A 200-foot water tower planned for land behind the Annapolis Moose Lodge has neighbors in Crownsville hauling Anne Arundel County into court. The residents have filed a lawsuit to stop the county from putting a one-million-gallon elevated tank on the Crownsville Road parcel, arguing that officials bypassed the county’s adopted water plan and could drag down nearby property values. The tower is meant to boost water pressure and firefighting power for homes in the Heritage Harbour pressure zone.
According to The Baltimore Banner, the complaint was filed on June 30 and is led by Dominic Prokop, who lives next to the proposed tower site and helped organize the neighborhood opposition. In a June 7 Facebook post, Prokop wrote that “a decision has been made about us, without us,” the paper reports. The lawsuit asks a judge to scrutinize how the county chose the Moose Lodge parcel and, if necessary, block both the land deal and construction.
Project basics and why county says it chose the site
Anne Arundel County says the Heritage Harbour Elevated Water Storage Tank would serve about 3,300 residents and add backup storage for an area that now leans on a single transmission main and an aging Broad Creek tower. On the county’s project page, Site Location E, the Moose Lodge property at 1890 Crownsville Road, is listed as the preferred option based on its higher ground elevation, shorter piping distances and available land. Public works officials say the new tank is designed to cut down on outages and help meet the required water flow for firefighting.
Community pushback and petition
In response, neighbors have formed Stop The Tower Annapolis and say they have gathered more than 300 petition signatures against using the Moose Lodge site. On the group’s website, members allege that early public notices about the project were incorrect and argue that, when the county restarted its outreach, residents overwhelmingly favored a different location.
County timeline, costs and survey
As detailed by Anne Arundel County, officials put the project on hold for more than a year while they held open houses and collected public feedback. A third-party summary pulled together 264 survey responses. In that review, the county says North River Road, labeled Site L, was not hydraulically suitable and would have required significantly more underground piping. During the delay, estimated construction costs climbed from about $7.7 million in June 2025 to roughly $11.2 million this year. The Department of Public Works still projects finishing the new tower by 2028 to bolster service and firefighting capacity in the pressure zone.
Legal fight heads to court
The lawsuit argues that the Crownsville Road parcel was not the site listed in the county’s master water and sewage plan and claims the department’s choice of the Moose Lodge property “exceeds the county’s legal authority,” according to The Baltimore Banner. The plaintiffs are asking the court to declare the decision unlawful and void, and to require the county to pass an ordinance if it wants to officially name a different site. The Department of Public Works declined to comment on the pending case, the Banner reports.
