The 57th Mayor of Baltimore - Stephanie Rawlings Blake – has announced a plan to clean up Baltimore’s Inner Harbor area so that it is swim-able and fish-able by 2020. Other cities, most notably Boston, have already completed just such a goal.
The mayor along with business leaders and neighborhood activists plan to purchase more nets to catch trash discarded in the Inner Harbor area; they plan to build infrastructure that will prevent storm water runoff from entering the bay loaded with harmful nutrients; and also to make major investments in sewage pipes to prevent further spills into the Patapsco River and ultimately the Chesapeake Bay.
Even though Baltimoreons have talked about a project like his one for decades, they are hopeful about seeing some real results this time around because the business community is involved in their plans.
Leaders ask the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science’s Integration and Application Network to give them a report card on present conditions in the Inner Harbor. At a recent Fell’s Point event held in the Living Classrooms Foundation’s Campus, environmental scientists presented their report. The harbor scored an F for nitrogen levels, a D minus for the amount of Phosphorous present, and a D for bacterial levels.
Scientists have urged the people of Baltimore not to despair. With real citizens working on real solutions the suggested 2020 target date is still possible. What you can do to get involved in the Inner Harbor clean-up is to go online at www.cbf.org/YourBAyFootprintand learn what you can do to reduce nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorous from entering the bay.
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