Magothy River Association member Bob Moyer said he went out to photograph a particularly large pistachio tide on Cattail Creek in October, and was so overwhelmed by the sulfur smell that he collapsed to his hands and knees and had to crawl off the pier.

Pistachio tides occur when bacteria in the river produce hydrogen sulfide, which depletes the oxygen in the water and creates a rotten smell. The bacteria produce a bright green color, which is where the name comes from.

Working with the river association, Johns Hopkins University is researching the bacterial booms in Cattail and Old Man creeks this summer to identify where and when they occur. Pistachio tides usually develop between August and October, and Hopkins started collecting water samples in early July to get ahead of the blooms.

Paul Spadaro, president of the Magothy River Association, is concerned about people breathing in the sulfur, especially on Cattail Creek, where recreational activity often takes place. Without any monitoring or warning system, kayakers may paddle into a pistachio tide.

“I do think people need to know that when you smell that sewer gas, it’s time to move away,” Spadaro said.

Part of Hopkins’ research this summer is to determine if there is a danger to wildlife or humans. Sulfur bacteria are naturally occurring, but stormwater and fertilizer runoff entering the creek can increase the pervasiveness of these bacteria by depleting oxygen.

In October, Spadaro said 380 fish in the Town Neck region of Cattail Creek were found dead during the pistachio tides. In September, a bloom in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor killed 24,000 fish. The Department of Natural Resources deploys continuous monitoring of these blooms in the Inner Harbor.

“It’s the sulfur bacteria’s appetite for oxygen that makes it dangerous to fish, crabs, eels, and other aquatic life that need dissolved oxygen to breathe,” said DNR program manager Cathy Wazniak.

However, Wazniak said that without long-term data on pistachio tides in the Chesapeake Bay, she could not say whether any trends exist.

“We’re in here for the pistachio tides, because they’re kind of falling under the radar,” said Sarah Preheim, an associate professor at Hopkins who is leading the research project.

Hopkins received a $312,000 grant in 2024 from the National Science Foundation to research microbial processes in the Chesapeake Bay. About $2,000 is going toward pistachio tide research on the Magothy River.

Preheim said rising overall temperatures and nutrient pollution contribute to pistachio tides because warmer water holds less oxygen, based on monitoring data from the Inner Harbor in the past decade.

Moyer, a Berrywood resident, hopes Preheim’s research will help educate residents about the blooms and encourage them to rethink where the rainwater on their property goes. In the Berrywood neighborhood, storm drains open right into the creek.

He says homeowners should fertilize their lawns late in the fall, if at all, when colder water holds more oxygen and is less susceptible to the damage caused by the fertilizer chemicals. He also wants more waterfront residents to consider putting native plants as a buffer between their lawn and the creek.

Preheim said she is focusing this summer on collecting water samples to help determine what environmental factors are causing the blooms, so that next year she can create a predictive model to help warn people when these pistachio tides might occur.

One possibility is to provide sulfur measuring strips to citizen scientists, such as those at the river association, so they can test the water themselves for sulfur levels.

“The people need to know if it’s really toxic,” Spadaro said.

Have a news tip? Contact Tori Newby at tnewby@baltsun.com.

The robot — named Lil Blue Heron — maneuvered around an oyster reef in Glebe Bay, taking video in an attempt to monitor its growth. The Power Hawks Robotics Team 1111 and Arundel Rivers Federation worked together, taking two boats out on the river for the initial launch.

The Power Hawks had some technical difficulties, with the control panel’s chamber filling with water on its initial deployment. High schoolers Nick Pounds and Max Sprague pulled the robot out of the water and managed to fix the leak. They took out the temperature sensor, reconfigured the control panel and, in about an hour, the robot was ready to try again.

After maneuvering through the silty river water, Lil Blue Heron finally caught sight of the reef, where oyster shells have grown and attached to one another to form a combined underwater structure. The robot’s video was displayed on a laptop, and Pounds and Sprague controlled the robot’s movements with a video game controller. The Arundel Rivers Federation, which planted oysters on that reef earlier this year, will use the video to monitor the reef’s growth.

Pounds said despite the setbacks, the Power Hawks were able to “easily overcome” the challenges.

“It’s definitely a rewarding moment, being able to actually see our hard work going towards something,” Pounds said.

The Power Hawks approached the Arundel Rivers Federation more than a year ago about working together, and the two organizations applied for funding from the Chesapeake Bay Trust.

Oyster reefs are habitats for organisms like small fish and crabs, and they serve as natural water filters, consuming algae that can pollute the bay. Collecting data near the oyster reef is important to understanding the overall health of the river, said Mairin Corasaniti, outreach coordinator at Arundel Rivers Federation.

The Arundel Rivers Federation gave the Power Hawks the type of data they wanted to collect, and the high school students began building the underwater robot in the fall. After a test run in an outdoor pool earlier this summer, Wednesday was the robot’s first river launch. The partners will send Lil Blue Heron out periodically to collect additional data.

The Power Hawks are a FIRST Robotics competition team — officially titled Power Hawks Robotics Team 1111 — with 15-30 students each year who build and compete with their robots at regional and national competitions. FIRST stands for For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology.

The Power Hawks most recently qualified for the FIRST Championship in 2022, where it competed against teams from all over the world and placed in the top third of the 100-plus teams.

The competition season is separate from this underwater deployment, which was the first scientific research-oriented robot the Power Hawks made.

“We see technology and the environment as almost being at opposites with each other, one coming at the cost of another, and I don’t think that really has to be the case,” Corasaniti said.

The Power Hawks apply for grants to fund their program, which can cost more than $35,000 per year, and they get some funding from Anne Arundel County Public Schools.

But, the Power Hawks are now seeing funding cuts. Usually, AACPS funds the $6,300 competition entrance fee, but that money has since been revoked, and the team is looking to supplement that through community partnerships and donations.

“We’re actually kind of clambering right now to figure out where the rest of our registration money is coming from, because the current economy has tightened a lot of strings from a lot of the companies that would normally give,” head mentor Ronny Ashley said.

Have a news tip? Contact Tori Newby at tnewby@baltsun.com.

Krieck says he wants to change city spending by lowering property taxes and eliminating “wasteful” spending. The four Democrats running for the Ward 1 seat are Ben Bramsen, Ron Gunzburger, Harry Huntley and Katie McDermott.

Sixty-one percent of city revenue comes from property taxes and Krieck wants to reduce what homeowners pay by combining Annapolis departments with Anne Arundel County departments where possible, such as Recreation and Parks.

Krieck also questions spending he thinks should be reallocated. For example, $105,000 for landscape companies and residents to purchase battery-powered leafblowers can instead go toward hiring an additional firefighter — a department Krieck said needs more staff. After banning gas-powered leaf-blowers last year, Annapolis began offering vouchers for electric-powered ones.

To cut down on costs at the ongoing City Dock renovation project, he wants the Maynard-Burgess House to serve as the welcome center rather than the current plan to build a Maritime Welcome Center. The Maynard-Burgess House is a historic home of two African-American families, and it is currently used for city offices and a preservation site.

Krieck worked as a business executive for most of his career, including nearly 20 years as owner of a company that helps seniors age in place. He’s managed budgets of up to $700 million, which he said has prepared him for the budget process as an alderman.

“I’ve been able to look at big numbers before, and not in any way shy away from making decisions,” Krieck said.

Besides spending, Krieck is focusing his efforts on flood solutions. He wants a Ward 1 flood mitigation program that would combine infrastructure development with stormwater management to protect the historic homes threatened by Spa Creek flooding.

He also wants to reallocate parking spaces downtown to give homeowners more priority parking near their homes.

Krieck said he is a “Democrat by nature” but he chose to run as an independent to give a voice to more of Ward 1’s residents.

“The problem is, is that we’ve gotten so partisan,” Kriek said. “We’ve got Democrats, Republicans, and we don’t have a fresh approach to trying to make things work real well.”

Kriek moved to Annapolis in 2019 after living in Virginia, New Jersey and Pennsylvania throughout his life.

“I’m real fortunate because I’ve lived in other parts of the country. I can appreciate what Annapolis has to deliver and what we offer,” he said.

The filing deadline for additional candidates to join the race is July 28. The primary election will be on Sept. 16, and the general election is Nov. 4.

Have a news tip? Contact Tori Newby at tnewby@baltsun.com.

While June is traditionally Pride Month, Annapolis Pride Board Chair Joe Toolan said the new date still comes “at a time of importance.” The first March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights was held in October 1979, and October has since been designated LGBTQ History Month by a coalition of education organizations in the U.S. The parade and festival will be a week after National Coming Out Day.

All of the details of the June parade and festival remain mostly the same, including U.S. Space Force Col. Bree Fram being the parade’s grand marshal.

The parade will begin at 10 a.m. at Calvert and Bladen streets, continue through Church Circle and up West Street, and end at Amos Garrett Boulevard. From 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., the festival will be held outside the Maryland Hall for the Creative Arts and the Bates Athletic Complex.

One concern with summer parades is the heat, and Toolan said the October parade will be much cooler and safer. He encouraged people to wear Halloween costumes for a “spooky-themed” parade and festival.

The Annapolis Pride Board will see how October’s parade goes and determine whether it will be held in the summer or fall in the future.

“We’re really rooted in community here, and we’re going to help stand with each other no matter what,” Toolan said.

He said it was a difficult decision to postpone, but the right decision to make for everyone’s safety.

“This year has been really difficult for all of us, and we were really looking forward to spending time together as a community and really being there for each other,” he said.

Annapolis Pride’s other events in June included a beer launch at Forward Brewing and a music and food festival.

Have a news tip? Contact Tori Newby at tnewby@baltsun.com.

The property is a Department of Public Works site on 932 Spa Road that previously housed an incinerator and a landfill. A Public Works service facility on the land is set to become a 722-unit mixed-income housing development.

Before that can happen, harmful chemicals must be cleaned up. Annapolis will soon vote to transfer the property to the county’s Resilience Authority, which will apply for a federal grant to fund the cleanup and then transfer the property back to Annapolis before construction can begin.

At an environmental committee hearing July 10, Robert Worden, vice chair of the Heritage Commission, asked the city to conduct an archaeological survey of the site before the cleanup begins. Worden cited his own research, which he published in the book “Soldiers of the Cross” in 2024, about the Spa Road site that was once part of a farm owned by John Walton from 1845 to 1860.

“We don’t want to lose this opportunity to identify and preserve artifacts from a Civil War site — it’s all part of our cultural and economic history,” Worden said.

Before the Civil War, Walton kept his farm running with the labor of 28 enslaved African Americans, who grew crops, tended forests for lumber and kept livestock — all of which supplied a hotel Walton owned in downtown Annapolis.

In 1861, at the onset of the Civil War, Union troops occupied the farm for training. The site was a designated “Camp of Instruction,” and soldiers prepared for battle in Virginia and the Carolinas.

If the site were to be professionally surveyed, Worden guesses archaeologists could find remnants of the soldiers’ time there, such as buttons, belt buckles, coins and ammunition. He said it’s also possible there are remains of the people Walton enslaved, although he is unsure where on the 192-acre property they would be buried.

Walton had an ice house next to Spa Creek, where he dammed the river and harvested ice for his hotel in the winters. Worden said this could be another spot where there might be artifacts.

Ward 8 Alderman Ross Arnett, who is on the environmental committee, said he would sponsor a resolution for an archaeological survey of the site once the Heritage Commission provides more details of the request. Warden said he plans to submit a draft to the council within the next two weeks.

“The council is more than happy to work with them,” Arnett said.

In the 1960s and ’70s, Worden said, residents found Civil War-era buttons in the field that is now the Safeway parking lot on Forest Drive. In 2010, when Annapolis decided to expand Forest Drive, Worden unsuccessfully advocated for an archaeological survey of the site.

“Anytime you put a shovel in the ground in Annapolis, you come up with artifacts,” Worden said.

Have a news tip? Contact Tori Newby at tnewby@baltsun.com.

For wheelchair users, going out to eat, getting a haircut or finding an apartment to rent can require research and phone calls. As part of her platform, Cobbs wants to help connect wheelchair users with resources that will help them find accessible spaces.

“Educating people on what is possible, what can be done in a wheelchair — whether it be a politician, whether it be surfing or sailing, there’s just a lot that’s not known,” Cobbs said.

July is Disability Pride Month, and Cobbs said the word “disabled” is an important part of her identity.

“I am a proud woman with a disability, a part of this community and a wheelchair user, and I am happy to live my life and show the world what is possible,” she said.

Cobbs was born with arthrogryposis, a condition characterized by stiff joints and muscle weakness. She is a lifelong wheelchair user and disability rights advocate, and soon her passion for advocacy will take center stage as she competes against the other state Ms. Wheelchair winners in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

The weeklong pageant will have a series of interviews to select a national advocate for people with disabilities. Cobbs has a GoFundMe to help her raise the $3,000 she needs for the pageant.

Until then, she is busy with advocacy events, speaking at health fairs and festivals about accessibility and connecting wheelchair users to resources. Later this month, she will be attending an adaptive sailing event through the Chesapeake Regional Accessible Boating. Cobbs said the water is an important part of Maryland’s culture, and that it’s important everyone can access it.

Cobbs also regularly attends events at The League for People With Disabilities, a Baltimore organization that helps people with disabilities connect with one another and live more independent lives. The League hosted her crowning ceremony in March when she won Ms. Wheelchair Maryland.

David Greenberg, the League’s president and CEO, said the organization has been supporting Ms. Wheelchair Maryland since the 1980s, with several winners having come through its doors.

“Win or lose, we expect her to be a great ‘roll’ model for the disability community,” Greenberg said.

Cobbs grew up going to public schools in Baltimore County, where she said her parents were her advocates – making sure field trip buses were accessible for her wheelchair or ensuring she could get extra time on writing tests due to limited mobility in her hands. She then attended Bowie State University for her bachelor’s degree and later the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy.

Throughout her education, Cobbs had few classmates and friends who were wheelchair users. At the Ms. Wheelchair America competition next month, Cobbs said she’s excited to meet the other women and be a part of the “sisterhood.”

Cobbs looks up to Chandra Smith, who won Ms. Wheelchair Maryland 2023 and went on to win Ms. Wheelchair America 2024. Smith said she appreciates that the competition brings to light the challenges the wheelchair community faces.

“You have this sisterhood, this sense of shared experience. We’re all advocates, fighting for a better world,” Smith said.

Have a news tip? Contact Tori Newby at tnewby@baltsun.com.

The proposed site for the 1 million-gallon elevated water storage tank is on the Annapolis Moose Lodge property, more than a mile from the Heritage Harbour neighborhood that would benefit from the tank. The Stop The Tower group cites an unfair burden on the surrounding neighborhoods, which will receive none of the benefits but all of the construction noise and visual impairment, among other concerns.

While a public meeting was held in March and another set for July, following complaints that some neighbors closest to the site were not made aware of the meeting, the Department of Public Works rescheduled the second meeting to October.

“We’re going to give everyone a fair opportunity to participate and try and have a really productive discussion,” Matt Diehl, public information officer at DPW, said.

The announcement for the March meeting included an incorrect address for the proposed tower, and Stop The Tower wrote in a statement that this “potentially misled residents and significantly limited community participation.” DPW Director Karen Henry apologized for the mistake.

The project will cost more than $11 million and is expected to be completed in summer 2028.

The initial property acquisition was expected to be completed by July, but will now take place after the October meeting, where Diehl said the department will hear feedback on alternative sites.

The proposed Moose Lodge site was chosen for its location within the Heritage Harbour neighborhood’s pressure zone, an area of similar elevation where the water is maintained and distributed within a specific pressure range. Heritage Harbour relies on a booster station to pump water from a water tower in the adjacent Broadcreek pressure zone.

“If you’ve lived in the water pressure zone for a while, you’ve experienced some disruption, some breaks, just some services going down, maybe low water pressure, that sort of thing,” said DPW Project Manager Michael Stroud at the March meeting.

Diehl said having a water storage tank within a neighborhood’s pressure zone is less costly and puts less demand on the system. Due to the distance and elevation differences between the two pressure zones, Diehl said replacing the aging Broadcreek tank would not work.

Water towers provide a flow of water, as gravity creates the necessary pressure and speed for distribution. With its large storage capacity, it can meet peak demand on the system and store water for emergencies, including fire suppression and power outages.

“Water storage tank projects like this are essential for public health and safety,” Diehl said.

Diehl said choosing a site for a water tower is a “technical challenge,” as the property must be at least 2 acres while considering elevation, proximity to an existing water main and environmental concerns. A site with a higher elevation will allow for a shorter water tower, which is less expensive to construct. The county aims to keep the tower under 200 feet.

From 2013 to 2023, 10 possible sites for the water tower were evaluated. Six of these are within the pressure zone and four outside it, and this year the Moose Lodge property was picked. Now, sites previously ruled out are being reconsidered.

“We fully support adequate water infrastructure for the Heritage Harbour community,” Stop The Tower wrote in a statement July 8. “However, we remain firmly opposed to the Moose Lodge site. Alternative sites would achieve that goal and also avoid serious harm to our community.”

Representatives for Stop The Tower declined a request for an interview.

Environmental concerns with the Moose Lodge property, which is surrounded by trees, are highlighted on the group’s website.

The county takes into consideration disturbance to forests, wetlands and flood plains when choosing a site, according to a DPW presentation given at the March meeting. There are also regulations to mitigate noise, pollution, and provide erosion and sediment control.

“Fortunately, we do not anticipate any major environmental impacts, and any minimal impacts will be mitigated during construction and design,” said Moalie Jose, senior associate at the design consultant Hazen & Sawyer, at the March meeting.

The coalition is also concerned with the visual noise of the water tower, which will be 200 feet high and visible from the surrounding neighborhoods.

“A 200-foot industrial tower will dominate our skyline, visible from most homes, drastically changing our neighborhood’s character,” the Stop The Tower website says. It also contends that the water tower will slash property values, which Diehl said the county has not seen evidence of.

Henry said in an email to residents that DPW is committed to designing the tank with aesthetics in mind, exploring architectural and landscaping options to minimize visibility.

“DPW is listening to the concerns of the community, and as we reset the public meeting process, the goal is to hear from them and get their input,” Diehl said.

Have a news tip? Contact Tori Newby at tnewby@baltsun.com.

The Severn River Association planted the oysters as a part of its annual Operation Build-A-Reef, funded by donations. There have been 224 million oysters planted since the program started in 2018.

“These plantings are large-scale, so they’re really impactful,” said Olivia Caretti, coastal restoration program manager at Oyster Restoration Partnership, which collaborated with SRA for the oyster planting.

The planted oysters, called oyster spat, are tiny larvae that have attached themselves to recycled oyster shells. The 9 million oyster spat were loaded onto the Robert Lee boat and released into a 2-acre area in the Severn River on Monday, where there is an existing oyster reef.

The reef is a collection of oysters, which attach to a recycled concrete piece and to one another to form an underwater structure. The Severn River is an oyster sanctuary, meaning the oysters cannot be fished for commercial or personal use, but instead the reefs serve as a boost to the river’s environment.

Oyster reefs offer a habitat for other organisms, including small fish and crabs. Oysters also serve as natural water filters, consuming algae, which pollute the bay when too prevalent.

Mollie Boyd, restoration associate at SRA, dove with her team earlier this summer to test for diseases on the oyster reefs. They found them to be mostly healthy. She described a “bubble” of water clarity surrounding the reef.

“Once you get down to the bottom, you can tell that’s the oysters doing their job,” Boyd said.

More than 13 acres of oyster reefs are maintained in the Severn River through the SRA and its collaborator, Oyster Recovery Partnership. ORP conducts several large-scale plantings per week throughout the Chesapeake Bay, and SRA works with the ORP for one planting per year in the Severn River. All of SRA’s maintained reefs are between the Naval Academy Bridge and the Severn River Bridge.

To prepare for these plantings, ORP works with the University of Maryland’s Horn Point Oyster Hatchery,  where they have millions of free-swimming larvae. Within two weeks of the larvae’s inception, they are ready to attach to recycled oyster shells to live out a sedentary life.

The recycled shells come from restaurants and public drop sites through ORP’s Shell Recycling Alliance. Once an oyster is shucked, the shell can be reused to grow another oyster.

These spat-on shells are then piled onto a boat to be planted in the bay, where a mechanism similar to a low-pressure fire hose sprays the shells into the water, and they float down onto the reef where they will eventually attach themselves.

Last year, ORP planted a total of 1.5 billion spat-on shells in the Chesapeake Bay.

“It takes all of us to make this happen,” said Paul Schurick, director of partnerships at ORP.

The bay’s oyster reefs once were so populous that they stuck out of the water, as European colonists recorded when they first arrived in Annapolis. Eventually, overharvesting shrank the population, and pollution from runoff and algae blooms further contributed to the decline. The oyster population sits at about 3% of its original size.

The Maryland Department of Natural Resources reported that the oyster population has increased over the past 20 years, from 2.4 billion oysters in 2004 to 12 billion in 2024. This growth is due to large quantities of spat-on shells joining the reefs, lower levels of disease and increased restrictions on harvesting.

Stella Kiddney, a rising senior at Severna Park High School and a summer intern at SRA, said she feels passionate about keeping the bay clean, and populating oyster reefs is one way to help achieve that.

“I really feel like kids shouldn’t be afraid to swim in the water, and they should be able to enjoy it as much as I did,” Kiddney said. The Severn River is usually safe for swimming, but the Anne Arundel County Health Department issues warnings after heavy rain and when bacteria levels are high.

Caretti said there is a lot of uncertainty with funding moving forward, as the nonprofit receives federal, state and local government funding.

“We are just trying to push forward the best we can,” Caretti said.

Have a news tip? Contact Tori Newby at tnewby@baltsun.com.

Head of School Chad Dirkse said the goal is to reduce costs and “build coherence” by combining grades 6-12 on the same 80-acre campus. Currently, AACS has nearly 900 students spread across four campuses: two elementary schools in Annapolis and Severn, the recently sold middle school in Annapolis and the high school in Severn. The closure and consolidation are expected to save $500,000.

“We really felt like we needed to try to shrink our campus footprint,” Dirkse said.

The middle school will stay at its 11-acre Bestgate Road campus for the 2025-26 school year. After school gets out, renovations will begin to reconfigure classroom spaces for the incoming middle school and will last through the summer.

Some office space will be converted to classrooms and most of the middle school classes will take place on the lower floor of one of the high school buildings.

Dirkse said the combined school will have “the right kind of overlaps,” fostering mentorship between students while keeping the 200 middle school students and 400 high school students mostly separate.

Combined spaces will include performing arts and athletic facilities. Some courses, such as languages and math, will be offered to middle and high school students.

Steve Deterding, IT director at the high school and a father to five AACS students, is excited for his two middle school-age daughters to combine with the high school for math, as the higher-level math courses available to them are often a small group of kids. He said he’s looking forward to middle schoolers going to football games and being more involved with other high school programs, and the high schoolers taking on mentorship roles.

“I think that leadership role — whether it’s in sports or the arts or just serving — there’s going to be more opportunities to help the younger kids, or draw them into the program they love,” Deterding said.

Upper School Principal Dave Intlekofer was an AACS student when grades K-12 were combined more than 30 years ago and he said he remembers looking up at the older students as heroes.

“That hero worship and just the opportunity to see my future, in a sense, was really great,” he said.

The change is also meant to foster collaboration between teachers across schools. Once the schools combine, middle and high school teachers will have a 30-minute block twice a week to meet with each other.

“Imagine how difficult it would be for middle school science teachers, for example, to collaborate with high school science teachers who were separated by, sometimes in traffic, 30 minutes,” Dirkse said.

Combining campuses will reduce positions that overlap. For example, rather than several part-time nurses across campuses, Dirkse said they will hire one full-time nurse at the combined campus. While there will be fewer staff positions available, Dirkse said they are not planning any major layoffs and instead expect attrition to shrink staff.

The Severn campus has three buildings, and AACS plans to construct a fourth that will be a STEM center. Dirkse said this building will ideally be complete in 2028.

“We want to be really sensitive to the needs of the surrounding community and what the impacts of those things are going to be on our neighbors, because we care about them,” he said.

By Oct. 1, ahead of re-enrollment deadlines, AACS expects to clarify its plans for the following year to parents.

Eventually, Dirkse said he wants to combine grades K-12 at the Severn campus, but that type of change would be “way out in the distance.”

Have a news tip? Contact Tori Newby at tnewby@baltsun.com.

MDE inspected the site on June 28, after sediment-laden water spilled into the street from the construction site. The inspection report was completed July 1, and the matter remains under investigation.

Sediment water flowed into the street during the installation of dewatering wells, which are designed to remove groundwater at the site before utility work can start. Water mixed with sediment formed a puddle in the street surrounding a storm drain, and a vacuum truck removed the sediment-laden water within two hours.

According to the report, Whiting-Turner failed to comply with approved sediment and erosion control plans, failed to implement pollution prevention requirements and did not properly dispose of construction waste.

Sediment that gets into waterways can reduce water clarity, smother aquatic life and carry pollutants, which disrupts the ecosystem and negatively affects water quality for humans. There was a low impact on the aquatic environment because the sediment-laden water was contained in the storm sewers and did not enter the nearby Spa Creek, according to Jay Apperson, director of communications at MDE.

Whiting-Turner did not respond to a request for comment.

The City of Annapolis and Whiting-Turner were both found to have failed to comply with a state stormwater permit, which is required for projects larger than one acre that have exposure to stormwater.

The permit regulates how certain types of waste from a construction site must be disposed of, detailing the types of sediment control and pollution prevention infrastructure required.

Before 2023, only the contractor was required to apply for this permit. Under current rules, the owner of the property — the City of Annapolis — as well as the contractor, must apply for the permit. Whiting-Turner received authorization for this permit but did not comply with the rules, and the City did not apply for the permit.

Mitchelle Stephenson, spokesperson for the City of Annapolis, said the City is now in the process of applying for the permit. She said this is the first time the City has failed to receive authorization under the stormwater permit, as they typically do not have construction projects that are larger than one acre.

The City of Annapolis has a sediment control program in place and will follow up with the site to determine if additional sediment controls are needed, Apperson said.

According to the inspection report, the corrections must be made “immediately” to clean up and dispose of sediment and construction waste, implement pollution prevention measures, and install sediment controls.

State law provides penalties for each day the violations continue, according to the inspection report, and Apperson said MDE will reinspect the site in approximately 30 days. Whether Whiting-Turner and the City of Annapolis will face penalties remains under investigation, Apperson said.

Have a news tip? Contact Tori Newby at tnewby@baltsun.com.