, right? You do these projects all over the county and you you contract with firms that that do the work and with community groups. How did you get into this?

Career Path From Advocate To Bureau Chief

SPEAKER_00 7:11

Where what's your background? So uh uh it was kind of an unconventional background. I went to um I did my undergraduate in psychology and philosophy, went to graduate school for experimental psychology, got out, did social science research for a little while in D.C., and then started volunteering in the environmental field in the early 2000s. And ultimately I felt as though that was where my passion was. I went to work for a private sector design firm based in Annapolis for a few years, then became the executive director of the South River Federation at the time, now the Arundel Rivers Federation. Worked there for six or seven years, and then was hired uh with the county, and I've been here twelve years now. So that's uh it's been a really fun journey, honestly.

SPEAKER_01 7:53

Aaron Powell And the first time you and I met was I think it was a campaign meeting for a guy named Mike Shea who was running for county executive as a Green Party candidate.

SPEAKER_00 8:03

Trevor Burrus, Jr. That's right. Yeah. I think that was about 20 years ago at this point. Yeah. And yeah, that was it was a long shot candidacy, I think. Yeah, at that time I lived in Churcheton. Uh you were obviously still living in Davidsonville, but it was, you know, there's kind of a frustration among, I think, South County folks about some some development attempts in that area and sort of the county's focus uh in terms of doing development activity and kind of a pushback against that. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

Land Preservation Wins And Lessons

SPEAKER_01 8:29

Yeah, yeah. Well, I really appreciate having people in the bureaucracy of government who are making the machine work, whose background is uh coming out of a place of passion for the cause. And and obviously um you know you crazy Green Green Party people are pretty passionate. Okay. So I think most people in the county have learned by now that the Chesapeake Bay and the waterways are only as good as the land around them and the and the way that land is treated and handled. And one of the things that we've done in the county, and we talk about a lot of these in our monthly meetings, is take opportunities to protect land in perpetuity and keep it from being developed so that it doesn't have the fast water coming off of roofs and things like that. So we've done a few. Quiet Waters Retreat, I think, was the first one since when I was county executive that was going to be developed. Do you remember how that came about?

SPEAKER_00 9:23

Well, I I mean it's a great piece of property right there between Quiet Waters Park and Hillsmere. And I, you know, I g I know the acquisition went on. There was some discussion about potentially, I think maybe having some environmental like an environmental center or something like that there.

SPEAKER_01 9:37

But I it's yeah, the neighbors didn't like that for some reason. But uh yeah, we won't get into that. I've talked enough about that one, but yeah. Wreck and parks has engaged the community in a plan for that property.

SPEAKER_00 9:47

Trevor Burrus, Jr. Yeah. But you know, Quiet Waters really is the gem of the county park system. I mean, although there's uh several Downs Park, there's some really great parks in Another County, and so protecting that area on the periphery is uh was a great thing. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_01 10:01

Yeah, and that has an amazing view. It's it's adjacent to Quiet Waters, and you can now access it, and there's gonna be some better trails and some overlooked pavilions, but it's one of the best views in the county, looking off practically a cliff out across the South River and into the bay. So that would have been houses, would have been, you know, very expensive homes that were gonna be built there. They had it all subdivided and ready to go. So I was thrilled when we were able to acquire that as county with some help from the feds. And then a more recent one was Glebe Heights. You've been down there, right?

SPEAKER_00 10:28

Yes, yeah. A great piece of property. Again, lots of uh almost all woods and sort of wooded wetlands, drainage down to Glebe Creek and Glebe Bay there. Again, was gonna subdivided, going to be 40 or 50 homes. And right there next to Loch Haven Park, so protected will be retained for some passive recreational use. And uh really again, most of the land that's left at this point is or a lot of the land, let's put it that way, is is marginal. I mean, that's why it's taken so long to get developed. You know, there's a lot of environmental.

SPEAKER_01 10:57

Marginal in terms of developability.

SPEAKER_00 10:59

Yeah in terms of developability, but maybe high in natural resources. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

Magothy Corridor And Looper Gift

SPEAKER_01 11:03

Depending on what our regulations are and what we approve for development. Sure. So this is true. I remember in Glebe Heights right near near there was was a parcel that they had just clear-cut all the trees, and there was a stopwork order from the Maryland Department of the Environment because the developer hadn't identified the fact that there was a wetlands there, and it was sort of sad seeing the you could see the wetlands once the trees were all cut down, and uh it was not probably an ideal site for development. They did end up building a handful of houses there, but we didn't want to see that happen at Glebe Heights. Community certain certainly didn't. And I was just really thrilled that we were able to finally negotiate a deal with the landowner to protect that. And you I you've been more involved than I have in the Looper property on Magathy. What's what's that one?

SPEAKER_00 11:47

So this is it's a 250-acre parcel that is just south of a, I think maybe a three or four hundred acre parcel that was preserved a number of years ago by the Magathee River Land Trust. This family, the Loopers, sold the original piece of property and and they've basically donated this lower piece of property, which is j right on the north side of the Magathy River, not far from Dobbins Island and in that part of the river. And it's just a s in total, it's a spectacular corridor that will be protected. I think re recreation and parks, you know, may eventually have some plans for some kind of uh uh potential water access, like low-impact water access from that property. But most of the property is just going to be preserved as woods on the north side of the Magathee. That's the area of a lot of Anundal County's bogs, which are high-quality wetland resources and these sorts of things. So it's it's the generosity of that family and uh the vision of the Magathee River Land Trust continuing to work to preserve these properties throughout the watershed.

Saltworks Protection And Enforcement Gaps

SPEAKER_01 12:48

Yeah, there's I know there's a there's a group that's really been pushing us to move quick on that one. And Reckon Parks will engage with the community about I was just talking to Nick Kipke, um recently delegate Kipke, who lives right there, walks on those trails um already, but about the future of it. So that's a really exciting one. And then there's one that that we have been in the process for quite some time that we'll be able to announce here soon that we worked with uh the Chesapeake Conservancy on. They actually acquired it, and then we're acquiring it from them, but protecting it in perpetuity, right behind Best Gate Road, just north of the mall saltworks, I think they call it.

SPEAKER_00 13:23

That's right, just north of Best Gate. It's kind of off the beaten path. People drive up and down Best Gate Road all the time, but they probably aren't even aware of that several hundred-acre corridor that's back through that location. That Saltworks Creek is interesting there, a tributary to the Severn. The the Walmart that's there just off Generals Highway was, you know, probably built on top of the headwaters of Saltworks Creek many, many, many years ago. You've got the bowling alley that's just off Generals Highway where the Severn Riverkeeper did some restoration work, and they also have done some restoration work through that tributary. And the the the watershed is heavily developed already in terms of Annapolis Mall and these other kinds of features. But I think protecting that area will go a long way towards uh the recovery of the creek and helping us uh s you know sustainable.

Funding Coordination And Green Infrastructure Plan

SPEAKER_01 14:08

Yeah, I remember my my first experience, knowledge of that land and that forest there was when I guess the Hogan Companies was going to do a development there, and they never admitted it, but they, I will say, cut down a bunch of specimen trees because the larger trees are an obstacle to development and getting permits. So they those trees were cut down, I'll say. Uh they paid a fine for the trees being cut down. Uh not probably as much as we could. We changed the legislation so we could have bigger fines, but there's still probably not enough. Um, because it's been a practice in the past to have uh there have been places where the land was illegally clear cut, and then you go in for a permanent set permit saying, well, there's no forest there. It's sort of absurd. So uh I think we're we're getting better at preventing those things from happening, but really thrilled that that land is now going to be protected for perpetuity. And uh we could go on and on. There's the over over by two rivers where the, you know, they were threatening for the last 30, 40 years to build to put in a landfill where there used to be some mining is now part of property that the Federal Government is creating it, trying to create a greenway along the Patuxent River. And I've got my fingers crossed. I don't know if the if the owner of the Halley family, the cookie Halley, is going to be prepared to really talk about the future of that land when they finally realize they can't put in a landfill there. Maybe they will help us protect that for per perpetuity.

SPEAKER_00 15:29

Well, it certainly helps. Uh the administration has contributed dollars to land preservation, obviously, um, over a number of years. We've been able to work with the Department of Inspections on permits, who has funding through the Fee and Lou Forest Free and Lou program. And so having the coordination internally of these pots of money to be able to acquire these high-value properties has been critical.

SPEAKER_01 15:49

So there's a thing called the Green Infrastructure Master Plan. You know, we do all these plans, the plan 2040, some of the town centers have plans. And we really wanted to identify environmental features at their value, and then have plans to protect them. I think what is it, 30 percent we're trying to protect by 2030? Right. And forest conservation, when we strengthened the forest conservation bill, that was part of an effort to make it easier to protect some of that land. How are we doing in that work?

Stronger Forest Conservation And Mitigation

Why Redevelopment Protects Natural Areas

SPEAKER_00 16:19

So I think th having the mapping has been critical, especially as an internal tool for county staff. Again, when properties you know come available, somebody wants to donate a piece of property, somebody wants to sell a piece of property, being able to run it through that lens or that filter really helps to say, well, yes, look, this is an area that's core to our protection of these natural resources, or this area is outside of the area of our priority for consideration. And so we may pass it over. But I think uh in terms of forest conservation, the county is, you know, absolutely on the right track in terms of meeting those goals. This with the Titaned Forest Conservation Act rules, you know, developers are doing a lot more uh preservation on-site, or if they're having to have tree impacts, they're looking very aggressively at mitigation and off-site options. I've been involved with a number of projects with the uh Office of Planning and Zoning where they've been, you know, it's sort of a negotiation sometimes in terms of what form does that mitigation take. Is it reforestation? Is it buying easements on existing forests to protect those? Is it doing uh, you know, meadow enhancements or other other kinds of things? And so there's a lot of good work going on that's been spurred on by, I think, a closer examination of the impacts and the gradual forest loss that we've experienced.

SPEAKER_01 17:33

And while we're on the big picture of land use, you got very engaged in the effort to pass the redevelopment bill because you argued to the council and to everybody who would listen that by driving development into areas that have already been developed, that it makes it easier, we can grow our economy while still protecting the natural areas, right? Right.

Training Local Leaders: WSA Model

SPEAKER_00 17:55

Yes, that was the idea. I mean, the the reality is, of course, Annoldal County is a place where people want to be. We need to have continue to have housing for people. We've got corridors where we've got infrastructure that exists and that you know a lot of times those areas are um not fully utilized in terms of the residential capacity and that's that sort of thing. So the idea and what we were hearing also in talking with developers was there wasn't sufficient levels of flexibility in terms of the zoning in some of those corridors. Maybe they wanted to do more residential than commercial or vice versa. The market, you know, changes. And so fundamentally, the big component of that bill, I think, was 225, was give the give developers zoning flexibility in for redevelopment in these corridors where there's already a level of intensity that's going on. We're not saying all open up the whole county to no zoning essentially, but but to try to give some more tools in the toolbox to create incentives for people to do that kind of work. Cool.

SPEAKER_01 18:52

Okay. Let's move from land use in general, the how how planning is done and all that, to the role and the engagement of our residents. You know, when you were the head of the South River Federation at the time, you were engaging neighbors in work on the South River. And uh I know there's an organization called the Watershed Stewards Academy that you really love. I was there on Saturday for their annual springtime event, and it's kind of unique. Watershed stewards are trained. I think they train another 25 this year, they and then they go out and they do projects. There's a Save Our Trees group that does deals with invasives as well. Tell us about that work.

Septic Systems, Nitrogen, And Innovation

SPEAKER_00 19:30

Sure. So uh as you know, but the listeners may not, the the Watershed Stewards Academy was created about 15 years ago. It was a really innovative partnership forged by Anaro County Public Schools, uh Steve Berry at Arlington Echo, which is the Environmental Education Center for the School System, and then Ron Bowen at the Department of Public Works, he was the director at the time, as well as uh Suzanne Atkin, who's now the uh CEO or the executive director of the organization, basically came together and said, look, uh really Ron said, we've got these obligations, these clean water obligations we've got to meet as a county. There's no way we can do all of this on public property. Public property is, you know, a quarter of all the property in the county, but most of it's private, and we need to have people who understand why this work should happen and who can become advocates for making it go forward. And really, it was, like I say, the brainchild of those folks grew from fairly humble beginnings to what it is now, which, as you say, is really the predominant program of its type in the state, at least, if not in the region. Uh and so you've got, you know, now hundreds of people who've gone through this program, business people, teachers, uh, you know, stay-at-home parents, all sorts of things who basically, at a minimum, have sort of an understanding of uh the environmental needs of the county and the sort of the levers to pull to get things done. Uh uh one one thing I compare it to is sort of like the if if leadership Anna Rundle were just focused on the environment, you know, that's kind of what Watershed Stewards Academy does. It's sort of this crash course in uh you know environmental action. And we've had people, you know, who after that program have gone on to uh to really become champions for local efforts in their communities. So the folks at Berrywood went through the Watershed Stewards Academy program earlier or just last year, you and I were out with the folks at Chestnut Hill Cove. Gary Gackenheimer was a watershed steward who pulled together, you know, money from the state for EPGE to do this work. Yeah. So just really uh special folks.

SPEAKER_01 21:29

Yeah. So at this event that the Watershed Stewards Academy did on Saturday, they do the annual Ron Bowen Award in honor of Ron Bowen, who you mentioned, DPW director, founder. And a guy named Rich Pillock was given that award this year. And Don Curtian, who'd been over at the health department with him, the both of them work in the health department, and they deal with septic sewers and and uh wastewater. I guess wastewater is the big you know, the the big facilities that I know that Public Works does, but then the health health department is the one who who looks at these privately owned septic systems. So tell us about that aspect of the work, basically the uh dealing with the waste and keeping it from going into the bay.

Wastewater Plants And Performance

SPEAKER_00 22:08

Right. So the county has, I I believe it's the by far the most septic systems of any jurisdiction in the state, about 41,000 septic systems. And of course, a lot of that's because of our geography. We've got these peninsulas that jut out in into the bay, and so it makes it very difficult to have wastewater infrastructure that's not drawn out. And we do have a lot of wastewater infrastructure that's drawn out with pumping stations all over the place and that sort of thing. But these individual septic systems, you know, of course, when they were when that technology was invented, it was intended to create a situation where the bacteria issues, the the human health considerations associated with wastewater were addressed. And septic systems, generally speaking, do a pretty good job of that. But one of the things that they don't or they they weren't designed to do, and they don't do particularly well, is remove the nitrogen that's coming out of the wastewater, the liquids essentially that go into the field, get into the groundwater, and then ultimately travel to our local waterways. And so that nitrogen can become a source of um uh algae blooms and and other kind of enrichment in the local waterways. And so one of the things that has developed over the last 20 years or so is technology to reduce the nitrogen coming out of those septic systems. Rich, who you've described, won this award in part because far before it was commercially available, rich was just kind of like tinkering with some of these fields, trying to figure out ways to extend them. There's lots of l there's many lots in Interundal County that are very small where there isn't a backup opportunity for a septic field, and so you basically have to make that septic field work or try to prolong life the best you can. And so through things like oxygenation oxygenation and running the effluent through sand filters and that sort of thing, he's been, like I say, tinkering over decades now, really, to try to find a relatively low-cost solution for homeowners to be able to make sure their septic systems are not polluting our local waterways. And he does it with an energy. He's been there for over 52 years, which is just incredible.

Whole Watershed Act And Severn Focus

SPEAKER_01 24:14

And he was on the stage there and he at first said he didn't want the award because he doesn't like it to be the center of attention. But clearly and then got up there and he started talking about technical stuff. And I think he had a session, a workshop about it as well, that he literally went into his own system and started putting the sand in and building a brick wall in the middle so that the effort would go over the top. It just was was really cool to see how he, as a county employee, lives that work. I think he he went and got a degree and came back and continued to do the work. And he hired Don Curtian, who who now is his boss, who's been there for how 45 years. 44 years, yeah. Yeah. So people even in inside the government, I love seeing that where they are innovators. I know that some of the things that he started to do became standards across the state. But then there's the big, you know, DPW, I I go to an event that they do every year where, you know, they get these awards for, I think it's like platinum, gold, whatever, for all of our waste treatment, wastewater treatment facilities to get assessed as to how effective they are. Right. And so is it are you involved in any of that work? Or you keep track of that? I keep track of it.

SPEAKER_00 25:17

It's it's really run through the Bureau of Utility Operations and Bureau Bureau of Engineering who does the you know repair and replacement work. But I work closely with those folks. They're great people, and they're very proud of the fact that those plants run so effectively that they have, you know, occasionally there are overflows. You know, uh that it's almost an inevitability that that will happen because, you know, people flush all sorts of things down the toilet that they shouldn't. They can create, you know, jams in the pipe and have overflows, but they take very seriously protecting public health, protecting water quality, and making sure that those plants are running effectively, and and by and large, they're incredibly well run. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:59

So you you talk about watersheds all the time. That's where the the problems lie and the solutions are. Tell us about a grant that the state of Maryland, a grant program, Severn River applied, got funded, the whole watershed act, and what that's about.

Community Engagement As A Force Multiplier

SPEAKER_00 26:14

Sure. So a a year or so ago, the state, it was actually when Senator Alfred, now Congresswoman Alfred, when she was still in the State Senate, she had led the charge for the passage, it was 2024, I guess, for the passage of the Whole Watershed Act. Part of that act was basically let's take five watersheds across the state and focus state money on improving those watersheds. When that happened, I knew Anna Rondal County could be in a great position to receive it. And part of the problem was we had kind of an embarrassment of riches in terms of people who could apply for those. And so one of the goals was let's talk to all of the nonprofit entities and let's focus our energy because you know just the numbers are you're not going to get multiple awards, even if you've got good applications. So we were able to rally around the idea of having the resilience authority of Annapolis and Ann Rundle County be the applicant, brought in a bunch of entities uh from Severn River Keeper, Severn River Association, watershed stewards, other groups that are basically plugged in as well, and made an application to the state to have this focused effort on the Severn watershed. I think the whole request was for something on the order of forty-two million dollars, uh, even though the max sort of award was going to be$25 million over five years. And as you've said, I think it's it's gonna be reduced a little bit. But right now, they're in the process of doing implementation of a number of projects. Most of those this year are in the city of Annapolis, but in the coming years, there will be a lot of implementation work in the county. And one of the cool things about this was that. Uh the Severn, exactly. But one of the neat things about this was because the administration and the council have been so supportive of funding the county's efforts in the past, we were able to use all of that money basically as match for this application. So when they went to the state, they said, hey, we've got$20 million in match from the county. The county's not asking for any of this money. It's all going to be handled by nonprofits basically doing this work. And that made our application very attractive. And we're real interested to see all this work go into the ground over the next several years.

Citizen Environmental Commission Role

SPEAKER_01 28:15

Yeah, and what excited me about that was that it engages part of the application. You had to show how communities would be engaged. And nobody does that better than we do. And both in the city of Annapolis, uh engaging folks as well as as further upstream and the watershed stewards that have all been trained. And and I remember when the governor did his announcement of the program, it was at Y Island, and and he talked about the fact that he didn't really have a relationship with Chesapeake Bay and nature even that much as a kid. But when he took his kids out on a boat and he saw it through their eyes, it all changed for him, and he understood how important it was for people to be connected. So that was a big part of that, and I'm I'm really uh pumped to see what we can do on the Severn River there. So let's kind of wrap things up. I do want to I do want to two parts of what you do briefly. One is you staff the Citizens Environmental Commission, which is organized by Watershed, right?

SPEAKER_00 29:03

Tell us what that is. So it's it's a commission that advises the county on environmental issues that basically involves a group of folks who are, you know, interested in sort of intensively understanding what the county is doing from an environmental standpoint. It is organized by watershed. There are some at-large seats as well. If you're just if you just Google Annerundal Citizens Environmental Commission, there's web, you know, there's web recordings of our meetings and all the minutes and the annual reports on the website. But it's an opportunity for folks who are engaged or are interested in getting engaged in the community and and having a sort of a deeper understanding in what the county is up to and have a lot of good back and forth, have the opportunity to review some legislation before it comes before the council and that sort of thing on the environment, and also give feedback uh on these key environmental issues. Trevor Burrus, Jr. Yeah.

Breaking Silos Across Agencies

SPEAKER_01 29:51

Yeah, they've had important perspectives that um we should be listening to, and hopefully that will continue for many years. We created it, I think, early in our first term. And then the the last thing that I I want you to say something about is the work that you end up doing coordinating the different agencies of county government on environmental issues.

SPEAKER_00 30:09

Sure. I mean, this is again, I've been in the county government now for about 12 years, and one of the frustrations is probably with any big organization, is that you know sometimes people can operate in silos. I think one of the uh the the nice things that's happened over the course of that 12 years that I've been with the county is that there's been a lot more interagency cooperation across the board, not just on the environment, but you know, I'm able to call up the assistant director of inspections and permits or the assistant director at recreation and parks or somebody at planning and zoning. You know, if an issue comes up and try to figure out, well, this this may be something that either we can cooperate on or that's not in my wheelhouse that you may be interested in. And so being able to coordinate on things like land acquisitions or on how do we tree trimming bill. Tree trimming, exactly. The tree trimming bills. The list goes on, yeah. Or development review processes, it's critical to have those good working relationships and those trust relationships between agencies.

SPEAKER_01 31:03

Trevor Burrus, Jr.: Well, and it's critical to have when those conversations are going on, to have somebody at the table whose job it is to protect the environment, to be the environment's seat at the table. Trevor Burrus, Jr. That's true. Yep, absolutely. Yeah. So thank you for all those things that you do and all of the years of work and passion that have gotten you to this point and playing the role that you play. You get to have the last word because that's the way we do this.

SPEAKER_00 31:24

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