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Harford County needs to protect sensitive forest and wetlands along the Bush River and its tributaries if it wants to restore the damaged waterway, according to a plan on managing the watershed's future.
"Preservation should be an important element of what they do in the future" because the area around Bush River is still growing, said Rebecca Winer of the Center for Watershed Protection, who helped write a management plan for the watershed. She said preserved habitats, especially, "are quickly becoming a unique land use."
Yet those uses are the keys to preserving water quality, she said. The plan calls for preserving 75 percent of contiguous forest areas, 50 percent of farmland and 75 percent of large wetland tracts. It also urges reinforcing stream banks and buffers, limiting livestock access to streams, refitting stormwater systems to improve their ability to capture runoff, reducing paved surfaces and conducting stream cleanups.
The areas that remain fairly pristine, including a large tract of forest in the Stoney Forest area at Grays Run tributary, should be priorities for the county, Winer said in a meeting about the plan last week with community residents.
If accepted by officials, the plan could be instrumental in shaping the county's land use plan, which currently is in review before comprehensive rezoning begins next year.
"It's certainly a very comprehensive plan; a lot of work has gone into it," said Pat Pudelkewicz, chief of environmental planning with the Department of Planning and Zoning, who worked on the assessment. She said the report is one of many the county plans to use as it evaluates land use.
"There are a lot of good recommendations in here that we can work to achieve," Pudelkewicz said.
Bush River's watershed, which the state has identified as a priority cleanup area because its nutrient and sediment levels violated state standards, runs roughly from Jarrettsville on the northwest boundary to Havre de Grace on the east, Churchville on the northern end and Aberdeen Proving Ground at the southern tip.
Much of the area lies within or near the county's designated growth area, or "development envelope."
The watershed is home to a host of land uses, from farming to forest, to vast tracts of shopping areas and homes. The way these uses are managed - or not managed - has created problems for the waterways.
Stan Kollar, a biology professor at Harford Community College who lives in Pylesville and follows environmental issues in the county, attended the community meeting and reviewed the plan with about 20 other residents. "In general, I thought it was pretty good," he said. "The difficulty with any plan like that is getting the politicians to buy in."
The Stoney Forest area could be a case in point. The tract, which is home to Grays Run tributary, is east of Route 543 and north of Interstate 95. It is one of the watershed's last tracts of uninterrupted forest, but it also is at the top of many developers' wish lists to be the next area the county opens up for growth in next year's comprehensive rezoning.
The commitment to preserve sensitive areas can be tough for local governments, said Danielle Lucid, watershed restoration program manager for the Department of Natural Resources.
"It's so hard to restore once they're damaged," Lucid said. "It takes a lot of political will to protect areas to prevent their degradation."
To produce the Bush River assessment, the county teamed up with the state Department of Natural Resources. Lucid said the agency's goal is to help create five watershed plans a year around the state, or 50 by the year 2010.
These plans are an integral part of the state's goals set out in the Chesapeake Bay Agreement, a multistate voluntary pact signed in 2000 to help restore bay water quality, she said.
"It's important because there are a lot of waters in the state that are in very poor quality," Lucid said.
Counties that are accepted into the program receive $40,000 in funds and administrative help. DNR also conducts detailed surveys of 100 miles of streams, water quality, plant life and a broader look at the watershed's characteristics.
In return, the county must assess the data to provide a quantifiable plan to the state, prioritize projects and outline how they will address problem areas, Lucid said.
Fifteen counties have either already begun or are starting watershed restoration plans through the program.
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