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Resilience Authority and city staff outline 38 candidate Eastport flood mitigation sites; 10 to be prioritized for design
Summary
The Resilience Authority and city staff told the Environmental Matters Committee they have identified roughly 38 candidate nature‑based flood mitigation sites in Eastport and plan to prioritize 10 for schematic design and permitting, pending grant funding.
The Environmental Matters Committee received an update on the Annapolis Maritime Resilience Initiative (AMRI) and Eastport flood mitigation work on May 8 from the Resilience Authority and city staff.
Gabe Coie, director of programs for the Resilience Authority of Annapolis and Anne Arundel County, said outreach and desktop assessments identified roughly 38 sites where nature‑based solutions could reduce runoff and tidal impacts in Wards 6, 7 and 8. "From that experience, we were able to put together this list of roughly 38 project sites, where nature based solutions could be viable," Coie said. The Authority and partners developed a prioritization metric that weighs resilience impacts, green‑infrastructure network potential, feasibility and social impact.
Coie said the Authority plans to refine that list to about 10 priority sites and produce 10% concept plans for each. He said the group submitted a pre‑proposal for Phase 2 funding from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation’s (NFWF) National Coastal Resilience Fund (NCRF) to take selected projects through final design and permitting; a full proposal would be due mid‑July if invited.
Jasmine Wilding, program manager in Public Works overseeing the Eastport flood mitigation capital project, said the city is also completing hydraulic and drainage modeling of Eastport and is coordinating federal and state grant work (FEMA and other funding sources) with the Authority’s outreach and concept work. Wilding said the city has roughly $300,000 of remaining FEMA/local funds to advance modeling and early design and that the modeling will help produce benefit‑cost information needed to pursue construction grants.
Wilding described a stakeholder meeting planned for early July to share prioritized concepts. She said the project team expects a full AMRI master plan with the prioritized concepts by late summer or early fall and that design/permitting funding decisions for selected projects would rely on NFWF and other grant prospects.
Why it matters: Eastport experiences recurrent nuisance and tidal flooding; the combined Authority/city approach uses community outreach, nature‑based options and targeted modeling to identify projects that could be advanced for construction funding.
(Reporting: Gabe Coie, Resilience Authority; Jasmine Wilding, City of Annapolis Public Works.)
