In the early 1960s, biologists first publized the value of wetlands in coastal zone ecosystems. But proponents of preservation of Maryland's marshes were faced with a problem. The state always has claimed title to subaqueous lands, but Maryland had laws on the statute books, with progenitors dating to 1745, which were designed to encourage the development of lands under navigable waters by awarding the title to improvements to the owners of adjacent riparian land and by giving free right to them to take subaqueous sand and gravel deposits as well.¹ Such laws were the legacy of an age dedicated to the building of a thriving maritime trade.

Maryland's first attempt to renounce this legacy occurred in a 1965 Opinion of the Attorney General² that narrowly and somewhat legalistically pared down the rights extended by these statutes. The right to make improvements was limited to those necessary for the protection or enhancement of access to the riparian land,³ and the right to dredge "sand, gravel, or other material" was said not to include the indiscriminate dredging of bottom material for use in bulkheaded fill projects.⁴ Moreover, the Attorney General ruled that extensive dredge or fill projects required prior permission from and payment of recompense to the Board of Public Works (composed of the Governor, Comptroller, and Treasurer of the State).⁵