Trash Wheel Coming To Masonville Cove in South Baltimore’s Middle Branch

This coming February, a trash-collecting wheel will be added to the end of a stream entering the Masonville Cove in Brooklyn. The cove is located on Patapsco River’s Middle Branch. The new trash wheel will intercept trash that collects from storm drains in the Masonville Cove Tributary Watershed. The South Baltimore neighborhoods of Brooklyn and Curtis Bay are included in this watershed, along with portions of Pasadena in Anne Arundel County.

The $450,000 wheel will be funded by Maryland Port Administration (MPA). The MPA runs Masonville Cove and its Environmental Education Center, which opened in 2009 and is visited by more than 2,000 kids each year. The Masonville Cove campus also includes public access to the water, a nature area, a bird sanctuary, hiking trails, a canoe pier, native gardens, and wetlands. Masonville Cove is adjacent to a MPA dredge material facility and across the Middle Branch from Port Covington.

MPA’s environmental improvements to Masonville Cove have included clearing 60,000 tons of trash and 20 abandoned vessels. Brandi Bottalico, public affairs officer for MPA, told SouthBMore.com that some of the trash collected dated back to debris from the Great Baltimore Fire of 1904.

The trash wheel will prevent future trash from entering the cove, the Patapsco River and the Middle Branch, and the Chesapeake Bay. The wheel will be constructed by Clearwater Mills in Pasadena.

The yet-to-be-named trash wheel joins a growing family of trash wheels in the Baltimore watershed. Mr. Trash Wheel was added at the end of 2014 where the Jones Falls meets the Inner Harbor. In 2016, Mr. Trash Wheel collected 163 tons of trash, 181,548 Styrofoam containers, and 1,919,600 cigarette butts.

Baltimore has a second trash wheel at the mouth of the Harris Creek in Canton called Professor Trash Wheel. It was fully funded by more than 600 donations and installed in December 2016.

Another key source of trash flow into the harbor, especially in the Middle Branch, is the Gwynns Falls. The South Baltimore Gateway Partnership and Sagamore Development have both pledged funding towards a new wheel. The Gwynns Falls watershed collects runoff from Reisterstown down into South Baltimore.

First reported by Baltimore Business Journal

Screenshot courtesy of Apple Maps

Photo of Mr. Trash Wheel courtesy of Waterfront Partnership of Baltimore 

About the Author: Kevin Lynch

Founder and Publisher of SouthBmore.com, longtime resident of South Baltimore, and a graduate of Towson University. Diehard Ravens and O's fan, father of three, amateur pizza chef, skateboarder, and "bar food" foodie. Email me at Kevin@InceptMM.com and follow me on Twitter at @SoBoKevin.