Road Salts in the Baltimore Reservoir System

As most of you probably experienced, last winter’s historic snowstorm Jonas, aka Snowzilla, was massive. In fact, it was the largest snowfall ever recorded in Maryland, at 29.2 inches (1). Baltimore County alone spent $9.4 million to clean up after Snowzilla, using over 21,031 tons of salt (2). This is not at all unique to this area; the U.S. sprinkles down around 137 pounds of road salt per person annually to melt ice that forms on roadways, airports, and walkways (3). This number is likely to keep rising as development continues, creating more impervious surfaces to de-ice. Studies by Baltimore [...]

2017-09-15T14:22:58-04:00March 8th, 2017|
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Top Clean Water Success Stories in Pennsylvania

The Center for Watershed Protection believes that clean water and healthy watersheds are a critical component of our country and communities. Water is essential — for drinking, recreating and maintaining a strong economy. Today and for the past several decades, a variety of pollutants – including trash, raw sewage, stormwater runoff, nutrient pollution, suspended sediment and toxics – contaminates the many rivers and streams of Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania has a total of 83,438 stream miles; nearly one in four streams do not meet water quality standards. To restore our rivers and streams, we need persistence, innovation, collaboration and hard work. We [...]

2018-01-19T13:25:16-05:00January 6th, 2017|
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Center Staff Published in Sustain-A Journal of Environmental and Sustainability Issues

The Center staff had four articles published in the Spring/Summer 2015 edition of Sustain-A Journal of Environmental and Sustainability Issues. The articles include: “The Beauty of Stream Restoration and Pet Waste Reduction Programs” by Hye Yeong Kwon “The Challenges of Accounting for Pet Waste” by Karen Cappiella “The Most for the Least: Optimizing Water Pollution Reduction” by Reid Christianson “Illicit Discharge of Pollution to Our Water Resources” by Deb Caraco

2017-09-27T06:40:55-04:00March 25th, 2016|
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The Mysterious Silt Influx of Hawkins Cove

Hawkins Cove is a small inlet along Spa Creek in Annapolis, MD. The entire watershed is only 93 acres, and even though a portion of the upstream area is forested, the Cove is heavily silted. What’s causing this influx of silt in the Cove? As with most cases in urban areas, large impervious areas from residential development create lots of stormwater runoff (with its dirty water) while also contributing to erosion along the banks of the headwater stream. So much silt has accumulated in the Cove that the public dock sits among mud flats and has lost its recreational purpose. [...]

2020-12-16T08:35:38-05:00July 27th, 2015|
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Why We Should Remember The Elk River Spill

Remember that chemical spill we all heard about in West Virginia’s Elk River not too long ago?  It was the morning of January 9th when residents in the Charleston metropolitan area started smelling a strange licorice odor in their tap water.  By the end of the day, 300,000 residents would have to turn off their taps and not drink, bathe in, or touch the water…for the next week or more.  The culprit was 10,000 gallons of crude methylcyclohexane methanol (MCHM), a chemical mixture that had leaked out of an old, but active storage tank sitting along the banks of the [...]

2017-09-18T06:31:29-04:00May 29th, 2014|
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Chesapeake Bay Program Approves New Stream Restoration Protocols for Estimating Sediment and Nutrient Load Reductions

By Lisa Fraley-McNeal, Center for Watershed Protection, Wednesday May 29, 2013 The new protocol recommendations for the Chesapeake Bay Watershed Modeling Team for redefining removal rates for individual stream restoration projects were accepted by the Water Quality Goal Implementation Team – the final step in the review process of urban BMPs. The recommendations are the result of work done by the Center for Watershed Protection and the Chesapeake Stormwater Network to include a better method to estimate sediment and nutrient load reductions associated with stream restoration projects. The revisions imply a much greater credit reduction rate than is currently approved. [...]

2017-09-27T09:46:18-04:00May 29th, 2013|
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Rivanna Watershed Snapshot Shows Progress, Room for Improvement

By: Laura Ingles, C-Ville, December 21, 2012 The Rivanna River was recognized in 2000 as a “national treasure,” and local organizations want the waterway to maintain its value. The Rivanna River Basin Commission (RRBC)—a regional organization representing Charlottesville and Albemarle, Fluvanna, and Green counties, that recommends programs for enhancement of the river and its watershed—recently released the 2012 Rivanna Watershed Snapshot to bring attention to its current condition and encourage future preservation. The RRBC partnered with other organizations, like the Center for Watershed Protection and StreamWatch, to compile the 12-page document. Local waterway monitor StreamWatch collected the scientific data, and [...]

2017-09-27T09:52:18-04:00December 21st, 2012|
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Consultants to Track Sources of Waterway Contamination

Small Patapsco watershed project part of Chesapeake Bay cleanup, by Arthur Hirsch, The Baltimore Sun, November 29, 2012 On good days, the Tiber Hudson tributary of the Patapsco is a pleasant part of the scenery in Historic Ellicott City as it flows through a stone channel by Tonge Row, beneath Tiber Alley alongside Main Street and past the B&O Railroad Museum before it spills into the river. It’s a troubled waterway nonetheless, not considered able to support life, paved over in spots and surrounded by lots of asphalt. The urban and suburban surroundings that drain into the Tiber Hudson — its [...]

2017-09-27T09:53:55-04:00November 29th, 2012|
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Healthy Harbor: Swimming and Fishing Dreams Can Come True

By: Deb Courson Smith, Public News Service – MD, December 14, 2011 BALTIMORE – Swimming and fishing in Baltimore Harbor – in less than 10 years? That’s the goal of the “Healthy Harbor” initiative from the Waterfront Partnership of Baltimore. Details will be finalized at a public meeting today on how to clean up the water and waterways leading to the harbor. The goal is for the water to be safe for bathers and anglers by 2020. Bill Stack, deputy director of programs at the Center for Watershed Protection, helped work on the plan. Although the water is in better [...]

2017-09-27T11:13:30-04:00December 14th, 2011|
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