Pollution from development still flowing into Gunpowder River

Maryland Matters · Bay Journal · September 4, 2026

Bill Temmink of Joppatowne looks out on the murky water at Mariner Point Park, downstream from where Foster Branch joins the Gunpowder River. (Photo by Timothy B. Wheeler /Chesapeake Bay Journal) By Timothy B. Wheeler The Chesapeake Bay Journal

The plume of muddy water in the Gunpowder River, once so vast it could be seen from space , has receded somewhat. But Foster Branch, the creek that flows into that Chesapeake Bay tributary, still looks like it’s brimming with creamed coffee.

Muddy runoff from Ridgely’s Reserve, a large housing development in Joppa, continues to foul Foster Branch and the Gunpowder River months after the developers agreed to pay a record $4.1 million in penalties and compensation to settle a four-year run of alleged pollution violations.

The Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE) and the nonprofit Gunpowder Riverkeeper had sued the developers — national homebuilder DR Horton, its subsidiary Forestar Real Estate Group and a Pennsylvania building contractor — accusing them of repeatedly failing to keep mud from washing off the 121-acre construction site.

Since the settlement was announced May 19, MDE inspectors have found sediment and erosion control violations on four separate occasions, most recently Aug. 12. On that visit, inspectors reported seeing eroding soil, exposed soil vulnerable to washing off in a rainstorm and improperly installed “silt fences’’ meant to keep mud from running off the site. Worst of all, they saw sediment in the stream bed downhill from the development.

Harford County inspectors, meanwhile, have issued a series of stop-work orders and “correction notices” for multiple infractions, including more of the same ones cited by MDE.

At Ridgely’s Reserve housing development in Harford County, muddy water pools on the other side of a black silt fence. (Photo by Timothy B. Wheeler /Chesapeake Bay Journal) Neither D.R. Horton nor Forestar responded to repeated requests for comment. While most of the nearly 400 single-family houses and townhomes planned there have been built, construction continues on the remainder — as does mud pollution.

Residents who welcomed the consent decree in May now question its value.

“We go from mud to morass,” said Bill Temmink, a Joppatowne resident who over the years has repeatedly complained to officials about development runoff fouling Foster Branch and the river.

“They’re still running orange,” he said of the waterways.

This wasn’t supposed to keep happening. State officials had said the resolution of the Ridgely’s Reserve lawsuit would halt the long-running pollution and set the stage for rehabilitating the Foster Branch and the Gunpowder.

“This settlement holds these companies accountable, stops the damage and directs meaningful resources back into the communities and waterways that were impacted,” Environment Secretary Serena McIlwain said in a May press release.

Texas-based homebuilder D.R. Horton and its partners paid a $2 million penalty, the largest fine MDE ever collected for sediment and erosion violations. As compensation, the companies also put up $2.1 million for community-driven remediation projects to restore water quality and aquatic habitat in Foster Branch and the Gunpowder.

Residents hope the remediation fund can help bring back the once-thriving beds of underwater grasses and the fish that virtually disappeared after the development work began. But they’re worried that restoration may be stymied if muddy runoff continues.

And they’re wondering why the county and state haven’t done more to crack down on the continuing violations at Ridgely’s Reserve.

A garden and a sign mark the entrance to Harford County housing development Ridgely’s Reserve. (Photo by Timothy B. Wheeler /Chesapeake Bay Journal) Under the settlement, Horton and Forestar agreed to automatically pay stipulated penalties of $1,000 to $6,000 per day for each violation identified by state inspectors. Yet, at the time this story went to press, no penalties had been levied.

Harford County spokesperson Matthew Button noted that the consent decree is managed by the state, not the county. The county did fine the developers a total of $45,000 from 2023 through January 2026, which he said was “up to the limit allowed by law.” But as violations continued, the county imposed stricter mud controls and has issued more than a dozen stop-work orders, freezing construction for one to several days until problems cited were corrected.

“The county continues to inspect the site weekly and after major storms, requires corrections and reinspects to ensure compliance,” Button said by email.

Gunpowder Riverkeeper Theaux Le Gardeur said MDE has notified him that it intends to levy at least two stipulated penalties for violations that state inspectors identified over the last few months. MDE spokesman Jay Apperson said only that the agency will penalize violations of the consent decree “on a regular basis.”

Le Gardeur called the county’s seeming unwillingness to levy its own fines “a missed opportunity.” At the least, he said, the money collected could be applied toward protecting and restoring local waterways.

Before the state filed suit in 2024, residents on both shores of the Gunpowder had become so frustrated with the runoff pollution that they formed a group called Mad About Mud to press for enforcement action.

Lindsay Crone, who helped organize Mad About Mud before becoming executive director of the Gunpowder Valley Conservancy, emailed recently that the water on the south side of the Gunpowder is not as murky as it was last year.

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“We swam in the river this past weekend,” she emailed recently, “and the bottom was not as sandy as it was years ago, but not as muddy as it was last year.

“That is not to say that the site is still not a problem and remediation is not needed,” she added. But she said she is “overjoyed” to see wild celery grass and even some less desirable watermilfoil growing on the bottom in places previously mudded over.

Kathy Martin, who grew up in Oliver Beach on the south side of the Gunpowder, said “the catastrophe is a bit less visible, except for those looking for it and who recreate or live along Foster Branch.”

But Jack Whisted, a retired bass tournament fisherman, said the signs of recovery he saw in the spring are gone now.

“The water is full of debris, scum and mud,” he said. “All the small areas of grass regeneration are now choked and breaking off.” The bass he used to fish for every weekend aren’t there anymore.

“It’s breaking my heart,” he said.

Read the full story at Maryland Matters