Georgetown East Stormwater project gets a fall planting with a twist. Continue reading for more details!

This newsletter is made possible in part thanks to the generous support of Platinum Sponsor: 
Brad Kappel Team

What a month it’s been for the Severn River Association — and it’s all thanks to you! Your support has fueled incredible progress:



• Nine new restoration grant proposals submitted to the Chesapeake Bay Trust, building the pipeline for future projects.
• Over 1,000 native plants rooted in Georgetown East and Lake Marion, strengthening our watershed for years to come.
• A $113,000 grant secured to tackle stormwater in Pendennis Mount.
• A full season of river monitoring wrapped up, keeping our finger on the pulse of the Severn’s health.
• A packed house for our John Wright Speaker Series, celebrating Chesapeake Bay history.
• Strong partnerships forming ahead of the January legislative session, including support for a “bottle bill” to cut plastic waste.

Every proposal, every planting, every partnership begins with you. Your generosity makes it possible for our team to dream big, dig deep, and deliver lasting change for the Severn River. Thank you for being the current that keeps this work moving forward.

For the Severn,

Jesse Iliff

Executive Director

Jesse@severnriver.org

Speaker Bio: Gendell is also the author of "Thomas Point Shoal: A Chesapeake Bay Icon" (2020) the first and only book devoted to the 1875 lighthouse and "Battles at Annapolis: Two Remarkable Football Games in the Army-Navy Rivalry" (2025) which covers the last two Army-Navy games played at Annapolis.

SRA likes to follow the science, including the budding innovations in the restoration scene. With our fall planting at Georgetown East stormwater management site, we added in mushroom mycelium to improve the plants' uptake of nutrients and help the mulch stay in place. We added this to two of the five bioretention pools as a test and will evaluate in the spring. If successful we will add to the remaining cells during the spring planting.

In other restoration news, one of the big grant cycles just closed with SRA submitting 9 applications. Each proposal takes many hours of writing and research. We wouldn't have the capacity to apply for so many grants if it wasn't for our private donors. Thanks to their support we can leverage their donation into additional funding via grants.

SRA was well represented at the Chesapeake Watershed Forum this year, with Jesse, Ben, Mollie, and Erin attending.

Erin presented a poster on our project at Georgetown East, and is standing next to Jenny Smeltzer, a community resident and landscape architect who produced the landscaping plan for the project. 

Immediately following the Forum, Ben attended the Coastal and Estuarine Research Federation conference in Richmond, VA to catch up on the latest restoration science.

He attended talks on living shorelines, oysters, and more. He also encouraged attendees to turn more scientific attention to our favorite river!

Another season of Water Quality data on the Severn River is in the books! A huge thank you to all of our volunteers and boat captains for donating their time to complete this important work. This summer, weather conditions flip flopping from heavy rain to hot drought conditions considerably affected water quality in our river.

Heavy rainfall in the early summer contributed to water quality concerns. When rainfall is over ½ inch, Anne Arundel county recommends not swimming for 48 hours. There were 67 days (68% of summer vacation) with 'no-swim advisories' somewhere in the Severn River. Anne Arundel County had the rainiest May in over 100 years, which fueled those swim advisories as well as excess nutrient runoff that later caused algae blooms....

Our important work is only possible due to the generous support of people like you. If you are a current donor - THANK YOU! We welcome your support any time of the year. If you are not yet a member, please consider joining the movement today. Any size donation makes you a member.

HELP RESTORE AND PROTECT THE SEVERN RIVER