Long-running feud over a Crownsville water tower heads to court

Neighbors of a planned water tower are suing Anne Arundel County in a last-ditch effort to keep the proposed 200-foot structure from looming over their Crownsville homes.

Aggrieved residents have pushed back on the tower over the last year, worried that the massive tank would cause their property values to depreciate.

The county’s Department of Public Works said the location — a Moose Lodge property off Crownsville Road — is the most efficient and “fiscally responsible option for utility rate payers” in a June 4 letter from Public Works Director Karen Henry, which is enclosed in the lawsuit petition.

Dominic Prokop, who lives next to the site, is the lead plaintiff in the lawsuit. Prokop made the water tower a rallying cry against government encroachment during his recent failed campaign to become the Democratic candidate for the County Council’s District 6 seat.

“A decision has been made about us, without us. Again,” Prokop said in a June 7 Facebook post in which he criticized the department’s plans to build the tank near a Moose Lodge the county was working to acquire.

While his bid for council fell short, Prokop’s plea for more transparency in the face of expanding infrastructure resonated with more than 300 people who signed a petition opposing the site of the new 1-million-gallon storage tank, according to a website for the nonprofit they formed called Stop the Tower Annapolis.

“We are not against this tower. We are against building it surrounded by homes when a better alternative exists,” Prokop’s post said.

Prokop and his wife, Tatyana, who led the coalition, did not respond to requests for comment.

His new legal challenge may mark the coalition’s last stand.

The Department of Public Works is building the tower to fix issues with water pressure and service disruptions in the zone around Heritage Harbour, where more than 3,000 people, including the Prokops, live. The community currently gets water through a single water main from the aging Broad Creek water tower, which needs a booster pump to push water to Heritage Harbour due to the distance and elevation between the sites and is becoming more costly to repair, according to a Public Works report.

“This location is necessary to secure the community’s water infrastructure,” Henry said in her letter, adding that it would minimize water pressure issues and be an asset for Heritage Harbour’s fire safety.

The Department of Public Works aims to complete construction of the new tower by 2028.

The agency declined to comment on the dispute over the site.

Council member Lisa Rodvien, who represents the area, said that while she feels the agency has been transparent in its search for a new tower site, she also understands that even relatively small changes to the community can “seem really large when they’re right next door.”

“I know there’s a need,” she said of the new water tower, adding that fires at homes in Heritage Harbour and several water main breaks in recent years have made it essential.

In his lawsuit, filed June 30, Prokop describes Public Works’ site decision as “premised on errors of law.” The Crownsville Road location is not the named site for the tank in the county’s master water and sewage plan, so he argues in the petition that the county must adopt an ordinance designating it as the new location.

Instead, Public Works just made the decision, the lawsuit says.

The plan still designates the current site of the aging Broad Creek water tower, just off Harry S. Truman Parkway, as the location for the new tank, according to the lawsuit.

“The decision is therefore inconsistent with the adopted plan, exceeds the county’s legal authority and is ... unlawful and void,” the lawsuit says.

The Heritage Harbour community group declined to comment.

The Stop the Tower group, which describes itself as made up of Heritage Harbour residents as well as those in surrounding communities, said neighbors did not receive proper notice of the initial public meeting in March 2025, when the Moose Lodge site was proposed. They also alleged that follow-up communication about the county’s decision-making was unclear and new sites were considered only after several months of raising their concerns, the website said.

In a November 2025 survey of more than 200 residents, Public Works asked community members to share their priorities — property values were No. 1 — and weigh in on various possible locations for the tower. The most popular option among residents, on North River Road, was not chosen.

In Henry’s letter the following year, she cited “critical hydraulic constraints and high construction costs” as the reason for not choosing North River Road.

Stop the Tower did not respond to any requests for comment but said in the latest post on its website: “The fight is not over.”