Floating Shorelines

Just a few strokes into our mile long paddle I quickly realize we’re in for more than we bargained for.  As a member of a kayak flotilla organized by Biohabitats, I’m towing a section of floating shoreline, an approximately two by five foot floating box of Bay grasses, from the Living Classrooms pier on South Caroline Street in Fells Point to the World Trade Center in the Inner Harbor.  The section of floating shoreline will be a small part of what is envisioned as a new model for our polluted harbors.  This morning, it’s the world’s most efficiently designed sea anchor.

Baltimore Harbor, typical of most of our country’s working ports today, is lined not by natural, living shorelines but by concrete and steel.  In fact, the only living shoreline in Baltimore is a 100 yard section along the grounds of Living Classrooms.  In just over a generation, the harbor has become so polluted that it is safe for neither fishing nor swimming.  The city agency responsible for monitoring the harbor recommends against even the slightest contact with the water.  The state of the Patapsco River has declined greatly since the first part of the 20^th century, when my grandfather would swim at the public beach in Sparrows Point.  It’s the lofty goal of local conservation and advocacy groups to make the Patapsco swimmable and fishable again by 2020.

Biohabitats’ floating shorelines are designed to help those groups accomplish their goal.  Built with recycled plastic bottles pulled from the Inner Harbor, each section is planted with native Bay grasses and plants, whose mass of roots which extend deep into the water help filter polluting nutrients and provide an instant underwater habitat that facilitates the growth of an underwater ecosystem.  The sections we are towing were constructed with the help of inner-city students during Living Classrooms workshops.

An hour and ten minutes after departing Fells Point, I duck under the chain barrier surrounding the World Trade Center’s landing, my section of floating shoreline still in tow.  The Biohabitats staff makes quick work of fastening all the sections together, and within an hour the Inner Harbor’s first floating shoreline is securely in place.  After answering several “what in the world are those” questions from the crowd of tourists that has enjoyed the show, I turn to paddle home.  Unencumbered, I make it back in fifteen minutes.