MA - Everyone in Annapolis wants more access to the Chesapeake Bay, right? Wrong.
Residents concerned about visitors and traffic are increasingly pushing back against efforts to open up pieces of waterfront to the public
Agnes Lorentzen returned to Greenbury Point the other day, a 100-year-old mother checking on the lasting legacy of her daughter.
Starting in 1989, Tina Lorentzen Carlson served as the natural resources manager at the Naval Academy and developed the Greenbury Point Nature Center across the Severn River. She died in 2007.
Two weeks ago, her mother wandered around the center’s taxidermy displays, maps and other exhibits, curated to provide a glimpse into the 280-acre conservation area just outside the door.
Agnes came from Virginia, where she lives with another daughter, to talk about what she called a threat to her daughter’s work. The Naval Academy Athletic Association proposed a golf course on the land last year. The idea was to expand from the existing course into a highly prized, somewhat wild space jutting into the Chesapeake Bay.
“I was flabbergasted when I heard of the proposal,” Lorentzen said. “I was dumbfounded that it even got this far.”
Right now, there is no official proposal. NAAA’s pitch to the Navy, which owns the land near Annapolis, stalled last year after environmentalists and others who cherish its trails and vistas convinced Anne Arundel County to seek control of the peninsula for a county park.
The fight over Greenbury Point, at times angry and sharp, is far from over. And it is not the only one. Similar clashes are erupting across the Annapolis area. I can think of nowhere else on the bay where this is happening.
“So much of the edges of the Chesapeake Bay are held in private ownership, and there’s a lot of interest in making sure that anybody can get access to the bay,” said Hillary Falk, president and CEO of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation. “I think it’s just part of a real change that we’ve seen, just in the last 10 years.”
