Starting in November 2024 and halting on March 1st, 2026, UMBC conducted work to restore, stabilize and remediate portions of Spring Grove in Catonsville, work which saw over 1,000 cut down trees, and which saw numerous violations issued by Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE) inspectors.
Lisa Van Riper, the University Communications and Marketing Vice President, explained that some of this project’s objectives include remediating deteriorating stream culverts, repaving crumbling roads, repairing sanitary sewer lines, adding trees to certain areas of Spring Grove and the removal of invasive plant species.
Van Riper stated that this project intends to address the negative effects of stream bank erosion, stating that it contributes to unvegetated, near-vertical stream banks, loss of trees adjacent to the stream, exposure of utilities, and degradation of concrete structures within the stream.
According to Van Riper, there is a multi-component tree protection plan for the project which includes the mapping and inventorying of environmental conditions like vegetation and the boundaries of wetlands; tasks she said were completed by two environmental scientists with qualified professional, certified arborist and licensed tree expert certifications. She also said that this project includes a one-to-one tree planting replacement ratio with a five-year binding maintenance plan.
With that being said, reporter Karl Hille of the Baltimore Sun, writes that certified foresters informed The Sun that these credentials are not sufficient for evaluating and protecting sensitive ecosystems, and quotes Catonsville resident and retired forester William Rees as saying that,
“It will take many decades to have even a fraction of the same ecosystem services that were destroyed.”
Van Riper explained that the violations, which include damage to silt and border fencing, lack of erosion control and storage of materials within the streambed, occurred during the daily work of the current contractor, the contracting and construction management company Whiting-Turner, and were not intentional.
Whiting-Turner worked to remediate the violations after the MDE reported them and sent photos to the MDE to demonstrate this and make required corrections. However, critics of the project don’t feel that this undoes the damage to Spring Grove.
An MDE inspector visited Spring Grove on March 2nd to walk portions of the site with a colleague, UMBC, and the contractors. As of March 4th UMBC does not have the results of the inspection.
The stream restoration project is expected to resume on June 15th, 2026. Until then, UMBC will focus on efforts to fix crumbling roads and improve stormwater drainage, working on projects like realigning a street and portions of new stormwater retention ponds, as well as associated existing underground utility relocations.
According to Van Riper, UMBC and its contractors are fully committed to working with the MDE to ensure ongoing compliance with Maryland environmental laws and regulations.
When asked about this, both John Stolle-McAllister, the interim dean of UMBC, and Suzanne Braunschweig, the acting chair of Geography and Environmental Sciences, declined to comment, stating that they did not know enough about the issue.
Bobby Smith is a senior English major and Economics minor, and a news writer for The Retriever.
Contact Bobby at rsmith24@umbc.edu