# We're in Trouble on Spriggs Farm Park on the Magothy in Anne Arundel County MD



## LisaKayaker (Feb 11, 2014)

We're in trouble on Spriggs Farm Park, 55 acres on the south shore of the Magothy River in Anne Arundel County, MD. The county paid 3.1 million dollars for Spriggs in 2011 and still hasn't opened the park to the public. The sandy shoreline is fishable, although the water is shallow until you get pretty far out. Here's what you can do to help open the park.

Rec & Parks built a parking lot at Spriggs in Summer 2013 and we've been waiting for TWO years for Rec & Parks to "talk to the neighbors" before opening Spriggs to the general public. The neighbors do not want Spriggs open to the general public. They've commissioned a living shoreline design that ripraps the shoreline. Spriggs will not open to the general public without our public pressure.

You can do two things to help: send emails and come to the WAC meeting

A) Come to the September 9 2015 Water Access Committee meeting at 6 pm at Old Mill High School, 600 Patriot Lane, Millersville MD 21108 and tell Rec & Parks to open Spriggs Farm Park *now*.

B) Send a letter/email to the 6 people at the end of this post and make the following points:

(suggestions, please use your own wording)

1) tell them about fishing, there are lots of you, about how and where you enjoy the water, how you take your family fishing, why having a great place to fish is important to you

2) Open Spriggs Farm Park *now* - Spriggs Farm was ready to open in 2013 when Rec & Parks built a parking lot there and we've been waiting for 2 years for Rec & Parks to talk to the neighbors, it's a public park, it should have been open 2 years ago, you want to fish the Magothy *now*

3) Don't use the living shoreline design commissioned by the neighbors that lines the shoreline with double rock walls. Any erosion control at Spriggs should follow the Beverly-Triton model of off-shore stone groins that build beach behind them and not the living shoreline design proposed by the neighbors that ripraps the shoreline.

Your First & Last Names (so they know you're a real person)
Snail Mail Address
Email Address

Thanks, Lisa

Please email/send your letter to these 6 people:

Steve Schuh, County Executive
Anne Arundel County
The Arundel Center
44 Calvert Street
Annapolis, Maryland 21401

[email protected]

Rick Anthony, Director
Anne Arundel County Department of Recreation and Parks
1 Harry S Truman Parkway
Annapolis, Maryland 21401

(410) 222-7867
[email protected]

Jana Davis, Ph.D.
Executive Director
Chesapeake Bay Trust
60 West Street, Suite 405
Annapolis, Maryland 21401

410.974.2941 x100
[email protected]

Mike Lofton, Chair
Anne Arundel Public Water Access Committee
508 Polling House Road
Harwood MD 20776

410-867-3623
[email protected]

Bhaskar Subramanian
Shoreline Conservation Section Chief
Chesapeake & Coastal Service
Maryland Department of Natural Services
Tawes State Office Building E-2
580 Taylor Avenue
Annapolis MD 21401

410-260-8786
[email protected]

Kevin Smith
Deputy Director
Restoration, Finance and Policy
Department of Natural Resources
Tawes State Office Building E2
580 Taylor Avenue
Annapolis, MD 21401

410-260-8797
[email protected]


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## LisaKayaker (Feb 11, 2014)

Spriggs Farm Pak is ready to open. Rec & Parks ran a kayak trip out of Spriggs on 7/12/15, see the photos:

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1005795476143834.1073741869.809713699085347&type=3

We can easily get to the water if only Rec & Parks would open the cable across the lower entrance.

If you want to visit Spriggs, here are the directions from Annapolis & Baltimore: Take Route 2 to College Parkway. Turn onto College Parkway. Turn left onto Shore Acres Road. Turn left onto Bayberry (it's easy to miss this turn). Stay right at the Y intersection to continue on Bayberry. Spriggs Farm Park is on the right. There is no park sign. First there's a mowed roadside parking lot on the right. You can park there and walk around the old Spriggs farmhouse and down the hill through the meadow to the water. It's ~ a mile, and the view from the Spriggs farmhouse is glorious. Or you can continue and look for the lower meadow entrance further down on the right. It's one lane, doesn't look like much, and blocked by a chain. Park outside the chain, walk by the meadow parking lot and down to the water. The county mowed the park in July 2015 for the Rec&Parks kayak trip and it may have gotten overgrown since then.

Lisa


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## catman (May 28, 2001)

If I was a property owner there I wouldn't want it opened to the public either for all the obvious reasons.


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## LisaKayaker (Feb 11, 2014)

catman said:


> If I was a property owner there I wouldn't want it opened to the public either for all the obvious reasons.


What, the taxpayers who paid for Spriggs would use Spriggs?

The neighbors begged the county to buy the old Spriggs farm so it wouldn't get developed into houses and so the county spent 3.1 million dollars of taxpayer money buying Spriggs . Now the neighbors are blocking the county opening the park to the public. If the neighbors wanted a private park, they should have bought the old Spriggs farm themselves and then paid annual property tax on it. 

The public parks should be open to the general public.

Lisa, yep, got my property tax bill already


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## catman (May 28, 2001)

Looks like the neighbors got exactly what they wanted for free.


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## LisaKayaker (Feb 11, 2014)

Great news - target open date for Spriggs Farm Park is now November 1, 2015. The Director of Rec & Parks announced this target at the Anne Arundel Public Water Access Committee meeting last week. 

Thanks to all who emailed and wrote and called. Public input, public outcry, made the difference. It wouldn't have happened without you.

Lisa


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