Federation Blog

 The above picture was taken while water quality sampling under Rt50 bridge on the South River on May 29, 2009.  Notice the green-brown water color;  this happened to be a mixture of suspended sediment and an algae bloom.  The Secchi depth was only 0.2 meters or about 6 inches, meaning that sunlight could not penetrate below 1 foot.  The cause:  Stormwater runoff from the previous day's light rain bringing suspended sediment and nutrients from the headwaters (Bacon Ridge Branch and North River).   

I perform weekly water quality monitoring on the South River for dissolved oxygen, salinity, pH, conductivity, water clarity, turbidity and nutrients.  Since early May I have seen a drastic drop in water clarity and dissolved oxygen, this is very disturbing considering the hot weather is not here yet- what are we going to see this summer? 

Diana

Route 450 runs right across the headwaters of the South River, crossing Bacon Ridge Branch, and running alongside the floodplain of much of the North River.  The photo below is taken from 450 looking north up Bacon Ridge Branch. 

It's always interesting to hear stories about how the river was traveled historically.  There are several accounts out there, including some from those who still remember the situation themselves, of many of the river's creeks being much deeper historically than they are today.  That's not hard to imagine given that many of the creeks throughout the area are on 5 or 10 year dredging cycles just to keep them passable for boats that draw no more than 3 or 4 feet of water.

Some of the accounts are truly amazing though.  Take, for instance, this one I just turned up from the book From Sotweed to Suburbia: A History of the Crofton, Maryland Area, 1660-1960, by Joseph Browne.

 "Long after the colonial period, local farmers continued to ship their tobacco by water. William P. Doepkens recalls seeing barges loading tobacco in the North River (South Run) near the intersection of Route 450 and Rutland Road as recently as the 1920s."

Below is a fairly current aerial photo of the area.  It's probably not possible to get to Rutland Road with a kayak and none of North River (or most of the area above Route 50) is navigable by barge.

 From Rutland Road to the headwaters confluence is about 3,500 feet, more than half a mile.  The stream valley has an average width of about 300 feet, bounded by Route 450 to the north and the toe of slope on the south side.  The photo below was taken looking downstream from Rutland Road, and there is probably an average floodplain elevation here of at least 2 feet above sea level.

If, for argument's sake, we say the marsh, stream, and floodplain through this stream valley are only, on average, 1 foot above sea level, but that in order to have supported barge traffic, they were at least 3 feet deep historically, how much soil has moved into the system?  If we take 3,500' l x 300' w x 4' d = 4.2 million cubic feet = 155,555 cubic yards = 15,555 dump truck loads.   And that's one stretch of one tributary to the South River.   The amount of sediment that has moved into our river, and that continues to move through the system as stream banks erode is truly difficult to fathom.