Critical Area Law

CHESTER RIVER ASSOCIATION

GRASSROOTS CRITICAL AREA CAMPAIGN

PROBLEMS

Maryland law demands that waterfront property owners preserve and maintain an area of natural vegetation along the water’s edge. This swath of land, known as the buffer, is 1000 feet towards the land from the mean high water line of tidal waters. The buffer acts as a natural filter and helps protect the river from excessive nutrient and sediment runoff. The land within the buffer is known as the Critical Area.

On March 25, 2005, our Riverkeeper was contacted by concerned citizens of Queen Anne’s County who witnessed the cutting and ripping out of trees within the Critical Area. Residents and the Riverkeeper attempted to contact county officials to verify that the landowner had obtained the necessary permits to clear the land. County offices were closed for Good Friday, so the Riverkeeper made personal contact with a county commissioner to ask that the damage be stopped. The landowner was unable to produce a permit. However, destruction continued on Monday, March 28 after the county issued a retroactive permit for this activity.

METHOD

Community Involvement and Legal Research: CRA maintains that the activities that occurred on the property were illegally conducted and that the county took minimal corrective action, and we assert that this is only one of many times the county has fallen short of its responsibility to protect the Chester's shoreline buffers.

We have advertised and solicited involvement from watermen and residents to report to CRA when they see waterfront clearing. We are researching these and other incidences in which shoreline clearing has occurred and the county did not enforce the state Critical Area law. Once research is complete, we will consider the most appropriate course of action.

While the research project is underway, CRA’s staff continues to hammer away at the county for inadequate policies. As a result of this highly publicized incident, the state Critical Area Commission has requested that the county revise its Critical Area ordinance. CRA is standing sentry through the revision process and is commenting on inadequate revisions. We anticipate that the final package will provide only minimal corrections to the county’s ordinances and that further remedies will be required.