THEGALGANO
Registered: December 2009
City/Town/Province: Flint Hill
Posts: 1
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Many active outdoor years in the Boy Scouts have taught me the value of being a steward of our environment. Having safe water to drink during a backpacking trip is taken for granted until the one night you camp downstream from a farm where fertilizer and cows are freely fouling the water. Growing up on a farm, I am aware of the value of riparian buffers for stabilizing streambanks, reducing erosion and filtering pollution.
Our rural mountainous county in Virginia is part of the Chesapeake Bay’s 64,000 square-mile drainage basin or watershed. Freshwater from thousands of streams, creeks and rivers flows downstream, eventually mixing with ocean water to form a brackish estuary that supports the life of grasses, finfish, shellfish, and other aquatic wildlife. I realized that, as upstream inhabitants, our community can play a critical role in affecting the health of the struggling Bay with emphasis on beneficial land use, such as riparian buffers. Improving the water quality of the tributaries to the Rappahannock River would result in healthier conditions both locally and in the Bay. The combination of trees, shrubs and native grasses along creeks, streams and rivers removes sediment and chemicals such as nitrogen and phosphorus before they reach the waterway. The root systems hold soil together, reducing streamflow velocity during floods and recharging groundwater. The forested buffer provides shade, cooling the water and reducing stress on fish.
For my Eagle Scout project, I unconsciously gravitated toward a major
undertaking with RappFLOW (Rappahannock Friends and Lovers of Our Waterways), a nonprofit organization whose members shared my concerns about water quality and erosion. I was pleased to learn that RappFLOW is a regional partner with the Chesapeake Bay Program in the restoration of the Chesapeake Bay, and was in need of assistance with designing and building a model riparian buffer. This was the ideal opportunity for me to take part in restoring the largest estuarine system in the United States. The goal of the Chesapeake Bay Program is to buffer seventy percent of all streams and shorelines with the entire Bay watershed. The model riparian buffer along the Thornton River would serve as an educational tool for landowners who needed details on how to design this streamside system on their properties by identifying the ideal foliage to establish an effective buffer.
My project started in September, 2007 by working with local Botanists and RappFLOW volunteers to identify the foliage native to Rappahannock County that possessed the characteristics beneficial for a riparian buffer. Twelve essential plants were identified by both their common and botanical names.
I. Trees
1. Sweet Birch
2. Black Gum
3. Northern Red Oak
4. Eastern White Pine
5. Eastern Redbud
6. Witch Hazel
II: Shrubs
1. Red-osier Dogwood
2. Buttonbush
3. Winterberry Holly
4. Silky Dogwood
III. Weeds / Small Bushes
1. Joe-pye weed
2. Bee Balm
Over the winter months of November and December, 2007, I identified the appropriate materials for the construction of the markers. A weather-resistant Veranda hardiplank board was selected and funds were raised to purchase the materials with the sale of my fine art. Template prototypes were approved by RappFLOW and the months of January and February, 2008 were spent stenciling and routing the names of the plants onto the markers. During the month of March, posts for the markers were cut, painted and attached to the sign boards with stainless steel braces.
On the fifth of April I supervised the installation of the newly constructed signs along the Thornton River riparian buffer in their selected locations. I led nineteen boy scouts and adults in 114 hours of community service for this environmental initiative. The signs made their debut at RappFLOW’s Clean Streams Day celebration the following Saturday.
The model riparian buffer with botanical markers identifying native plants serves as an educational arboretum for county residents and visitors interested in developing their own streamside buffer. My volunteer involvement with RappFLOW continues to this day as I am now trained to sample and evaluate county stream water quality by E. coli quantification.
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