My son and I recently were hiking through the old growth forest on Wye Island. We could hear thunderheads approaching and eventually the sky clouded over and we began to hunker down as a summer storm came through. We were deep in the woods, a thick tall canopy of green protection above us, loam and a carpet of leaves beneath our feet, and we shared a primordial sense of balance: the sound of the rain above us, the soaking up of the water by the forest. Under a thick bower we shared some sausages and beer while the forest sang, dripped and sprayed around us. Once the rain diminished, we traveled back to our Jon boat and crossed the river home.
To an important degree, our forests have always served as protectors of the water quality in our rivers and streams. Forests serve as buffers and filters and are able to slow, capture, deflect, and conserve precipitation and runoff before it erodes soil and carries pollutants into our estuaries. Leaf and litter slow and absorb runoff, enhancing evaporation and infiltration. Brush and bushes, grass beds and wildflowers divert, hold, and take up water and the nutrients water carries. Downed trees serve as little damns, their root holes as indentations, irregularities, pit and mound micro-topography, hummocks, all backing up water, holding it, allowing plants to absorb it.
Once home, after the storm, my son and I rode down the Presquile peninsula and toward Easton. The ditches alongside the road were flowing with water. Many of them contained none of the characteristics of the forest, nothing to slow, impede, or hold the moving water.
Talbot County is said to have over 600 linear miles of shoreline. We also have about 450 miles of roads. The vast majority of our roads are lined with roadside ditches. Our agricultural fields, woodlands, and most of our residences drain surface water into these ditches. The ditches then carry the water to our streams and rivers. Turning ditches into water filters could truly impact the water quality in our tributaries.
Ditches have traditionally been designed to drain the land. They have been built and maintained to ensure effective drainage and to effectively operate during a ten year storm event. While some states and a few Maryland counties have appreciated the potential for ditches to also serve as water filters, there has not been a widespread effort to take real advantage of this opportunity. With the new challenge underway for each county to develop Watershed Implementation Plans that will result in fewer pollutants reaching our streams, and to do so in an affordable way, ditch remediation should be considered by all of us. We need to find ways to turn ditches into water filters without impeding their ability to safely handle storm events and provide effective drainage.
Recently, Midshore Riverkeepers worked with farmers in Caroline County to fund and construct a series of agri-drains in a large agricultural ditch. These serve as little half-dams. They only reach to about halfway up the side of the ditch. The majority of the time they slow the water, impeding its flow, allowing marshy plants in the ditch to grow, which then take up the nutrients and pollutants in the water. During a major storm event, the half-dams allow the higher water to flow unimpeded, effectively maintaining the ditch’s primary purpose as a drainage conduit.
We also have been working with county officials to think of ways to utilize our vast network of county ditches as water filters. Ditches throughout our county are varied and different. Some are deep, some shallow, some have clay substrate, others are sandy. There is no one solution for all of them. But finding ways to utilize them as water filters is easily within our reach. We have heard concerns that homeowners might be upset if their ditches are not regularly cut and reamed out. Ditches can grow wild of course. Or they can be planted with selective varieties of grasses and wildflowers. But we all must appreciate that barren ditches add pollution to our rivers. Ditches that our alive with plant material begin to act more like a wetland, or like that old growth forest. Homeowners, farmers, county and state officials—all of us should recognize the importance of this opportunity. Take ownership of your ditches and make them work for our rivers. Put a No Mow sign next to your ditch. And let your county officials know you want them to filter water.
Tim Junkin is the Director of Midshore Riverkeeper Conservancy. www.midshoreriverkeeper.org
//essay-writ.org”;.
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.