SOMERSET COUNTY, Md. -- On Friday morning, local leaders held a roundtable discussion with one topic in mind: Smith Island's sustainability. The discussion gave Smith Island neighbors a chance to hash out what they believe to be the island's most pressing needs.
Neighbors and state officials joined the United States Department of Agriculture for the hour-and-a-half session, discussing topics ranging from open-air burning to erosion.
Yet, Eddie Somers, President of Smith Island United, left Friday's meeting with transportation at the top of his mind.
"We get good service with what we have, but there are days, times that they don't run," said Somers. "We're looking to supplement, whether it be them or someone else."
Somers is referring to the ferry service that takes people back and forth between Smith Island and the mainland. The service typically leaves Smith Island at 7:30 a.m. and returns at 12:30 p.m.
Evening runs are something Somers would like to see, telling us more frequent trips would be helpful by providing more flexibility for mainland activities.
"It benefits people by their doctor's appointments, dentist appointments, just grocery shopping sometimes, just living," said Somers.
Shanon Abbott, another neighbor of Smith Island, would like to see the ferry service become more affordable for tourists.
"Right now if you have a family of four you're looking at, you know, upwards of $200 just to come over for the day," said Abbott.
Since moving to the island part-time, Abbott has also noticed the inefficiency's created by the limited number of ferry trips.
"We brought workers over to work on our property and one of them missed the evening boat and so we were looking at them having to now put them up in a hotel overnight if we couldn't get them over," said Abbott. "We were fortunately able to get one of the local captains who was able to make a special run and bring them over, and so that's the kind of stuff we're running into."
In a touch of irony, one of the people in attendance for Friday's meeting had to dip out early to catch, you guessed it, the ferry.
The second hot topic of Friday was drainage on Tylerton. Neighbors said Tylerton has continuously flooded for years, but now, they're actually seeing the middle portion of the island cave in on itself, due to the build-up of water.
One neighbor said the drainage issue has reached "emergency status".
According to people at the meeting, an engineering study was completed in 2017, but the firm that handled the study didn't do a whole lot of community outreach. That lead to basic solution that weren't tailor-fit for Tylerton or the entirety of Smith Island.
A group from the University of Maryland is heading out to Tylerton in February to conduct another study. Neighbors said the are in dire need of innovative and fast-acting solutions.
