Summit outlines plans to restore Patuxent River

Wednesday, Oct. 10, 2007

Click here to enlarge this photo Staff Photos by Jesse Yeatman From left, former state senator Bernie Fowler, Charles County Commissioner Gary Hodge (D) and Calvert County Commissioner’s President Wilson Parran (D) listen to a presentation on the Patuxent River 2020 plan Friday, Oct. 5, at the Calvert Marine Museum in Solomons. E-Mail This Article | Print This Story Click here to enlarge this photo Trinity Addo, 6, of Columbia works on a toy sailboat Saturday afternoon at the Patuxent River Appreciation Days held on the grounds of the Calvert Marine Museum. Click here to enlarge this photo The Calvert Marine Museum hosted Patuxent River Appreciation Days on Saturday and Sunday at the museum in Solomons. The festival featured water-related activities for kids and adults, live music and information on how to protect the river.

At the second Patuxent River Summit held Friday, Oct. 5, at the Calvert Marine Museum, environmentalists, politicians and citizens from surrounding counties gathered to hear the specifics of an action plan — called Patuxent River 2020 — that aims to restore the river to a healthy state.

‘‘Your presence here today indicates that your interest is deep,” said former state Senator Bernie Fowler at the opening of Friday’s meeting. ‘‘We’re not here to brag but to work together as a team, to focus serious attention on our beloved Patuxent River.”

‘‘We need to stop talking about the problems and start talking about the solutions,” said Dr. Mark Bundy of Morgan State University’s Estuarine Research Lab. ‘‘We knew we needed to form some kind of action plan to move us on a continual basis toward the restoration of the Patuxent River.”

Using published data and resources from studies conducted previously several organizations, including the Patuxent River Commission, collaborated on a plan to restore the Patuxent River.

Fred Tutman, executive director and Riverkeeper for the Patuxent Riverkeeper, outlined the plan, emphasizing the importance of taking action to implements its details as soon as possible.

According to a draft of the action plan, ‘‘there is no single solution that will restore and protect water quality; the solutions are multiple and sometimes overwhelming. But this report finds that there are specific actions that can be taken immediately to protect the river. These actions are a combination of enforcing and funding existing laws and planning for the changes that are to come.”

One short-term action — hoped to be accomplished within the next two years — includes the completion of creating numeric pollution limits for nutrients in the Patuxent and its tributaries so local governments can implement recent legislation requirements into growth plans. The plan also states that local governments should update their growth plans with clear standards for where and how growth should occur where open space must be preserved. That goal includes amending zoning ordinances to reflect those plans, which would also only allow minimal development in preservation areas.

According to the plan, sufficient funding from state and local governments should be appropriated to enforce critical areas, wetlands, stormwater and erosion laws to protect stream buffers from human impact; significant changes should be made to stormwater management regulations; states and counties should establish new revenue sources to fund stormwater retrofits as well as make funds available for upgrades to minor wastewater treatment plants; and provide adequate funding for farmers to implement nutrient management plans to minimize polluted runoff.

Short-term goals also outline plans for a mass transit program, both by rail and bus, with plans for transit oriented development, and state that local and state governments should enter the Patuxent 2020 compact, ‘‘committing to plan growth and economic development in a way that will protect the Patuxent River.”

Long-term actions — those to be implemented within the next five to 10 years — include a state-established plan to bring all pollution sources on the Patuxent within set numeric limits; a continued effort to preserve land along the Patuxent to provide a green infrastructure for habitat and water quality protection; installing appropriate pollution removing technology in all treatment plants as populations increase; and implementation of the Patuxent 2020 Compact as future decisions are made concerning the Patuxent watershed’s future.

Dr. Walter Boynton, a biologist at the Chesapeake Biological Laboratory in Solomons who has spent a majority of his professional life studying the bay and the Patuxent River, explained to those present why the river has the problems it has today and why this plan is necessary.

A leading cause of problems is a result of high nitrogen loads in the river, Boynton said, adding that when Capt. John Smith arrived in the area 400 years ago only 1,000 units of nitrogen were present. In 1960 that number had increased to 3,200 units, and by 2007 it had reached between 6,600 and 6,700 units.

‘‘We need to be back at that 1960 goal,” Boynton said. ‘‘We need to cut inputs by half. We’ve got a long way to go.”

Those nitrogen levels as well as excessive nutrient input are depleting oxygen levels in the river, Boynton said, making a comparison to Mt. Everest. Boynton told those present that if they were to stand atop Mt. Everest — where the high altitude leads to thinner air and makes it harder to breathe — ‘‘you would have more oxygen to breathe there than those fish [in the Patuxent River] have.”

According to Boynton, the ‘‘nutrient obesity” problem in the Patuxent is ‘‘too much of a good thing.” But, he said, that is solvable; progress has already been made with point source reductions and more reductions are possible.

‘‘Evidence indicates that the Patuxent will respond rapidly to nutrient input reductions,” Boynton said. ‘‘There is ample evidence that indicates that should we reduce nutrient inputs to the Patuxent River, this estuary will respond — so that’s good news.”

‘‘We will succeed. Failure is not on the drawing board for this project,” Fowler said. ‘‘We can do it and we will do it.”

Tutman said the common goal of all the organizations and individuals concerned with the Patuxent River is to ‘‘restore water quality in the Patuxent River to what it was in 1950.” The tools needed to do that, Tutman said, are funding, policy changes, enforcement and education. Citizen input and involvement is needed on all levels.

‘‘It will not be an easy task,” Fowler said. ‘‘Your support is so vital to accomplishing our purpose.”

‘‘We want to empower citizens,” Tutman said, ‘‘so they think globally and act locally.”

Tutman said the Patuxent River 2020 is ‘‘the product of many people who do care about the Patuxent.” Calling it a grassroots document, Tutman said the plan attempts to build on past research and has room for improvement and focus. The final plan should be released this December.

‘‘Let us now once more pledge to restore the Patuxent River to the water quality it enjoyed in 1950. Let us commit ourselves to that endeavor, and take the actions necessary to accomplish it,” the report says. ‘‘Future generations will determine how well we succeed.”

‘‘We know what needs to be done,” said a 2006 Patuxent River Summit participant. ‘‘We just need to stop fooling around and start doing it.”

E-mail Meagan Boswell at mboswell@somdnews.com.