Marina Owners

Several area groups are joining in an effort to make sure that shrink-wrap used to protect boats from the winter elements does not end up damaging the environment as owners of the vessels prepare to set sail this spring. For the second year, county boaters and marina owners will be able to recycle the shrink-wrap at three collection stations. They will be available today through May 26 at the Pasadena Boatel, Port Annapolis Marina and Herrington Harbor North. Although the recycling bins are at marinas, boat owners can take shrink-wrap to the drop-off sites.

Tidewater Yacht Service Center in Port Covington was named winner of the 2012 Maryland Clean Marina contest in the large boatyard category. The business was commended by the Department of Natural Resources for taking steps to protect the environment such as: having a recycling program for plastic shrink wrap, oil, cardboard, glass and plastic; taking part in oyster aquaculture to help clean the water; installing fixed and portable pump out stations; and...

Desiree Bell is still recovering from the damage Tropical Storm Isabel did to her Annapolis marina. She distinctly remembers the sloshing sound of the 3-foot-deep water lapping against the walls of her office in September, and watching the boats sway in the wind while tied to pilings no longer visible. Even with flood insurance, Bell expects to pay about $2 million for repairs at Mears Marina and two other marinas on the Eastern Shore. And in the wake of the damage, she might have to pay thousands more to the state.

J. Dennis Carper, a Baltimore County marina owner and yacht builder who was a decorated World War II veteran, died of stroke and dementia complications Dec. 25 at his Essex home. He was 91. Born near New Castle, Va., he worked on the family farm at Meadow Creek outside Roanoke. While at a church function, he met Gertrude Esther Hanks, a girl from nearby Covington who was a minister's daughter. They married in 1942. The couple lived in Virginia while he attended a school for aircraft mechanics.

The lavish million-dollar yachts and fishing boats are readily apparent in the marinas of Deale's Rockhold Creek. But take a closer look, and check out the neighbors. Under the water's surface - and some just peeping over it - are the decaying remains of boats abandoned by owners, gutted and stripped of any identification. For a southern Anne Arundel County community trying to build business and popularity as a boaters' destination, the marine graveyard is a blight. With a little help from the state, two marina owners are removing the decaying vessels, most of which have been left near a county-owned pier for more than five years.

Just in time for the return of spring and the boating season, the County Council last night gave marina owners a 50 percent cut in the slip tax.The council voted unanimously to cut the slip tax, which is assessed as a percentage of each docking or storage fee charged by a marina, from 10 percent to 5 percent.Marina owners have long complained that the tax places them at a competitive disadvantage with marinas outside the county because Anne Arundel County is the only subdivision in the state with such a tax."

Owners of a Selby Bay marina and some of their neighbors will tangle at a Board of Appeals hearing today that could decide whether Holiday Point Marina can nearly double its size to 299 boat slips.Both sides are appealing earlier rulings. One exempted the marina from having to add restrooms, despite requirements applicable to being within the Chesapeake Bay Critical Areas buffer; the other ruling denied the marina's request to build, because it is within a half mile of a natural oyster bed -- a bed of questionable viability.

Maryland's second-highest court has blocked an attempt by a Mayo marina to nearly double its size, the second setback for the marina's owners in two weeks.A three-judge panel of the Court of Special Appeals upheld this week Anne Arundel County's law forbidding marinas from building slips within a half-mile of an oyster bar.Two weeks ago, the Department of Natural Resources turned down a request by the owners of the Holiday Point Marina to redraw the map of a 194-acre natural oyster bar in Selby Bay so that it would not be shown as too close to the marina's planned expansion.

The Anne Arundel County Board of Appeals has blocked expansion of a Selby Bay marina, whose owners have been trying for a decade to enlarge their family business.In a 3-2 decision, the board refused to allow Holiday Point Marina to add piers that would nearly double the facility's size to 299 boat slips on South River. Two members abstained in the vote."All right!" was the reaction of John Mildenberger, an environmental consultant and former marina neighbor who challenged the proposal. "I think it's the only response they could make," he said.

Community leaders in eastern Baltimore County are voicing their dissatisfaction over what they feel is a watered-down proposal to regulate so-called bootleg marinas.Last summer, the county's Planning Board examined the illegal marina problem and, in September, recommended limiting waterfront homeowners to no more than four boats per marina.The board took up the issue at the request of Councilman Vincent J. Gardina, D-5th. Concerned residents had told him about the illegal marinas along the eastern county's 173 miles of waterfront.

If a little green might help restore Baltimore's ailing harbor, how can a lot be bad? That's the question city, state and federal officials are pondering as they weigh a local marina magnate's plan to fill an unused corner of the Inner Harbor with a large floating marsh. Inspired by a pair of pint-sized experimental wetlands placed in the harbor two years ago, Dan Naor has proposed building a much larger one, covering 1.6 acres of open water in the Harborview marina off Key Highway.

Kathy and James Galli have made some modest upgrades to their no-frills marina and boat-repair business in the decade that they've owned the property along the Severn River, mostly replacing outdated rigging and fixing broken equipment. They might want to do more with the waterfront location someday — perhaps a restaurant or bar would be a draw — but such an addition seems out of reach for now. Like many of Anne Arundel County's marinas, Severna Park Yacht Basin is in a residential area, and it is allowed to operate there only because it dates to the 1930s, two decades before county zoning laws went into effect.

There are no condos in Bowleys Quarters. But some residents worry that the eastern Baltimore County peninsula could eventually be overrun with them. One marina owner's plan to build condos in the waterfront community has sparked a fierce debate. And other marina owners are seeking zoning designations that would allow them to develop homes.

The Atlantic Marina Resort in Pasadena - a 55-slip boatyard perched on the mouth of the Patapsco River - is the most recent property to be certified by the state's Department of Natural Resources as a "Clean Marina." The designation, which shows that a marina has surpassed environmental regulations, has been bestowed on 94 of the state's roughly 600 boating facilities, according to the DNR. In all, 28 marinas have received the designation in Anne Arundel County. "It looks good on publicity for the marina for one thing," said Andy Dowell, the general manager of the Atlantic Marina Resort, which received the designation in December.

The Atlantic Marina Resort in Pasadena - a 55-slip boatyard perched on the mouth of the Patapsco River - is the most recent property to be certified by the state's Department of Natural Resources as a "Clean Marina." The designation, which shows that a marina has surpassed environmental regulations, has been bestowed on 94 of the state's roughly 600 boating facilities, according to the DNR. Twenty-eight marinas have received the designation in Anne Arundel County. "It looks good on publicity for the marina, for one thing," said Andy Dowell, the general manager of the Atlantic Marina Resort, which received the designation in December.

As a young man sanding boat bottoms three decades ago at the then-thriving Buedel's Marina on Middle River's headwaters, Charlie Gast schemed to catch the eye of the fetching young lady who pumped gas into yachts and cleaned the boatyard bathhouse. He and Mary Frances Mueller, the marina owners' daughter, fell in love, married and started a family and a successful construction company in White Marsh. But the parcel on which the marina is located, owned by the Mueller family since 1910, is in an area that suffered from the post-industrial decay that rusted parts of eastern Baltimore County.

Members of an ailing marina industry last night urged the County Council for some economic relief in the form of a proposed 50 percent cut in the slip tax.Representatives of more than 50 commercial marinas in the county attended the hearing on the bill that would reduce the slip tax -- which is assessed as part of each docking or storage fee charged by a marina -- from 10 percent to 5 percent.A typical slip rents for about $2,000 a year, said Mitch Nathanson, a marina owner and member of a committee of county officials and marina owners appointed by County Executive Robert R. Neall that recommended reducing the slip tax.Steuart Chaney, owner of Herrington Harbor marina, noted that when the slip tax was first adopted 21 years ago all of his slips were filled and there was a long waiting list of new customers.

Desiree Bell is still recovering from the damage Tropical Storm Isabel did to her Annapolis marina. She distinctly remembers the sloshing sound of the 3-foot-deep water lapping against the walls of her office in September, and watching the boats sway in the wind while tied to pilings no longer visible. Even with flood insurance, Bell expects to pay about $2 million for repairs at Mears Marina and two other marinas on the Eastern Shore. And in the wake of the damage, she might have to pay thousands more to the state.