environmental conservation and sustainability
Join us in honoring the important work of Fran Flanigan. It’ll be fun – and excellent networking!
Scan the QR code or click here to get your tickets.
Details~
Date: Thursday, September 10 –
Time: 5:30pm to 8:30pm –
Location: Pelican Room & Terrace, Whitehall Mill, 3300 Clipper Mill Rd, Baltimore, 21211 –
Catering: True Chesapeake Oyster – includes fresh-shucked oysters on the half shell, beer, wine & Fran’s favorite punch
To sponsor as a company, organization or individual, click here.
On July 13, Remington-based developer Seawall hosted another evening follow-up meeting with a self-guided walk around the Potts & Callahan combined sites on Falls Rd. Some 110 attended; double earlier turnouts.
Seawall co-founder Thibault Manekin’s opening remarks included asking attendees to introduce themselves to someone new and share why they’d come. He said he wanted accountability from the community as the project moves forward. Touring the properties ensued.
Reconvened, Manekin addressed the project’s economics, acknowledging the funding model won’t become apparent until a plan is set. But he said he wants the community to dictate the Falls Rd. site’s economics, apparently meaning its commercial and residential property preferences.
He then asked for audience comments. Several favored scaled re-development of the current industrial uses, suggesting new retail, residential and office occupancy running from Sisson St. in Remington downhill to Falls Rd. Others talked “greening” – calling for robust “de-pave” and stormwater management/green infrastructure programs, a linear park, and/or “daylighting” the Stony Run, a tributary which flows beneath the site into the stream. These would improve natural habitat health in the lower Jones Falls where most seemed to want some amount of new green space.
“Taller, narrower development over wide footprints” along the rock face between Sisson St. and Falls Rd. and on its thickly tree-shaded hillcrest was described by one. In Manekin’s words, the “big push” for linear parks had him worrying about effects of the non-income-producing uses being asked for.
Baltimore City Councilman Jermaine Jones was one of the last to speak: “I think we’re going to have something amazing,” adding, “What got us here is the fact that people thought that no one cared about this space ’til the community started talking.”
Manekin indicated the next meeting will include some design concepts.
-Taylor Deese, M.S. Candidate, Geography and Environmental Planning, Towson University, (tdeeseart@gmail.com)
Editor note: Linked here is Deese’s report on the May 4 Seawall meeting. And here, the initial 3/24 meeting.
| Long before the industrial boom that built the city we know today, the Jones Falls likely supported quite a few families of river otters, a semi-aquatic species, in the tributaries and main stem of the Jones Falls watershed. A recent sighting of an individual swimming near Meadow Mill in Woodberry, beneath the roar of I-83, is a sign they’re capable of a comeback to our beloved urban streams. River otters are an ecological indicator species, meaning their presence signals conditions are healthy enough to support them. While the presence of this individual is an indication of restoration progress to date, there is still work to be done. If we want these otters to become more than occasional residents, continued investment in the health of the Jones Falls is necessary. Riparian buffers, stormwater management, and ensuring there are connected water and land corridors, are all actions that will support the return of river otters. Fortunately, improving habitat for river otters comes with a suite of human community benefits too. Restoring native vegetation and floodplain function helps the Jones Falls absorb rainfall and reduce flooding while also supporting the habitat and prey these otters depend on. A Jones Falls that’s healthier for river otters is likely to be a more publicly accessible, enjoyable Jones Falls for us as well. -Shannon Boyle, Fish Biologist and Sr. Environmental Planner, McMillen (boyle@mcmillen.com). |
The Jones Falls Champion fundraiser for the community-led Jones Falls Watershed Strategic Plan celebrates Fran Flanigan. Join us to celebrate her impact and legacy.
Date: September 10
Time: 5:30pm to 8:30pm
Location: Whitehall Mill, Pelican Room & Terrace, 3300 Clipper Mill Rd, Baltimore, 21211
Catering: True Chesapeake Oyster – includes beer, wine & Fran’s favorite punch
Tickets: $125 per person by Sept. 6. Tickets not sold at the door.
Shaping the Future of the Jones Falls Watershed- The Jones Falls Stakeholder Digital Survey is now available for those of you who weren’t able to attend one of the Stakeholder meetings this past winter. We need your input by July 31! Also, see information about an important upcoming fundraiser for the Jones Falls Watershed Strategic Plan. Please click on the embedded link.
On May 4, Remington-based developer Seawall held its second community meeting about reuse of the Potts & Callahan Falls Rd. industrial properties it has under contract, this time drawing about 50 attendees to Beth Am Synagogue in Reservoir Hill. Seawall co-founder Thibault Manekin opened with a recap of the March 24 meeting themes: environmental concerns, development versus open space at the 2701-2801 Falls Rd. sites, vehicular access and community engagement.
Responding to those themes, Seawall brought in Dan O’Leary of MK Consulting Engineers to present stream quality data. Leanna Frick of Blue Water Baltimore introduced O’Leary, citing Blue Water’s 2025 Annual Report finding that stormwater runoff and pollutants remain the watershed’s biggest threat. O’Leary reported that stormwater runoff from Seawall-controlled properties – from Hampden Ave. in Remington downslope through the Potts & Callahan-contracted properties on Falls Rd. – carries 12.8 tons of Total Suspended Solids (TSSs) into the Jones Falls each year, roughly eight times what the same land area would produce under wooded land use.
Manekin then led a design charette of the immediate area surrounding the Potts & Callahan sites and the stream. (He credited the charetting idea to the Jones Falls 2076’s River Reimagining workshops.) Recurring ideas across tables included: daylighting the Stony Run; constructing a funicular to address the steep gradient from Sisson St/Remington down to Falls Rd.; adding a forested buffer along the crest of the hill; building an amphitheater; and, reducing car access on Falls Rd.
A follow-up meeting and walk-around was held at the Potts & Callahan sites early evening July 13. It will be reported on soon at our SM and website platforms.
-Taylor Deese, M.S. Candidate, Geography and Environmental Planning, Towson University, (tdeeseart@gmail.com)
Editor’s note: Dan O’Leary is a FTJF Board member
On April 25, The Congress for the New Urbanism Mid-Atlantic Chapter convened a panel of urban planning experts — Al Barry, Pavlina Ilieva, Gabriel Kroiz and Marc Wouters — for a symposium on removing the Jones Falls Expressway (JFX) along the lower Jones Falls to “daylight” more of the stream. The event came at a time when public interest around the vitality of the Jones Falls valley has been at its highest level in recent memory.
A problem we sought to address was that familiarity with JFX removal planning efforts had seemingly been lost. Our panel of experts reopened the topic, featuring local urban planning history, international precedents and real-life expressway removal implementation. Al Barry argued that the lower JFX coming down is “not a matter of if, but when”.
At its heart, the event was not a launch of an organized highway removal coalition. But, it was an opportunity to explore rationale and means utilized in other cities for restoring waterway views and urban green space rather than rebuilding crumbling expressway infrastructure for another 50 years.
“Daylighting” is an appealing concept, but advocates must go further. In his remarks, City Councilman Zac Blanchard noted the success of a lower JFX “daylighting” campaign will hinge on the ability of organizers to articulate a positive vision that will bring investment, amenities and greater cohesion to the surrounding areas; especially disinvested city neighborhoods lying to the east of the Jones Falls. Advocates including FTJF, Blue Water Baltimore and state and local stakeholders must come together as an alliance to push for a dense, fine-grained and diverse eco-district that stitches Mount Vernon and Old Town together through global best practices.
-Julian Frost, The Congress for the New Urbanism Mid-Atlantic Chapter (julianfrost71@gmail.com)
Editor’s note: Al Barry is a FTJF Board member
It’s been years, if not decades, since the lower Jones Falls stream, north of the Howard St. undergrounding, has had a planting plan for new trees and shrubs, much less Maryland natives.
For FTJF Stewardship’s 0.6 mi. focus area running from the Jones Falls Trail crossover at the Baltimore Streetcar Museum north to the Round Falls Dam, 30 over- and 50 under-story trees plus 125 shrubs were purchased for volunteer installation with assistance from a hired landscape contractor. The plan was afforded by the FTJF’s “Jones Falls Trail Invasive Tree Management and Native Replanting in a Riparian Zone” grant award by the Chesapeake Bay Trust. (We first reported this win in our Summer 2025 Newsletter.)
Our “Party” volunteers spent months preparing the planting area by removing NNI (Non-native invasive species) vines and other plants. The contractor removed a number of larger Tree-of-heaven NNIs.
On Saturday, May 30th, we hosted Party #60 in both morning and afternoon planting sessions. Nearly 150 of 205 plants were put in the ground by some 30 volunteers. Since then we’ve been planting what remained while beginning annual maintenance work.
-The FTJF Stewardship Committee
From our FJTF FB page on 5/21/26-
At the GRIA (Greater Remington Improvement Assoc.) meeting on Wednesday night, May 20, a phalanx of reps from BGE and AMTRAK presented their findings about the need for 80′-monopole- or alternative 65′ H-frame-supported transmission lines crossing the Jones Falls from the DPW Salt Dome, just north of North Ave., to the mixed-use South Remington neighborhood to the east. As told by BGE reps, these new transmission wires, which would continue providing power to 48,000 residents, are necessitated by the construction of the new Frederick Douglass RR Tunnel to replace the 150-year-old B& P Tunnel through central West Baltimore.
GRIA Board members and others attending talked over the presenters, saying they felt disrespected by the process through which BGE got the Maryland Public Service Commission’s approval in just over 30 days. That approval process did not require public meetings although BGE indicated there would be some.
Now, Amtrak has identified a 2-year window to take the drawings to 100% design and open the new Tunnel by 2028. Meanwhile, it’s been a year since BGE last provided any information to GRIA about the project.
An expert’s assurance and a consolation…
Assurance- According to a BGE expert who attended and tried to explain a complicated lesson about the transmission of high voltage, it is virtually infeasible to bury the necessary wires between the North Ave. and the South Remington transmission stations.
Consolation- Instead of the originally proposed 140′ towers, two alternatives were offered: one showing an 80′ pole and the other a 65′ H-shaped structure.
This post has been slightly edited since.
-The Editors
Two Important Dates Upcoming–
Watershed Stakeholder Digital Survey due by July 31
and Champion of the Jones Fall Celebration on September 10
Friends of The Jones Falls