Our Environment
Committee on the Environment Reports
Dog Waste | Rain Gardens | Be a Good Creek Neighbor | Bay Friendly Living | “Green” Cleaning Recipes
If you are interested in joining the Environmental Green Committee, contact Chair Kim Boris at boris.boris@verizon.net
Ask an expert
published Sept. 10, 2011, in The Capital
Question: How can Marylanders protect our groundwater?
Protect Your Groundwater Day on Tuesday provides a reminder about what Marylanders can do to protect this valuable resource.
Protecting groundwater is important not just for people with drinking water wells — half the water feeding Maryland’s rivers and streams originates as groundwater, and 70 percent of Marylanders get drinking water from streams and rivers. And when it comes to restoring our waterways and the Chesapeake Bay, protecting groundwater is critical.
What we do above ground affects groundwater, and every drop of pollution or hazardous substance that we spill adds up. When rain falls on the land, it either runs into waterways or soaks into the ground. Water that soaks into the ground gets filtered as it passes through various layers of sand, clay or rock. However, man-made chemicals such as gasoline, fertilizers and pesticides may not get filtered and can contaminate groundwater.
Every day a small army of government and private professionals work to ensure that our groundwater remains clean. Here are some ways you can help:
• Seventeen million gallons of gas are spilled each year in America during the refueling of lawn mowers — fuel your lawn mower over impervious surfaces and be careful to not to overfill your tank.
• Ensure your septic system was installed per current code standards and consider installing nitrogen reducing technology, which protects your drinking water and is good for the bay.
• Apply fertilizers and pesticides sparingly to reduce polluted runoff that can contaminate groundwater and water wells.
As Benjamin Franklin once said: “When the well’s dry, we know the worth of water.”
Learn more at www.ngwa.org.
Answered by:
John Boris, R.S.
Geologist, program consultant
Water Well Construction
Maryland Department of the Environment
Oyster Harbor resident & Watershed Steward
Technical Assistance Grant for Drainage
(Note: Presentation on this follows the Jan. 24 budget meeting. See Calendar.)
Dear Oyster Harbor Residents,
As we are aware, Oyster Harbor is in need of solving drainage and standing water problems in various places throughout our community. The run-off from our community contributes to the pollution in our waterways. This on-going pollution greatly affects the health of our waterways; Oyster Creek, Fishing Creek, and the Chesapeake Bay.
Last spring, we wrote a letter to the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF) explaining that our community is in need of assistance with drainage solutions and the hurdles that our community has faced in attempts to resolve these on-going problems. Our letter was well-received.
The process began for technical assistance grant money to be secured through NFWF. The purpose of the grant was to have an engineering firm familiar with environmentally beneficial practices come into the community to assess our drainage needs. As required for the grant process, we obtained a letter of support from Anne Arundel County for Oyster Harbor. We contacted Biohabitats, a technical service provider, from NFWF’s short list. The grant was awarded and we began working closely with Phil Jones, a water resource engineer.
As part of this technical assistance grant, we worked with Biohabitats by participating in several walks throughout the entire community in order to locate and photograph problem areas. Community background information was gathered, GIS mapping was done, and Biohabitats provided us with a summary of results with recommended actions.
This report was presented at the Board meeting on October 13, 2011. Please click here for the PDF report to find out specifics. Our next steps are to choose a project to work on, align our goals with the County’s Watershed Implementation Plan, and to commit to a plan of action. We hope that this will inspire you to help our community reduce pollution levels in our waterways. Volunteers will be needed to participate throughout this process. If you are interested, please contact us.
Sincerely,
John and Kim BorisPlain White Rain Barrels Decorated
by Our Own Kim Boris
The barrels are on the shed at the Community Lot. Thank you, Kim!
Communitiy No-Mow Zone
on Sept. 17 was a success
THANK YOU for all of your assistance yesterday [Sept. 17] with the no-mow zone and the native garden! We couldn't have done it without your hard work. It looks good now, but we're looking forward to seeing both sites next spring when things start growing again.
We planted 875 square feet at the no-mow zone and 200 square feet at Fishing Creek Park with the native garden. We logged 63.5 hours of volunteer work! Way to go!
Thank you Anne Arundel County Department of Public Works for the soil and mulch donation. Thank you Dennis Skaggs and crew at Severn Grove Ecological Design, LLC. for prepping both sites. You guys worked hard in the rain and we appreciate your flexibility with the project timeline dictated by Mother Nature!
A special thank you to the Oyster Harbor Citizens Association Board members for your suppport of our green initiatives as well as the funding needed to complete the native garden. Another special thank you to Anne Arundel County Watershed Stewards Academy for your guidance throughout our projects and the funding. We are glad to be a part of such a fantastic, well-run program!
John and I have some tools that people were borrowing throughout the day. They are at our house. If you are missing any, please let us know and we can either drop them off at your house or you can come pick them up at our house.
Thank you again for a wonderful day of service and helping our environment!
Kim & John Boris, Grace Schneiderboris.boris@verizon.net.
Dr. Sally Hornor, who is carrying out our water monitoring on the beach, would like to collect data from participating communities this summer to see if there is a correlation between illnesses associated with swimming and enterococci counts. Click here for an explanatory letter and survey form, giving you a simple way to report illnesses.
The more people who participate, the better will be the results. Below is Dr. Hornor's contact information, should you have any questions.Sally G. Hornor, Ph.D.
Professor of Biology, Anne Arundel Community College
410 777 2842 | sghornor@aacc.edu
website
Natural Christmas Tree Recycling Tips
Once the holidays are over and you are taking down your decorations, please keep the following in mind as requested by Anne Arundel Waste Management Services.
Natural garland, wreaths, and Christmas trees are yard waste and will be picked up at curbside. They are chipped into mulch, a valuable soil covering.
Please remove tree stand, tree bags, metal ornament hangers, and all decorations. Cut trees over four feet in half so that the tree will fit into the contractor’s truck.
Natural garland, wreaths, and Christmas trees will be collected on your regular recycling day.
Put your natural garland, wreaths, and Christmas trees at the curb before 6:00 a.m. on your normal recycling day or bring your items to any of the convenience centers.
Saturday, December 11, 2010, 9 a.m.
Where: Shore Drive beach
What: Planting over 300 plants next to the new retaining wall that will keep the sand on the beach and off the road. The goal is to get the plants in the ground as quickly as possible. The more hands, the faster we'll all get done!
What to Bring: shovels, gloves, water
Kids are encouraged to participate!
We appreciate your time and efforts in making our community a nicer place to live!
The Recreation Committee will provide a cookout lunch for all who participate. Please RSVP by December 4 if you can, regarding how many in your family will join us, so we can plan for the food.
RSVP to Kim Boris (including how many from your family will participate): boris.boris@verizon.net
Smokers! Cigarette butts ARE toxic and do not belong on the ground or on the beach sand
You may think you are doing a safe, good thing putting out your cigarettes on the street or in the sand, but that is NOT the caes. Cigarette filters are not biodegradable. In fact, they are toxic. When cigarette butts are on the street or in the sand they find their way into our waterways and into the Bay. There, the chemicals the filter trapped leach out into the water harming the environment. Further, some bigger critters may mistake the filters for food and ingest them... with dire consequences. One cigarette butt may not seem like much but there are TRILLIONS of them carelessly discarded every year. Small amounts of chemicals add up. More information.
Did you know…
Composting Tip
You can compost just about anything except animal products. Tea bags & dryer lint are good to go for the compost bin.
The first inch of run-off is the most toxic for the environment. Run-off is the rain water that runs off your roof and the pavement, which mixes with pollen, shingle particles, motor oil, debris, etc. This debris can be potentially harmful when it reaches our creeks and the Bay because the water carries sediment and chemicals.
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One rain barrel can hold 55 gallons of run-off from your roof.
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Attach one or multiple rain barrels to each downspout.
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Use rain barrel water to water your lawn and garden as well as indoor plants!
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You can even use the water to wash your car!
Rain barrels are available from many local retailers.
TIP: Keep your lawn mowed to keep the tick population down
We’re Planting Oysters in Oyster Creek!
Thanks to the efforts of Dave LaChapelle, Ian MacKinnon and Dr. Norm MacLeod, we now have 300,000 happy new residents in Oyster Creek. They are of the bivalve variety, or at least they will be when they grow up. And as they grow they will do what they do best – clean up the waters of Oyster Creek
Through a program initiated by the Governor, and the quick thinking of Norm, the community obtained 300,000 oyster spat (baby oysters), that were originally destined for another location on the Eastern Shore, ) from the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science’s Horn Point Laboratory in Cambridge last weekend. The spat-on-shell – that is, they have already attached themselves to old oyster shells – are currently in 100 bags, suspended from several docks in Oyster Creek. This is a temporary situation because the bags will not last long in the water and the spat must have room to grow into mature oysters.
So, as the first event of the Oyster Harbor Environmental Committee, an oyster cage building day will be held in the next few weeks. The date and time will be posted on the community website and on a sign at the community entrance.
This will be a fun activity for families who will not only learn how to build the cages, but will learn about the life cycle of the oyster and the importance of these little critters in cleaning up our Creek, and, by extension, our Bay. The cages we will build will float so that the oysters will be suspended just a foot or so from the surface where they can benefit from sunlight and the type of algae they need to eat to survive.
We will post more information about this project and about oysters in general on the community website.
Did you know:
- A house on the northwest corner of Oyster Creek used to be an oyster house years ago.
- One large oyster can filter up to 50 gallons of water per day during the warm months.
- Oysters grow three inches a year.
This is, indeed, an exciting project for Oyster Harbor. After all, with a name like ours, how could we not be an oyster haven?
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We
are so lucky to live in a beautiful community, with its wooded
landscape right next to the Chesapeake Bay. Soon we'll post
information here on simple things you can do to keep our community
-- and our Bay -- clean and thriving.
There are many things we can do to keep our two creeks — Oyster and Fishing — in great shape. The Spa Creek Conservancy has published some guidelines to everyday activities that can be done with the good health of our waterways in mind. They call it being a "Good Creek Neighbor." Read these helpful hints and see how easy it is to be a Good Neighbor to Oyster Creek and Fishing Creek. Follow this link for information on:
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The Chesapeake Bay
Foundation has information on "Bay-Friendly Living." Follow
this link for information on these topics and more.
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10 Steps to a Bay-Friendly Lawn
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De-tox Your Home with these Easy Alternatives
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Where is Your Home Located?
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What to do About Soil Erosion
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Bay Friendly Landscaping
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How to Deal with Hazardous Waste
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Recycling Oil
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Recycling Computers and Electronics
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Use Water Responsibly
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Do you have standing water on your property after heavy rainfall? Consider using Mother Nature to drain the water away in a manner that is friendly to our Creeks: build a rain garden!
A rain garden is an area in your garden that contains an indentation or dip to collect rain and melting snow allowing it to seek naturally into the ground. The garden collects not only the water but also any pollutants it carries such as oil from cars and lawnmowers and pesticides.
A well-designed rain garden will drain in a day, so mosquito larvae will not have a chance to hatch. Native plants are the best choice for rain gardens and local nurseries can help you get started.
Here are some informative web links:
Rain Garden Network | 10,000 Rain Gardens | Rainscapes | Chesapeake Bay Foundation’s Bay-Friendly Landscaping
We can ALL do our part to keep this fella and his friends a vibrant part of our community.
Oyster Harbor Citizens Association