"A good rain will take every one of these down," he says, gesturing at the piles. "The great thing about a river is that it's dynamic. It's moving. It's changing."
Betts points out that Ellicott City, where he and his wife have raised their three daughters, was founded because of the Patapsco. The three Ellicott brothers, Quakers from Pennsylvania, purchased land here in the late 1700s in the hopes of building mills powered by the river.
Although the area is now better known for charming shops and restaurants, Wilkins-Rogers Inc. continues to produce Washington brand flour near the river. The mill's towers can be seen looming above Betts' spot by the bridge.
A member of the Friends of Patapsco Valley & Heritage Greenway, a conservation group, Betts hopes that the rocks will draw attention to the river, which flows through portions of Howard, Carroll and Baltimore counties before emptying into the Chesapeake Bay. He calls it "Maryland's best-kept secret."
It's hard to imagine a person more devoted to the Patapsco than Betts, a Long Island, N.Y., native who moved to Maryland about 25 years ago. He carries an album of snapshots of the river's small cascades. He patrols the shores looking for litter and tries to collect a bag of trash each day of the year. In his orange kayak, he has paddled stretches of the river from Sykesville to Elkridge.
"Such abundance," says Betts. "The river continues to give, and the more I give, the more I get back tenfold."
As Betts moves through the water, a baseball cap pulled over his gray curls, passers-by pause on the bridge to watch. Children with mouths stained cherry-snowball red, languid teens and office workers in sweat-dampened suits all stop, fascinated by the river's transformation.
"It's so real, so natural, so expressive," says Roberta Merrill, a 52-year-old chef from Ellicott City, as she snaps photos of the rocks to send to friends.
"I'm just trying to figure out what the message is," says Lauren Hall, 19, of Catonsville.
"Peace and love?" suggests her friend Carly Loftus, also 19 and from Catonsville.
Joan Eve Shea, the proprietor of an antiques store bearing her name on Main Street, says that the rock sculptures add to the community's dreamy charm.
"It's just eye-catching," she says. "I thought I saw a penguin and then a lady there today. It's great for the imagination."
