Maryland Department of Natural Resources: “Baltimore Project Brings Together Environmental Resilience and Community Development”
Located in the shadow of a Baltimore City hospital, within earshot of the highway, a stretch of waterfront along the Patapsco River may not appear to be a likely place for a living shoreline.
But a community-led environmental partnership is transforming this area, the Hanover Street Wetlands, as the first step in an ambitious initiative for habitat restoration, coastal resilience, community development, and environmental justice.
“It’s right in our backyard,” Peggy Jackson-Jobe, a 49-year resident of the adjacent Cherry Hill neighborhood and the chair of the Cherry Hill Community Coalition. “It gives the residents a beautiful place to go and to be a part of. And it’s great to know we had a hand in what’s evolving right now.”
The Middle Branch Resiliency Initiative is the largest planned coastal resilience initiative in Maryland, aiming to restore more than 50 acres of habitat and 11 miles of shoreline. Hanover Street Wetlands, the first phase of the project, is anticipated to be completed in 2025.
“This project is the absolutely perfect example of what we are looking to achieve—it will provide better water quality, improved protection for our communities, and build habitat,” said Maryland Department of Natural Resources Secretary Josh Kurtz. “All of those pieces coming together is exactly what we need to see across the region, especially in urban areas such as Baltimore.”
The initiative is part of Reimagine Middle Branch, an effort to transform the Middle Branch area of South Baltimore into the city’s “next great waterfront,” according to the South Baltimore Gateway Partnership, the organization that manages the project.
In 2015, after the opening of the Horseshoe Baltimore Casino, the city adopted the South Baltimore Gateway Master Plan to improve neighborhoods near the casino. Shortly after, Baltimore established the South Baltimore Gateway Partnership to oversee the master plan. It acts as the steward of funding generated by the video lottery terminals, directing it into nearby communities through various programs and projects, including the Middle Branch Resiliency Initiative…