Thousands of acres along the shore of the Chesapeake Bay and five of its largest tributaries in Maryland have been targeted by a national land conservation group as part of a long-term plan to buy individual parcels and turn them into one of the nation's largest systems of open spaces, public parks and water-access points.
The Trust for Public Land, which has preserved more than 8,000 acres of open space in the state since 1985 and played a key role in the recent creation of the 14-mile Gwynns Falls Trail in Baltimore, has identified miles of undeveloped land along the western shore of the Chesapeake and throughout the Gunpowder, Patuxent, Patapsco, Potomac and Susquehanna river systems that it wants to help state and local governments, conservation groups and private donors to preserve.
"The concept is parks for people that will in turn protect the bay," said Rose Harvey, the trust's Mid-Atlantic regional director. "We call it green-printing."
The ambitious plan comes at a time when dropping property values and stalled development have made such initiatives more likely to succeed, she and others said. In addition, state environmental officials have said they plan to focus more on water quality and habitat in deciding which land to purchase.
"When the market is red hot, we have a hard time competing," said Russell Shay, director of public policy at the Land Trust Alliance, a group that represents 1,700 land trusts nationwide. "When the market slows down, we have a little better chance."
In most cases, The Trust for Public Land plans to buy parcels that state or local government agencies have agreed to acquire, and then sell them to the agencies when they can pay for them, Harvey said. This prevents potential parkland from going to a private buyer just because public money isn't available right away, she said.
The trust's plan also could put it in competition with Maryland's home building industry, which says developable land will be needed to accommodate expected population growth in the next 20 years.
The trust hopes that by 2020 it will have helped purchase and preserve one-third of the shoreline identified in its new Parks for People-Community Rivers program. While all shoreline woods, farms and recreational areas such as camps or trail systems are on the group's radar, the ultimate goal is to expand and connect state and local parks that now dot the region, Harvey said.
