Tag: Annapolis

  • Bay grass at Baygrass: The AACC Environmental Center jams at music festival

    Bay grass at Baygrass: The AACC Environmental Center jams at music festival

    September’s annual Baygrass Music Festival at Sandy Point State Park has its own distinct rhythm: local oysters and local brews, a crowded beach, and the cascade of Béla Fleck’s banjo cutting through a salty breeze off the Chesapeake. Pair that with standout sets from Little Feat and Sam Bush, and you’ve got a first-rate roots music festival. But Baygrass operates with a deliberate mission baked directly into its organizing slogan: “Every Jam Heals the Bay.”

    Festival CEO Ron Peremel describes the model as an “immersive education experience rather than a lecture.” It’s a sharp distinction. Haranguing people about nutrient runoff rarely changes minds; embedding conservation directly into a water’s-edge weekend festival actually does. You don’t need doomsday dogma when you can make estuarine ecology tangible, visible, engaging, and just plain fun.

    That approach defined the Bay Guardian Village, the festival’s dedicated conservation hub. The lineup brought together a formidable regional cohort: the Oyster Recovery Partnership, presenting reef restoration and shell recycling; the Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay, unpacking stormwater remediation and agricultural best practices; the Watershed Stewards Academy; the Severn River Association; the Ocean Conservancy; and even NASA Goddard’s Hydrological Sciences Program, translating satellite Earth observation down to the dynamics of local tidal creeks.

    Positioned square in the middle of that village was the Anne Arundel Community College (AACC) Environmental Center. Rather than leaning on dry handouts, Center staff and students built a working field lab right on the grass.

    They anchored the space with four tabletop aquariums, giving visitors an eye-level look at native estuarine species and submerged aquatic vegetation (SAV) — the original “bay grass” — those unglamorous underwater forests that do the heavy lifting of Bay filtration and nursery habitat. Beside the tanks, a monitor looped unvarnished field footage of AACC students hip-deep in tidal muck: pulling water samples, tagging horseshoe crabs, and planting bay grass. Throughout the weekend, Center staff engaged festivalgoers one-on-one, demystifying Operation Clearwater’s bacterial testing and explaining how routine creek monitoring translates directly into public health advisories and swimming safety.

    Applied science doesn’t require pious marketing; it requires solid fieldwork, visible mechanics, and unpretentious public education. By taking academic research out of the lab and dropping it onto the festival lawn, the AACC Environmental Center proved just how engaging hands-on stewardship can be when people connect over a shared love of nature and of our amazing estuary.

    And Béla Fleck!

  • AACC Environmental Center SAV study: Year 2

    AACC Environmental Center SAV study: Year 2

    In 2025, the DF underwrote the launch of a multi-year study with the Environmental Center at Anne Arundel Community College to establish scientific best practices for restoring submerged aquatic vegetation (SAV) in the Chesapeake Bay. Year one set the baseline. Year two was about testing assumptions, refining mechanics, and deliberately pushing our research into tougher waters.

    The project still runs on the same four-phase cycle: site analysis, harvesting, seed processing, and planting. But moving into the second year gave the research team the data and field experience needed to interrogate procedures that have historically relied on brute-force labor and educated guesswork.

    Re-engineering the Jacuzzi

    Phase three—seed processing—remains the most labor-intensive bottleneck in the restoration pipeline. After harvesting, plant matter must sit through a decomposition stage to weaken the physical bonds holding the seeds. From there, it goes into turbulators: custom-aerated tanks (affectionately called the SAV “jacuzzis”) that agitate the biomass to shake ripe seeds free from decaying stems and leaves.

    The problem has always been efficiency. Vegetative matter left behind can rot and ruin an entire batch in cold storage, which means running the SAV through multiple cycles of water and hand sifting.

    This year, EC Lab Manager Jason Burkholder began re-engineering the turbulation hardware. He’s redesigning the tanks’ fluid dynamics and separation mechanics to automate more of that sorting. The prototypes are still in the testing phase, but the early trials are promising: if the new design works as intended, it could cut processing time dramatically while saving substantial amounts of labor and water during the critical cleaning window.

    From Broadcast Seeding to Nursery Trays

    Planting (phase four) also saw a significant shift in thinking. For decades, the standard restoration technique has been traditional hand dispersion. Uptake rates are low.

    To give SAV seeds a fighting chance, researchers are testing submerged and floating nursery trays containing lab-germinated seedlings. By allowing root systems to establish in a controlled setting before deployment, the trays shelter young shoots from wave scour and silt smothering, aiming for substantially higher survival rates once placed in the field.

    Tackling “Black Mayonnaise” and Armored Shorelines

    Site selection in year one focused primarily on establishing baseline conditions: water clarity, depth, sunlight, and wave energy in relatively cooperative shallows. But if SAV restoration is going to make a meaningful difference across heavily developed watersheds, it has to work where conditions are hostile.

    In year two, the study expanded into some of the most ecologically degraded stretches of our local creeks:

    • Urban Runoff Channels and “Black Mayonnaise”: Decades of unchecked stormwater runoff have carpeted urban creek beds with a thick, suffocating layer of fine, anaerobic silt locally referred to — NOT affectionately — as “black mayonnaise.” This sulfurous muck lacks structural integrity and is virtually devoid of oxygen, making natural seed anchoring nearly impossible. We’re testing whether modified substrates or tray planting can establish a foothold in these ecologically degraded urban creeks.
    • Rip-Rap Stabilization Slopes: Miles of Chesapeake shoreline have been armored with heavy, jagged rock rip-rap to halt erosion. While engineered stone stabilizes the bank, it creates harsh, high-energy wave refraction and eliminates natural intertidal transition zones. The team is evaluating techniques to introduce and anchor resilient SAV varieties directly along these armored rock slopes.

    Restoring native grasses in clean, sandy shallows is one thing; figuring out how to revive an urbanized mud flat or an armored creek wall is where true long-term resilience begins. We’ll continue reporting on germination data and field results as year two planting rolls forward.

  • CSC 2026: Kansas City

    CSC 2026: Kansas City

    After our immensely instructive experience at the 2025 conference of the Community Streetcar Coalition, we’re back! As planned, the Resilience Authority posted a request for proposals (RFP) from transit engineering firms to perform a streetcar feasibility study. We sent a small delegation to CSC this year with that RFP in hand.

    Like last year, we were impressed with what a powerful tool for urban (re)development an urban streetcar system can be. The success stories we learned about in cities like Kansas City, Tampa and Omaha were inspirational. Kansas City is presently the national “poster child” for urban streetcars; it’s an immensely popular and profitable free-fare system — that has nearly tripled in length since its first segment in 2016.

    What’s more, city officials repeatedly emphasized how the KC Streetcar has profoundly re-energized development in the city. The tired old catchphrase “Good enough for KC” is gone, and projects like the waterfront development that were dismissed a dozen years ago as too ambitious are now actively underway.

    One key lesson this year was this:

    Streetcars aren’t transit. They’re urban development.

    That’s an oversimplification, obviously! Of course streetcars are a mode of public transit. The point is that it’s misleading to think of them only in that light. They’re not high-volume like subways or inexpensive like buses. They’re not intended to move the most people in the fastest way for the lowest cost; that’s not what they’re for.

    What they ARE for is to make it cheaper, easier and more fun for residents and tourists to get around an urban environment. That’s what streetcars excel at — much more so than buses, and for a fraction of the cost of a subway. That’s what sends retail foot traffic skyrocketing and attracts developers to invest in new construction. That’s why so many cities are turning to streetcar systems to convert surface parking lots, brownfields and underdeveloped or vacant properties into vibrant, revenue-generating neighborhoods. Kansas City is a textbook example: the KC Streetcar turned neighborhood after neighborhood, from City Market to Union Station to The Plaza, from struggling to flourishing.

    Responses to the RFP are already coming in. Stay tuned!

  • AACC Environmental Center

    AACC Environmental Center

    Since 1980, the Environmental Center at Anne Arundel Community College has supported AACC’s mission through applied research designed to address local environmental needs. Most community colleges don’t double as scientific research institutions — but the Environmental Center at AACC is a brilliant exception. The EC conducts vital applied research, monitors the health of our local waterways, and leads critical habitat restoration efforts.

    Students in the EC greenhouse

    The EC’s status enables it to engage in unique collaborations between students, sponsors, local organizations, governmental agencies and other universities to develop solutions to a variety of contemporary environmental problems, thus providing opportunities for a diverse population of AACC students to gain hands-on work experience.

    The EC supports the activities of Annapolis’s Spa Creek Conservancy and riverkeepers across the region, with water testing, environmental analysis, conservation research, expert testimony and much more. In recent years, the DF has been particularly proud to underwrite a multi-year study — the first of its kind — of best practices for the harvesting, processing and dissemination of submerged aquatic vegetation (SAV), underwater grasses of critical importance to the health of the Chesapeake Bay.

  • CSC 2025: Portland

    CSC 2025: Portland

    Our inquiry into the possibility of a streetcar for Annapolis is picking up steam. Building on an extensive research project that began in 2024, the DF, in April 2025, led a delegation from Annapolis and Anne Arundel County to Portland for the annual summit of the Community Streetcar Coalition — a non-profit coalition that, for more than 20 years, has been supporting municipalities that have or are interested in building a downtown streetcar system. Our delegation (funded by a DF grant and costing taxpayers nothing) had representatives from the city and county councils, the offices of the Mayor and County Executive, Annapolis and County Transit, the Resilience Authority, the Annapolis business community and the tourism bureau. That’s a lot of folks wanting to learn about how streetcars promote sustainable urban development!

    And learn? Did we ever. The 2025 streetcar summit was a firehose of information provided by transit engineers, policymakers, builders, regulators and 20 different cities, large and small, that have streetcar systems currently in operation. We learned about:

    • planning and zoning to make the most of a streetcar system
    • designing your transit system to feed a streetcar
    • engineering, route planning and design
    • maintenance, scheduling and safety
    • different models for system governance
    • fare vs. fare-free (“open-platform”) systems
    • funding instruments like TIFs (Tax Increment Financing) and TDDs (Transportation Development Districts)
    • the pros and cons of federal funding
    • And so much more!

    But the #1 takeaway from this conference for our delegation was that these things WORK — their capacity to stimulate sustainable urban (re)development is tremendous. City after city showed how their streetcar turned surface parking lots and underdeveloped commercial areas — or in many cases, industrial brownfields — into vibrant, healthy, tax-revenue-generating neighborhoods.

    It’s not magic. We heard a dozen cautions and caveats: your community needs to have adequate size and density; it needs to have done its planning and zoning homework; construction and funding are challenges that must be met. But there’s a reason that more than two dozen American cities have (re)built these systems over the past 30-odd years: they work. They’re possibly the single most powerful tool at a city’s disposal to spur smart, intentional, sustainable development. And they address a raft of city challenges all at once: they improve traffic and parking problems, they’re environmentally friendly, they help fix affordable housing problems and they generate significant new municipal revenue. They’re expensive, but they generate a commensurately high return, both in literal revenue and in incidental benefits like housing.

    Is a streetcar right for Annapolis? We don’t know, of course! That’s the point. At CSC 2025, we learned just how much more we need to learn. But everyone in the delegation came away from the conference knowing one thing: we’re not crazy for looking into this. Considering how positive its impact on the city could be — and the crucial role it would play in linking a Chesapeake ferry at our brand-new City Dock to new express BRT from Parole to Washington — we’d be crazy not to.

    To that end, the delegation agreed that our next step is to commission a feasibility study from a transit engineering firm to research the physical possibility and financial practicality of this concept. The Resilience Authority, in consultation with city, county and MDOT officials, will prepare the RFP for the study. And to continue insuring that this inquiry comes at minimal cost to taxpayers, the DF has formally pledged to fund a substantial portion of this study, should it come to pass.

    Stay tuned!

  • Sweden follow-up: RA report

    Sweden follow-up: RA report

    In February 2025, The Resilience Authority of Annapolis and Anne Arundel County delivered its final report on the 2024 Climate Change and Sustainability Tour to Sweden. Discussing why we went, the report notes Sweden’s:

    • electric mass transit and electric ferry technology,
    • bike-friendly cities and integrated mobility,
    • climate-smart urban planning,
    • ethos of retrofitting and repurposing,
    • community engagement in infrastructure projects,
    • closed-loop resource systems to minimize waste and promote reuse, and
    • policy frameworks that incentivize investment in green technologies, sustainable practices, and responsible land use.

    Better still, the RA has followed up on a number of examples of ways in which delegation members have already implemented lessons learned in Sweden, including:

    • Based on Sweden’s approach to sustainable and multimodal transit, Annapolis is taking steps to enhance its system with the deployment of two electric buses, launch of a local-area electric ferry, the potential feasibility of streetcar service and “car-free” days downtown
    • The RA incorporated lessons from Stockholm Royal Seaport into two EPA Challenge Grant Applications: Glen Burnie Town Center Redevelopment and the City of Annapolis’ Redevelopment and Connectivity Initiatives.
    • The RA is working with the Stockholm Environment Institute to develop a computerized modeling tool for that integrates emissions data, simulated responses and economic analysis to aid in project planning in Anne Arundel County.
    • Inspired by Stockholm Royal Seaport’s zero-waste principles, the RA is working with research and private-sector partners to incorporate “zero-waste” solutions and soil amendments for stormwater management, carbon sequestration and ecosystem restoration.

    The full report is available here.

  • A trolley for Annapolis?

    A trolley for Annapolis?

    In the wake of two sustainability study missions, the DF in late 2024 undertook a research project to help investigate the possibility of a trolley (aka streetcar) for Annapolis. Visiting some dozen streetcar systems and museums across the eastern US, the DF met with system operators, technicians and executive directors and in 2025 delivered its initial report.

    Since then, the DF has helped organize an informal working group to further investigate the feasibility of a trolley for Annapolis. The trolley workgroup is comprised of civic groups and government agencies that would be most directly impacted. The workgroup’s efforts uncovered a 2009 transit feasibility study expressly calling for future consideration of streetcar service in Annapolis.

    Is that future now?

    It might be. In the past 20 years, scores of US cities have re-installed streetcar systems to support downtown revitalization, improve pedestrian safety, facilitate sustainable transit and relieve traffic congestion. Historic or vintage streetcars in particular tend to be popular. By and large, the reintroduction of streetcar systems in the US has been a success, combating the siloed communities spawned by urban sprawl with a high-interaction community model that hearkens back to the small towns of 1940s America. But it remains to be seen whether a streetcar system would be a practical, desirable and cost-effective transit solution for a small city like Annapolis.

    Other small cities, like Little Rock and Kenosha, have successful historic streetcar systems. And there are larger cities, like Dallas and Tampa, that have small vintage streetcar systems (less than 5mi) that are immensely popular. While Annapolis proper is a small city, it has high-density suburbs, is the seat of state government and has unusually high tourist traffic owing to its many historical attractions. And there have been dramatic infrastructure developments both downtown and in the suburbs since the 2009 study.

    Annapolis could be a candidate. The DF will continue to partner with the trolley workgroup to help determine if a formal transit feasibility study is warranted. In the meantime, it’s inspiring to imagine the positive impact something like this might have:

  • Water testing

    Water testing

    The Denker Foundation began working with the Spa Creek Conservancy in 2019. The DF supports SCC by both grants and volunteer work, assisting marine biologists from Anne Arundel Community College to gather and test water samples on Annapolis’ Spa and Back Creeks every year. Water sampling involves measuring water temperature, salinity, suspended solids, pH, dissolved oxygen, and bacteria levels. Suspended solids, for example, indicate how far sunlight can penetrate into water, thereby permitting the growth of submerged aquatic vegetation (SAV). Oxygen indicates the presence of SAV and is crucial for sustaining aquatic life. Bacteria levels determine whether water is safe to swim in.

    Conservancies and riverkeepers all around the Chesapeake have been taking water samples to monitor Chesapeake Bay water health for many years. SCC has been water testing on Spa Creek for many years. Water samples are processed in the Marine laboratory at AACC and results are published to the general public.

    The DF supports Spa Creek Conservancy in other ways. For more information, click here.