By Stefanie Johnson
Special to FYI Online

Visty Dalal

Visty Dalal has been teaching natural science at UMUC for three years, but when he’s not in the classroom, he spends his days as part of an award-winning team at the Maryland Department of the Environment.

Coastal America, a partnership founded by President George H. W. Bush to protect America’s coastal habitats, recently recognized Dalal and fellow team members for “demonstrating excellence in conserving the environment” in their work on the Poplar Island Restoration Project. The project, initiated in 1992, will eventually produce a man-made island composed of 38 million cubic yards of clean dredged sediment from Baltimore Harbor. Dalal worked to supervise project development and compliance with regulations.

The new island, located in the upper middle Chesapeake Bay, southeast of Annapolis, will be constructed on the footprints of its predecessor, historic Poplar Island. One hundred and fifty years ago, Presidents Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman fished and swam from the 1,100-acre Poplar Island. By the year 2000, however, erosion had reduced the natural habitat to a fragile five-acre sliver.

Scientists and engineers have outlined a sustainable reconstruction of Poplar Island that will take place over a 20-year period. The primary building material will be clean dredged sediment from busy Baltimore Harbor. Between 3 million and 5 million cubic yards of sediment are removed annually from the harbor to maintain proper channel depths for incoming ships.

“Coastal America has recognized this project as an example of how to construct such islands and how to create unprecedented wetland habitats,” said Dalal. “The Poplar Island restoration is one of the best projects that I have ever worked on. Its sheer size is magnificent, and the implications are tremendous. It is very hard to develop wetlands of this magnitude. You just can’t find that anywhere. It feels, in some way, as though we are giving back to nature.”

The reconstruction, though closed to human visitors, will support nesting sites for colonial water birds, such as snowy egrets and great blue herons, as well as diamondback terrapins, river otters, and the endangered bald eagle.

“As a scientist, you are always looking for ways to create a better quality of life. This project will do that,” said Dalal. “The water quality will be better, the sediments will not wash away, and wetlands will be restored. In the long term, it’s going to help the birds and the bees.”

The Poplar Island Restoration Project is extraordinary in its scope. The project cost was in excess of $500 million, 75 percent of which was funded by the federal government and 25 percent by the state. The project received so much recognition that President Bill Clinton included a line item in his budget for Poplar Island.

“The project is a particularly good example of science at work for those students who live in the Baltimore and Washington, D.C., areas,” Dalal pointed out.

Dalal, who teaches courses at both UMUC and Anne Arundel Community College, considers his students to be of vital importance to the future of ecology.

“One of my strongest motives for teaching science is that there is a lack of appreciation for science today, because of the way it is sometimes presented,” said Dalal. “I like the challenge of starting from the basics and, I hope, giving students a positive foundation. If, out of the 30 students in my class, half of them take away a good impression of, or interest in, science, I have done my job.”

Dalal has been with the Maryland Department of the Environment since 1992. Since completing his work on the Poplar Island project, Dalal has worked in the dam safety division, overseeing the maintenance of the more than 400 dams in Maryland.