At last week’s meeting, Darin Crew of the Herring Run Watershed Association demonstrated how rain barrels can collect water to reduce storm runoff and provide irrigation.   
    photo by Randy Leonard

Action plan under review

by Randy Leonard

Over the past six months, major efforts from volunteers and Baltimore County officials have gone into improving Back River. Now the county is putting the finishing touches on an action plan for the tidal portion of the river that includes Dundalk and North Point tributaries such as Bread and Cheese Creek.
    At a meeting for “stakeholders” of Back River last week, Candace Croswell, manager of the Capital Program and Operations Section for the county’s Department of Environmental Protection and Resource Management, described the recent progress.
    Over the course of several extensive cleanups within the past six months, county workers and community volunteers pulled about 1,000 tires and over 30 40-cubic-yard trash bins of debris from mud flats area downstream from the I-695 bridge, she told a group of about 100 community members at the Back River Wastewater Treatment Plant on Jan. 27. Plainfield Road resident John Long organized a massive cleanup of Bread and Cheese Creek in September.
    To cut down on the influx of debris from Herring Run and Northeast Creek, the county plans to replace a temporary trash boom at the bridge with a prototype boom in March.
    The county has a contractor lined up to dredge “the cut” to 8 feet deep and 150 feet wide near Pleasure Island and restore and protect the island beach. The county received $2.7 million in federal stimulus money for the project, in addition to $1.4 million from the Maryland Department of Natural Resources and $100,000 from the Maryland Port Administration, Croswell said.
    Her department is moving forward with a storm drain placarding campaign and a midge task force, to study the preponderance of insects arising in recent years.
   
Action plan
    The final Small Watershed Action Plan, or SWAP, for the tidal portion of Back River is expected in sometime this month.
    The SWAP is a strategy for restoring the watershed, said Regina Williams, a consultant for Baltimore County.
    “Restoration as a whole is going to be a partnership” including the county and the community, Williams said.
    Her group came up with a list of 60 actions, which when implemented over 10 years will reduce the amount of nitrogen being discharged to the Chesapeake Bay by 19 percent and the amount of phosphorus by 15 percent, she said.
    Major municipal improvements will include storm drain conversion and retrofits to reduce erosion and sediment, shoreline enhancements and stream restoration, Williams said.
    Actions citizens can take to cut down on the amount of runoff and pollution to the bay include downspout disconnection, bayscaping, tree planting and recycling. The plan includes a conservative estimate that citizens and institutions such as churches will plant 840 trees over the next 10 years, though space for 3,500 trees was identified during a survey of the area.
    During a question-and-answer period, one man in the audience took issue with the conservative approach, positing that a group of three volunteers in a truck could plant hundreds of trees in a weekend.
    “Look what we accomplished in six months,” said Croswell, encouraging the dedicated efforts of citizen volunteers. She encouraged anyone who gets involved with cleanup actions to keep the Back River Restoration Committee or the county apprised of activity so it can be accounted for.
    “We’re not done, we’re just starting the next step” of implementing the plan, said Nancy Pentz with DEPRM.
    A SWAP implementation committee (formerly the Back River Restoration Steering Committee) will meet twice a year to see that the plan is put into place, Pentz said. The plan is adaptive and can be tailored to fit any changes, such as new regulatory numbers being pressed on Chesapeake Bay states by the federal government.

Citizen activities
    Display tables were set up around the room to provide community members with ideas and information on actions that will help improve the watershed.
    Darin Crew of the Herring Run Watershed Association demonstrated how a rain barrel can be attached to a downspout to collect roof runoff and reduce garden watering needs. A screen placed over the top prevents mosquito production. The barrels start at $75 (less for association members) and can be ordered by contacting Crew at 410-254-1577 or by e-mail at dcrew@
herringrun.org.
    Information on how to construct a rain garden was available from Weems Creek Conservancy at weems-creek.org, and information on the county’s new single-stream recycling as well as materials on prescription drug disposal and a county reuse directory is at
baltimorecountymd.gov/
recycling.

•  A State of Our Watersheds conference will be held March 13 at Notre Dame of Maryland, and a major cleanup will take place on Bread and Cheese Creek on April 10. For more info, visit altimorecountymd.gov/deprm.