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At many points on its famously long eastern migration route from central Mexico to Canada, the monarch butterfly faces the perils of habitat loss. As a result, its population has declined by over 90 percent since the 1990s. Efforts to save the striking orange insect range from the unique forests of the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve in Michoacàn to the "Monarch Highway" in the Midwest—and all the way to the urban communities of South Baltimore.
For many city residents of neighborhoods like Brooklyn and Curtis Bay, the monarch was already effectively gone. But with funding from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF) through a Five Star Urban Waters Grant, the Monarch Butterfly Community Conservation Program began last fall with the goal to engage hundreds of volunteers, students and Baltimore community members in the planting of habitat for the butterfly. The program builds on existing efforts by partnering organizations to reconnect communities with their green spaces.
"The National Wildlife Federation and the National Aquarium have been working in communities around Baltimore for quite some time, creating native habitat through residential gardens and church gardens and community gardens," said Gabrielle Roffe, conservation community coordinator at the National Aquarium. "This grant program was sort of a natural progression, to engage more open community spaces in schools."
Roffe said that creating native habitat for the monarchs would help connect local residents with an international conservation issue.
"What we're working to do is create a full-fledged education program to really empower the students to take ownership of these green spaces and understand the 'why' behind these gardens," Roffe said.
The program began last August on an island in the Chesapeake Bay that might have disappeared beneath the water had its own decline not been reversed. Poplar Island—shrunk like other Chesapeake islands by the forces of sea level rise, sinking land and increasingly frequent strong storms before being restored to its historical footprint—now supports large patches of common milkweed, the primary host plant of the monarch. Partners from National Aquarium and Living Classrooms Foundation harvested the seeds along with staff from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
This spring, the milkweed seeds got a head start in a new greenhouse at Masonville Cove Environmental Education Center in Baltimore, being grown with help from the Living Classrooms Foundation. The National Park Service also partnered with the program to plant some of the monarch gardens on their lands, such as at Fort McHenry National Monument.
"Then the National Wildlife Federation and the National Aquarium, we are the partners who are on the ground in the community, running the education programs and planting the gardens with the community members and the schools," Roffe said.
In April, students from Benjamin Franklin High School in the nearby neighborhood of Brooklyn gathered at the Masonville Cove greenhouse for the first planting under the program. Roffe showed them how to remove the plants from their containers and use trowels to work them into raised beds. Digging alongside the students was their science teacher, Hillary Clayton.
"Masonville Cove has been an unbelievable resource for my classes and fantastic for my kids to experience," Clayton said.
Once neglected and laden with trash and toxic chemicals, Masonville Cove's 54 acres of land and 70 acres of water now support an array of wildlife, including wetlands, an osprey nest, an artificial oyster reef and a native meadow.
"You can say it a million times in a classroom but they don't really understand it until they come out here and see it. It's just been really powerful for them," Clayton said. "They can see exactly what their actions do and what kind of things they can prevent."
Clayton grew additional native plants in lush trays beneath glowing lamps in her classroom earlier this year. The school was one of several to plant a habitat garden under the program. Though the gardens are still young, previous plantings suggest what Benjamin Franklin and the other schools can expect from their new gardens.
"When you build it, they will come. We've planted a lot of gardens in local urban communities and seen that once you start planting, local species start coming back," Roffe said. "We've gotten calls from residents, saying, 'The monarchs are here! The monarchs are here!'"
Roffe understands the experiences are special because of where they're taking place.
"The joy on their faces is just really incredible because people are dealing with a lot on a daily basis, especially in these neighborhoods," Roffe said. "Knowing that they have had a contribution to bring such an iconic species back into Brooklyn and Curtis Bay and other neighborhoods that they haven't seen these species in who knows how many years—that's where you really see the biggest impact."
To view more photos, visit the Chesapeake Bay Program Flickr page.
Video, photos and text by Will Parson
When Mike and Laura Jackson wanted to restore wildlife habitat on their slice of a forested Pennsylvania mountainside, they did something you might not expect. The husband and wife, who live on 114 acres in Bedford County, started cutting down trees.
The Jacksons were motivated to drastic action in part by a small gray bird with flashes of yellow on its head and wings.
"We've always been birders, so we keep track of what we see," Laura said, while she and Mike followed the trails that wind through their land. "And we've had golden-winged warblers on our property—but the last one we saw or heard was in 2009."
The golden-winged warbler is a migratory bird that breeds in the Upper Midwest and Appalachian Mountains and winters in Central America. Its population has declined by roughly two-thirds in the past 50 years, in pace with the decline of the early successional habitat it needs—a young forest.
After becoming Pennsylvania Forest Stewards through a program at Penn State University in 2000, Mike and Laura began to recognize why the forest on their own land wasn't healthy.
"That really opened our eyes to forest management—things that we could do to help the property because we saw that we were getting invasive species," Laura said.
The Jacksons worked with a service forester from the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR) in 2002 to develop a ten-year forest stewardship plan for their property. Their goals were to improve forest health, control invasive species, increase native plant diversity and manage for wildlife.
Meanwhile, the golden-winged warbler was listed as "near threatened" by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) in 2004.
Though Laura was still teaching, Mike took advantage of his retirement to implement what they were learning at the many classes and workshops they were attending. He built trails and wildlife amenities such as brush piles, bird houses, squirrel boxes and owl boxes. He removed invasive species like multiflora rose and Japanese barberry, and he planted native shrubs, trees and wildflowers. He applied a technique called crown release, which thins out vegetation to give valuable wildlife trees like wild cherry, oak and hickory more sunlight and room to grow.
"Then, in 2010 we donated an easement to Western Pennsylvania Conservancy so the land can't be developed," Laura said. "They don't accept just any property but they liked our property because of its good wildlife value—we have a lot of box turtles on it, a lot of birds."
Laura said it also helped that the land is part of a roughly 9,000-acre stretch of forest that includes Pennsylvania state game lands and Tussey Mountain.
"Even though [golden-winged warblers] nest in very young forest, they take their young after they've fledged, and they spend time in mature forest feeding and trying to teach them what to do as survival techniques." Laura said.
In late 2011, the Jacksons attended a workshop for land managers to learn about best management practices for the golden-winged warbler. They were the only private landowners at the meeting.
"And we thought, 'Wow, if we can work with people who know what they're doing and who will try to help us with our invasive species control, we could get a healthy forest again,'" Laura said.
"Which meant cutting some trees," Mike added.
A few months later, the Jacksons invited experts from the Pennsylvania Game Commission, Western Pennsylvania Conservancy, DCNR and Indiana University of Pennsylvania (IUP) Research Institute to look at their land. They determined it was a good fit for a golden-winged warbler habitat restoration project.
With support from the Game Commission, a forester returned to mark which trees to keep inside a 27-acre area, then invasive plants were treated with herbicide on all 108 acres of the Jacksons' forest.
Mike and Laura interviewed a number of loggers before settling on a company that uses low-impact methods to remove trees.
The cut unveiled at least one surprise on the Jacksons' property.
"We discovered that once we got rid of some of the trees, there are a couple spring seeps," Laura said. "So we have a nice little wetland to walk through that we could never see before."
Funding for the logging came from the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) through the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) Working Lands for Wildlife program. NRCS also paid for a fence around the restoration to keep out deer, allowing new plants to flourish.
"I was just surprised it came so fast," Mike said.
Where the Jacksons had battled invasives for years, Mike said they are mostly gone.
"So as we walk through the area we're looking for invasive species that still need to be maintained," Laura said. "And we're looking at this thick underbrush—and that's what golden-winged warblers need."
Monitoring for the project began the year following the cut, looking for regeneration as well as the golden-winged warbler.
"We've done [the monitoring] now two times after the logging, and we still have not seen or heard any golden-winged warblers," Laura said. "But that's not unexpected because there's still a lot of regeneration yet to go and they need really thick, really heavy vegetation on the ground, and we just don't have that yet."
The Jacksons are prepared to wait, and said it might be another three years before the golden-winged warbler returns to their property. Through surveys they do for the Game Commission, they know that there is an active golden-winged warbler breeding site eight miles away, which puts them in the vicinity, even if it is still pretty far away.
"But what was neat was the very first spring when we were monitoring, we heard cerulean warblers," Laura said. "And cerulean warblers are also a species of concern."
Other at-risk birds in the project area include hooded warblers, Kentucky warblers and wood thrush. Monitoring overseen by IUP Research Institute has also identified six bird species present in the project area that benefit from young forest, including ovenbirds, chestnut-sided warblers, common yellowthroats, red-eyed vireos, indigo buntings and eastern towhees.
For their years of effort to restore wildlife habitat in their forest, Mike and Laura were honored as Exemplary Forest Stewards by the Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay at the 2016 Chesapeake Watershed Forum in Shepherdstown, West Virginia, last fall. Nowadays, Mike and Laura also host several tours a year and enjoy answering visitors' questions about their property.
The Jacksons' land shows that dealing with nature can be counter-intuitive, that intervening can sometimes help it rebound.
"It's nice to see people who might think that logging is bad and really a detriment to the woods." Laura said. "[We can] turn their thinking around a little bit and help them realize that we did something that...even if we don't get golden-winged warblers, we've done something to create a healthy forest. And that's really the important thing."
Photos and Video by Leslie Boorhem-Stephenson
Text by Will Parson
To view more photos, visit the Chesapeake Bay Program Flickr page
Looking at Bob Ingersoll's farm, you'd never know that he had been growing hay for over 15 years. The fields that had produced hay—and corn before that—are now covered in native grasses and wildflowers. Last year, Ingersoll enrolled his almost 60-acre farm in Chestertown, Maryland, into the Washington College Center for Environment and Society's (CES) Natural Lands Project.
This September morning, Ingersoll and Natural Lands Project Coordinator Dan Small walk around Ingersoll's fields, observing the growth and pointing out the different species of wildflowers and grasses they planted only five months earlier.
Ingersoll got involved with the Natural Lands Project through the Chester River Association, one of the project's sponsors. While he chose to enroll his entire farm, CES typically works with farmers and landowners to plant 100-foot grassland buffers on their land. That way, they can still get money from agricultural production and rented-out land for hunting—as well as a small income from the Natural Lands Project—but also sow the benefits of grassland buffers.
These buffers are known as a best management practice, or BMP, because they can absorb nutrients that run off of farm fields and prevent sediment from entering waterways. But alongside their water quality benefits, buffers can also provide ideal habitat for many species of animals.
Quail and habitat restoration
A large component of the Natural Lands Project is creating suitable grassland habitat for northern bobwhite quail. Quail used to be prevalent on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, and many people in the area grew up hunting quail, but their populations have declined drastically since the mid-1900s—due in part to habitat loss.
When it comes to installing grassland buffers, Small says, "we found that there's no real tangible benefit to the landowners or farmers if we just talk about water quality on the land." However, if they grew up hunting quail, they have an emotional connection to the bird.
Quail require three types of habitat to be successful: open areas, grassy cover and woody cover. "We're specifically looking to create warm season grass habitat," says Small. Cool season grasses, like those typically found on lawns, grow thick—meaning small grassland birds like quail that require open ground can't move through them. "Think of your lawn," he says. "If that grew up, there's no way a quail could walk through that." Warm season grasses, on the other hand, grow in clumps, leaving plenty of space for quail.
One of the factors associated with the decline in quail populations is the lack of woody cover. The disappearance of hedgerows—a row of shrubs or low growing trees that typically form boundaries between farm fields—has had a huge impact on quail, according to Small. As farms got larger, those hedgerows were taken out, and quail lost an important place to go during the winter when the rest of the landscape is covered in snow.
For that reason, dispersed throughout the grasses and wildflowers, are colored markers labeling where they planted hedgerows. "Not only are we adding nesting habitat in all the grass, but we need to add winter habitat as well."
Creating habitat suited for quail doesn't just benefit them, but many other species as well. "We have a lot more small birds here than we did any year that I can ever remember, because there's something there for them to eat," says Ingersoll. "And butterflies! I've never ever seen so many butterflies." He points out bees and finds a fuzzy caterpillar on one of the wildflowers. Small points out the call of a bobolink, a bird that requires grasslands on its migration. Even deer take advantage of the tall grass cover, as evidenced by the imprint from where a deer had been lying not too long before.
A long-term commitment
It takes about three years for the grasses to get established, but once that happens, they still need to be managed. "You can't just put it in and walk away," says Small. After they're established, they will be managed in part through controlled burns. As the grasses grow, they begin to lay down on top of each other, making it difficult for the quail to move on the ground. "Controlled fire is a really good method to wipe the slate clean," says Small. "You don't really hurt the native [plants] because they can respond to that and pop back up."
Landowners who enroll in the Natural Lands Project sign a 10-year contact with CES. This long-term commitment is a promise both to CES that there is sufficient time committed to establish habitat on the land, but also to the landowner that CES won't plant the new habitat and then leave. They work with landowners over that time to make sure that the land is in good condition.
"The landowner, somebody like myself, is relying on the best information I can get from Dan to make this as successful as I possibly can," says Ingersoll. "If we didn't have the backup, it'd be like learning it all over again. And I probably wouldn't have done it."
Text by Joan Smedinghoff
Photos and captions by Leslie Boorhem-Stephenson
Video by Will Parson
The word "pollution" tends to bring to mind images of dark smoke billowing out of smokestacks or fluorescent-colored water spilling out of pipes. But there are other types of pollutants in the Chesapeake Bay region and they come from a somewhat unexpected place: agriculture.
Agriculture is the single largest source of nutrient and sediment pollution in the Chesapeake Bay region. Nutrients, such as nitrogen and phosphorus, feed algal blooms that create harmful conditions for the Bay's fish. Too much sediment can cloud the water and smother bottom-dwelling animals. These pollutants are difficult to control because, instead of spilling out of pipes, they run off of large fields when it rains. Sam Owings, a farmer in Chestertown, Maryland, knew the challenges of controlling agricultural runoff, so he decided to develop his own solution.
Owings knows farming, and he knows stormwater. He grew up on a farm where he worked until he was 30 years old, after which he started a site development contracting business. "I learned a lot about soil erosion and soil conservation in agriculture," he said, "and then I learned about stormwater control in site development."
After returning to farming 15 years ago, he combined that knowledge to develop what he calls the "cascading system." The system, which he built and tested on his farm, is a strip of four 40 by 140 foot trenches in a grass waterway between two of his fields. The grass waterway is an area where rainwater—and farm runoff—naturally collect from over 100 acres of surrounding land and are funneled toward a nearby creek.
"The idea behind it is to reduce stormwater flows from the land into state waters," Owing said. It's designed to slow down the flow of water by having it run through the strip of basins, filling up each one before allowing any water to discharge into the creek. After the rain stops, the remaining water sits in the basins to either evaporate or absorb back into the ground. Owings specifically placed the basins in an area that receives concentrated runoff from a large area of over 100 acres.
After receiving a research grant from Maryland Industrial Partnerships, Owings teamed up with University of Maryland professor Dr. Allen Davis to conduct a two year study of the system. The results Davis got were telling: of the water that entered the cascading system, 56 percent was not released out the other end and into the creek. The system also captured 65 percent of sediment and over half the nutrients.
Even with the apparent success of the cascading system, Owings isn't done. He developed a "chain system," or what he described as a "filter strip on steroids." Unlike the cascading system, which was designed for concentrated, high-flow areas, the point of the chain system is to collect regular runoff from fields. "The concept is simple," he said about both of his systems. "You can take an existing filter strip and retrofit it into these."
The suitability to existing farms is one of the advantages Owings sees in both of his systems. "With many environmental programs, [farmers] have to give up tillable land," he explained. But since the cascading and chain systems are in grass waterways, which are generally not utilized by farmers, "you're just making the land more efficient."
All in all, the project seems to be working for Owings. Now, he's working with Earth Data to try and get his cascading system certified as a best management practice, a designation that means it is an efficient and effective practice to combat agricultural runoff.
When asked why he developed these systems, Owings' answer was straightforward: "Farmers are inherently problem-solvers. Agriculture pollution is a problem, and so why not work on a solution?"
Text by Joan Smedinghoff
Video and photo by Will Parson
In late March, Pennsylvania's South Mountain was already weeks into spring's thaw, but a stinging breeze and sinking sun meant jackets and beanies for a group forming under the tall, swaying pines near Kings Gap State Park.
Devin Thomas, almost ten years old, from nearby Carlisle, showed up in shorts and sneakers but came prepared with a headlamp he made using an old pair of underwear and faithfully equipped with enthusiasm for the outdoors.
"He won't even kill bugs," said Ray Thomas, Devin's father—also wearing shorts.
As more people arrived, they took turns dunking their boots in a bucket of soapy disinfectant, used to get rid of harmful microbes, seeds, and any other invasive species. It was a precaution justified by the group's destination, the vernal pools of Forest Pools Preserve.
Vernal pools are ephemeral forest ponds, fed by snow, rain or groundwater, and blanketed in leaves from a healthy forest. They host a wealth of animals and only stay wet for about seven months, which is just long enough for a cascade of frogs and salamanders to use them as a home for their developing young.
You won't find fish—they would eat all the eggs—but if you get the timing right, you'll hear the clucking chatter of spawning wood frogs or the car alarm call of camouflaged spring peepers. You might see yellow spotted salamanders wriggling among the leaves, and you might see tiny fairy shrimp, the country cousins of the commercial pet Sea-Monkeys.
If you were visiting the area ten years ago, you would also see piles of trash and hear the sound of broken glass underfoot.
"I guess back in the olden days you would see these depressions in the forest, and before we had trash pickup I think that's where a lot of people would just put their trash," said Molly Anderson, a volunteer program manager with The Nature Conservancy. "You'd walk and you'd just hear 'crunch crunch.'"
The Conservancy purchased the preserve's 70 acres in 2007, and for three years it held volunteer trash cleanups and monitored the vernal pools there. A Conservancy scientist started noticing that some of the pools weren't holding water long enough for the young amphibians to develop.
Several theories arose. One was that growing development, with people drilling wells, had lowered the water table below the groundwater-fed pools. Another was that it might be just be a naturally drier period than normal.
"I also heard that maybe the clay liner that was holding the water, that it was popped by all the trash that was laying in it," Anderson said.
In 2010, with grants received by the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy, The Nature Conservancy held a workshop to restore some of the ailing pools. Volunteers Mike Bertram and Kathy King, a local married couple, were instrumental volunteers overseeing the effort, and nearby Dickinson Township provided equipment, Anderson said.
The work involved raking away leaves, setting aside mosses and other plants, using heavy machinery to remove layers of soil and carefully replacing everything above a synthetic liner placed in the depression. A season's worth of leaf litter was the finishing touch.
"The restoration took place in the beginning of August, and we came back in the fall of the same year and it was hard to tell that anything was done there," Anderson said.
In the years since, the restored pools hold water when the pools that weren't restored are drying up, Anderson said. Now Forest Pools Preserve serves not only as critical habitat but as a means to raise awareness.
"One of the things that we're concerned about is that because vernal pools are really small and kind of unnoticeable, they're not protected really under any kind of laws protecting water," Anderson said.
Anderson said the Conservancy is trying to educate local governments about the importance of vernal pools and address issues raised by landowners, such as the threat of mosquitos. Aiding the effort, the Pennsylvania Natural Heritage Program has a vernal pool landowner incentive program and an online registry.
"In a really healthy vernal pool, you'll have a lot of different predators on mosquito larvae that would keep the mosquito numbers in check," Anderson said.
Conservancy volunteer Andy Green helps monitor the pools and led the walk that the Thomas family attended. A retired doctor who grew up in Carlisle, Green managed remnant prairie and stormwater programs in Illinois before returning to Pennsylvania. He lives just down the road from Forest Pools Preserve.
"It's interesting, there are none of these pools in the North Mountain, or many of these mountain ridges north of here," Green said. "This is essentially a South Mountain phenomenon."
Bringing the group to a pool fed by groundwater, Green pointed out the telltale masses of wood frog eggs. Wood frogs love a 40-degree night with rain, he said. The eggs were a sign that the frogs had already found a break in the cold weather, came, and left before anyone could spot them.
"They fooled everybody," Green said.
Smaller in number were masses of eggs belonging to Jefferson and spotted salamanders, attached to sticks where the male of the species first places a sperm packet, or spermatophore.
As the adults listened to Green, the younger members of the group dispersed once they learned that they could find salamanders underneath rocks. They became the most avid explorers of the night, flipping rocks and logs, finding tiny red-backed salamanders, and replacing them as they were—at Green's urging—before moving on to crouch low and face the water's surface at each pool.
At the site of another pool, Green was dismayed to find nothing but a depression full of leaves. Under some of the leaves were wood frog egg masses, still moist, but the pool protecting them had dried up, and without a rain the eggs would dry up as well.
Green led the group to a final stop just over the boundary with Kings Gap State Park, which the Conservancy acquired in 1973 and transferred to the state. The sound of spring peepers became louder and louder as the group approached a pool, until the chorus seemed to be coming from every direction at once.
One of the adults held a spotted salamander she had found near the pool, showing it to the admiring group and periodically wetting her hands in the pool to keep the salamander's skin moist—just another measure to keep the vernal pool community healthy.
The peeper's call that had been so piercing faded quickly as the group left the low-lying bowl holding the pool, giving way to the crunching of leaves and excited recounting of what the group had just seen.
To view more photos, visit the Chesapeake Bay Program's Flickr page
Photos and text by Will Parson
Let's say you're a homeowner in Norfolk, Virginia, and a storm rolls in. As the rain falls on your yard you realize that you haven't cleaned up after your dog. You're tempted to forget it and stay dry. Then, through your water-streaked window you see your River Star Home flag flapping furiously in the wind, and you remember that "scoop the dog poop" is at the very top of the list of seven River Star guidelines you agreed to. You grab a raincoat and a shovel.
It's no accident that the flag—and the pledge it represents—seems to hold a certain power for the nearly 3,200 people who have signed up for Elizabeth River Project's (ERP) River Star Homes.
Any homeowner can sign up to join the River Star Homes program. Participants commit to do seven simple things to help improve water quality and restore the Elizabeth River.
"There are studies that show you're more likely to carry out those behaviors because everybody knows that you made that pledge," says Marjorie Mayfield Jackson, ERP's executive director.
With funding from a National Fish and Wildlife Foundation grant, Jackson and her staff participated in workshops with social marketing expert Doug McKenzie-Mohr. She says the River Star Program incorporates some of the ideas from those sessions—with ERP's own spin on them. The idea for the flag came from another marketing professional who wanted something classy that people would want to display.
"We've actually been mimicked now," Jackson says. "But ours was the first."
That makes homeowner Tim Ferring one of the first of the first. He signed up soon after the program launched in 2011.
"The River Star flags started popping up all over the place, and you weren't cool unless you had one," Ferring says, jokingly.
Walking around his suburban property with River Star Homes program manager Sara Felker and grassroots coordinator Casey Shaw, Ferring passes his rain barrel and his sizeable compost pile and steps over the low-lying native plants that mark his rain garden. Since installing the rain garden, Ferring says his basement doesn't leak and he doesn't have to use a sump pump.
Jackson says another lesson that helped shape River Star Homes is that once someone agrees to something small, they are more likely to take the next step.
"And then we come back and then we ask them to consider things that are more costly and actually require them to do stuff on the ground," Jackson says. "And we have a really good response."
Ferring, for one, talks wistfully of installing a cistern so that he can water his lawn entirely with rainwater. As she leaves, Felker promises to email him information on solar power.
ERP also runs River Star Schools and River Star Businesses. Predating River Star Homes, River Star Businesses is a program that BAE Systems Norfolk Ship Repair joined in 1998. Just two years later, the shipyard achieved model level, River Star Business's highest recognition of accomplishments in pollution prevention and wildlife habitat.
"They were pioneers in everything—capturing the runoff, doing the [treatment for] tributyltin, oyster reefs, habitat," says Pam Boatwright, River Star Businesses program manager.
Mike Ewing, BAE Systems' environmental programs manager, recalls when all they had to do was put straw bales down the dock to keep trash out of the river. When the copper-based paint used on ships would be blasted off, it would stain the water a blood red and flow out into the river.
"Probably one of the biggest things we were ever been able to accomplish was convincing them that they needed to spend several hundred thousand dollars to build these troughs around the end of the dry dock to collect runoff from the docks," Ewing says. "And then we would treat it."
Boatwright points out that the move was voluntary, not regulatory.
In addition to treating roughly 10 million gallons of wastewater every year, including about 9 million gallons from the dry docks, BAE Systems saves another million gallons of water by reusing steam condensate in their boilers. Other initiatives include the reuse of 50,000 gallons of recovered oil, the recycling of eight million pounds of materials, and the raising of 15,000 oyster spat every year. Ewing estimates their current move to LED lighting will save about 1.5 to 2 million kWh per year.
Ewing credits new ownership, a culture shift at the shipyard, and some pushing by himself and his colleague Steve Bulleigh for the striking changes.
The relationship with ERP, however, began with Ewing's predecessor, who first reached out for help building a little wetland.
"He was trying to make small steps," Boatwright says. "We made it really easy in the beginning to build trust and get people into the fold."
The relationship between ERP and BAE Systems is now approaching two decades. Over the years, Boatwright says she has done a lot of cheerleading, as well as helping BAE Systems to identify and then support those projects.
"I think once we got the ball rolling it got better," Ewing says. "And it got easier to do. And we've been lucky."
Ewing says BAE Systems has won about 30 awards since 2000, including the Virginia Governor's Environmental Excellence Gold Award, without ever experiencing a lot of serious pushback from the company about rolling out new environmental programs.
"There's a lot of resistance to change," Ewing says. "But most of these guys, they're campers and fisherman and they swim and they boat. And they like the water and they're hunters. And so they really want to do the right thing."
To view more photos, visit the Chesapeake Bay Program's Flickr page
Photos and text by Will Parson
Additional photos courtesy Ed Ketz/BAE Systems
It's a cold morning in Chestertown, Maryland—just above freezing. Greg Cole is waiting outside of his silver pickup truck, covered head to toe in camouflage, his bright white beard the only solid color on him. Today is Groundhog Day, but Cole's not looking for rodents' shadows; he's keeping his eyes on the sky looking for an entirely different critter: the Canada goose. Cole is a hunting guide, and today is the second-to-last day of the migratory goose hunting season.
The term "migratory" is key, because Canada geese fall into one of two categories: resident and migratory. Resident geese live permanently in populated areas. They hang around golf courses and other open areas, and they're considered a nuisance by many because they overgraze areas and generate a lot of waste. Migratory geese look similar to their homebody cousins but lead very different lives: they breed up north in Quebec, migrate to the Bay region in early autumn, stay throughout the winter and return to their breeding grounds in the spring.
Cole's hopeful for a good hunt today. The waterfowl hunting hasn't been good this year, he says, "mainly because of the weather." The warm weather kept the geese from migrating south until later in the season. "This lake," he says, gesturing to a slow-moving arm of the Chester River about a quarter of a mile away, "I've seen it hold as many as 10,000 geese, and this year, there's probably [been] an average of about 500 geese all through the season."
Despite this year's low turnout, the number of breeding pairs has been healthy for the past few years—but that hasn't always been the case. In the late 1980s, the population of migratory Canada geese in the Atlantic Flyway began to drop dramatically. A mixture of bad weather and overharvesting led to a serious decline in the migratory goose population, so much so that in 1995, Maryland instituted a moratorium on hunting them.
Cole has been a hunting guide almost continuously since 1980 and remembers when the moratorium was first instated. "It was tough to take, when they said we were going to close it down," he says. "We didn't know if it was going to be shut down for two years or ten." The moratorium was set in two-year increments and ultimately lasted six years.
Now Cole guides at a private hunt club of about 30 on Chino Farms, a part of the Grasslands Partnership, which was placed under conservation easement in 2001. At over 5,000 acres, it's the largest conservation easement in Maryland's history. It contains a 90-acre waterfowl sanctuary, three miles of shoreline along the Chester River and 600 acres of Delmarva bay, making it a great habitat for rare and endangered plants, Delmarva fox squirrels and other woodland critters. In 2006, the land was designated as an Important Bird Area by Maryland-DC Audubon.
Cole leads us to a nearby field where three club members will be hunting today. His two-year-old Chesapeake Bay retriever, Geena, tags along, anticipating the chance to run our and retrieve birds. There is a group of geese grazing in the field, but as we approach, none of them fly away—in fact, they don't move at all. These are the decoys used to attract the geese, and this group of about 60 taxidermied Canada geese is pretty convincing. Each is in a different position: some are standing tall starting off in different directions, others are posed to look like they are pecking at the ground.
As we wait, geese begin to fly by; some are in large groups with 20 or 30 geese, while others are smaller with just two or three. Alternating between short blips and longer whines, Cole uses the call, a sort of goose-whistle, hanging around his neck to "speak" their language and convince the geese to fly down towards the decoys "grazing" in the field in front of us.
A half hour passes and still no geese get close. "You know it's a slow day when the dog goes to sleep," Cole says, laughing as he looks down at Geena who is lying on the bench, no longer exuding the excitement and anticipation she had been earlier in the day.
Despite today's silence and this season's luck, Cole isn't pessimistic about the future of goose hunting. "The biggest problem this year has been the weather—without a doubt. And I don't think they had a real good hatch." In terms of the moratorium, while it shook up hunting on the Eastern Shore, Cole maintains, "It definitely was a success story."
To view more photos, visit the Chesapeake Bay Program's Flickr page.
Images and captions by Will Parson
Text by Joan Smedinghoff
At Endless Trails Farm in Hubbardsville, N.Y., Troy Bishopp is looking for cow pies.
"There's a little bit there, but overall there isn't a whole lot of manure," he says, explaining to the farm's manager. "Every rotation we're going to want more."
Bishopp is a conservation specialist with New York's Madison County Soil and Water Conservation District and the Upper Susquehanna Coalition, and among the services he provides is advice on how grassland farmers can get the most out of their pastures. With 30 years of experience, he has learned to pay attention to the subtleties that only come with walking out in a field and talking with farmers.
"I'm constantly looking, because wherever that cow manure lands is where there's going to be more grass than not," Bishopp says. This passion for grass has led to him being called the Grass Whisperer, a moniker first bestowed on him by his friend Dick Warner during a visit to Washington to educate congressional districts about grass-based agriculture in New York.
Bishopp has worked with Endless Trails Farm for about eight years, first to set up some conservation practices like stream buffers, then helping with fencing and offering rotational grazing advice. When he visits a farm, his tools are cheap—a plastic grazing stick helps him assess how many pounds of feed are in a pasture, and a reel of electrified tape lets him keep animals on and off sections of pasture, a practice he prescribed for Endless Trails.
"There was no real system of fencing or paddock rotation [on this farm]. And so usually in July and August there wasn't a whole lot of grass here," Bishopp says. "Implementing strategic fencing, water spots around the farm, water tubs, and then allowing the grass and the pastures to rest for a month or two, always made a lot of grass which actually sequestered any rain that came, which is huge up here."
The water infiltration resulted in more grass for cattle at the farm, and also less runoff, including sediment and nutrients, running into streams and ultimately into the Chesapeake Bay. In 2011, the Madison County Soil and Water Conservation District named Endless Trails its Conservation Farm of the Year.
"Generally speaking, we want to retain our topsoil, have good water infiltration and keep the waters clean," Bishopp says. "When you produce a lot of feed and you do those things that make you money, conservation comes right along with it."
To view more photos, visit the Chesapeake Bay Program's Flickr page.
Video, Images and Text by Will Parson
It's an overcast summer morning in Berkeley County, West Virginia, and Todd Butler has parked his pick-up truck atop one of the many hills that roll across his property. He points to the ridge of a nearby mountain peak, where the dense, forested tree line is broken by a small gap. "I'm sitting in my house, and I can see this mountain from there," Butler recalls. "I never will forget the very first morning I sat there, and I saw a light on top of that mountain, and I thought, 'What is that?' And it turns out, they'd built a house up there."
As the fourth-generation owner of Butler Farms, Butler has been witness to plenty of changes over the years: a decline in the number of neighboring farms, a rise in residential development, a technology boom for farming equipment. And while some features have remained the same—the original farmhouse, barn and cattle gates are still standing—much of the farm's operation is dramatically different from when Butler's great-grandfather bought the land in 1919. Almost a century later, the 200-acre family dairy farm has grown to more than 1,000 acres, home to beef cattle, an apple orchard and a bird and deer hunting preserve.
Over the years, Butler and his father, Bill, have transformed their property into one of the top conservation farms in the Mountain State. A variety of practices—from streamside fencing to cover crops—help to reduce runoff and promote water quality. Cattle drink out of troughs rather than straight from streams, and their feed wagons are continuously moved to different locations to prevent a single area from getting trampled or polluted with manure. The farm's 72 apple orchard plots are farmed in strips; the land between each row of trees is left untouched to help slow the flow of water and prevent soil from washing away.
Sustainable pest management practices have made the land of Butler Farms a haven for insects, birds and other wildlife. Pollinator-friendly native flowers and grasses border the fields. Patches of sorghum, an annual grass that produces bright red berries, will feed birds and deer through the winter. When Butler was younger, he remembers entire fields being sprayed with herbicides, pesticides and other chemicals. Now, he says, "we don't use near the chemicals that we used to. Everything used to be in quarts or gallons; now we're down to ounces."
Rich soil and a mild climate have made the lands of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, a haven for agriculture. Thousands of farms—more than any other county in the state—dot the landscape of gently rolling countryside. Traveling through the region, the fields and fences, barns and silos can begin to blur together. But venture onto the land itself, and each tract of farmland tells a unique story. For Oregon Dairy Farm in the heart of Lancaster County, the story is one of family, conservation and community.
A family-run operation, Oregon Dairy Farm is managed by George Hurst, his son Chad and his daughter and son-in-law Maria and Tim Forry. Hurst also co-owns the nearby market, restaurant and ice cream parlor with his brothers. He is the second-generation owner of the land, after his father bought the farm in the early 1950s. "I grew up here and bought the farm, bought the house where I grew up," said Hurst. "Now my daughter, Maria, is living in that same house."
Pennsylvania is second in the nation for number of dairy farms, outranking every state except Wisconsin. And that number continues to grow: in 2014, Pennsylvania was the only state in which the number of dairy farms increased. Though this may be good news for ice cream lovers, it can sometimes be difficult to reconcile agricultural growth with the health of the Chesapeake Bay, as agriculture is the single largest source of nutrient and sediment pollution entering the estuary. But for the Hurst family, protecting the Bay is an important part of the way they run their farm.
Two decades ago, the Hurst family took a visit to the Chesapeake Bay. What they saw—polluted waters and their damaging effects on local fishermen—troubled them. "When I took that tour, I knew we had to do what we can here [at Oregon Dairy Farm] to make sure we're not polluting the Bay," Hurst recalled. "That's when we became even more intentional with the practices we have in place here."
Those practices include a variety of "best management practices," or BMPs—conservation methods that can help curb nutrients and sediment from running off agricultural land and into rivers, streams and the Bay. To protect the health of waters running through their land, the Hurst family practices no-till farming, uses cover crops, plants trees and shrubs to prevent streambank erosion and has installed fencing to keep livestock out of waterways.
As home to 500 cows, one of the farm's biggest challenges was figuring out how to manage all the animal waste. "Because we're a dairy, there's lots of manure," Hurst explained. According to estimates from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), livestock waste accounts for 19 percent of the nitrogen and 26 percent of the phosphorous entering the Bay. These excess nutrients can fuel the growth of algae blooms that block sunlight from reaching underwater grasses and, during decomposition, rob the water of oxygen that plants and animals need to survive.
To avoid nutrient runoff, Hurst puts as much of this waste to use as possible. A methane digester collects and heats the manure, and the resulting methane gas powers a generator that produces more than enough electricity to run the farm.
After traveling through the digester, solid and liquid wastes are separated. Solid waste can be dried and used as livestock bedding or transported to the on-site composting facility. Three large hoop buildings house the compost piles, which will eventually be sold wholesale to landscapers or in Oregon Dairy's retail lawn and garden store. Liquid waste flows to the lagoon, which holds about an eight month supply, allowing it to be applied to the land when the fields need it and will absorb it. "We make sure we aren't putting more manure on than what will stay in place, and no more than what the soil needs or what will be taken up by the crops," said Hurst. These innovative waste practices helped the farm win a U.S. Dairy Sustainability Award in 2015.
Since the 1980s, outside dairy farmers, school field trips and other community members have been welcome to tour—and learn from—the farm. School tours bring nearly 2,000 student visitors each year, and Family Farm Days events can draw upwards of 15,000 people a year to the farm. More than just a way of life, Hurst and his family see their farm as a way to teach others about how they care for their land.
"Our passion and vision is to help people understand where their food comes from," said Hurst. "That's where [the farm tours] originated and that's really why we do what we do."
To view more photos, visit the Chesapeake Bay Program's Flickr page.
Images and captions by Will Parson
Text by Stephanie Smith
Forests are critical to the health of the Chesapeake Bay—they protect clean water and air, provide habitat to wildlife and support the region's economy. However, since European settlement of the region in the 17th century, deforestation has taken a toll on the once thriving forests of the mid-Atlantic region. Human influences such as development and parcelization have reduced forest acreage from 95 to about 45 percent of historic coverage.
Deforestation in the Bay region may seem a problem that is too complex to tackle, but one man, dubbed the modern-day Johnny Appleseed, is proof that a little curiosity, passion and hard work can have profound effects on the environment. John Smucker, a Technology Education teacher at Northwest Middle School in Taneytown, Maryland, has become a catalyst for reforestation efforts, melding his engineering experience with restoration initiatives.
Smucker recalls the moment 10 years ago that sparked his interest in forest restoration. "It all started behind my house with a reforestation effort, but all of the trees that were planted slowly died. I didn't like that so I did a lot of research to help [the trees] out and fell in love with the process, which led me to start dropping acorns into empty tree shelters," said Smucker.
The moment created a ripple effect that resulted in Smucker spearheading forest restoration by organizing volunteer plantings and entering into a partnership with Mount Saint Mary's University and the Francis Scott Key Center. Both locations provide space for Smucker to grow the thousands of trees he uses for plantings.
Smucker spends about 700 hours every year in all aspects of creating riparian buffers, like meeting with landowners, auguring the holes, organizing the volunteers and also conducting the most critical part of the process Smucker says, maintenance. Plantings are held on Saturdays during April, May and October – the most opportune months for tree survivability and comfortable outdoor temperatures for volunteers to work.
When choosing planting locations, Smucker explains, "Being a grower really is a game changer for me, because I can fully understand what the trees need to survive." Once a site is selected, he samples the soil, observes what plant species are in the area, spends time in his greenhouses flagging all of the appropriate trees for the site and rallies his volunteer base around the planting.
When it comes to tree plantings, the name of the game is fun and education. Many of his volunteers are young people who are in a mindset to learn. Each planting is preceded with an ecology lesson highlighting the importance of riparian zones, stream shading and nutrient removal. "As a middle school teacher it is important to organize the event so it's fun and rewarding, because if they get frustrated, they will associate that frustration with tree planting. If they associate it with fun, then the environmental stewardship will perpetuate a lot better. If it's organized right and goes smoothly then it's a feel-good thing, just like in the classroom," Smucker explained.
Smucker encourages his students to work out solutions to engineering problems with the tree plantings and challenges them to think up innovative ways to overcome obstacles. "Tree planting and technology education are really the same thing. It's problem solving and the engineering design process. What is the problem? What is the solution? Evaluate and modify," said Smucker.
Over the years, Smucker's volunteer base and partner organizations have expanded to the point where he has been able to launch an organization of his own, Stream Link Education, a nonprofit that organizes and leads tree plantings with local community members, organizations and businesses. "The coolest thing I think we do is Natives for Nonprofits. We grow trees for giveaways to other organizations, which is great because budgets are really tight and donations are hugely welcome. It also helps establish partnerships, not because I want something in return but because it's neat to make connections," said Smucker.
Smucker aims to perpetuate choices and actions by providing people with hands on educational experiences. "If you're excited about something and value it, then demonstrate the value, they [the volunteers] will see it. The excitement can be catching," he said. He continued to explain that in addition to educating others and improving the environment, his enthusiasm for restoration remains strong because he is still able to grow as well, "I'm going to turn 50 in January and I'm thinking, 'if I do this right, I've got my 50's and 60's and if I can stay healthy, I can do this for a long time.' And that's great. There is always something to learn."
To view more photos, visit the Chesapeake Bay Program's Flickr page
When thinking of wine, Maryland may not be the first state that comes to mind, but for the Deford family, the artful pairing of responsible land management and master craftsmanship at Boordy Vineyards has put the Free State on the wine aficionado map.
Nestled in the rolling countryside of Long Green Valley in Hyde, Maryland, a mere 30 minutes outside of Baltimore, the 240-acre property provides solace to visitors, melting away the stressors of daily life with views of rich vegetation, historic farmland and 25 acres of intricately arranged rows of grapevines.
The family strives to develop a lasting connection with the community and welcomes visitors year-round by regularly hosting events. "Everything we do here has an educational component to it because wineries are unusual in Maryland, farming is increasingly rare and we are constantly competing with other views of how the countryside around Baltimore County should be managed," said Robert Deford, President and owner of Boordy. "We really want farming to succeed here."
To Deford, a twelfth generation Marylander and the fourth generation to be raised on the farm, success and sustainability go hand-in-hand. In 2000, the family placed the property under permanent conservation easement through Maryland Environmental Trust, allowing the farm to proceed without having to compete with development money by taking the option to sell the land to developers off the table. "We look at land not as an empty resource to be built on, but as something to be tended to and taken care of. For me, sustainability means the ability to realize the dream of continuing to live and work here," explained Deford.
The 25 full-time and 75 part-time employees have adopted the Defords' mission of sustainability and assist in the efforts to be as efficient as possible. "If we are not sustainable by definition, we are going to go out of business at some point. The land is what sustains us, so if we treat it badly the system is going to crash," said Deford.
A number of best management practices have been implemented on the vineyard to reduce the establishment's energy demands and impact on the environment. Staff hand-pick the fruit – avoiding the use of machinery – to ensure only the highest-quality grapes end up in the wine; the rest are left for wildlife, like birds, to scavenge. Grass grows freely in between the vines to stabilize the soil and mitigate runoff of sediment into the adjacent stream on the property. Additionally, all stems and pomace are composted post-production and returned to the fields as fertilizer.
A wetland was created at the head of the stream to catch any residual runoff before it enters the waterway, eventually making its way to the Gunpowder River and ultimately the Chesapeake Bay. The wetland serves not only as a pollution buffer but also as habitat to countless species of wildlife such as beavers, ducks, white-tailed deer and raptors. "Another thing that is great is we have excluded all livestock [from the stream], and it is astounding the fish people are finding down there, especially the American eel. I think it is a great model for what can be done to a stream that was really in distress," said Deford.
The family is mindful of their greenhouse gas emissions and works to reduce their outputs by using the carbon dioxide created in the fermentation process to stir their red wine tanks. The carbon dioxide is collected, builds up and eventually erupts through the tank – stirring the wine and saving electricity. "There is an interesting concern over the fact that when you make wine you emit carbon dioxide into the atmosphere; however, what I always point out to people is that just up the hill is the other end of it – those vines take in carbon dioxide, so really it's just a cycle," notes Deford.
Helpful for Boordy has been the advent of the local food movement, a developing culture focused around locally-produced food and the process of getting it from the farm to the table. With the movement comes a growing consumer demand to meet the farmer and know where food comes from. "This isn't just liquid in a bottle," said Deford. "A lot more goes into it."
To view more photos, visit the Chesapeake Bay Program's Flickr page
Think of a food, any food. It could be what you had for breakfast, or something you've been craving. Once you have an image in your mind, imagine what that snack would look like without the existence of fruits, vegetables or grains. Would it completely disappear? Would only a portion remain? Now ask yourself, "What is the common link—the necessary life source—behind the production of our food?"
The answer lies in the simple act of pollination. It is nearly impossible to think of something within our diet that can exist without it. Pollination, or the transfer of pollen between like species of flowers by wind or wildlife, leads to the formation of healthy fruit and seeds. It is estimated that nearly one-third of all plants and plant products consumed by humans depend on bee pollination alone.
Educators at Arlington Echo Outdoor Education Center in Millersville, Maryland, understand this fact and work to teach others about the important role that pollinators—like bees, butterflies and bats—play in our ecosystem. For the past 17 years, the center has partnered with the Anne Arundel Beekeepers Association (AABA) to provide a home for more than 80,000 honeybees each year. When needed, AABA donates bees to Arlington Echo to replenish the center's four outdoor bee boxes and two indoor observation hives. While the outdoor apiary is used for ecological purposes—providing habitat for the bees—the observation hives are used to teach children and adults alike about insect anatomy and life cycles, pollinator survival, community roles and math.
While it started as a recreation center, Arlington Echo quickly evolved to support authentic, hands-on learning. Arlington Echo Outdoor Education Center is part of Anne Arundel County Public Schools and has been for 45 years. In fact, it is visited by every fourth grader in the county. "Education facilitates change," said Sheen Goldberg, Teacher Specialist at Arlington Echo. The volume of students they reach each year provides a valuable opportunity to plant the seed of environmental awareness in many young minds. Here, people learn to make the connection between pollinators and the food they eat.
"One of the major issues we face today… is a lack of knowledge about the environment and where things come from," said Melanie Parker, Coordinator of Arlington Echo's Environmental Literacy and Outdoor Education Department. "[Food] doesn't come from the grocery store. And it's not just our kids [who are unaware]. Sometimes, it's parents. Sometimes, generations don't have that connection with the land and nature. There's not that experience or exposure. All people see is that chicken comes in a package and isn't an animal that's running around on the ground. There is a detachment to where our stuff comes from."
Spreading knowledge and linking people to their natural environment is a vital part of Arlington Echo's mission. By connecting the dots between healthy pollinators and a healthy environment, they hope to incite positive change and help pollinators overcome the challenges they face. Population growth and development have encroached on pollinator habitat; chemical contaminants harm their health; and both native and invasive pests, parasites and diseases threaten populations.
"Right now, pesticides are a really big deal. Bees are going through something that we are calling Colony Collapse Disorder because we don't actually know what causes it," said Heather Calabrese, Program Assistant at Arlington Echo. "There is some research that points to a class of insecticides called neonicotinoids. It's interesting how it, and many other pesticides, work. It doesn't actually kill the animal right away. It effects the nervous system, disorienting it, [the animal] stops cleaning itself, eating, feeding other animals, and then it starves to death or dies of disease."
Although honeybees, like those kept at Arlington Echo, are not native to North America, they are not considered invasive. Instead, they are considered an important part of our natural ecosystem, and their decline is directly linked to habitat loss. Development fragments wildlife habitat and pushes native species out. "Because of development, we lose native plant populations. If there is not enough food for our pollinators because we have built on their habitat, then we won't have the native pollinators," Parker explained.
Over the past 60 years, managed bee populations have declined from 6 million to 2.5 million, an alarming number that has sparked many states and organizations to offer financial and tax incentives to encourage people to keep bees.
Parker, Goldberg and Calabrese are all enthusiastic about keeping bees and claim that once you start, you can't help but become fascinated by the social complexities of the critters. "You can put as much or as little work into maintaining the hive as you would like," said Goldberg. "The bees are clean, hardworking and good at taking care of the hive for the most part."
The educators at Arlington Echo stress the importance of making connections between the natural world and human health. Many of the things that harm pollinators also pose a threat to humans, water and other wildlife. "There is the developmental part of… pollinator population decline, but also the pesticide use," Parker said. "Those pesticides end up in our waterways. You know, everything is connected. You pull one string and the rest unravels. So, even though it seems like a small piece, it is part of a bigger issue."
To view more photos, visit the Chesapeake Bay Program's Flickr page.
At the Alice Ferguson Foundation, an object as small as a piece of Styrofoam poses a big problem. Because whether it can be held in a volunteer's hand or just fits into the bed of a truck, litter is at the center of the non-profit organization's work.
Founded in 1954, the Alice Ferguson Foundation has an office in Washington, D.C., and an historic farmhouse-turned-workspace in southern Maryland. Whether it is through teacher trainings, field studies or volunteer clean-ups, the organization works to promote the sustainability of the Potomac River watershed. And one of the biggest issues facing the Potomac River is trash.
Most of what the Alice Ferguson Foundation does touches on litter: its danger is discussed with students on field studies; programs, events and meetings are often trash-free; and the office culture is one of low- to no-waste. You won't find disposable plates or cups in the kitchen, and cloth napkins are washed, dried and reused on-site. Food waste is given to the pigs on Hard Bargain Farm, and bathrooms are equipped with hand-dryers. Clara Elias, Program Manager for the Trash Free Potomac Watershed Initiative, puts it simply: "We're committed to reducing trash."
Image courtesy kryn13/Flickr
In the Potomac River watershed, there are two kinds of trash. First, Elias explained, there is the new litter that is generated on a regular basis, like the plastic bags, cigarette butts and beverage bottles found on streets and sidewalks. Second, there is the legacy litter left behind long ago at a particular site, like a pile of old tires sitting on the edge of a parking lot. Across the watershed, trash is both an urban and rural issue, although it differs between regions. While bottles and cans often float down the river from urban centers, rural areas that are without strong recycling programs face issues with illegal dumping of appliances, cars and even deer carcasses.
Over the 26 years that the Alice Ferguson Foundation has hosted the Potomac River Watershed Clean Up, the trash in the Potomac has changed. Volunteers used to pick up a lot of plastic bags, but after bag fees were passed in the District of Columbia, plastic bags in District waters dropped 50 percent. Similar legislation passed in Montgomery County caused this number to drop 70 percent. There was a change, too, in the plastic bags themselves, as volunteers now find more pet waste and newspaper bags than the shopping bags that carry the five-cent fee. Even so, Elias noted that at least half of the trash picked up along the Potomac is recyclable, which indicates more must be done to slow the flow of pollution into our rivers and streams.
"In American culture, we're so used to having so many disposable things. We're not taught how much energy it takes to dispose of [all of] it," Elias said. So the Alice Ferguson Foundation teaches people just that.
On a Bridging the Watershed field study, students play a game of Trash Tag and learn about street sweepers, trash traps and other litter-reducing best management practices. On the Hard Bargain Farm, students sprinkle a shower curtain with food coloring, sand and pieces of paper. When the curtain gets wet, the pretend fertilizer, sediment and trash are washed downstream. And before their visit to the site, students are given a guide to packing a trash-free lunch. After their meal, students weigh the paper napkins, straw wrappers and other leftover trash and compete with other school groups to produce the least amount.
In addition to its field studies, the Alice Ferguson Foundation has also had success with its Trash Free Schools initiative, which helps students teach their peers, lead their own cleanups and change their school's culture to produce less waste.
Trash is "tangible and physical, unlike energy or [stormwater] runoff, which are things you can't see or touch or smell," Elias said. "It builds momentum among students. Trash is a great issue for students to learn about."
On a blue bird day in Church Creek, Maryland, a white pickup truck bounces down a dirt driveway, splashing through fresh mud puddles and leaving ripples in its wake. The low whirring of female Northern pintail ducks in the middle of their courtship is exuberant, and there is excitement in the air – it is almost time for the birds to make their long migration north.
The truck rounds a bend and hundreds of waterfowl take flight, seeking solace in the nearby Honga River. Landowner Jerry Harris steps out of the truck, his two hunting dogs, Bo and Maddie, in tow. Jerry has owned Mallard Haven River Farm for nearly 20 years and has transformed it from an open pasture to an ideal stopover site for thousands of waterfowl migrating along the Atlantic Flyway.
Harris recounts purchasing the farm as an open pasture with a ditch down the center in the late '90s. Initially, he battled saltwater intrusion and high-tide floods of the Chesapeake Bay. His solution involved closing off the connection between the ditch and the Bay and creating a freshwater storage area that can now hold up to 6.5 million gallons of water. With financial assistance from the state of Maryland, Ducks Unlimited and North American Wetlands Conservation Act Grants (NAWCA), he built berms to create a series of separate water impoundments for use by waterfowl across 80 acres of the 230-acre farm.
Harris has hired two full-time employees to help maintain the property. "We've tried to do everything to improve the efficiency of our work," Harris said. "We have pipes in all the impoundments that lead to a main water storage ditch, so we can connect our portable pumps right to the pipes and drive the water wherever we would like. If we're irrigating this field during a dry period we don't have to hook hoses up or anything."
Because his land is privately owned, Harris has the freedom to experiment with unconventional conservation practices. His latest endeavor? Moist soils management, or the slow draw down of water from the impoundments to foster the growth of wetland plants like smartweed, fall panicum and fox tail. "As the water gradually comes down, it will support different kinds of weeds, and if you are good enough at it you can have a whole platter of foods that fulfill the ducks' dietary needs," Harris said. Moist soils management is good for the wildlife and the farmer: it cuts fertilizer use, and mechanical tilling is only needed about once every five years.
In the past, Harris grew corn on his farm to provide high-energy food for visiting waterfowl. Harris admits that deer and their affinity for corn have presented a challenge to his habitat management practices. For this reason, he plans to grow rice instead. "It's literally the same kind of high-carbohydrate food that corn is," Harris said. "The big advantage is that the deer don't eat rice. In some fields, nearly half of the corn crop gets eaten by the deer."
Harris has been an avid hunter since he was a young boy; growing up hunting with his grandfather on the bays north of San Francisco cultivated his passion for conserving wildlife habitat. He now owns three farms in Maryland and one in Montana, all under conservation easements through Ducks Unlimited, the largest land conservation owner in the United States, of which he sits on the board.
"The farm is big enough that on a windy day you can be shooting on the farm and the upwind birds will still be there. With the wild ducks, the thing you want to do if you want to keep them is not disturb them too much, otherwise they find another place to go," Harris said. He has even calculated exactly how many ducks he and his guests can harvest in a year without negatively impacting waterfowl populations, setting the limit at 175 ducks from all four farms.
Harris designates 20 percent of his time to sitting on the board of Ducks Unlimited and of Waterfowl Chesapeake, a Maryland-based non-profit whose mission is to create, restore and conserve waterfowl habitat in the Chesapeake Bay Region. Together they help draw awareness to protecting area wetlands.
Judy Price, the executive director of Waterfowl Chesapeake, has helped the organization raise more than $5 million for habitat restoration and conservation education projects. Waterfowl Chesapeake, the umbrella organization of the annual Waterfowl Festival, held in November in Easton, Maryland, recently created an alliance for waterfowl conservation that consists of a panel of scientific experts that offer advice to current and prospective habitat restoration initiatives. They have also created a restoration project registry, expanding the visibility of high-value projects to the public and potential funders.
When asked why protecting waterfowl habitat is a priority, Price responded, "The annual migration of waterfowl truly enhances our lives throughout the Chesapeake region and, in particular, the Eastern Shore. Not only do we gain ecological benefits, but also significant economic value, from a healthy waterfowl community. By focusing on maintaining strong habitat, hopefully, we can avoid people, years from now, saying, 'I remember seeing ducks and geese in the skies. Whatever happened to them?'"
Images by Steve Droter. To view more photos, visit the Chesapeake Bay Program Flickr page.
Garden beds filled with native plants, parking spots reserved for fuel-efficient vehicles and plant-covered roofs that trap rainfall before it runs into storm drains: these simple steps to "go green" have turned a Southern Maryland community college into a model of conservation.
Located less than five miles from the Patuxent River, the College of Southern Maryland's (CSM) Prince Frederick campus has become home to a green building that shows students and citizens alike the benefits of green infrastructure.
Indeed, green building has become the norm for new facilities in a state that has long championed smart growth and all that it entails, from funding development inside of existing communities to protecting rural areas from suburban sprawl. Maryland legislation passed in 2008 even requires building projects of a certain size to be certified as green, whether it is through the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Green Building Certification program or the Green Globes system. At 30,000 square feet, the academic building in Prince Frederick fit the bill of needing to be green.
"[Earning green certification] was a mandate from the state," said Richard Fleming, CSM vice president and dean of the Prince Frederick campus. "It's a laborious process, but it has also been exciting, because I had never worked with [a green building] before."
Fleming has worked with community colleges for 35 years, and was until 2009 the vice president for academic affairs at Thomas Nelson Community College in Hampton, Va. The chance to construct a new building on the fastest-growing campus in the CSM network attracted him to this new position at his sixth college in as many states.
Opened in September and funded in part by the state, the Prince Frederick building is the second LEED-certified building in Calvert County. According to the U.S. Green Building Council, which operates the LEED certification program, green buildings can lower energy use and operational costs; reduce waste and carbon emissions; and provide healthy indoor spaces for building occupants. These are all benefits that Fleming hopes to see.
"The goal behind LEED is to one, reduce water consumption, and two, reduce energy consumption," Fleming said. "We should, after a period of time… start to see some kind of gas savings, electrical savings, energy savings."
To earn LEED certification, building projects collect points based on different aspects of their construction. The higher their final score, the higher the certification level earned. Fleming hopes that the Prince Frederick building will reach gold status, and gave us a tour of some of the items on its green building checklist: large windows that flood the space with natural light; green roofs that capture rainfall; bike racks that encourage public transportation; bio-retention cells that collect stormwater from sidewalks and parking lots; and native, drought-tolerant plants—like black-eyed Susans, American beautyberry and Joe-Pye weed—that fill up garden beds.
Students and faculty "are all very pleased with [the new building]," Fleming said. But it is not just the campus that will benefit.
"This is a building that's open to the public," said Dorothy Hill, lead media relations coordinator for CSM. The campus has hosted film festivals and concert series, and the new building's 3,000-square-foot meeting space has been called the best in Calvert County.
"At the dedication, people were very interested in learning what LEED certification was all about," Hill said. "The community comes here, and will be able to see… that we're stewards of the environment, and we care about the community."
Photos by Jenna Valente.
The Chesapeake Bay watershed is home to more than 17 million people, each of whom is reliant on water. But as populations grow and communities expand, we send pollutants into our rivers and streams, affecting every drop of water in the region. How, then, do so many of us still have access to clean water? The answer lies within wastewater treatment plants.
One plant, in particular, plays a pivotal role in the region's water quality. Located in Washington, D.C., the Blue Plains Wastewater Treatment Plant has served the D.C. metropolitan area since 1983. The plant receives 40 percent of its flow from Maryland, 40 percent from the District and 20 percent from Virginia. With the capacity to treat 370 million gallons of sewage each day, it is the largest wastewater treatment plant in the world and the only one in the nation to serve multiple states.
Recently, the District of Columbia Water and Sewer Authority—also known as DC Water—made technological upgrades to Blue Plains. Evidence shows these upgrades have already accounted for reductions in nutrient pollution and a resurgence in the upper Potomac River's bay grass beds. Indeed, putting new wastewater treatment technology in place is a critical step toward meeting the pollution limits established in the Chesapeake Bay Total Maximum Daily Load. As of 2012, 45 percent of the watershed's 467 wastewater treatment plants had limits in place that met water quality standards.
Because of spatial constraints, many of upgrades planned for Blue Plains will focus on intensifying the wastewater treatment process. According to Sudhir Muthy, innovation chief for DC Water, the more concentrated the purification process is, the more energy efficient the plant can be.
For decades, the philosophy behind wastewater treatment plants has been to imitate those clean water processes that you might see in natural systems. Lately, there has been a shift in thinking about how wastewater is treated. Murthy explains: "Now, more attention is given to using the energy created within the treatment process to run the plant. [For example,] carbon has a lot of energy and is created during the treatment process. We are trying to harness [carbon's] energy to help the plant run in a more energy-efficient way. We are now asking: How do we optimize the use of energy within the wastewater treatment process?"
Blue Plains hopes to become energy neutral in 10 to 15 years, and upgrades to reduce pollution and save energy will continue for years to come. A new tunnel will allow both sewage and wastewater to flow from the District to the plant, where it will be treated to reduce the flow of polluted runoff into the Potomac River. And a new process will recycle "waste" heat to "steam explode" bacterial sludge, turning it into a biosolid that can be mixed with soil, used as fertilizer and generate extra revenue.
"All processes use energy," Muthy said. "But if you can find ways to offset or recycle that energy use, then you can move towards being more efficient."
Along the developed waterfront of Baltimore's Inner Harbor sits a 16-acre marina complex known as Lighthouse Point. The Canton business rents slips to hundreds of people each year, and has become a hub for eco-conscious boaters who want to dock their craft with a staff who works hard for clean water.
Lighthouse Point is managed by Baltimore Marine Centers, which operates four other marinas in one of the busiest harbors in the Chesapeake Bay. Each of their facilities is a certified Clean Marina, and the business has worked to promote green practices throughout Baltimore.
Lighthouse Point was named a 2012 Clean Marina of the Year as part of a Maryland Department of Natural Resources (DNR) initiative that recognizes marinas that adopt pollution prevention practices. From picking up trash along shorelines to containing dust and debris from boat repair and maintenance, close to 25 percent of the state's 600 marinas are practicing Clean Marinas or Clean Marina Partners, and the designation has borne benefits for businesses and the Bay alike.
According to the DNR, a number of Clean Marina operators have experienced reduced insurance rates, improved relationships with inspectors and an ability to attract customers and charge competitive rates for slips and other services.
"[The Clean Marina program] is not only good for the environment. It's a great marketing tool," said Jessica Bowling, Director of Sales for Baltimore Marine Centers. "Boaters that value clean water and responsible businesses can come here, and we take pride in that."
Baltimore Marine Centers hopes that taking part in the Clean Marina program will help spread this Bay-friendly mindset among its customers. Educating boaters in clean boating practices is a critical component of Clean Marina certification, and a responsibility the business looks forward to fulfilling.
"We have to educate boaters," Bowling said. "We see that as a responsibility. [We have] to say, these things aren't right, you shouldn't be doing them. If you care about our water, you need to take care of it."
So Baltimore Marine Centers shares clean boating tips in its electronic newsletter, which is sent to 6,000 boaters each week. And at Lighthouse Point, staff make their pollution prevention practices known.
On a recent tour of the marina, marina manager Kevin McGuire showed us what the business has done to protect clean water. He pointed out the fuel absorbencies that boaters use while pumping their gas and the pump-out facilities that ensure waste ends up at local treatment plants rather than in rivers and streams. He showed us the large recycling cans that are emptied up to three times each week and the signs that encourage boaters to pick up after their pets. He told us that staff scoop litter out of the water each morning and encourage boaters to avoid tossing their soda cans, snack packaging and other trash overboard. And he pointed out the shorelines that could soon be home to wetland plants, which would turn an empty space into a beneficial one.
"You don't want a dirty marina," McGuire said. "You want a green and clean facility."
Bowling agreed. "Boaters love to be on their boats," she said. "But they want swimmable water, too. And they recognize that they play a role in making that happen."
Find certified Clean Marinas in Maryland and Virginia, or learn more about clean boating from our How To's and Tips page.
Images by Jenna Valente
On a quiet cove in Southern Maryland, a series of orange and white markers declares a stretch of water off limits to fishing. Under the surface sits spawning habitat for largemouth bass, a fish that contributes millions of dollars to the region's economy each year and for whom two such sanctuaries have been established in the state. Here, the fish are protected from recreational anglers each spring and studied by scientists hoping to learn more about them and their habitat needs.
The largemouth bass can be found across the watershed and is considered one of the most popular sport fishes in the United States. While regional populations are strong, a changing Chesapeake Bay—think rising water temperatures, disappearing grasses and the continued arrival of invasive species—is changing bass habitat and could have an effect on future fish.
For decades, scientists with the Maryland Department of Natural Resources (DNR) have collected data on the distribution of largemouth bass, tracking the species and monitoring the state's two sanctuaries in order to gather the knowledge needed to keep the fishery sustainable. Established in 2010 on the Chicamuxen and Nanjemoy creeks, both of which flow into the Potomac River, these sanctuaries have been fortified with plastic pipes meant to serve as spawning structures. And, it seems, these sanctuaries are in high demand during spawning season.
On an overcast day in April, three members of the DNR Tidal Bass Survey team—Joseph Love, Tim Groves and Branson Williams—are surveying the sanctuary in Chicamuxen Creek. Groves flips a switch and the vessel starts to send electrical currents into the water, stunning fish for capture by the scientists on board. The previous day, the team caught, tagged and released 20 bass; this morning, the men catch 19, none of which were tagged the day before.
"This [lack of recaptures] indicates that we have quite a few bass out here," said Love, Tidal Bass Manager.
Indeed, the state's largemouth bass fishery "is pretty doggone good," Love continued. "That said, we recognize that the ecosystem is changing. And I don't think anybody wants to rest on the laurels of a great fishery."
As Love and his team learn how largemouth bass are using the state's sanctuaries, they can work to improve the sanctuaries' function and move to protect them and similar habitats from further development or disturbance.
"We can speculate where the best coves are, but this is the ground truthing that we need to do," Love said.
In the fall, the team will return to the cove to count juvenile bass and report on juvenile-to-adult population ratios. While the assessment of the state's sanctuaries is a small-scale project, it is one "aimed at the bigger picture," Love said.
Love's team is "doing what we can to improve the use of these coves by bass." And protecting bass habitat and improving water quality will have a positive effect on the coves overall, creating healthier systems for neighboring plants and animals.
"By protecting these important areas, we are also protecting the larger ecosystem," Love said.
Photos by Jenna Valente. To view more, visit our Flickr set.
Cover crops, streamside trees and nutrient management plans: all are exceptional ways to reduce nutrient pollution in the Chesapeake Bay. And for father and son duo Elwood and Hunter Williams, restoring the Bay begins with conservation practices and a shift in mentality.
"We knew coming down the road that we needed to do a better job with keeping the water clean," Hunter said. "We decided that if there was going to be a problem with the streams it wasn't going to be us."
Restoration Spotlight: Misty Mountain Farm from Chesapeake Bay Program on Vimeo.
Excess nutrients come from many places, including wastewater treatment plants, agricultural runoff and polluted air. When nitrogen and phosphorus reach waterways, they can fuel the growth of large algae blooms that negatively affect the health of the Bay. In order to reduce these impacts, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has implemented a Bay "pollution diet," known as the Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL).
Since the passing of the TMDL, many farmers in the watershed have felt the added pressure of the cleanup on their shoulders, but for the Williams family, having the foresight to implement best management practices (BMPs) just seemed like the environmentally and fiscally responsible thing to do.
"We don't want to get to a point where regulations are completely out of control," Hunter explained. "Farmers know what they're putting on the ground so we have the ability to control it. Most people who have yards don't have a clue what they're putting on the ground when they use fertilizer. The difference has to be made up by the farmers because we know exactly what is going on to our soil."
The Williams family began implementing BMPs on Misty Mountain Farm in 2006 by teaming up with the Potomac Valley Conservation District (PVCD). The government-funded non-profit organization has been providing assistance to farmers and working to preserve West Virginia's natural resources since 1943.
The PVCD operates the Agricultural Enhancement Program (AgEP), which has steadily gained popularity among chicken farmers and livestock owners located in the West Virginia panhandle and Potomac Valley. While these two districts make up just 14 percent of West Virginia's land mass, these regions are where many of the Bay's tributaries begin—so it is important for area landowners to be conscious of pollutants entering rivers and streams.
AgEP is designed to provide financial aid and advice to farmers in areas that the Farm Bill does not cover. PVCD is run in a grassroots fashion, as employees collaborate with local farmers to pinpoint and meet their specific needs.
"It [AgEP] has been very well received," said Carla Hardy, Watershed Program Coordinator with the PVCD. "It's the local, state and individuals saying, "These are our needs and this is how our money should be spent." Farmers understand that in order to keep AgEP a voluntary plan they need to pay attention to their conservation practices."
Hunter admits the hardest part of switching to BMPs was changing his mindset and getting on board. Originally, Hunter was looking at the Bay's pollution problems as a whole, but with optimistic thinking and assistance from PVCD, he realized that the best way to overcome a large problem was to cross one bridge at a time.
It wasn't long before the Williams family started to see results: fencing off streams from cattle led to cleaner water; building barns to overwinter cows allowed them to grow an average of 75 pounds heavier than before, making them more valuable to the farm.
By using BMPs, the Williams family has set a positive example for farmers across the watershed, proving that with hard work and a 'sky is the limit' mentality, seemingly impossible goals can be met.
Hunter points out, "We are proud to know that if you are traveling to Misty Mountain Farm you can't say, "Hey these guys aren't doing their part."
Video produced by Steve Droter.
On private piers up and down Harris Creek, hundreds of metal cages hang from ropes into blue-green water. Inside each cage are countless little oysters, which will grow here, safe from predators and sediment, during their first nine months of life. Once the spat are large enough, they will be pulled out of their short-term shelters and put onto boats to be replanted on protected reefs just a few short miles away.
The cages—along with the bivalves inside them—are cared for by volunteers with the Tilghman Islanders Grow Oysters (TIGO) program, itself a local branch of the Marylanders Grow Oysters program that is managed by the Phillips Wharf Environmental Center (PWEC).
Now in its second season, TIGO has recruited more than 80 volunteers across the so-called "Bay Hundred" region—from Bozman and Neavitt to Wittman and Tilghman Island—to further oyster restoration efforts in the Chesapeake Bay.
Over the past two centuries, native oyster populations have experienced a dramatic decline, as habitat loss, disease and historic over-harvesting have taken their toll. But programs like this one give hatchery-grown oysters a head start before they are put into the Bay to replenish critical underwater reefs.
The TIGO program has attracted a wide range of restoration enthusiasts, from the middle-school student who has tracked her oysters' growth for a science fair project to the neighbors who have competed against each other to grow more and bigger oysters. The main draw? What little effort is involved.
"Growing oysters is an effort, but it's a really easy effort," said TIGO coordinator Carol McCollough. "And we remove as many of the roadblocks as we possibly can for people who want to do this."
Aside from a promise to keep cages free of excess sand and silt, the program doesn't ask too much of its volunteers—and this has worked to its advantage.
H. Truitt Sunderland is a Wittman resident whose cages are filling up fast after six months of growth. The oysters have gone from mere millimeters to one and two inches in size, and a host of other critters—like grass shrimp and gobies, mud crabs and skillet fish—have taken up residence on this makeshift reef just as they would do on oyster bars in the Bay.
Sunderland's home sits on Cummings Creek, and Sunderland has used the ease of the work involved—"I don't even know how they can call this volunteer work," he laughed—to involve his neighbors. Now, there are 24 cages on 12 piers in this single stretch of water.
Tilghman Island resident and fellow volunteer Steve Bender has had a similar experience. "The process is simple," Bender said, standing on a wooden pier that juts into Blackwalnut Cove. "It's not that demanding. It's not that difficult to care for [the oysters]." And in response to his encouragement, Bender's neighbors have been "glad" to join.
While projects like this one are a small drop in the restoration bucket, McCullough hopes that TIGO can cast a personal light on conservation for all those who are involved.
"We [at PWEC] inform, inspire and involve," McCullough said. "We're all about getting people to commit to [changes in] behaviors. It's very easy to give money. It's less easy to write letters. And I think in many ways, it's even less easy to do something personal—to do restoration work on your own."
But for McCullough, it's possible that the simple act of caring for a cage of oysters could act as a stepping stone toward further involvement in the Bay.
"Oysters have become very exciting to people," McCullough said. "They recognize that every single additional oyster in the Bay is a positive thing. That oyster restoration is something that's bigger than they are."
For more photos, visit the Chesapeake Bay Program Flickr page.
Photos by Multimedia Coordinator Steve Droter.
On a winter morning in Annapolis, Md., a snow-covered truck pulls into the parking lot of a local seafood restaurant. A man in white boots and rubber gloves steps out of the cab, a metal door swings open behind the building and plastic trash cans full of oyster shells are exchanged between restaurant chef and shell recycler.
The trade is just one stop on a route that connects the 130 members of the Shell Recycling Alliance: a group of restaurants, caterers and seafood wholesalers that save their unneeded shells—some in five-gallon buckets, some in 14-gallon trash cans, some in 55-gallon wheeled bins—for pick up by Tommy Price.
Price is a Special Programs Specialist with the Oyster Recovery Partnership, a conservation group that has for two decades worked to restore oysters in the Chesapeake Bay. As a driver in the partnership's fleet of trucks—which are complete with shell recycling logos and oyster-themed license plates—Price has watched the Shell Recycling Alliance grow, generating more than 1,000 tons of shell that are an integral piece in the oyster restoration puzzle.
Sent to an environmental research lab and oyster hatchery on Maryland's Eastern Shore, the shells are cured, power-washed and put to work as settling material for the billions of oyster larvae that are planted to replenish reefs across the Bay.
Over the past two centuries, native oyster populations have experienced a dramatic decline as habitat loss, disease and historic over-harvesting have taken their toll. But by filtering water, forming aquatic reefs and feeding countless watershed residents, the bivalves have become an essential part of the Bay's environment and economy.
It is this link between businesses and the Bay that inspired Boatyard Bar and Grill to sign on to the Shell Recycling Alliance.
"The Bay is a huge economic engine for this area," said restaurant owner Dick Franyo. "Look at what we do here—it's all about fishing, sailing, 'Save the Bay.' It's where we come from. It's what we think about."
Franyo, who sits on the Chesapeake Bay Foundation's board of trustees, has upheld a conservation ethic in much of what his restaurant does. It donates at least one percent of its annual revenue to environmental organizations; it composts all of its food waste; it recycles oyster shells alongside glass, metal and plastic; and it spreads the word about the restoration efforts that still need to be made.
All Shell Recycling Alliance members are given brochures, table tents and "Zagat"-style window stickers to use as tools of engagement, teaching customers and clientele about the importance of saving shell.
"Shell is a vital ingredient in oyster restoration," said Stephan Abel, executive director of the Oyster Recovery Partnership. "It's like flour in bread."
Indeed, it has become such a valuable resource that a bill has been proposed that would give individuals and businesses a $1 tax credit for each bushel of shell recycled.
"The Bay, restoration and oysters—it's all one story," Abel said. And without oyster shells, the story would be incomplete.
After eleven years, $40 million and more than 16,000 linear feet of pipe, West Virginia is set to bring a new wastewater treatment plant online and make huge cuts to the pollution it sends into the Chesapeake Bay.
Under construction in West Virginia's Eastern Panhandle, the Moorefield Wastewater Treatment Plant will replace four existing plants with one new system, marking a significant milestone in the headwater state's efforts to curb pollution and improve water quality. Expected to go into operation this fall, the plant will remove 90,000 pounds of nitrogen and 93,000 pounds of phosphorous from West Virginia wastewater each year.
Funded by a range of sources—including the West Virginia Economic Development Authority, the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)—the new plant is heralded as evidence that thoughtful planning and forward-thinking—especially where pollution regulations are concerned—can help a community move toward conservation and environmental change.
Restoration Spotlight: Wastewater overhaul will cut pollution in West Virginia from Chesapeake Bay Program on Vimeo.
In the 1990s, the hundreds of wastewater treatment plants that are located across the watershed could be blamed for more than a quarter of the nutrient pollution entering the Bay, as the plants pumped water laden with nitrogen and phosphorous into local rivers and streams. Such an excess of nutrients can fuel the growth of algae blooms that block sunlight from reaching underwater grasses and, during decomposition, rob the water of the oxygen that aquatic species need to survive.
But in the last decade, technological upgrades to wastewater treatment plants have surged, and the pollution cuts that result mean these plants now contribute less than 20 percent of the nutrients still entering the Bay.
According to Rich Batiuk, Associate Director for Science with the EPA, the uptick in upgrades can be attributed to a number of factors.
"Wastewater treatment plants have always been regulated," Batiuk said. "But [until the last decade], there wasn't the science or the political will or the … water quality standards that could drive the higher levels of wastewater treatment that result in lower levels of nitrogen and phosphorous flowing into the watershed."
As the science behind wastewater engineering has improved and the incentives for implementing upgrades have grown, more plants have begun to make changes. Some implement a "zero discharge" plan, using nutrient-rich effluent to feed agricultural crops rather than excess algae. Others—like the Moorefield plant—expose wastewater to nutrient-hungry microbes that feed on nitrogen and phosphorous; the resulting sludge, modified without the addition of chemicals, can be turned into compost rather than fodder for the local landfill.
Such modern upgrades to otherwise aging infrastructure have been celebrated as a boon for local communities and the wider watershed. While the Moorefield plant will, in the end, curb pollution into the Bay, it will first curb pollution in the South Branch of the Potomac River, into which it sends its effluent.
"The South Branch of the Potomac is a unique place," Batiuk said. "People fish there, they swim there. This new plant helps more than the Chesapeake Bay."
And Moorefield residents—including the Town of Moorefield Public Works Director Lucas Gagnon—plan to witness this local change firsthand.
"The residents in this area are aware of the Chesapeake Bay and its needed [nutrient] reductions," Gagnon said. "But the biggest benefit for the local folks will be the reduction of nutrients in local waterways."
"There are many people that fish and boat the South Branch," Gagnon continued. "When this plant goes online, the water quality will be greatly enhanced, and they will have a much cleaner, better river to enjoy."


text:
May 21, 2013
Video duration: 54:54Video has closed captioning.
Making it Grow! is live from the Sumter, SC studios of ETV Sumter featuring Amanda McNulty, Trish DeHond and Brock McDaniel. Terasa Young will be in the Making it Grow! chat room, and Dr. John Nelson will have a mystery plant. The Feature segment is Lone Palmetto Farms. The side counter is Sallie Porth and Jackie Moore from The SCSFA.

subset: commoncrawl