By Greg Ellison

(Feb. 4, 2021) Water quality issues and the possible restoration of the St. Martin River dominated an online meeting discussion last Thursday between the Ocean Pines Environmental and Natural Assets Committee and Maryland Coastal Bays Program officials.

Environmental Committee Chairman Ken Wolf convened the meeting with program officials to review efforts to improve nearby waters.

Steve Farr, Coastal Bays Program watershed coordinator, said the group is halfway through a 10-year comprehensive conservation and management plan.

“We just completed mid-term assessments,” he said.

Farr said the Coastal Bays Program, which is now in the midst of its third conservation and management plan since the program was founded a quarter century ago, regularly surveys the efforts of associated governments and agencies to see how projects are progressing.

Wolf said the committee has been focusing on reducing pollutants in the St. Martin River.

Ken Wolf

“We’re always looking to stop the decline of the river,” he said.

Coastal Bays Program Executive Director Kevin Smith said the St. Martin continues to be the most degraded tributary in the coastal bays network, although it has improved slightly in recent years.

“There is still a lot of work remaining,” he said. “The answer to what can be done is multi-faceted.”

Smith said the river has suffered from the effects of residential development, excessive stormwater runoff, agricultural practices and wetland loss.

“The St. Martins for MDE (Maryland Department of the Environment) is the highest priority for wetland restoration in all of Maryland because of the amount of wetlands that have been impacted over the years,” he said.

Smith said Farr and staff members from the Center for Watershed Protection visited several locations in the watershed the day before.

“We were fortunate enough to get dollars to start targeting and investigating opportunities to do things in the St. Martin River,” he said.

Founded in 1992 as a nonprofit dedicated to watershed research and educational initiatives, the Center for Watershed Protection is recognized as expert in national stormwater management and planning.

Farr said the Maryland Department of Natural Resources financed the project to identify and prioritize sites, which include the Assawoman and Isle of Wight watersheds.

Farr said one objective is to address degraded agricultural ditches or streams.

“Stormwater retrofit activities to improve the flow … and filter it before it enters bays and rivers,” he said.

The assessments performed last Wednesday in the northern watershed included two spots in Ocean Pines.

“There are two sites with drainage issues near the (Ocean Pines) golf course,” Farr said.

Data derived from the golf course analysis will be used to calculate if infrastructure improvements could be helpful.

“They will do some concept designs,” he said. “Those will form the basis for going out for additional funding to do a full-fledged design and try to get funding to implement these practices.”

Maryland Coastal Bays is one of 28 National Estuary Programs funded in part by the Environmental Protection Agency.

“We recently got another grant for a similar effort in southern bay watersheds,” he said.

Smith said in addition to a grant awarded through Worcester County to retrofit Bainbridge Pond to improve stormwater runoff, the Coastal Bays Program also has applied for funding through DNR for climate resilience projects.

“We have sent into DNR to do a restoration project of Jenkins Point, just off the Ocean Pines marina,” he said. “It was once a peninsula but has been divided into a series of islands.”

Wolf said word of the pending project is welcome news.

“Three of four years ago, the committee tried to campaign for that,” he said. “We were trying to capture some of the dredge spoils from the inlet dredging to be used up there but had no success.”

Smith estimated the engineering study for Jenkins Point would cost $100,000, while the eventual project would run closer to $1 million.

When Wolf asked if the Jenkins Point project was the best use for that amount of money, Smith replied that funding is available through DNR’s Restoration for Resilience program.

“They are looking at projects that will protect communities using green infrastructure,” he said.

Smith noted sea level rise, climate change issues and stormwater management are the most challenging environmental issues facing Ocean Pines.

“We all know the situation when Ocean Pines was developed in the 1960s when there was no stormwater management, basically,” he said. “That problem is not going away and it’s only, potentially, going to get worse.”

After highlighting assistance from Director of Amenities and Operational Logistics Colby Phillips, along with board of directors members Tom Janasek and Doug Parks, Wolf suggested long-term plans should be developed to assure that the effort to improve the ecosystem continue.

“How do you … engage to lure in people in the future beyond current people like Colby, Parks and Janasek?” he said. “I want to grow roots that will survive people coming and going from the board.”