Anchara

If phragmites australis were to be charred under a cover of dredge spoils, the affected area could be immediately nitrogen-deficient due to the loss of N gas in the exhaust. Dredge material from upstream of the Conowingo Dam is nitrogen-rich, however, and the underlying soil would also contain great amounts of nitrogen which could wash up into the biochar. The heat of charring could even create microsites of char from the organic matter mixed in with the dredge spoils.

Nitrogen that was held in the reeds and added organic matter could be entrapped by the sediment casing, making it available when subsequent planting takes place (as with ankara practiced in Cameroon). Nitrogen that is trapped in the sediment cover or char due to an increase of reactive sites on clay or biochar could be sequestered, avoiding the greenhouse gas release or eutrophication that would accompany simply dumping of the spoils on the shore. Inoculating seedling roots with mycorrhizal fungi would be a very helpful step. If native legumes or other nitrogen-fixing species can be found, planting their seedlings preceded by a dip in the proper bacterial inoculum could be all it takes to jump start the nitrogen cycle after charring. Plants that are easy to grow would be necessary in any case, since the soil would be otherwise devoid of microbes. The roots should be placed no deeper than the baked sediment layer, though the underlying baked sediment should be broken up to allow the roots to grow into the charred phragmites layer.

One currently followed method of phragmites eradication is described in this brochure and a more interesting slideshow. It may be less expensive than my method, but it is potentially more harmful to the environment (glyphosate) and takes two years to reach the point of replanting or initial restoration. My method can be performed in a matter of weeks and it sequesters carbon while recycling dredge spoils. Since applying glyphosate must be done in a way that avoids overspray and contacts all the targeted foliage, current methods may also be more labor intensive (adding expense) and pose a health hazard to the exterminators.

Another common method of eradicating phragmites involves burning in addition to herbicides. This video shows what a good tinder phragmites is. My covered method would be more controlled and hopefully much less smoky.

Demonstration Projects

Though installing rock dams at the outfalls to my local lake will require a lot of preparing, planning, organizing, and coordinating, my higher ambition involves another dam, also affecting the Chesapeake Bay, but to a much greater extent. Tomorrow the Maryland Environmental Service (MES) will begin evaluating bids for the contract competition to dredge 25,000 cubic yards of sediment from the Maryland portion of the Susquehanna River upstream of the Conowingo Dam and recycling the dredge spoils in an innovative fashion. The idea is to select a company that offers a promising plan for disposal of 1,000 times this much sediment by using this contract as a demonstration of how it can be accomplished on a small scale.

Conowingo Dam photo by Aaron Harrington

I am not in the dredging business, but the amount of dredge spoils requiring disposal from this dam  could be an ideal opportunity for me to try my idea for phragmites eradication. A successful small scale grant-funded demonstration would be a good way to gain the interest of MES and whichever compan(ies) they eventually award contract(s) totalling $3 billion. Before I even seek a grant,  backyard experimentation with charring under earth and/or sediment cover would be a good first step. Once I finish building my cob oven, I will be able to practice a few techniques, but will eventually want to replicate charring of dry grasses using a configuration like that in my eradication concept.

On top of that, following a year of training and practice, I am happy to report that tonight I got my certificate naming me a Master Watershed Steward. And I got the t-shirt. That oughta make 'em sit up and pay attention to my ideas on saving the bay.

Oh, How the Phragmites Have Fallen

In our Watershed Stewards Academy class visit to Elms Environmental Education Center, our host, +Kurt Reitz showed us a freshwater pond that was walled in halfway around with deep stands of phragmites australis (the common reed), an invasive shoreline plant so tenacious that it requires herculean efforts to eradicate it. Typically, eradication requires cutting, spraying with glyphosate, burning the stubble, and repeat treatments a few years later. The toil and trouble associated with this regimen deters most attempts at restoration, so owners and environmentalists have essentially acceded to allowing phragmites to rob our ecosystems of their natural biodiversity.

These tenacious phragmites will weather this storm, no problem (Photo by Kurt Reitz)

The way phragmites dries up in the fall makes it a tempting target for conversion to biochar. Controlled open burns of phragmites risk turning into conflagrations that could touch off fires in surrounding areas. I wonder, though, if it may be feasible to avoid much of the cutting and spraying and make very hot fires out of phragmites stands by applying traditional charcoal-farming techniques.

Biochar could be made with phragmites similar to the Ankara system. One of the problems we have in the Chesapeake Bay area is that phragmites grows out of dredging deposits, but by using dredging spoils as the covering material for the Ankara-style burn, we would be able to kill the in situ phragmites and the seeds and rhizomes in the dredging material, as well. Open burning has been an ineffective way to eliminate phragmites since the deep rhizomes often survive and come back with a vengeance. With the Ankara approach, heat is concentrated and conducted down deeper into the soil, so there is a better chance that the rhizomes would be killed.

For phragmites, the way to apply this approach might involve cutting three-foot strips about every 12 feet, flattening the reeds in the 12 foot rows and adding the cut pieces, digging out the rhizome-filled soil from the cut areas and spreading it on the flattened reeds, adding dredging spoils (from nearby projects) to create a casing over the whole biomass, making vent holes at the ends and in the top of the ridge as necessary to maintain some air flow, lighting the biomass at both ends and keeping it going by opening or closing air vents while it cooks for several days. After it cools, it can be tilled and planted with winter hardy native plants.

Potential advantages of this approach are its economy, rapidity, sequestering of carbon, creation of a biochar nutrient filter along the shoreline, and improved soil properties for replanting.

Mitigating Sprawl

Photo by Matt McGuire (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

The information session on the rewrite of Calvert County's Comprehensive Plan offered many insights on the process, current viewpoints, and the situations we face. Attendees were given an opportunity to submit views on paper regarding the top challenges, changes witnessed, and delights of living in Calvert County. Mine were soil tilth, invasive species, and nature, respectively. The presentation that covered some of the trends since the last major plan rewrite in 2004 brought a related problem to light - land use.

According to the statistics presented, the amount of both farmland and forest lost in our county over a ten year period is approximately 5%. As of 2007, about 60% of the county was forest or farmland. A 5% loss would have brought that figure down to about 55% as of 2014. The National Forest Service projections for forest land in Maryland under various scenarios are for additional losses ranging from 20 to 30% by 2060. If farmland losses remain in step with forest losses, we are then looking at a combined loss rate in Calvert County that continues at more than 5% per decade and at least 23 square miles (15,000 more acres) sacrificed to the god of growth.

In a talk given to the county's Master Gardeners last year, the crisis of ongoing suburban sprawl was also highlighted, with the point made that this results in a loss of connectivity in our ecosystems, reducing biodiversity. The reason Master Gardeners need to understand this is because increasing biodiverse gardens are one small way to mitigate the effects of sprawl on wildlife corridors. By ubiquitously gardening in islands within the developed landscape, the hope is that many of the threatened wee beasties will be able to find sufficient food and shelter.

I wrote down my three responses to the planning questionnaire (soil tilth, invasive species, and nature) before seeing the statistics on land use. In retrospect, it is easy to see a relationship of these three key indicators to the issue of real estate development. The soil that we grow on must be improved, especially if there is going to be less area under cultivation. Invasive species must be curbed in an effort to mitigate the loss of biodiversity caused, in part, by sprawl. Nature, in general, must be given more consideration and care as we continue to spread out across the land. These are action areas that I would like to see promoted in the next Comprehensive Plan update.

Nature Preserves (Big and Small)

Coal isn't the only embattled resource harbored by federal lands. In Oregon, cattle grazing ranges and timber are flashpoints for disputes arising out of economic vs. environmental foci. While federal jurisdiction is not as widespread as Oregon's, much of Maryland's economic activity takes place on property owned by the federal government. Presumably, should the union disintegrate following a slide into rebellion, states or regions will inherit these jurisdictions, but they may have to fight locally interested militias like Oregon's in order to maintain control. That won't be difficult for most of Maryland's federal lands, as most are owned and operated by federal departments involved in national security.  The Patuxent River Naval Air Station (home to my former employer, Naval Air Systems Command), the Aberdeen Proving Ground, and Fort Meade (home to the National Security Agency) are among the largest.

One prominent resource of interest to our future economy and our environment is the Patuxent River, which is largely held in the public commons. Adjacent to Fort Meade is a large chunk of federal land called the Patuxent Research Refuge (not to be confused with the Patuxent River State Park or county parks such as Prince George's Patuxent Park).  The navigable reach of the Patuxent River ends short of these environmental preserves, as the British discovered to their dismay during the War of 1812. Their largest vessels had to stop well below the headwaters, disembarking troops at Benedict, MD in preparation for their assault on the nation's capital.  That won't stop shallow-draft boats and barges from inland commerce up the Patuxent in the fossil-fuel deprived future that soon awaits us, especially as sea level rise backs up the tidal force to maintain wider and deeper channels all along its course. Environmental preservation will take a back seat to economic necessity in order to move goods via waterways in and out of populated areas, but that will be balanced out by the return to the wild of some areas which are economically unsustainable.

Developed landscapes that fall into neglect are vulnerable to invasive species, which also often include pioneer scrub plants such as thistles. Returning to a more beautifully advanced stage of wild can be fostered by a method now being practiced at the Patuxent Research Refuge by Master Gardeners. It is being taught to Master Gardeners in many counties through a series of workshops for creating foundation seedbeds of native plants. The process includes (1) Native plant rescue/seed saving (2) Seed sowing, and (3) Maintenance and propagation of foundation beds. Planting a foundation seed bed and collecting the seed from the mature plants allows a gardener to propagate natives via:

• starting plugs or pots of local genotype native plants, (for community greening projects and MG plant sales and demo gardens) 
• providing parks with genetically appropriate seed for restoration of areas after invasives removal or other soil disturbance 
• sowing native meadows 
• making wildflower seed packets, or 
• selling to produce income or raise funds.

It doesn't require a nature preserve to carry out this small-scale approach to environmental preservation. Gardeners like me can dedicate a little of their gardens and time to restoring natural beauty at home and in their communities. Groups throughout the country are holding seed swaps on or around the last weekend in January. I plan to participate in our county's event this weekend, where one of the seeds on my shopping list will be a native for my foundation seedbed.

Pushing back the Invaders

There is something of a tragedy in places where natives are driven into minority status.  Who knows what the waves of climate and resource war migrations will do to Europe in terms of cultural upheaval? The wild kingdom endures its own invasions of animals, plants, and insects, driven, as well, by climate change and human exploitation.  Often, the invasive species can be predatory, as were the settlers vs. the Native Americans and certain Islamic extremists living in the free world.

As a master gardener intern, I've been trained to side with the natives in their fight to possess territory.  This sounds like a convenient simplifying precept until you start asking for native plants at local nurseries.  Browsing through the Native Plant Guide for the Chesapeake Bay Watershed, I picked four ground cover plants that I decided to shop for to get the best price from nurseries as far as 50 miles away.  It turned out that price wasn't the issue, since not a single one was available at any of the half dozen nurseries shopped.

It seems that the online shopping option will be the solution to this apparent lack of conservation consciousness.  If I don't want to buy in quantities of 25 or greater from the Maryland Online Nursery, I can still buy numerous native species at Izel Plants, the Amazon.com of native plants.  Izel (meaning "unique" in a Native American language), is a clearinghouse for nurseries specializing in native plants.  Prices appear to be relatively low, and include quantity discounts.  The mid-Atlantic region is their strongest sector.

Should neither of these sources carry the plants I want, there are other listings yet to be explored.  As mentioned earlier, the local annual Master Gardener plant sale is a real good shopping opportunity, as well.