Gatewood Found Guilty of Wetland Violations
Ordered to Restore Shoreline and Pay Penalty

BALTIMORE, MD (June 2, 2008) - Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler announced today that Anne Arundel County Circuit Court Judge Eugene M. Lerner found Askew W. Gatewood, Jr. guilty of unlawfully filling State wetlands without a license. Judge Lerner placed Gatewood on one year unsupervised probation during which time he must remove unauthorized fill material and stabilize the original shoreline according to an approved site remediation plan. Gatewood must also pay a $10,000 fine, the maximum allowed by law, to the State Wetlands Restoration Fund.

Anne Arundel County inspectors, acting on an anonymous complaint, discovered tons of old building material dumped along the shoreline of 8401 Bay Road in the Riviera Beach neighborhood of Pasadena in Anne Arundel County. The affected area, known as Stony Point, lies at the confluence of the Patapsco River and Stony Creek near the mouth of the Baltimore City Harbor. The material was found within the 100 foot critical area buffer zone. County inspectors determined that there was no county grading permit. Similarly, the Maryland Department of the Environment and the United States Army Corps of Engineers inspectors confirmed that there was no state or federal authorizations either. State inspectors measured the area and found that the unauthorized material ran 520 feet along the shoreline. Anne Arundel County’s aerial shoreline survey photographs revealed that Gatewood’s 2006 filling activity extended the shoreline out into the water beyond where it was in 2005.

As a result of the investigation, Gatewood was charged last January with allowing the shoreline of his property at 8401 Bay Drive in Pasadena Anne Arundel County to be filled without a wetland license, grading without a sediment control plan, and unlawful dumping of demolition debris.

This case follows a joint investigation conducted by the Environmental Crimes Unit of the Office of the Attorney General, the Anne Arundel County Department of Inspections and Permits, the Maryland Department of the Environment, the Maryland State Police, and the United States Army Corps of Engineers. In making today’s announcement, Attorney General Gansler thanked Assistant Attorney General Bernard Penner and Jay Robinson for their work on the case.