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Anne Arundel
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Anne Arundel
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October 23, 2007 the AAWRA meeting @ the South County Police Headquarters in Edgewater was called to order by President Bob Whitcomb. Special guest Chris Phipps and Masoud Ghatineh of Anne Arundel County DPW. Also in attendance were Keith Tate, Jenifer Mook Bill Heckert and Sepehr Baharlou from the Bayland. Attendance: 24 individuals were present. Bob Whitcomb, President of AAWRA opened the meeting with an update of the letter campaigning to the Maryland Senate and House of Delegates. House Majority Leader Michael Bush responded with a positive letter in reference to keeping the Maryland State Waterway Fund in tact. Bob announced that Merrill Plait, Chief Environmental Engineer has left AA County DPW and that the county is actively searching for a replacement. Chris Phipps, Chief Engineer at AA County DPW and Keith Tate of Bayland will be presenting the updated waterway dredging schedule which includes many changes. Chris Phipps was introduced and given the floor. Until the vacant position created by Merril Plait's departure is filled, Masoud Ghatieneh will be point of contact for all waterway projects in Anne Arundel County. Bayland will be presenting the new waterway schedule created to reflect the requirement limiting the use of the Town Point DMP site. Currently 22 waterway projects exist for Anne Arundel County. Also being presented tonight is the Anne Arundel County DMP sites and their relationship to the each waterway project. Town Point is now structured to only be a DMP site for Town Point, Broadwater, and Carrs Creeks. More regulatory involvement along with public opinion contributed to the delay in permitting the Town Point DMP site. To prevent this in the future of other DMP sites the county will actively seek input from neighboring communities for public concerns and opinions. Keith Tate of Bayland was introduced and began with a power point presentation on the County's dredging program. Baylands also provided large charts depicting the schedule for each of the 22 projects going out five years. 25% of all boats registered in Maryland are located in Anne Arundel County. Anne Arundel County has more boats than the next 3 counties combined together. There are 163 navigable waterways in Anne Arundel County totaling more than 500 miles of shoreline. Normally there are about 20 projects on the County's waterway improvement project list. Town Point DMP delays and negotiations had a profound impact on numerous dredging projects schedule in Anne Arundel County. With the new guidelines, Town Point DMP is schedule to close in 2011. Town Point, Broadwater and Carrs Creek are now the only creeks designated and scheduled to use Town Point DMP a deal agreed to by County Executive Leopold and the neighboring communities in the Town Point area. There are still obstacles for Carrs Creek to use this DMP site because of the limitation of trucking usage at the Town Point DMP. Each dredging project has eight notable tasks used in designing a timeline for scheduling. 12 creeks remain on same schedule as last year and 10 creeks will be delayed a full year. It takes 6 months to process in permitting approval at the federal and state level agencies. Once permitting is completed, remaining tasks move more quickly such as construction and bidding to complete the project. The overall schedule presented by the County and Baylands identified the following projects scheduled for dredging in the next three fiscal years:
There are currently 6 DMP sites. These sites must be managed in conjunction with the dredging of creeks. If sand is found, instead of dumping at a DMP site this material may be used to restore local eroding beaches. Because of the new scheduled closing of Town Point, a new DMP site is being actively searched for; this is usually a 3 to 5 year process. All Anne Arundel DMP sites are recycle sites except Town Point. All sites are landlocked except for Town Point, requiring trucking of wet materials to the DMP and dried materials out to a re-use site. An open question and answer session was made available and everyone was invited to review the charts in more detail. Bob Whitcomb announced that the next AAWRA will probably be in January of 2008 unless something needs addressing before this time. Attending this meeting were: Bob Whitcomb Ken Hawes Trish Gardner Ron Nichols Ronald Shaw Sharon Mauck Carl Mauck Jay Phillips Mike Geers Matt Schmit Robert Emmet Jeremy Karsh Geoff Thomas Juliet Page Bill Adcock Chris Reinert Tom Dent Mike Ostrow Scott Hymes Rhonda Harrsion Peter Tango Michele Tango David Kemp James Rogan Elisa Moore Representing Bayland Consulting were: Keith Tate Bill Heckert Sepehr Baharlough Jennifer Monk Kendra Scheminant |