On Thursday, the Talbot County Council, county planning and engineering staff and other environmental representatives joined Chesapeake Bay Foundation (CBF) and Nature Conservancy staff in Oxford for a briefing on ditch restoration opportunities.
Ditch restoration offers a relatively inexpensive and innovative way for the county to reach its pollution reduction obligations. Afterward, the group boarded the CBF boat Karen N for a look at current clean water challenges on the Tred Avon River, and a tour of Harleigh & Duvall Farms outside of Oxford.
The Talbot Ditch Restoration Partnership is an effort to maximize best management practices for pollution reduction in water traveling through the county’s ditches. Talbot has over 400 miles of roadside ditches that move water directly off roads and into creeks and waterways. By slowing down that movement in key areas with targeted, cost effective practices, fewer nutrients will be delivered straight into waterways and gains can be made in meeting WIP (Watershed Implementation Plan) goals for the region.
Management practices range from bio-filters inside of ditches that hold water in place so it has time to percolate down into the soil, to grass swales and buffers that absorb water. Slag and gypsum sinks can take up large amounts of nutrients and have the added benefit to local farmers in that they won’t take farmland out of production. Homeowners can participate by planting natives in ditch rain gardens.
Talbot farmers have already made improvements in reducing water pollutants with increased use of cover crops, buffers, water control structures and nutrient management practices. Updated wastewater treatment facilities have also brought gains. One benefit of ditch remediation is that it can impact both urban (impervious surface) and agriculture sector WIP goals. This is especially attractive to funders, as it can provide urban TMDL benefits at agricultural management practice prices.
Alan Girard, CBF’s Eastern Shore Director pointed to recent news about how this year’s drought reduced the Bay’s oxygen-starved “dead zone” to its smallest size since 1985. This, he said, is encouraging, and evidence of how quickly the Bay recovers when conditions allow natural systems to work.
The Nature Conservancy’s Amy Jacobs described ways that the project can enhance effectiveness of dollars spent on clean water practices. With careful selection among the various management alternatives for each potential project area, ditch projects can be specifically targeted to those areas that offer the best reduction for the cost.
Jacobs showed LiDAR data from the USGS, fine scale aerial imagery in which water flow patterns can be interpreted in targeted areas, such as where farm ditches intersect county roads, and in low-lying areas that fill quickly in storms.
The project will measure loading rates – the amounts of nitrogen, phosphorus and sediment that move into waterways. New technologies enable precise monitoring of results, which translates into creditable gains for Talbot to meet WIP goals.
Other partners in the project include Talbot County Extension, the Soil Conservation District, the Farm Bureau, County staff, the Public Works Advisory Board, and the MidShore Riverkeepers. The group has met with farmers and landowners to engage them and solicit feedback. Local environmental groups will create corresponding public outreach and education projects.
One opportunity for a ditch restoration project is on parts of Glebe Road, where construction already underway could facilitate a demonstration of pollution reduction ditch practices. Tim Junkin, Midshore Riverkeeper’s Executive Director made a plug for the Glebe Road project – “construction equipment is already out there. It will be much less expensive to build a project now that can showcase ditch remediation practices.”
Following the briefing, the group toured the Tred Avon River, where CBF staff showed current river conditions by pulling up bottom for inspection and measuring water salinity, dissolved oxygen, temperature and clarity. Last weekend’s ten inches of rain had a significant and positive short-term effect on water quality in the river.
The group was dropped off at Harleigh, which along with Duvall Farms, is part of a large Talbot County estate that serves as a showcase for farm property that has been taken out of commercial agriculture and put into conservation. Riparian forest and grass buffers, wetlands, trees, gardens and natural shorelines, aquaculture and other habitat restoration efforts were explained by Harleigh Wildlife Manager Clay Robinson. The farm uses state CREP funding. Farm owner Chip Akridge was on hand for conversation and questions.
Riverkeeper Director Tim Junkin recently wrote a piece in the Spy about ditches and clean water – click here to read it.
Other local environmental groups such as Talbot Preservation Alliance have proposed additional cost-effective water quality measures such as a ban on residential lawn fertilizers – click here for a 2012 Spy article about their proposal.
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Susan Clifford says
I wrote this earlier this summer—seemed appropriate to pass along as it relates to your ditch article. Since this was written, the muskrats have disappeared— I have a nasty feeling they may have been trapped, as there are two flagged stakes marking the location of their palaces. Their tunnels do undermine the berm, but still………
Notes from a drainage pond
Every Saturday my husband, our dogs, and I meet at Panera Bread on Rt 50 in Easton- my reward for cycling Talbot County’s beautiful back country roads from our house. Since the dogs don’t do well on a bicycle, my husband brings them along in his truck and we meet to share a bagel while we check out the latest goings on in the drainage ditch between Panera and the highway.
Most people pass drainage ponds and ditches without giving them a second glance. They occasionally can be catch basins for more than just water run off- making some look more like part of the local landfill. But there are others that are teeming with activity- nearly ideal little habitats playing host to wetland plants and wildlife.
The ditch next to Panera is one such microcosm and ranks close to the top of the cheap entertainment list. There are two muskrats busily harvesting various pieces of vegetation- some of which are carried inside both of two magnificent cave entrances at the base of the berm which traps the water. It appears as if these fellows may also be working on their curb appeal, as new leaves have recently appeared growing out of the water outside the entrances of both residences. These little guys are determined in their efforts, and not distracted by the myriad of activity going on around them. The group of young mallards- hatchlings earlier this Spring- occasionally will peck one as it churns by with its leafy load firmly clenched in its teeth. One of these furry creatures has made his entrance under the water, so he will dive under just short of the above ground front door, and reappear a few minutes later minus his mouthful. His next door neighbor prefers his wide grand cave of an entrance, and disappears inside- tweaking the voyeur in the observer– what fun it would be to see inside! He may reappear from another smaller hole further down the berm, and head up into the wilds of vegetation above him to seek his next haul.
Though last year we saw a small group of young ones, no sign this year– though it may be early yet. Perhaps all this vegetation being carried into the interior is feeding a family. We shall see.
Meanwhile, July 4th was Dragonfly day. Dozens of dragon flies zipped along the water- tap, tapping the surface as they deposited their eggs. Amazing mid air coupled pairs zoomed around locked together as eggs were fertilized before being deposited on the water’s surface. Small circular pools of ripples revealed the feasting of small fish as they discovered the newly deposited eggs. Imagine two State Police helicopters attached tail to tail– a sort of Pushmi-Pullyu effect, and that is what you see flying around in our ditch.
A pair of young purple martins has discovered The Ditch, and their flight pattern as they skim the water for insects and Dragonfly eggs looks just like the traffic pattern at Easton Airport. A green heron will occasionally fly in and slowly walk, nearly hidden in the vegetation, up and down the edge of the water, no doubt waiting for one of the small fish that periodically broach like some lilliputian game fish, silver sides flashing in the sun as it returns to the water with a tiny, but magnificent splash.
Of course no such water world would be complete without frogs, and frogs there are in number. Bull frogs and Green frogs vie to be the next Pond Idol, their voices amplified by the muskrat excavations from which they call. The round booming voice of the bullfrog contrasts with the flat sharp twanging of the green frog. We sometimes see them flopping into or out of the water, or just simply hanging out in the middle somewhere– a pair of eyes the only hint showing that they are there.
So, next time you are near a drainage pond or ditch and have a moment, sit and watch. There may be more to it than meets the eye!
Kathy Bosin says
Thank you, Susan, for telling an entirely different story. So few of us even stop to look. Thanks for the peek into the world of our local drainage ponds – right there, where so many of us whiz past, unaware, rushing, every day. kathy
Tom Alspach says
How/why would ten inches of rain have a “positive” effect on water quality? Should be the opposite with more N and sediment washed into the river.
Does the state MAST program include a credit for ditch remediation and what might it be? This is only present way to calculate how it would be counted toward meeting WIP goals.
tom hughes says
Shouldn’t all landowners be required to keep their fertilizer and their sediment on their land instead of the taxpayer being hit yet again to pay for ditch “remediation”? If Talbot County were allowed to ban lawn fertilizer (which is totally unnecessary on established lawns), it could meet its urban nitrogen TMDL requirements at zero cost. At present, state law prohibits the county from taking this most cost effective step to help clean up our rivers.
If farmers were required to employ on their land all of the bmp’s at their disposal (all of which are already well subsidized) they too could keep their fertilizer and sediment from reaching our rivers. There’s no such thing as a right to pollute, and then expect others to keep footing the bill to clean it up.
Alan Girard says
Tom, like we explained during the program, Talbot’s clean water blueprint specifically calls for, by 2013, retrofitting 1,000 impervious and 1,000 pervious developed acres with bioretention systems, and1,000 pervious and 6,000 impervious acres with vegetative swales. Roadside ditch retrofits under these categories would be fully credited toward Talbot’s progress on Bay clean-up goals. What really has peoples’ attention is how these same systems that treat polluted runoff originating from one side of the roadside ditch (the road) can also treat pollution that originates from the other side (farms) so that two different pollution problems can be treated with the same solution. In addition to that of the urban sector, progress toward 2013 pollution reduction targets for the farm sector would also be credited. These targets include 55 acres of wetlands, 143 acres treated by water control structures, 80 acres of grassed buffers, and 7 acres of forested buffers. Take into account the significant benefits of treating urban stormwater with essentially agricultural runoff treatment system at much lower cost than most urban stormwater retrofits and the advantages of this proposal become very clear, like they seemed to do for several folks on the trip.
As for the measured effects of 10 inches of rain on water quality, the monitoring equipment we used on the boat last Thursday showed higher than expected dissolved oxygen levels – a key measure of water health since many of the Bay’s critters need sufficient amounts of oxygen to breathe – because of the mixing of air and water that happens when rain pummels the surface of rivers and creeks. It’s a short term phenomena that’s expected but doesn’t always produce the same results. In Town Creek where we started the trip, for example, oxygen levels near the bottom were well below what most fish, crabs and oysters need to survive.