Catonville neighbors at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County say they were blindsided by a $27 million project paid for by UMBC’s capital improvements budget that included cutting down nearly 3 acres of trees and bulldozing a stream valley and wetlands at the old Spring Grove Hospital Center.
Jim Himel, a retired forester and executive director of the Spring Grove Arboretum organization, told The Baltimore Sun: “What a waste it is that a new school cost $27 million to destroy large tracts of forest and watershed natural resources without saving anything.”
In a written statement, UMBC officials acknowledged to The Baltimore Sun that they could have done better.
“Involving local community members in our future planning process is a top priority for our leadership at UMBC’s Office of Government Relations and Community Affairs,” the statement read. The university said its plan includes a multi-component tree conservation plan that includes surveys of “sample trees” with trunk widths greater than 30 inches, one-for-one replacement of felled trees, and the planting of additional trees, as well as a five-year commitment to ensure the survival of new trees.
In addition to upsetting residents, the project violated state laws protecting wetlands, including areas fed by living springs above Herbert Run and the creek, according to Maryland Department of Environment inspection documents obtained by The Sun.
The inspection noted multiple instances of silt fences being flattened by construction equipment, unstable slopes, temporary roads crossing tributaries, construction supplies and equipment parked in the streambed and other lapses that led to increased erosion.
“How can you miss a wetland that’s 2 to 4 acres in size,” Schimmel said. “Because they didn’t identify the wetland boundaries, they ended up driving the truck over tree roots and over springs. It was so soft in a few spots that they had to put down mats to keep the truck from getting stuck.”
Catonville residents, including current and former officials, say the university failed to engage with the community before bringing in bulldozers and chainsaws.
The project removed an area of the community’s designated Spring Grove Arboretum, and neighbors and volunteer groups helped plant 1,000 trees in 2021 with state funding. In addition to the cleared land along Herbert Run, most of the trees residents planted around the county ballpark on Wade Avenue were bulldozed to make room for heavy construction equipment and storage of piles of construction materials. There are less than a dozen saplings planted by volunteers.
UMBC purchased the Spring Grove campus from the state of Maryland in 2022 for $1. The agreement includes a 10-year contract for the state to continue operating the hospital at the site, which can be renewed for two five-year terms or until Maryland develops a replacement facility elsewhere. In addition to serving voluntary patients and conducting groundbreaking research on schizophrenia, Spring Grove also houses court-ordered criminal patients.
UMBC officials told The Sun in an emailed statement that the school budgeted $27 million in state funds to “restore, stabilize and rehabilitate portions of the site.” Plans submitted by the school in November 2024 describe work that will be done along more than 4,500 feet of Herbert Run and two unnamed tributaries, as well as repairs to Elm Street.
“As part of this project, we are restoring the Herbert Run West Branch to revitalize many of the area’s natural features and address the negative impacts of streambank erosion, which results in unvegetated, near-vertical banks, loss of trees near the stream, utility exposure, and degradation and/or failure of concrete structures within the stream, including bridges,” university officials told The Sun. “We are installing multiple stormwater drainage improvements to stabilize, preserve and protect streams, land and existing buildings from flooding and erosion caused by excessive stormwater runoff. Our work will ensure the safety of bridges and roadways.”
Project documents state Herbert Long’s water quality is compromised by “bacteria, ions, metals, nutrients, pesticides, sediments, stream modification and toxicity (selenium).”
Foresters who spoke to The Sun questioned the school’s depiction of Herbert Long.
Cutting down trees and leveling valleys is more likely to degrade the Herbert Run bed than stabilize it, Schimmel said.
“It’s stable and full of large trees with trunks over 30 inches in diameter and their root masses wrap around the creek bank,” he said. “Why cut down all these big trees and let the whole valley erode? They might as well build a four-lane highway through it because they change the whole environment of that creek valley. I don’t think that’s going to last when the next big rain comes.”
Schimmel said the stream already cuts through bedrock, limiting erosion, and survived the Beltway development before the project began without significant erosion or flooding.
“I was pretty shocked,” Schimmel said. “If they’re doing riverbed restoration here, it doesn’t really seem necessary. Even when Ellicott City was hit by a 1,000-year flood, the Hebron Riverbed didn’t move out of its channel.”
Licensed forester and Catonsville resident William Rees told The Sun the contractor also placed logs and other debris in wetland areas that were irrigated that spring.
“You can’t fill in a wetland,” he said. “They put fill and logs in the wetlands.”
Reese said the project runs counter to regional efforts to save the Chesapeake Bay and that no restoration plan can recreate the natural forested riverbed that once existed there.
“This wetland around Herbert Long is ultimately the reason we spend billions of dollars protecting the Chesapeake Bay,” he said. “This riparian forest adjacent to streams is the most valuable ecosystem in the state.”
Degradation and erosion of streams like the Hebert Run eventually dumps silt into the bay, harming wildlife and obscuring the seagrasses that fish, crabs and other species depend on. Environmentalists believe silt and nutrients such as phosphorus and nitrogen are the biggest threats to the bay’s health, outweighing the effects of street drugs and other chemicals that seep into waterways.
The Maryland Department of Environment inspected the Spring Grove construction site in December and January and issued more than 30 violations, according to inspection documents reviewed by The Sun.
“We recently conducted three inspections of this location,” department spokesman Jay Apperson told The Sun. “These inspections found that the plant was not in compliance with environmental regulations, which included instructions for corrective action. We will continue to monitor activities there to ensure the plant is in compliance.”
As of the Jan. 15 inspection, many of the violations had not been corrected, but The Sun documented with a drone flying over the snow that work continues at Herbert Run.
heart of community
The massive demolition of the Spring Grove Arboretum has devastated community volunteers who helped plant 1,000 saplings around a new county ballpark in August 2021. The Arboretum’s long-standing work includes public service volunteer work with local Boy Scouts, soldiers from Fort Meade, UMBC fraternities and sororities, and public officials, including Dels. Sheila Ruth and Eric Ebersole, as well as retired judge Susan Souder, an active leader of the Catonsville Tree Canopy Project.
Within days of planting the trees in 2021, county contractors cut down many of them, despite multiple signs saying “Tree Preserve, Keep Out,” according to news reports.
Sood told The Sun the bulldozing and tree felling at UMBC this winter is completely shocking and disappointing.
“I’m personally very frustrated to see some of our efforts go down the drain,” she said. “To my knowledge, there has been no outreach. I know nothing about their plans. … We’ve had high hopes for a long time that the state would realize the importance of this property being in the heart of downtown Catonville. It provides tremendous value to our community. A lot of people live in Catonville because we love the outdoors.”
Sood said she wishes the university would work harder to incorporate the input and efforts of local tree lovers like herself to benefit the community and campus.
“I think everyone in Maryland can be proud of UMBC,” she said. “I don’t understand why they wouldn’t open it up to a non-profit volunteer organization like us that provides the botanic garden. To me, it’s a no-brainer for UMBC, their students and their visitors.”
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