Midshore Riverkeeper Conservancy (MRC) is bringing outside funds to our community to plan, design, and construct pollution-reducing projects that will demonstrably improve water quality. In 2015 we will spend over a million dollars in our community to design, implement, and monitor the following projects:
Agricultural Best Management Practices: Woodchip Bioreactors and Water Control Structures
Woodchip bioreactors are a new edge of field practice first developed in the Midwest a decade ago to help treat water passing through drainage tile lines on agricultural properties. MRC has successfully installed the first woodchip bioreactors in Maryland. These systems can remove up to 90% of nitrates.
MRC is working with several partners this year to design and construct the first economically practical phosphorus removal system in Maryland. The goal of this system is to treat effluent manure at a dairy farm, removing 95 – 99% of phosphorus from the lagoon water.
With funding from the Chesapeake Bay Trust Pioneer Grant Program, we are studying two woodchip bioreactors on Oakland View Farm and Mason’s Heritage Farm. Through this study we hope to gain separate approval for woodchip bioreactors and denitrification walls by the Chesapeake Bay Model and Maryland agricultural cost share, to ensure these practices gain widespread acceptance by farmers across the Eastern Shore.
There are seven woodchip bioreactors, two denitrification walls, one phosphorus removal system, and water control structures that are installed or will be installed this year on the following farms:
- Bradbury Farm/Hutchison family, Talbot County
- Cedarhurst Farm/Brennan Starkey, Caroline County
- Mark Eck Farm, Caroline County
- Franklinville Farm/Hutchison family, Talbot County
- Mason’s Heritage/William Mason, Queen Anne’s County
- Oakland View Farm/Richard Edwards & Scott Youse, Caroline County
- Voorhees Farm, Caroline County
Wetland Restoration
MRC is working on construction and/or restoration of 7.05 acres of wetlands at the following sites:
- Kudner Farm, Queen Anne’s County
- Hope House/Peter Stifel, Talbot County
- Levengood Farm, Caroline County
- RTC Park, Town of Easton
Storm Water Retrofits
Wye Ferry Landing: Projects that are currently completed or underway at this site in Queenstown include a ditch retrofit, living shoreline, and wetland restoration.
Bay Street/Satellite area storm water retrofit in Easton, MD: Conversion of 1/3 acre of existing turf to native warm season grasses, ditch retrofits, and an infiltration trench level spreader.
Easton Utilities Yard storm water retrofit: 3500 square foot bioretention area will be installed in 2015.
Chesapeake College: In 2014 MRC retrofitted the upper storm water pond to include a sedimentation basin upstream of the armored aprons. This pond will be planted in Spring 2015 with native aquatic vegetation and a herbaceous filter strip.
Stream Restoration
With over 500 high school students MRC will be planting 15.8 acres of streamside forests in the 2014/2015 school year. These locations are in Queen Anne’s, Talbot, and Dorchester Counties and include public and private land.
Cherry Lane, Schmidt property: Stream bank restoration project in Caroline County will be completed in the spring of 2015.
These practices combined will deliver the following pollutant removal: Total Nitrogen reduction: 9227 lbs., Total Phosphorus reduction: 685 lbs., Total Sediment reduction: 8613 lbs.
We understand that the projects we do are a small part of the overall effort to restore and protect our rivers. So we choose the kinds of projects that we believe have the potential to gain wider acceptance, use innovative technologies, and that can bring about real change.
For more information please contact our Executive Director, Tim Junkin, on 301.980.0634 or [email protected].
Write a Letter to the Editor on this Article
We encourage readers to offer their point of view on this article by submitting the following form. Editing is sometimes necessary and is done at the discretion of the editorial staff.