You Just Can't Make Everybody Happy

 At the Bay Journal, Stream restoration draws fire for plan to carve up Baltimore forest

Oak, tulip poplar, beech and sycamore trees stand tall and thick in Northeast Baltimore’s Mt. Pleasant woods, largely shading the forest floor from the bright October sun.

But pink ribbons staked to the ground show where the leafy canopy is about to be torn asunder. Hundreds of trees are to be removed so heavy equipment can reach the western branch of Herring Run and re-engineer its channel. Nearly a mile of the tributary to Back River is in line for a $5.5 million stream restoration project intended to help the city meet its obligation to reduce stormwater pollution and do its part to clean up the Chesapeake Bay.

But to Rob Schnabel, a watershed restoration scientist with the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, the plan to restore what appeared recently to be a gently flowing, clear stream “makes absolutely no sense.” The Annapolis-based environmental group has called on the city’s Department of Public Works to reconsider, arguing it will do more harm than good.

“Removing trees to restore a stream is chasing your tail,” Schnabel said, as he and other CBF staff were joined by leaders of the city’s forestry board and a local park friends group to walk the woods to the stream and voice their concerns to reporters.

The Baltimore stream project is just the latest example of what CBF and others contend is a misguided statewide approach to dealing with stormwater pollution, which Chesapeake Bay Program computer models show is a significant and growing source of nutrient and sediment pollution degrading the Bay.

Stream restorations have been increasingly undertaken by localities throughout the Bay watershed, especially in urban and suburban areas where development has led to more intense runoff from pavement and buildings.

Experts say modifying stream channels can be effective at reducing the erosion that’s sending sediment and nutrient pollution downstream. But scientists also have found ample cases where such projects did little to boost the waterway’s ecological health. To make matters worse, they’ve found that the removal of trees and forest along the banks can worsen water quality, at least temporarily, while degrading upland habitat.

City documents provided by the Maryland Department of the Environment say the project is intended to stabilize the stream and prevent the loss of sediment and nutrients downstream while protecting existing utilities and infrastructure.

But another goal is to maximize credits for complying with the requirements of the city’s state-issued stormwater management permit. MDE approved the project in 2020, according to department spokesman Jay Apperson.

The Herring Run project will earn the city credit from MDE for treating polluted runoff from 90 acres of pavement and buildings in Baltimore, Schnabel said. But this and many other stream restoration projects won’t do anything to reduce the underlying runoff problem, he argued. And getting through the woods to modify this stream will require the removal of 3.8 acres of woods, an area equal to approximately three football fields.

Many streams in the Mid-Atlantic are very incised, having eroded a deep ditch through the forest. To "restore" such a stream to its precolonial condition (if that's even possible) requires considerable landscaping to get stream into the contact with the rest of the ecosystem. That means removing some trees.

The second part, is interesting, that it's also driven by the need to reduce runoff, which is considered a significant remaining problem for the Bay.