On a day like today, when the rainwater running everywhere is a reminder that we are always part of some watershed, I’m grateful that work like the Ghost Rivers project by @brucewillen exists to remind us in other times of our buried and neglected urban streams. The public launch in Remington a couple of months ago was amazing to attend, especially to see how many folks had come out to celebrate the unknown Sumwalt Run thanks to Bruce. This new piece in the Baltimore Banner is a great read, with a lot of evocative historic photographs of stream burial here in Baltimore. There’s also some thinking on a possible daylighting of the Jones Falls.

“Where could daylighting make a meaningful impact? Willen said look no further than the Jones Falls. Baltimore began covering it with concrete decades ago to build Interstate 83, and urbanists have dreamt of tearing it out ever since.

“That can be a great opportunity for daylighting, creating this really amazing public park right in the center of the city,” Willen said. “At a certain point we’re going to have to decide — are we going to invest to rebuild this highway that has really divided the city?””

Thank you Bruce!

https://www.thebaltimorebanner.com/community/climate-environment/hidden-rivers-baltimore-environment-CTM5L7V6UJEMLNB44RD7HGTIV4/

thebaltimorebanner.com

Buried rivers flow underneath Baltimore. One artist wonders whether it’s time to dig them up.

Before colonizers arrived, the Piscataway, or “the people where the rivers bend,” lived here. Sumwalt Run flowed beneath an open sky as a tiny capillary connecting what is now North Baltimore to the Atlantic Ocean.