EAT

June 9: Feastival

Sandlot, 1000 Wills St. 12-4 p.m. $65-5,000. 410-628-0795.

All you need to make a difference this weekend is an appetite. On Saturday, head to Sandlot, Harbor Point’s buzzy waterfront oasis, for an all-you-can-taste foodie fundraiser to benefit the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation of Maryland. With your toes in the sand, sample eats from the event’s stellar lineup of local vendors, including Blue Pit BBQ, The Charmery, and Wit & Wisdom, and sip on free-flowing cocktails made by the Baltimore Bartenders Guild.

DRINK

June 9: The Ready Room Grand Opening

Old Line Spirits, 4201 E. Pratt St. 5 p.m.-12 a.m. Free. 443-218-9984.

Since opening its doors last February, Old Line Spirits has become a popular destination for local whiskey and rum connoisseurs. This Friday, founders Mark McLaughlin and Arch Watkins will celebrate the grand opening of the Highlandtown hoochery’s full-service cocktail bar with libations made from their award-winning spirits. Soak up the specialty cocktails, sample bites from chef Nancy Longo of Pierpoint Restaurant, and revel in the city’s first-ever distillery bar.

SEE

June 9: Baltimore Floatilla

Canton Waterfront Park, 3001 Boston St. 8 a.m.-2 p.m. $40. 443-743-3308.

The Waterfront Partnership’s Healthy Harbor Initiative is making a big impact on our local waterways—we might be able to swim in the Inner Harbor by 2020—but there’s still plenty of work to be done. This Saturday, do your part by paddling as part of a kayak and canoe fleet dressed in Baltimore-inspired costumes as it glides from Canton Waterfront Park to the Inner Harbor to benefit local restoration efforts. Don’t have your own vessel? Show your support from the shoreline with banners and cheer during its annual rally and after party to continue the fight for clean waters.

HEAR

June 9: The Crown Five-Year Anniversary Party

The Crown, 1910 N. Baltimore St. 8 p.m.-1:30 a.m. Free. 410-625-4848.

It feels like we blinked and five years of killer karaoke and all-night dance parties flew by at this Station North arts staple. To celebrate a half-decade of shows, screenings, events, and the city’s DIY arts scene, The Crown will host a packed lineup including a medley of local musical acts like R&B duo Chiffon, clubby singer-songwriter Hunter Hooligan, electronic pop artist Micah E. Wood, and psychedelic rockers Bubble Wand, plus Detroit’s futuristic noise group The Imaginatron. Just be sure not to miss Brendan Sullivan, the venue’s former manager and Weekends bandmate when he returns from New York for a homecoming set.

DO

June 9-10: Honfest

W. 36th St., Hampden. Sat. 11 a.m.-10 p.m., Sun. 12-6 p.m. Free.

This weekend, Bawlmer’s pride and joy turns 25 and is only getting better with age, hon! Get gussied up in your wildest feather boas and bejeweled shades for this annual two-day festival that honors the city’s historic working-class women with a can’t-miss block party. On Saturday and Sunday, stroll through the streets of Hampden to hear live music by local acts, like Soul Cannon and J Pope and the HearNow, browse through dozens of eclectic craft vendors, and, of course, cheer on your favorite Hon in the annual “Best Hon” competition.

Adam Lindquist, director of the Waterfront Partnership’s Healthy Harbor Initiative, cautioned that one year’s data is not enough to make a trend. Still, he could not help but smile over the apparently dramatic progress—documented in today’s annual report of the Baltimore Harbor—the city appears to making in cleaning up its most treasured asset.

At the beginning of the decade, the nonprofit Waterfront Partnership set a goal of making the harbor swimmable and fishable by 2020. At the time, it seemed an impossible task—a literal pipe dream given the state of the city’s century-old underground sewage system.

“[Waterfront board member] Michael Hankin said he’s planning to jump in right outside here,” Lindquist said after the release of 2018 report in Fells Point this morning. “We may need to find a bigger location for a public swim if things keep heading in this direction.

“There is phenomenal improvement,” Lindquist added. “Thirty-two out of 49 monitoring stations showed improvement, including every stream. There are parts of the Jones Falls [a key Inner Harbor feeder stream] that previously received a ‘0,’ in terms of meeting fecal bacteria standards for safe swimming, that met those standards 100 percent of the time in 2017.”

Lindquist and state officials on hand pointed to the start of a new $430 million infrastructure effort that will eventually reduce sewer overflows by 80 percent—the target for completion is 2020—as well numerous volunteer-intensive restoration projects around Baltimore’s harbor and streams. The target of the $430 million Back River Waste Water Treatment project is a 10-mile backup of raw sewage, first reported in 2015, from Charles Village to the city’s treatment facility in eastern Baltimore County.

State delegate Brooke Lierman, a leading environmental advocate in Annapolis, praised local volunteer efforts—which include the restoration of the Gwynn Falls and Harlem Park bio-retention and asphalt removal projects—with a quote from The Lorax, the environmentally conscious Dr. Seuss character: “Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.”

She also touted the city’s recent ban on polystyrene foam, an effort, which she noted was led by city high school students and the youth group Baltimore Beyond Plastic.

Rudy Chow, director of the Baltimore Department of Public Works, said the city has been making significant progress in terms of repairs to the city’s storm water and sewage systems. Last year, the city finalized a renegotiation of an EPA consent decree order to overhaul its antiquated water sanitation infrastructure. “It was pushed off for decades, way too long,” said Chow, who has served as director since 2014. “It’s the prime reason water bills are now going up.”

The overhaul is projected to cost $2 billion when completed in 2031, but Phase I of the effort, repairing and relining the storm water pipes, is underway and expected to be done by 2021. Additional hydraulic improvements are planned after that. According to this year’s harbor water quality report, the number of city-resolved pollution investigations has doubled over the past three years. The 2016 Waterfront Partnership report gave the harbor’s today waters an “F” grade and streams a “D-.” This year’s report did not include grades as in the past, but instead offered more nuanced information.

Chow also pointed to the discovery and removal last year of an estimated 140-ton mass of congealed fat, oil, and trash under midtown—dubbed the “fatberg”—which was causing sewer overflows in the area, as a step in the direction. Education efforts have begun to inform local restaurants and other businesses about prevention

The top five takeaways from Harbor Heartbeat Report, from the Waterfront Partnership release:

1. Fecal bacteria levels in Baltimore’s streams and harbor, monitored by Blue Water Baltimore, substantially improved in 2017. Sewer repairs in the City and County are ongoing and there has been a 20 percent reduction in the number of reported sewer overflows since 2015.

2. Although data shows improved bacteria scores, Waterfront Partnership cannot state what specific actions caused these improvements. More years of data are needed to determine if changes are part of a larger trend.

3. Less trash—150 tons less—was collected from the Harbor in 2017, compared in 2016, which advocates attribute to less rainfall as well as the City’s decision to provide trash cans to all residents and increase street sweeping.

4. Conductivity in the streams continues to be the worst performing indicator with a score of eight percent. Salts and other pollutants are carried into our streams when it rains, raising the conductivity to unsafe levels for fish and other wildlife.

5. Over the last four years, Baltimore City DPW found and repaired 279 pollution sources in the city’s sewer and storm pipes and more than doubled its capacity to perform pollution investigations.

*The third annual Baltimore Floatilla, a fundraiser for the Waterfront Partnership’s Healthy Harbor Initiative, is slated for June 9 at Canton Waterfront Park.