Federation Blog

Talk about a whirlwind, my head has finally stopped spinning from all of the activities that went on in October with the Federation.

We started off the month of October in West Virginia at the 2011 Chesapeake Watershed Forum, where Carol and Jennifer presented their Chesapeake Conservation Corps project posters. The weekend was filled with seminars on various topics from social marketing to stormwater management. It was a great opportunity to network with other watershed organizations, and hear about what they are doing. It was really nice to be surrounded by people who think the environment should be a priority.

Then it was back to the office to gear up for our Fall Federation Celebration Week. We kicked off the celebration on Saturday with the First Friday Festival at South River Colony. It was their final festival of the season and the Federation was there to talk about the South River. It has been a great way to engage people about what we do as an organization and fish print with the kids. We look forward to more of these events next summer!

Then on Sunday, it was off to Harness Creek for the Flood Bucket Frenzy. With almost 700 Flood Buckets, we needed all the help we could get to be able to accomplish this task. And we did! With over 65 volunteers, coming from Americorps, SRF, Ben Franklin High School, and Laura Seltzer of The Last Boat Out and Do Good Adventures, we were able to open up all the buckets, empty all the oysters from last year onto the Harness Creek sanctuary, and then refill the buckets with new oyster spat for this years’ growing season. It was an arm workout for sure. This event was a great opportunity for people to not only see young oysters, but also see how Flood Buckets enrich the local diversity by creating habitat for many other critters.

We charged ahead in the week with the Federation general membership meeting on Tuesday night at the London Towne Community Hall. Each meeting we bring in speakers that present on a variety of subjects that pertain to either the South River or the Chesapeake Bay watershed. For this meeting, we had both CCC volunteers talk about their personal projects. Carol is working on how optical brighteners can be used to identify septic leakage and Jennifer gave a presentation on how people and communities can become involved with the MGO program. We also invited Dr. Walter Boynton, from CBL, to talk about the Chesapeake Bay, its history, and its future. I might be a biased daughter for saying this, but he has a great way of presenting information to a diverse audience, not everyone is a scientist and it’s important that everyone understands what’s going on with the Bay. He talked about how the Bay looked during John Smiths time, what changed over time, and how we can improve things. I really enjoyed his image of putting the Bay on a diet. I might not be able to comprehend all of the scientific lingo, but I can wrap my head around the concept that we feed our rivers and Bay too much and that we have to put the fork down. We also welcomed two new board members—Tom Reinert and Marilynn Katatsky! Each of them bring a lot to the table and I look forward to working with both of them.

The week finished strong with the 2nd Annual Fall Kayak Sojourn! To say it was an adventure was an understatement because it was not a calm day on the river. According to NOAA, winds were gusting 15-20 knots. However this did not deter the participants, all of who braved the windy weather and ventured out onto Duvall Creek to explore and observe what is going on in and around the South River. Carol, CCC volunteer for the Federation, said it best “it was awesome!” When they returned to shore, they were greeted with delicious hot clam chowder, hot chocolate, and cookies! A big thank you goes out to SeaWatch International for the chowder, Keeper Springs Natural Spring Water for the water, Starbucks for the coffee, and DoubleTree Hotel for the cookies. It’s events like these that make me realize how special of a resource we have in our backyard and that we need to make protecting it a priority. I hope many of you this fall get the chance to go outside and celebrate the awesomeness which is the South River.

Thank you to everyone who joined us for all of these events. We truly appreciate all of your help and support!

Columbus Day was a busy day in the South River Watershed!  The Chesapeake Conservation Corps (CCC), a career and leadership training program funded through the Chesapeake Bay Trust (CBT), held their All Hands on Deck project at Historic London Town and Gardens.   The All Hands on Deck project was a competitive $2,000 CBT mini grant available to CCC volunteers to complete a large scale project and training opportunity for all CCCs to attend.  The South River Federation’s CCC volunteer, Jennifer Carr, joined forces with the Watershed Steward Academy’s CCC volunteer, Megan Wickless, to create a stormwater-themed day of learning and service at Historic London Town and Gardens.  In the end, partnering up paid off and they were selected for the grant!

The day kicked off with educational activities led by the Watershed Stewards Academy aimed to increase the CCC volunteers’ knowledge of stormwater.  The Corps, under the guidance of Master Watershed Stewards, performed a whole-scale site assessment of London Town’s property.  As a result, they were able to give recommendations on how to move forward with other stormwater related projects.

In the afternoon, the Corps volunteers rotated between three different service learning stations.  The first stop was on board the boat, Remedy, with the South RIVERKEEPER, Diana Muller, and Dr. Andrew Muller, a professor at the U.S. Naval Academy.  The Corps soaked in the issues of water quality and stormwater facing the South River and the rest of the Bay.  They were given the opportunity to use equipment such as the Hydrolab to monitor water quality and a secchi disk to measure depth.  Other topics covered included land use, shoreline restoration, and impacts of sewer and septic systems on the river.

The next stop, CCC volunteers got hands-on experience installing rain barrels around London Town’s new museum and archaeology lab.  These beautiful rain barrels from Rain Barrels of Annapolis will catch about two-thirds of the rain events over the course of a year.  The barrels will capture the water allowing the stormwater to cool down and be released slowly into the ground.

The final stop, stressed the importance of maintenance on any restoration project.  The Corps certainly got their hands dirty on this one as they worked hard to clear out a thick layer of silt that had been deposited into a series of step pools.  The step pools serve to slow down stormwater allowing it to infiltrate the ground instead of flowing directly into the river.

The project was a great success thanks to all the organizations and sponsors involved!

The Chesapeake Bay Trust funded the project and most importantly runs the Chesapeake Conservation Corps Program.

The South River Federation and Watershed Stewards Academy (WSA) organized the day’s events.

Historic London Town and Gardens hosted the event and worked very closely with the Federation and WSA.

Rain Barrels of Annapolis provided the beautiful rain barrels at a low cost, making the project possible.

Chipotle and Rita’s of Edgewater donated a delicious lunch for the volunteers and guests.

Nothing gets the week started like planting 230 trees along the shores of the South River, and that is exactly what happened yesterday!  Over 50 volunteers worked hard to reforest a steep slope along the community of Heritage Harbor, an area between the Route 50 bridge and Broad Creek.   A portion of the slope had unfortunately been poisoned, killing all of the existing trees and shrubs, as seen in the picture below.  The slope needed to be replanted, not only to restore native habitat, but also to prevent soil erosion and to help stormwater better infiltrate the ground.

We began bright and early with a few very dedicated volunteers, who arrived at 8:00 a.m. to help transfer all 230 trees and shrubs to the project site.  With the expertise of the Watershed Stewards and a CCC member, many of the trees and shrubs were placed on the slope to prepare for the arrival of the volunteers.  While the volunteers were arriving with shovels and gloves, Watershed Steward, Lara Mulvaney, instructed everyone on proper techniques of tree planting.

By 10:00 a.m., over 50 enthusiastic volunteers, including 11 of the Chesapeake Conservation Corps members, had gathered to hear Congressman Sarbanes address the crowd and express his commitment to the environment.  After his speech, the volunteers spread out over the steep slope with shovels and LeafGrow inhand and got right to work.  In order to get the trees and shrubs safely down the hill, volunteers formed human chains to quickly distribute the remaining trees.  In only three hours, our impressive volunteers had planted all 230 trees and shrubs.

When everything was said and done, the slope looked beautiful!  I cannot wait to get out on the boat and see how it looks from the river!  The day ended with a delicious hamburger and hot dog cook-out, generously provided by My Butcher & More, tasty cookies donated by DoubleTree Hotel Annapolis, and water provided by Keeper Springs Natural Spring Water.

We want to send a big thank you to all of you who helped make this event a huge success!  Our 50+ volunteers included: Chesapeake Conservation Corps, CBT, Watershed Stewards, DoubleTree Hotel staff, Heritage Harbor Residents, SRF board members, and many other wonderful community members!

May 1, 2011

It's official, the marina has disposed of the osprey nest.  Frank and Margaret are now sitting on what used to be their home.

April 26, 2011

I'm 99% sure that over the weekend Margaret laid eggs.  Since I can't see into their nest, I can't be 100% sure, but she hasn't left her nest all day.  It seems to me, she is keeping those eggs warm.  We shall see what happens in 5 to six weeks.

April 23rd, 2011

This week Margaret has been acting very strange.  She’s been doing this “dance” in and around the nest.  She’ll walk around, like she is trying to flatten the inside of the nest, while fluffing her feathers.  Then, she will sit in the nest for long periods of time.  Then, she’ll get up again and repeat the process.  Nowadays, Frank and Margaret spend a lot of time around the nest.  They don’t go very far, only leaving to catch a fish or to sit in the tree by our office.  I’m not sure if this means she is close to laying eggs, but it looks like we are headed in that direction. 

In general, osprey will lay an average of three eggs.  They are buff-colored eggs with dark speckles.  The eggs are laid one to two days apart and incubation will last five to six weeks.  During this time, it is predominately the female who will sit on the eggs.  The male takes little part in incubation, or warming the eggs until after they hatch.  The male will be the “bread” winner for the family during incubation and after the chicks have hatched.  While the chicks are growing, they can demand more than six fish per day!  Frank will be very busy keeping up with the demand of the family.  They will have to keep a careful eye out for predators such as crows, ravens, owls, gulls, and raccoons to make sure the chicks stay safe during the early weeks.  It will be interesting to see what happens over the weekend.

The Enterococci data is now ready from this last Saturday's South River Federation's 7th Annual Snapshot.

On Friday the short rain event was only 0.38 inches of rain, but even with that small amount there were some spikes of bacteria in our watershed.  For a single sampling event the criteria is 104 cfu/100ml (colony forming units/100milliliters).  Therefore in the map above, anything in orange or red is higher than the State of Maryland's limit.

Thanks to our great volunteers I am now going back through the past 7 years of data and preparing a 'trend" analysis to find why our hot spot are HOT.  One stations is HIL 1, this is located in the Hillsmere community and is consistently high every year- now that we have the data to prove that there is a problem (thanks to our volunteers)- We can see what we can do to fix the issues.---Diana

Little Johnny Trumbaurer- Snapshot Sampler - too cute!

The South River Snapshot is a fun-fill event for eveyone in the family.  From 9-12am on Saturday April 9, 2001 you can volunteer to perform water quality sampling, looking at wildlife, basic stream assessments at one of 50 stations in the South River Watershed.  My training dates are April 3 and April 6, 6pm at the LondonTown Community Center.
---Diana

On September 4th and 5th Quiet Waters Park in Anne Arundel County Celebrated its 20th Birthday and we were there to help celebrate.  We were part of the touch a truck/boat event for the guests;  this was a wonderful outreach.  I met so many children that have never touched or been on a boat - so they were very excited when they were able to come aboard and honk the horn, pretend to pull up the oyster cage and touch the anchor.  Amazing to see their eyes light up!

Arianna Muller is showing off the Maryland Grow Oyster cages next to our patrol and monitoring boat, Remedy.

On December 17th, the County Council will select a replacement for former Councilman (now Mayor) Cohen.  The Federation, along with several other organizations, will be co-sponsoring a candidate forum at Annapolis Middle School on Wednesday, December 10th at 7pm.  Below are the responses for each candidate to questionnaire provided by the County Council and a resume for each.

• Cynthia Carter - Questionnaire
• Charles Ferrar - Questionnaire
• John Giannetti - Questionnaire
• Lisa Hillman - Questionnaire
• Michael Miller - Questionnaire
• William Moulden - Questionnaire