Maryland's Lake Marion reopens as thriving green space after years-long effort

Community members and environmental groups celebrated a major clean water milestone in Anne Arundel County.

The Lake Marion Restoration Project turned a failed stormwater pond in Severn into a thriving green space, filtering pollution before it reaches the Severn River.

Fight to restore Lake Marion

Cynthia Williams, the president of the Provinces Civic Association, has been fighting to restore Lake Marion for two decades.

"Our project needed a lot of funding, and there was never enough to award for our project," Williams said.

Eventually, the local development council helped fund a new engineering study, and with additional county and state dollars, they finally had enough to get the job done.

"It looks so much better, and it's so much more functional," Williams said.

Much-needed improvements made

The Lake Marion stormwater pond in Severn's Provinces community was once 10 feet deep. But over the years, it filled with sediment, becoming shallow and polluted.

"Exiting the pond was a concrete raceway that was sending sediment and stormwater racing downstream toward the Severn Run, the Severn River, and eventually the Chesapeake Bay," said Matt Johnston, the executive director of the Arundel Rivers Federation.

How Lake Marion was transformed

The Arundel Rivers Federation helped facilitate the project. With nearly $3.9 million in funding,  the site was completely transformed.

Concrete was removed, native plants were added, and a series of step pools now filter runoff before it reaches Severn Run.

"I'm so pleased and so proud of how it turned out, and it's so exciting to think that the community for years to come is going to be able to enjoy the park," Williams said.

Johnston said there are many stormwater ponds like this across the region that need upgrades, and funding is critical to keep these restoration projects going.

"We need to get into these communities, restore their ponds so they can store more sediment, and replace the gray infrastructure with new, green infrastructure that will provide habitat for amphibians and will let the nutrients and the sediment settle down instead of polluting the Chesapeake Bay," Johnston said.

Williams said that seeing it finished is a dream decades in the making.

"We were all able to pull together and get it done," she said.