Anne Arundel County has miles of shoreline however just one for swimming

Nobody in Maryland is arguably extra well-known for her feats within the Chesapeake Bay than Katie Pumphrey, who final 12 months swam 24 miles from the Bay Bridge to Baltimore’s Inner Harbor.

For the ultra-marathon swimmer’s coaching during the last decade, Anne Arundel County’s 533 miles of shoreline would possibly look like an apparent place to leap in. But it’s not straightforward to swim right here — for somebody of Pumphrey’s renown or anybody in search of a scorching summer season day reprieve.

“The only way I could get in the water in, say, Annapolis was to know someone with a dock,” Pumphrey mentioned. “That’s a huge barrier.”

Only 2% of the shoreline that surrounds the Chesapeake Bay is publicly owned. It’s little totally different in Anne Arundel. And, in a county synonymous with the nation’s largest estuary, solely a couple of mile of the shoreline — a tenth of 1% — is put aside for public swimming.

That’s the end result of centuries when proudly owning the waterfront was both a key to wealth by the tobacco commerce or an indication of it with waterfront houses and personal seashores. The result’s that the few public swimming seashores are crammed each summer season and tightly regulated with charges and reservations.

With no outside public swimming pools in Anne Arundel County, residents’ greatest wager for summer season swimming is to know somebody who has non-public entry to the bay or the Magothy, Severn or South rivers.

“It’s not even drops of water access,” mentioned Lisa Arrasmith, a Hanover resident, avid kayaker and longtime water entry advocate. “It’s a sprinkling, maybe.”

Arrasmith has for years and thru a number of political administrations led a coalition calling on county officers so as to add locations for public swimming, boating and paddling. She acknowledges the challenges of buying costly waterfront property however factors to underutilized county-owned parks with shoreline the place swimming is prohibited as alternatives to extend water entry.

Anne Arundel leaders have taken totally different approaches to water entry.

Elected in 2018, County Executive Steuart Pittman has targeted on upgrading amenities round present seashores. He has tried to extend public engagement with the water by summertime festivals that includes boat rides, music and swimming.

His hallmark achievement could also be bowing to public stress by opening a once- segregated beach in Edgewater to the general public in 2023 over the outrage of neighbors, who successfully had been renting a 3rd of the seaside for unique use for a greenback a 12 months.

Boosting water entry stays vital to Pittman, the incoming chair of the state Democratic Party.

“When we connect people to the water, they then care about it and want to protect it,” Pittman mentioned. “When we get outside and recreate, we are healthier.”

Approximately 80% of Anne Arundel’s 600,000 residents don’t reside on the water or in communities with entry to it.

There are 78 acknowledged non-public seashores within the county however solely 4 public ones. They are:

Sandy Point State Park

• 1,800-foot swimming seaside on the foot of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge
• Entrance charges of $5 per particular person on weekends and $4 on weekdays throughout summer season
• Reservation required for summer season weekends and holidays
• Capacity of 1,768 parking areas

Fort Smallwood Park

• 1,300-foot swimming seaside (opened in 2016) in Pasadena
• $6 entrance charge per car
• First come, first served
• Capacity of 1,400 parking areas

Mayo Beach Park

• 1,000-foot swimming seaside (opened in 2014) in South County
• No entrance charge
• Reservation required for weekends in the summertime
• Capacity of 90 parking areas

Beverly Triton Nature Park

• 2,300-foot swimming seaside (opened in 2023) in South County
• $6 entrance charge per car
• Reservation required for weekends in the summertime
• Capacity of 96 parking areas

Anne Arundel has indoor aquatic facilities in Annapolis and Glen Burnie, with a 3rd slated for Hanover.

Though the county has no outside public pool, there may be one in Annapolis’ Truxtun Park.

The metropolis, nevertheless, doesn’t have any designated public swimming spots on the Severn River or the creeks that department off it.

“You can swim in most places except Ego Alley, and nobody’s going to stop you,” Annapolis Mayor Gavin Buckley mentioned. “I mean, swim at your own risk.”

Buckley, a Democrat, mentioned he’s labored to make the water extra accessible within the metropolis, most notably by becoming a member of forces with the county, state and the Chesapeake Conservancy in 2022 to purchase an undeveloped portion of waterfront adjoining to what was as soon as Carr’s Beach, a bustling African American resort throughout segregation.

Purchased by a previously enslaved man who labored on the Naval Academy, Carr’s Beach blossomed right into a “mecca on the East Coast” that hosted stars similar to Ray Charles and James Brown, in line with native historian Janice Hayes-Williams.

Carr’s Beach was bought and developed like a lot of the once-predominantly Black-owned waterfront, which was initially thought-about undesirable by white folks involved about mosquitos and the illnesses they carried, Hayes-Williams mentioned.

“Once Carr’s Beach was gone,” she mentioned, “there was no swimming. … The lasting impact is community loss, Black kids not knowing how to swim.”

Plans for the brand new Carr’s Beach web site in Annapolis name for a swimming seaside and middle celebrating native Black historical past. City officers mentioned they count on to interrupt floor early subsequent 12 months and hope to open it to swimming subsequent summer season.

“We’re trying to undo the damage that was done in the past,” Pittman mentioned.

Creating an official swimming seaside entails greater than clearing the waterfront and dumping tons of fresh sand, with state and federal legislation requiring potable consuming water and water high quality testing.

Anne Arundel additionally considers the price of upkeep, staffing and well being laws, in line with a county spokesperson. The county well being division additionally requires official swimming seashores to have ample sewer or septic techniques, with transportable bathrooms thought-about insufficient. With restricted public transit, parking can be a big issue.

Though water high quality testing will be considered as a hurdle to opening public swimming seashores, the county well being division and Maryland Department of the Environment monitor the standard of the water in many of the main waterways the county touches. While swimming is prohibited in some county parks, these waters already are being monitored for close by non-public seashores.

On a latest morning, Arrasmith, the water entry advocate, fought off flies as she trudged by overgrown grass to get to the waterfront of Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Park in Pasadena, which the county mentioned it’s taking a look at as a part of a evaluate of “underutilized waterfront locations to explore the possibility of” swimming entry.

The entrance opens to a gravel lot with sufficient room for a couple of dozen vehicles, although she mentioned it’s usually closed off with a sequence. Only a couple of mile from the gate of Fort Smallwood Park, it’s managed by the identical rangers.

She’s skeptical about whether or not and the way shortly the county will act, noting that it took a decade from the opening of Beverly Triton Nature Park to slicing the ribbon on its swimming seaside. Still, she sees potential right here for a kayak launch and possibly even a swimming seaside dealing with the remnants of the Francis Scott Key Bridge.

“At low tide, this is a sandy beach,” Arrasmith mentioned. “The whole shore here is Pasadena sand — it’s natural sand. They wouldn’t have to build a beach.”

Water entry right here, she mentioned, would possibly alleviate stress on Fort Smallwood Park, the place the swimming seaside hosted 205,000 guests from Memorial Day by Labor Day final 12 months, 4 occasions as many because the county’s different swimming seashores.

That can be welcome information to Adam Lindquist, vp of the Waterfront Partnership of Baltimore, a nonprofit targeted on bettering water high quality within the metropolis’s harbor. Lindquist considers swimming in open water a “basic human right” that Maryland largely fails to supply, and he believes Anne Arundel performs an vital position.

He lives in landlocked Howard County, he mentioned, so “if I want to show my son the Chesapeake Bay, I’m heading to Anne Arundel County.”