{"id":42344,"date":"2024-09-03T14:23:34","date_gmt":"2024-09-03T18:23:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/?p=42344"},"modified":"2024-09-10T13:35:47","modified_gmt":"2024-09-10T17:35:47","slug":"protecting-the-chesapeake-bay-one-stream-at-a-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/2024\/09\/03\/protecting-the-chesapeake-bay-one-stream-at-a-time\/","title":{"rendered":"Protecting the Chesapeake Bay, One Stream at a Time"},"content":{"rendered":"

Stream restoration projects like Cattail Creek offer multifaceted benefits to watersheds and ecosystems<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>

The stream restoration at Cattail Creek uses rocks and plants to reinforce the stream channel. As their roots take hold, plants can help maintain the structure for the long term, DNR officials say. Photo by Joe Zimmermann\/DNR<\/p><\/div>\n

To Bob Royer, the heron that was stalking in the shallow water around a bend in Cattail Creek was a sign of promise.<\/span><\/p>\n

For one thing, it meant there were fish. But together with the red-winged blackbirds overhead, the buzzing dragonflies, and the water celery that rippled in the stream\u2019s current, the gangly waterbird looking for lunch was evidence of a natural system that was back to work.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAll it takes is little areas of reworking the landscape, and look what it wanted to be,\u201d said Royer, the president of the Berrywood Community Association Environmental Committee. \u201cIt wanted to be a wetland.\u201d<\/span>
\n<\/p>\n

Cattail Creek is the site of a stream restoration project, now complete for five years. Maryland Department of Natural Resources officials point to the project as an example of the benefits of stream restorations, both locally and to the Chesapeake Bay watershed as a whole.<\/span><\/p>\n

As impermeable surfaces increase across the state, stormwater is often channeled into streams at a heavier quantity, causing erosion as well as the buildup of pollutants that aren\u2019t absorbed in the streambed.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the past few decades, Cattail Creek had become degraded by excessive stormwater runoff from developments and the nearby Route 2. After storms, the stream would run thick and muddy.<\/span><\/p>\n

Now, since the 2019 completion of the restoration, the stream is clear and controlled, even the day after a big rainstorm.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe difference between what this looks like now and before is somewhat indescribable,\u201d said Claudia Donegan, the director of DNR\u2019s Center for Habitat Restoration and Conservation.<\/span><\/p>\n

To get to that point, Underwood & Associates, a landscape architecture and construction company, put six stone weirs into the stream bed to provide structure and slow the water. Residents and the Berrywood Community Association pushed for the project and volunteered with plantings, cleanup, and monitoring at the site.<\/span><\/p>\n

The restoration received $745,000 from DNR\u2019s Chesapeake and Atlantic Coastal Bays Trust Fund<\/a>, which awards funding to non-point source pollution reduction projects.<\/span><\/p>\n

Officials view stream restoration as an important way to divert sediment and nutrient pollution from the Chesapeake Bay. Most of Maryland\u2019s streams eventually flow into the Bay, and they carry with them runoff from urban developments and agricultural fields that are laden with excessive levels of nitrogen, phosphorus, and other materials that contaminate habitats there.<\/span><\/p>\n