Federation Blog

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

Anyone who has spent time doing historical or genealogical research recognizes that there's "low hanging fruit", information which is relatively easy to come by, "high hanging fruit", more difficult to discern elements, and pieces of information which, when compared against all the other facts, just don't make sense.  For the most part, the "What's In a Name" entries presented here to date have been relatively low hanging fruit.  The rest, by and large, appear to be more difficult to verify.  One name, however, has given me fits from the start: the so-called "Tarnans Branch."   The waterbody itself currently runs basically from the southwest to the northest, just above Route 50, and eventually tying into the North River drainage that feeds the uppermost reaches of the river (see below from the 1993 USGS map).    

 Despite considerable searching and investigation, the name "Tarnan" or "Tarnans" didn't turn anything up.  But the name "Tarman" did appear a few times, and finally, looking closely at the 1878 Martenet map, a "Mrs. Tarman" shows up as a landowner on what is today known as Maccubbins Cove, between Gingerville Creek and Broad Creek (see below).

 Then, member John Koontz brought in an 1928 Anne Arundel soils map (see below).  Imagine my surprise to see what is today called "North River" listed as "Tarmans Branch."   Unfortunately, I haven't been able to turn up additional details on the Tarman family, but I now believe that the current name "Tarnans" is a result of a transcription error or miscopying at some point in the past and that the proper name for the waterway is, in fact, "Tarman's Branch."

EPA Unveils Chesapeake Bay Restoration Strategy

 The Chesapeake Bay Restoration Strategy is now out as presented by Lisa Jackson (EPA administrator) yesterday.  She stated that only thing needed is money and resources.

I would like to include Three more things:

1)  The absolute old fashion American CAN DO.  With out the can do/will do we will not have anything.

2 ) Much better enforcement,  marinas have put large piers/bulkhead/and pilings into the South River and have only received a 43,000.00 fine, and they did not have to take out the structures that were installed.  So, in reality the company folded the fine into the cost of doing the construction.  The State and Federal agencies need to not only have greater fines but mandate that these structures be removed! 

3)  I would also like to include more education on the true causes of the destruction of the Chesapeake Bay and the South River.  I speak beyond the choir quite often and have learned that most adults really do not know what stormwater runoff it,  they do not know how fertilizer can harm the Bay/River,  they do not realize how poor the infrastructure of our septic and sewer systems is.  I see very well educated folks over-fertilize their lawns in order to get the Crayola crayon green color, instead of managing their lawns in a River-friendly way.

http://wjz.com/local/Bay.foundation.epa.2.1689773.html