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DENTON – A drainage and flooding issue that has long-plagued a Ridgely community is expected to be resolved in the next couple of years if funding comes through.
The Caroline County Commissioners heard an update from County Assistant Director of Planning Leslie Grunden at their weekly meeting Tuesday, Sept. 15, 2026, in Denton.
Grunden responded to Commission Vice President Larry Porter’s request for more information regarding three items on the consent agenda typically rubberstamped by the Commissioners in a blanket motion.
The Commissioners approved one subaward agreement that covers three projects the Department of Planning and Codes is working on with ShoreRivers, which describes itself as “a clean water voice for Maryland’s Eastern Shore.”
“Shore Rivers holds the whole watershed fund grant that was awarded to the Upper Choptank Watershed, which is for projects – ag, urban, some septic – throughout the Upper Choptank watershed,” Grunden said.
The three projects the subaward would fund are shoreline improvements on Watts Creek at Camp Mardela in Denton, which is already in the design phase funded by another finance stream; the Greensboro pump station stream and floodplain restoration design phase; and the design portion of the Hannah Henry Way stormwater project in Ridgely.
“So the Hannah Henry Way (project) will hopefully alleviate some of the drainage problems that we've had there over the years,” Porter said.
“Right,” Grunden said. “We've already done the design concept phase, working with all of the residents in the area and Caroline Center, (the) Town of Ridgely, and the engineer in that phase came up with design concepts, and we shared them with everybody. We met last week with Blair (Carmean) and Trista (North) to talk about the PDA portion of that project, so that everybody signed on to the concept.”
Carmean manages the Chicken Bridge Public Drainage Association (PDA), which maintains a large network of tax ditches that border the community on Hannah Henry Way, which has experienced flooding issues for years. North, of the Maryland Department of Agriculture, is the Public Drainage Association Coordinator for Caroline, Queen Anne's and Kent counties.
The concept everybody signed on to will be followed by a request for proposal (RFP) “for a preliminary and final design, which should be about eight months to a year,” Grunden said. “And then once that's done, I'll probably go back to ShoreRivers to apply for funding for construction of those projects.”
The cost of the design phase is $120,000 and “includes residential properties, the county road, right of ways, ditches, outfalls to the tax ditch, and then we have to do improvements in the tax ditch in case there's more water coming into it, and help with their erosion problems, too. So, it's far-reaching,” she said.
“I'm not an engineer, but I would assume it's complicated to do that extent of design, and it'll include green practices, and then there's got to be pipe because we’ve got to be able to move the water,” Grunden said. “So we wanted to set the budget high enough to make sure we get good comprehensive designs for every part of the project.”
Porter said, “Well, that's good news because that's been a real problem over the years, we've spent a lot of lot of time looking at stagnant water laying” in the area.
Grunden added that “the whole watershed fund also provides funding for some septic upgrades and septic improvements, which is another challenge in that neighborhood, partially because of all the standing water and the saturated soils, so it's a costly thing to try and do a septic improvement in that area. So, this funding will also provide support for septic work,” Grunden said.
According to Grunden, the jurisdictions within the upper Choptank watershed are eligible to apply for funding for implementation of water quality improvement projects.
“So, it's kind of a collection of different state funding streams that are already in place for these kinds of projects,” she said. “They've collectively. earmarked money from each of those funds, like the DNR's Atlantic and Coastal Bay Trust Fund, MDE funding, Clean Water Commerce Act funding, and put them in one pot.”
The Camp Mardela project grant request is $403,767, and the Greensboro pump station project request is $103,000.
