Maryland’s Board of Public Works has given the green light to $1.46 million in state grants aimed at upgrading parks and preserving natural land across six Maryland counties.
The funding, distributed through the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, covers recreational improvements and land conservation efforts in Allegany, Carroll, Cecil, Garrett, Talbot, and Washington counties.
More than $761,000 was allocated through the Community Parks and Playgrounds program. In Allegany County, Bruce Park in Westernport will receive a full renovation that includes a new pavilion, pickleball courts, and a walking track. Carroll County’s Chief Sites Memorial Park Skate Park in Hampstead is set for an expansion. Over in Cecil County, the Charlestown Athletic Complex will get a gable shelter, dugout shelters, tables, benches, and bleachers. Garrett County’s town of Oakland will use its share to improve youth ballfields at Broadford Park through drainage work and grass reseeding.
A smaller allocation of approximately $3,600 through the Program Open Space – Local initiative will go toward a public address system at the Talbot County Community Center.
Nearly $696,000 was approved for land conservation through the Rural Legacy program, funding permanent easements in two designated Rural Legacy Areas. In Allegany County’s Mountain Ridge Rural Legacy Area, a 239-acre forest will be protected through a conservation easement. The property includes more than a mile of stream buffers along tributaries feeding into Warrior Run, a coldwater stream that empties into the North Branch of the Potomac River. In Washington County’s Mid-Maryland Washington Rural Legacy Area, a 45-acre parcel of agricultural and forested land will be permanently protected, including a forested buffer along Marsh Run — a Potomac River tributary — and land adjacent to the C&O Canal National Historical Park.
The Board of Public Works is made up of three members: Governor Wes Moore, Treasurer Dereck E. Davis, and Comptroller Brooke E. Lierman.
Program Open Space – Local, established in 1969 under the Department of Natural Resources, provides annual funding to county and municipal governments for recreational land planning, acquisition, and development. The program is financed through a property transfer tax. The Community Parks and Playgrounds program similarly supports municipal governments in restoring and creating new park and recreational spaces statewide. The Rural Legacy Program, created in 1997, works to conserve large working landscapes across 36 locally designated areas throughout Maryland and has recently earned national recognition from the American Farmland Trust.
