Watershed Restoration Specialists

Are you a citizen or an organization looking for funding and technical assistance for projects to restore the Bay's watersheds? Check out the resources in our Maryland Watershed Restoration Assistance Directory.

Contact the watershed restoration specialist in your region of Maryland.

 

---

What the Specialists Do

Maryland Sea Grant Extension’s team of five watershed restoration specialists is working with local governments, citizen groups, and individuals to improve water quality across Maryland.

Watershed restoration projects: We assist communities to connect to funding, contractors, and technical assistance for these projects. They include installing rain gardens, rain barrels, and conservation landscapes. These are designed to manage runoff from stormwater, bring back the natural flow of streams, and decrease the erosion of shorelines and stream banks. 

Training volunteers: Extension specialists are also assisting communities to establish watershed steward academies. These programs have already trained more than 100 volunteers in Maryland and Washington, D.C. Stewards serve as community leaders to plan and execute stormwater management projects, like building rain gardens, in their communities. 

Helping communities work toward TMDL goals: Communities may need to consider a range of watershed restoration projects to meet federal and state requirements called TMDLs or Total Maximum Daily Loads. These mandate reducing the amount of excess nutrients and sediments reaching the Bay by 2025. Extension specialists are developing a new “SMART Tracking Tool" to log the installation of small-scale BMP’s, or Best Management Practices, to control stormwater. Small-scale projects are installed by a single homeowner or business, for example. Such tracking will allow counties to count small-scale BMP’s in their progress toward meeting TMDL targets. The goal is cleaner water, locally and Bay-wide.

Here is a directory of our watershed restoration specialists and examples of projects they work on:

 

Northern Maryland

Position currently open
 

Central Maryland

Amanda Rockler
University of Maryland/Montgomery County Extension Office
Phone: (240) 393-8346
Email: arockler@umd.edu

• Partnering with local governments and watershed groups to install small-scale restoration practices. 
• Leading projects such as the Chesapeake Bay Professional Landscape Certification Program and Restoring the Environmental And Developing Youth (READY.) A “green jobs” project undertaken by the Howard County government and community groups, READY supports people ages 16 to 25 who build rain gardens to improve water quality.

Southern Maryland

Jackie Takacs
Offices at Jefferson Patterson Park and Museum, Calvert County; St. Mary’s College of Maryland, St. Mary’s County
Phone: (240) 393-6508
Email: takacs@mdsg.umd.edu

• Helping public and private property owners to develop and find funding for projects to create “living shorelines” and streamside buffers to reduce erosion.
• Providing support for environmental education.

Mid and Upper Eastern Shore

Eric Buehl
Wye Research & Education Center, University of Maryland
Phone: (443) 205-5924
Email: ebuehl@umd.edu

 

• Assisting communities with identifying and implementing restoration projects to meet their Watershed Implementation Plan goals.
• Providing educational programming on Best Management Practices to improve water quality.

Lower Eastern Shore

Jennifer Dindinger
University of Maryland/Dorchester County Office
Phone: (240) 393-7915
Email: jdinding@umd.edu

• Implementing a regional survey to determine educational needs related to lawn fertilization.
• Developing a regional needs assessment to enhance program delivery and effectiveness.