Board Of Public Works Votes To Expand Park Registration Program

By Christine Condon, Maryland Matters

May 21, 2026

The Maryland Park Service can move forward with its plan to expand an online registration system for state parks and shooting ranges after receiving a green light Wednesday from the Maryland Board of Public Works.

The Park Service began requiring pre-registration at five state parks last summer, in an effort to eliminate lengthy back-ups that were clogging roads leading into some of the state’s most popular beach parks. Officials considered it a resounding success.

“We wanted something that in real time could allow us to know exactly how many people were in the parks, maintain the capacity that was safe, and still give access,” said Natural Resources Secretary Josh Kurtz.

Now, the Park Service, which is part of the Department of Natural Resources, plans to bring the reservation system to more parks. At some less-popular parks, the department also plans to add a QR code system that would require park visitors to pay entry fees on their cell phones before they can get through a gate into the park.

The contract with Kaizen Laboratories was originally scheduled for a vote at the May 6 meeting of the board, which is made up of Gov. Wes Moore, Comptroller Brooke Lierman and Treasurer Dereck Davis, all Democrats. But DNR withdrew the item then, after the board requested additional economic analysis.

Lierman voted against the contract when it came back before the board Wednesday, expressing concerns about a lack of competition in the process.

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“I do believe that competitive contracts are how we get best value for the state,” Lierman said. “I absolutely support the goal of the contract. I just want to make sure that companies that are bidding in Maryland have full expectation that they will be required to go through a competitive process.”

Under the agreement between the department and Kaizen, a 23% fee will be tacked onto state park entry fees, all of which will go to the company. State park fees are usually between $3 and $5 per visitor, meaning fees would increase up to $1.15 per person.

State officials estimate that Kaizen will take in about $4 million under the contract, which starts now and runs until the end of 2031. During that same period the state is expected to take in about $18 million.

That includes about $725,000 more revenue than the state would have recouped under the current system, which consists in many parks of “honor boxes” for park visitors to pay their fees under the honor system.

“So we wondered to ourselves: Are people contributing?” Kurtz asked. “So we did a pilot in one park, and we had a 352% increase in revenue without changing fees or anything, just over cost recovery, and so this contract would expand this to additional state parks and to shooting ranges.”

With the contract approved, the state plans to implement the system in new parks quickly in the weeks and months to come. Some of the new parks include the Rocky Gap and the Rocks state parks, as well as part of Gunpowder Falls State Park, in addition to several state shooting ranges.

“Really the shooting ranges is about safety,” Kurtz said. “Right now, we’re not sure who’s using the ranges at any point in time. We want to ensure that they are not exceeding the capacity.”

‘Definitive and long-awaited’ landfill solution OK’d

Maryland officials will be able to shutter a Baltimore County rubble landfill by the end of 2029 under a deal unanimously approved Wednesday by the board.

The deal was also a holdover from the last board meeting, amid concerns from environmental groups including the Gunpowder Riverkeeper and Gunpowder Conservancy, who want to see the Days Cove landfill closed as quickly as possible.

Kurtz told the board the amended agreement “represents a definitive and long-awaited solution to a controversy spanning decades, the permanent closure of the Days Cove rubble fill and the restoration of this land to public park, which was the plan that was put in place and was the clear intent in 1986 when the state first purchased the property.”

“This lease is a meticulously crafted path to closure,” Kurtz said. “The agreement provides a four-year operational period for Days Cove’s reclamation to fill out the site to enable it to be safely graded for park use.”

Under the plan advanced by the board Wednesday, the landfill will continue operating on state land for a little more than three years so that it will reach capacity in the normal course of business. Beginning in 2030, the state plans to turn the landfill into parkland, which would be added to Gunpowder Falls State Park.

The state expects to take in about $3.3 million in rent over the remaining years of landfill operation.

Officials argued that the landfill cannot be closed sooner without significant costs to the state, because it is only about 78% full, and the state would have to fill it in order to move forward with the plan to add it to the park.

The environmental groups have also expressed concerns about the landfill’s discharges into the environment. In 2024, the Maryland Department of the Environment fined Days Cove $25,500 due to pollution exceedances, according to a letter obtained by the Gunpowder Riverkeeper.

Maryland Matters is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501(c)(3) public charity. Maryland Matters maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Steve Crane for questions: scrane@marylandmatters.org. Follow Maryland Matters on Facebook and Twitter.