Patapsco Valley State Park trails remain closed

State park officials say their crews have done all they can to reopen and rehabilitate trails in Patapsco Valley State Park near Catonsville that have been closed since historic flooding struck the area eight months ago.

Some of the park’s most popular trails, including the heavily used Grist Mill Trail and some leading to it, are closed, and park officials say they need to hire experts to do the work to reopen them.

Rob Dyke, Patapsco Valley’s park manager, said the work needed involves technical engineering of tunnels and bridges. He did not have a dollar estimate of how much it would cost.

While last May’s flooding devastated historic Ellicott City and left one person dead, the impact on the park was felt more on the Baltimore County side rather than Howard’s because of the park’s geography and surrounding infrastructure.

Dyke said rain fell hard and fast on both sides of the Patapsco River, but train tunnels on the Baltimore County side channeled water into powerful streams that washed out trails.

The park, which saw just under one million visitors in 2018, has its own maintenance crew that performs the daily work of felling dead trees and clearing paths and parking lots. But Dyke said reopening Grist Mill and other trails depends partly on the federal government.

Maryland is still waiting to see how much, if any, money it gets from the Federal Emergency Management Agency for rehabilitation work.

“We don’t know what’s been awarded,” Dyke said.

On its website, FEMA says

it has obligated $3.4 million in flood response under a disaster declaration, but a spokesman said cost estimates for projects across the state — including nine that the Department of Natural Resources has applied for — are still being developed and no money has been committed to any specific project. As plans are developed, FEMA will disburse money to the state, which will reimburse the cost of individual projects to applicants.

Local legislators such as state Del. Eric Ebersole and state Sen. Clarence Lam, who both represent portions of Baltimore and Howard counties, have described the damage to the park as “extensive.” They say rebuilding the trails would require both resources and financial support — Lam said he’s been working with the Department of Natural Resources and “exploring how the state can assist with some funding.”