Betsy Love of St. Luke's Episcopal Church in Annapolis recalls when the church property in the Eastport community featured a stream that carried clean water into the Chesapeake Bay.
Then came urbanization.
Now, she said, a drain catches polluted storm runoff and pours it into waters that flow to the bay.
Love is leading a church effort to put the property back in step with nature. She has enrolled in a course at the Millersville-based Watershed Stewards Academy, a nonprofit that trains and supports community leaders in their efforts to reduce pollution in local waterways.
The organization was formed by the Anne Arundel County school system through its Arlington Echo Environmental Education Center and in partnership with county government.
Love is among 45 students enrolled in a 64-hour course that includes classroom and field work as well as a "capstone" project that culminates the classwork. Love's project is to construct a regenerative stormwater system at St. Luke's that will slow and spread out the water to ensure it's filtered better before it reaches the nearby tributary.
"This is a pillar of the church: restoring and preserving creation," said Love, a Crownsville resident. "That's what we're doing on a property that once served nature but doesn't now.
"We want to put it back to work," she said.
Love said the church also hopes to develop a teaching component that will help Anne Arundel County students meet state-mandated environmental literacy requirements.
St. Luke's is among 17 Anne Arundel County congregations that have members taking the Watershed Stewards Academy class in hopes of launching projects to support Chesapeake Bay restoration efforts.
Suzanne Etgen, coordinator of the academy, said the program offers support "to make sure that the church is fully engaged in the process of those projects, on board not only with the fact that the projects are going to happen on their ground, but [also] that they're going to take care of the projects."
Faith communities enrolled in the Watershed Stewards Academy comprise the RiverWise Congregations, an initiative launched by the academy and two Annapolis-based organizations — the Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay and Interfaith Partners of the Chesapeake.
Interfaith Partners notes that the congregations' properties produce polluted runoff via roofs, parking lots and sidewalks. The communities sponsor members' participation in the academy, and graduates then lead restoration projects and educate others about stormwater management.
The Watershed Stewards Academy recently held a graduation ceremony for participants who enrolled in the program in October. Their capstone projects included tree plantings, rain barrel projects and the construction of rain gardens.
Among the churches taking part in the project are Mount Olive AME, Mount Zion United Methodist Magothy, Wilson Memorial Presbyterian and Woods Memorial Presbyterian.
"There's tremendous interest on the part of the faith community to be good stewards of creation," said Jodi Rose, executive director of Interfaith Partners. "The Watershed Stewards Academy is very much in line with what the congregations' own missions are."
Etgen said the academy is meeting with other churches to assess their properties and will help them choose projects. Next spring and fall, she said, the projects will be designed and installed.
"Without private people doing things on their own property, we will never make a difference in water quality," Etgen said. "In Anne Arundel County, almost two-thirds of the land area is privately held — through homes, businesses and community organizations.
"It contributes 46 percent of the nitrogen load from stormwater and 39 percent of the phosphorus load from stormwater," she said. "Stormwater in Anne Arundel County is one of major sources of waterway pollution. If we're going to clean up our waterways, we can't do it unless we address that two-thirds of private property."