Meet several protectors of our waterways, the environmental challenges they face, and the real solutions they put into practice
It’s one of the coolest job titles anywhere. Meet someone who has it and you don’t know whether to say, “Thank you” or ask, “What do you do?”
It’s almost reverential: Riverkeeper.
“Riverkeepers are sentinels watching out for the health of rivers. They are the voices of the rivers, especially wherever there is not a large advocacy group to speak for them,” states Erik Michelson, Deputy Director of Board of Public Works, Anne Arundel County, and Director of the County’s Bureau of Watershed Protection and Restoration.
With hundreds of creeks, streams, and rivers across Central Maryland and the Eastern Shore, riverkeepers work to protect their waterways by monitoring and finding solutions to keep them healthy. Often invisible to the public, they display a passion for their work and fierceness to fight decades of degradation.
In this article, we interviewed four professionals who spend days on—and in—local rivers. What they see, record, and recommend offer lessons for everyone who lives, works, or plays within their rivers’ reach.
Four Voices
Matt Pluta serves a merged organization. Pluta is Director of Riverkeeper Programs for ShoreRivers, which was formed five years ago with the merger of Midshore River Conservancy and the Chester River and Sassafras River Associations. He also is the Choptank Riverkeeper and oversees policy and advocacy efforts for several rivers, including the Sassafras, Chester, Choptank, Miles, and Wye.
Sara Caldes assumed the role of Riverkeeper for the Severn Riverkeeper Program three years ago after serving as its Restoration Manager since 2004. Like ARF and ShoreRivers, Severn Riverkeeper is a member of the Waterkeeper Alliance, an international organization that licenses riverkeepers who meet specific standards.
“Every river is different,” Sara says, “but our main goal is to stop pollution and advocate for methods that succeed.”
Unlike its sister organizations, the Magothy River Association (MRA) has no paid staff and does not have a licensed Riverkeeper program. Its voice, however, is strong. Paul Spadaro, MRA’s president since the mid-1990s, likes to say he has been a “riverkeeper” longer than most.
“Our volunteer base is people who live here. This is our home. And that’s why we’ve been so effective.”
Jennifer Carr calls riverkeepers “the eyes, ears, and mouth of the waters they protect.”
Carr is Director of Restoration for the Arundel Rivers Federation (ARF). Established in 2019 with the consolidation of the South River Federation and West Rhode Riverkeeper, Inc., the Federation is currently assessing what it needs in a riverkeeper.
“A riverkeeper is unique to its river,” explains Carr, who typically executes what the riverkeeper needs, “but they all must meet the core principles of being the voice of the river.”
Severn Riverkeeper Sarah Caldes at far left with environmental engineer Keith Underwood, Severn Riverkeeper’s Executive Director Fred Kelly, and a patron on site at a restoration project located behind Annapolis Bowl off Generals Highway.
What They See
Local riverkeepers belong to relatively small nonprofit organizations. They spend an average of one to two full days each week on the river monitoring water quality. Caldes visits some 20 stations in the Severn River where she monitors temperature, pH levels, water clarity, and oxygen levels. She takes readings at several points along a column deep into the water.
“Since 2006, we have consistently seasonally monitored the Severn River,” she explains. “By 2011 it was evident that we had a persistent seasonal dead zone in several areas of the river that had not been documented. This has been a wake-up call for those of us who care about the health of the river, and we responded by dedicating our program to restoration projects that reduce the stormwater run-off.”
On the Eastern shore Pluta has been collecting water samples from the same 20 sites on the Choptank since 2013. “My monitoring on the Choptank over the years has proven to me that legacy pollution from agriculture has a long-term effect on the River. Year-to-year variations in water quality are mostly influenced by local weather patterns and how much precipitation we receive in the region.”
Riverkeepers also spend time patrolling the shoreline. A common refrain is “what happens on land happens to the water.” Consequently, they face common challenges. The biggest is pollution from stormwater run-off caused by development or as Spadaro says, “Over-development.”
“Most people don’t see the loss of tree cover, or the dead fish or algae,” Spadaro says. “But if you look at Routes 2 and 3 over the past 20 to 30 years, you see the increase of cars. Every new home that’s built puts two more cars on the road every day.”
Carr decries the expansion of impervious surfaces which give “the water nowhere to go.” This forces polluted stormwater to flow into local waterways. The sediment it carries contains chemicals and “bad stuff,” covering habitat with a layer that blocks out sunlight and harms the growth of healthy underwater vegetation. Even manicured lawns pose problems, she says. Instead of seeping into the soil as nature intended, water rolls over the grass and gushes into creeks and streams.
Like a dark cloud coming from the west, the threat of increased development on the Eastern Shore concerns Pluta. He cites a proposed project to build 2,500 homes in Trappe in Talbot County, which the Virginia-based company describes as “the largest development on the East Coast.” In part, Pluta blames Covid.
“As a result of the pandemic, people want to leave cities and live in rural areas. That’s putting tremendous pressure on the Eastern Shore. I’ve seen ten years of development proposals come through in just one year.”
Still, the major threat to ShoreRivers today is industrial agriculture. About 60 percent of the Shore’s industrial land use is farming. While Pluta lauds farmers and their critical place in society, he worries over the “double-hit” to rivers from the poultry industry: run-off from chicken manure at poultry farms and run-off from manure that fertilizes crops to feed the industry.
A Looming Challenge
Like all environmentalists, riverkeepers are keeping a wary eye on climate change. More intense and frequent rain causes more run-off. A warmer climate prompts a longer growing season and a longer period for fertilizing fields.
Says Pluta, “Because of climate change, we expect a 22 percent increase in nitrogen pollution by the end of the century.”
Meanwhile, sea-level rising threatens riverbanks and coastal areas. According to Spadaro, the Magothy River is “99 percent armored” which means bulkheads or rip rap—rocks or rocky material that bolster shorelines, bridges, and steep slopes—line most of its shoreline. He notes, “All those piers out in the river are on the verge of being underwater.”
Magothy River Association President Paul Spadaro holds a water-loving plant that will be floated with others on “islands” that allow the plants’ roots to clean the water below. Such demonstration projects are critical to developing larger scale mitigation plans for river restoration.
Solutions
If riverkeepers see problems, they also see solutions. Just as each river is unique, each riverkeeper approaches solutions differently.
Jennifer Carr laughs at the idea of artificially-intelligent beavers working to clean-up the South River. “Maybe someday,” she muses. ARF’s restoration project of Caffrey Run Stream in Quiet Waters Park is set with a series of small pools designed to filter rainwater and help clean Harness Creek. The pools mimic the work of beavers as natural dam builders. It is just one of dozens of restoration projects Carr says are “cleaning up decades of development, recovering from the sins of our past.”
In addition to restoration, ARF advocates for holding Anne Arundel County government accountable to enforce laws requiring developers to implement best stormwater management practices.
With the motto “One Creek at a Time,” Caldes focuses on restorative methods while also advocating for policy and regulatory changes. One such method she employs is to create “living shorelines.” These natural buffers help to restore areas where the shoreline is eroded or hardened, for example, by bulkheads. The organization’s largest living shoreline project is Kyle Point in Herald Harbor, completed two years ago after private owners sought to preserve their property. Another is the Living Shoreline in Pines on the Severn which took only six weeks to build with local tree limbs and large boulders, but many months for design and permitting.
Director of Restoration for the Arundel Rivers Federation Jennifer Carr, far right, with the organization’s leadership during a site visit to a restoration project in the Annapolis Landing community.
Caldes describes the Severn as a “short stumpy river with short stumpy creeks.” She says it’s not enough to work at the shoreline. “You need to go as high into the uplands as possible” to capture water in small pools or little dams and create a curved path to slow the water and allow it to seep in as it flows. Known as “regenerative stormwater conveyance,” the method can be adapted in other areas as well, even parking lots.
The best solution on the Eastern Shore for Pluta is to take a strategic approach and be proactive to eliminate known sources of pollution. He tries to identify farmers who have large drainage off their lands. Through the project “Envision the Choptank” he secured a $1 million grant to help offset costs to farmers who utilize more conservation methods, such as putting in a wetland or forest buffer on their property.
“The goal is to work together to improve water quality while sustaining productive farm fields. The goal is to be friends first.”
When these approaches don’t work, Pluta isn’t hesitant to report a farmer to the Maryland Department of the Environment or Agriculture. He’s also pursued litigation. In one case it resulted in the state closing a poultry rendering facility.
Spadaro has a one-word answer for his preferred solution: litigation. “It seems to work for the Magothy.” A self-described strong competitor who ran track in high school and college—“I never ran to finish second”—he is proud that the MRA has taken a case to the Supreme Court and won.
Closer to home, he has succeeded before the County Board of Appeals. A case that may come before the Board is Mount Misery, a steep piece of property in Severna Park overlooking both the Severn and Magothy Rivers. Spadaro lined up neighbors to defeat a developer’s plan to build homes on part of the site that, he says, was once used as a Union fort during the Civil War.
“Communities that push back win back,” he says. “If you don’t fight, you don’t win.”
He also believes lack of public water access is a real problem. As he says, “Why should I care if I can’t even get to it?” He works closely with the County to provide public access wherever possible, as he did at Beachwood Park to allow access to the Magothy.
Convinced that more communities and organizations need to fight harder, he is putting together a “playbook on how they can be more effective” to deal with such issues as subdivision approvals. The goal is to “affect change, if not kill it.” It will include specialists who have been helpful, “engineers, lawyers, what’s free, and other resources.” But he continues to rant at the area’s overdevelopment.
“At some point, even the best hotel has to put up a No Vacancy sign.”
Matt Pluta serves as Director of Riverkeeper Programs for ShoreRivers. The organization represents environmental advocacy, projects, and education for the Sassafras, Chester, Choptank, Miles, and Wye rivers.
The Long View
If riverkeepers are great problem-solvers, they also are innately optimistic. On the Eastern Shore, Pluta is on the water weekly and walks the land and streams daily. He observes that “communities are starting to recognize the importance of clean rivers—whether it’s their kids in the water, boating, or just sitting nearby and witnessing an algae bloom.”
Pluta also understands the need to educate the public and involve more advocates: “We will never achieve healthy waterways on our own. We need the voice of others.”
For Caldes the completion of each project energizes and enthuses her. She reflects on how “we’ve evolved from a piped infrastructure in the 1900s to the 21st century focus on promoting nature-based projects that are resilient and strong and allow us to filter the water before it becomes tidewater.”
She admits “it is slow, incremental work” but she “loves getting projects in the ground,” and working with volunteers, regulators, and advocates who “get it.”
Even Spadaro, with his forthrightness and candidly competitive nature, believes there is still time “to turn it around.” He looks forward to new, fresh leadership in local river organizations and is planning a summit soon to work on common issues. “We all can do a better job.”
Maybe that’s why, after decades fighting for a river’s survival, he still signs all his correspondence with “Moving forward.”
