Months after flooding, some trails remain closed at Patapsco state park
Portions of the Avalon area of Patapsco Valley State Park remain closed almost four months after flooding and historic rainfall washed through Ellicott City, damaging areas in Howard and Baltimore counties.
The Grist Mill Trail and other trails leading to Avalon on the Baltimore County side remain closed, as do portions of the Buzzards Rock, Saw Mill, Forest Glen and Vineyard Springs trails.
The lingering damage has caught the attention of local state legislators. Several, including Dels. Eric Ebersole, Clarence Lam, Pat Young, Charles Sydnor and staff from Del. Terri Hill’s office recently toured damaged areas of the park.
Ebersole, a Democrat, described the damage as “clear and extensive.”
Before the flooding, the Grist Mill Trail ran for about 5 miles along the Patapsco River in Baltimore County, and was paved and flat so that the trail and its landmarks — including the popular swinging bridge — would be accessible to visitors.
But officials say the trail is now ripped up, damaged and “washed away.”
“There’s going to be a lot of need for resources [and] financial support to rebuild some of the structures that were lost [and] bring some of the trails back to navigable shape,” said Lam, a Democrat. State delegates and Maryland Department of Natural Resources officials survey damage to the Baltimore County side of Patapsco Valley State Park following flooding in late May.
The Howard County side of the Avalon area and other areas of the 16,000-acre Patapsco Valley State Park were largely untouched or have already recovered, said Rob Dyke, park manager.
The Baltimore County side was a different story, however. When nearly 10 inches of rain fell in late May in about four hours, much of it was on the Baltimore County side of the park where streams funnel through tunnels that are below crossings for CSX railroad.
When the rain fell, the path of least resistance was for the water to rush parallel to the trails, washing them out, Dyke said.
“I was there while it was raining the entire time, and I didn’t think we were going to have much of anything left on our hillside,” he said.
Ebersole said he and the other delegates are in a “holding pattern” on solutions to the washed-out trails since the Maryland General Assembly is not in session until January. He said he’d support a measure to secure additional funding for repairs in the park, “if we could find a proper avenue” for the funding.
“It’s a tremendous resource in this suburban area to have a park that large. It’s got a wilderness feel to it that you can’t get everywhere,” Ebersole said.
Young, a Democrat who serves on the Appropriations Committee in the House of Delegates, said the Department of Natural Resources could be eligible to receive federal funds from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to help with flood repair because a natural disaster was declared at the time of the heavy rains.
If federal dollars don’t come through or if the money is not sufficient to cover restoration of the trails, Young said he would support DNR if it asked the legislature for a larger capital budget.
Dyke said he did not know when visitors could expect the trails to reopen.
“There’s no temporary work you can do to get people on those trails. It’s going to have to be a permanent fix,” he said. “I think we’re too far out to be able to tell you a good timeline on that.”