Federation Blog

It's not well publicized, but there are miles of hiking trails behind the Anne Arundel County offices of the Department of Recreation and Parks and the Health Department.  The area is formally known as Broad Creek Park, and probably constitutes about 100 acres of forest with running/hiking trails through it that border and cross the tributary network feeding Broad Creek.  All of this area is public property.

The trail has a great view of the top of Broad Creek (below), which is comprised mostly of tidal marsh and forested side slopes, and is getting ready to really start changing colors with the drop in temperature. 

The trails also give a great view of what is clearly one of Broad Creek's persistent sources of downstream pollution and marsh expansion - serious stream bank erosion (below).  Anecdotal accounts from runners who have used the trails for years document how this eroding material has caused the formerly inundated marshes near tidewater to be converted to dryer environments that now support trees and more upland species.

Out on a site visit to check out an eroding ravine, we turned up a pretty cool set of fossils embedded in a piece of limonite (or bog iron).  Turns out a poorly designed and executed stormwater management pond routinely blows out the downstream channel with such force that it has scoured down to "bedrock" (this material is the closest we come to such a thing in the Coastal Plain) unearthing these former ocean dwellers.

I'm definitely not a fossil expert, but from what I can find on the web, the six impressions in this stone all appear to be from some sort of gastropod (i.e. snail).  Even though this site was 50 to 60 feet up from tidewater, this kind of find is a good reminder that at one time, this whole area was underwater, part of the primeval Atlantic Ocean.

Sometimes you'll find interesting remnants of the past in the most surprisingly mundane places.  That's the case with the "Old Saw Mill" on the eastern tributary to Broad Creek.  In the 1878 map below, it's called out as "Old S.M." in the upper right-hand corner. That's Broad Creek on the left and Gingerville (formerly "Gingerwell") Creek on the right.

 Today, the dam remains and is actually visible from Truman Parkway when the leaves are off the trees.  It lies just adjacent to the Park-and-Ride.  Below, you can make out the form of the dam, sloping off to each side of the photo.

 As is the case with all of these historical impoundments, this one breached long ago and still delivers its silty payload downstream with every storm event.  The photo below is taken looking downstream through the breach in the dam.  The channel has been carved several feet down through the agricultural soils that were trapped behind the dam when it was functioning.

On our way to the Anne Arundel County Department of Health for a discussion on bacteria sampling earlier today, we stopped by the rain garden recently installed by Federation volunteers at the corner of their parking lot.  As you can see from the picture below, it's definitely doing its job, capturing and filtering water before it makes its way into the storm drain system and into Broad Creek.