Patapsco River Restoration: Lessons Learned on the Path to Recovery

In 2007, American Rivers partnered with NOAA, the Maryland DNR, and the Friends of the Patapsco Valley State Park to pursue removal of four dams on the Patapsco River, located just outside Baltimore, Maryland. This presentation will examine two of the removals, the Union and Simkins dams, associated with this effort and compare the distinct regulatory and design approaches of each. Designed by different consulting firms and managed by separate project teams, each project pursued a different regulatory and engineering approach in order to improve aquatic habitat and fish passage. Both projects were united under one banner when ARRA funding was awarded by NOAA. The Union Dam project team faced seemingly insurmountable permitting hurdles that later led to a heavily engineered approach to restoring the resource; while the Simkins team developed an effective permitting methodology that allowed for an adaptive management approach. The result of these divergent approaches presents an opportunity for comparison, allowing us to dissect why many of the pitfalls and obstacles encountered during the Union removal served to strengthen the case for the approach taken at Simkins. Lessons learned here are already being applied to the remaining dam removal efforts on the Patapsco and throughout Maryland.