College Creek at St. John's College, Annapolis, MD Shoreline Restoration and Tidal Marsh Creation

ESA designed, prepared construction documents, acquired regulatory permitting, obtained subcontractor's bids and constructed a tidal marsh along a portion of failed bulkhead and eroded shoreline. The site was located on College Creek at the Crew Boat House of St. John's College in Annapolis, Maryland. ESA used a subcontractor to perform grading operations and build a launching pier for use by the school's Crew teams that extended beyond the marsh to deep, open water.

The shoreline was graded landward 20-feet to provide 15-feet of fill below the mean high water elevation. The fill was held in place by an underwater boulder dam, which allowed a secure toe for backlfill. Twenty-inch diameter biologs were anchored along the perimeter of the marsh fill at mean water surface elevation and were plugged with Spartina. The upper flats of the marsh were planted with Juncus, Scirpus and Hibiscus to create 3000 square feet of tidal marsh. The shoreline was planted with native shrubs to stabilize the shoreline, promote habitat and improve the aesthetics of the Boat House grounds. ESA negotiated significant cost share funding for St. John's from the Maryland DNR Shoreline Erosion Control Division and Chesapeake Bay Foundation.









The project has been very well received by school administrators and they were particularly appreciative of ESA's ability to locate and acquire alternative cost share funding sources to reduce their overall cost for design/build.















Scenes of the restoration efforts during construction. The upper photo shows the final grade/compaction of the marsh at low tide and prior to planting. The lower photo is of the installation of the piers prior to the guard rails being affixed.