Federation Blog

Two living shoreline projects, both of them on Beard's Creek, were recently funded with stimulus money from MDE/EPA.  The Annapolis Landing project was completed in early December, and the one pictured below, at Southdown Shores, was recently initiated.   The design and permitting of the project were funded by the Federation as part of our Targeted Watershed Grant.  The Federation helped fund the installation of several community rain gardens near the Annapolis Landing project to protect a steep slope above the shoreline.  The Federation is excited to have been a partner in these restoration efforts and looks forward to help planting them in the spring.

Beard's Creek is another of the local waterways named after an early, prominent landowner.  In this case, it was Richard Beard.  Mr. Beard received Anne Arundel County's first land grant in 1650 and occupied a homestead on the creek called "Beard's Habitation" after moving up from Virginia with his brother-in-law, William Burgess (for whom Burgess Creek (now Glebe Creek) was named). 

At the time, Mr. Beard constructed a mill on the creek, an undertaking that would become increasingly popular over the coming century as hydropower was one of the few free sources of energy for grinding grains or running machinery.

 "Upstream from London Town, however, nearly every major tributary of South River had a mill. During the 1730's boom, no less than eleven mills or mill dams dotted the parish map. On Flat Creek alone there were four mills including two water mills, one fulling mill for cleaning wool, and one grist mill. Nearby, probably on Beard's Creek, Richard Moore erected both a water mill and bolting mill..." - C. Earle (1975). Evolution of a Tidewater Settlement System: All Hallow's Parish, Maryland, 1650-1783.

 Richard Beard Jr., the son of the namesake of Beard's Creek, was a surveyor and is credited with having made the first map of Annapolis, in the late 1600s.

Thanks to the generous support of the Chesapeake Bay Trust and several individuals living on Beard's Creek, the Federation will be installing over 10 rain gardens throughout the Beard's Creek watershed, from Edgewater Beach to Annapolis Landing.  Several more will be going in over the next week or so, but here are 3 recently installed gardens in Edgewater Beach, Shaded Section.

The first garden, below, captures runoff from a community roadway and infiltrates it into the ground.

The second garden has has a downspout diverted into it and will now capture water that had been running down the driveway into the road.

The third garden involved a curb cut, and now captures water that was previously delivered into a pipe system and discharged into the road.

Late last year we finished weeding and planting rain gardens that the Federation and church had installed at Riva Trace Baptist Church on Central Ave (Rt. 214).  This spring we get to reap the rewards.

The area is dominated by very clay soils, which are common throughout Edgewater, and as a result, the gardens as initially installed took some time to drain.  This led to some of the plants that had originally been installed rotting, and weeds, like Bermuda grass (Cynodon dactylon) moving in to the beds.  After a vigorous weeding, Federation volunteers installed plants that can tolerate wetter feet, such as common rush (Juncus effusus), three-square (Scirpus americanus), and blue flag iris (Iris versicolor).  As you can see below, these species, and several other species of rushes which have recruited naturally on the site, appear to be pretty happy.

Thanks to the generous invitation of one of our Riverwatchers, I got to spend some time this afternoon in the marshy headwaters of Beard's Creek, just above Route 214.  Most of this area was almost certainly sub-tidal at one point and now it consists of tens of acres of low marsh, high marsh, and in some cases upland forest.  The plant community in the low marsh is mostly marsh hibiscus (Hibiscus moscheutos), which is one of our native beauties, with huge white and pink flowers in the summer, common reed (Phragmites australis), a pervasive invasive in wetland areas, and arrow arum (Peltandra virginica), a native wetland emergent.

Someone had recently been sharpening his (or her) teeth nearby as well.