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Show 374 MARYLAND b. ENVIRONMENTAL CONCERNS The Department of Natural Kesources was set up in 1964 to super- vise the management of the State's natural resources and to resolve conflicts among and coordinate all activities of State agencies which have some connection with these resources. The State's interest in environmental matters is evidenced by extensive legislation in article 66C of the Maryland Code. In connection with water resources, article 66C provides for the establishment of the Department of Chesapeake Bay Affairs, prohibits cloud seeding, protects inland water fish, regulates fishing and fisheries in inland and tidal waters, creates the Patuxent and Severn Kiver watersheds, provides for shore erosion control, and the inauguration of a scenic rivers program. Of special interest because of the legal problems involved is the recent legislation relating to wetlands. After an extensive study by Professor Garrett Power of the Uni- versity of Maryland law school,11 Maryland passed a Wetlands Statute in 1970 12 which attempts to resolve some of the grave prob- lems found to exist in connection with the management of the State's wetlands. The new act expressly acknowledges the economic, ecologi- cal, recreational, and esthetic value of wetlands, and recognizes the possibility that these areas will be completely destroyed in landfilling by riparian owners continuing at the existing rate. Wetlands include land-water edge areas as well as submerged bottoms. There appear to be more than 300,000 acres of swamp or marshlands and as much as 1.6 million acres of submerged bottom lands in Maryland, and the legislature apparently was concerned that mismanagement of these vital areas constitutes a significant threat to the environmental balance. The new act distinguishes two classes of wetlands. Public wetlands are below the mean high tide. Private wetlands are other lands "bor- dering^ on or lying beneath tidal waters, which are subject to regular or periodic tidal action and which support aquatic growth.13 The De- partment of Natural Eesources is authorized to promulgate rules re- lating to dredging and filling of private wetlands. Public wetlands may not be filled without a permit from the Board of Public Works. The administration of the new act is complicated by the fact that riparian owners on navigable14 streams in Maryland traditionally have been accorded not only title to land acquired by natural accre- tion or reliction but also the privilege of acquiring title by making certain improvement in the waters in front of their lands. These tra- ditional rights were embodied, for the most part, in a statute enacted in 1862. Whether the State could constitutionally modify or restrict titles acquired under these ancient privileges became the important legal question under the 1970 wetlands legislation. u G. Power, Chesapeake Bay in Legal Perspective, estuarine series study No. 1, U.S. Dept. of the Interior, Federal Water Pollution Control Admin. (1970). 13 Art. 66C, sees. 718-31 (1970 repl. vol. and 1971 supp.). The text Is for the most part based upon an excellent comment by Stuart M. Salsbury: Maryland's Wetlands: The Legal Quagmire, 30 Md. L. Rev. 240 (1970). The note should be consulted for further details of the legal problems involved in the Wetlands Act. w Sees. 19 (a) and (b). u In Maryland, the State owns the title to the beds of all navigable streams, and such title is subject to a public trust. See note p. 12. |
