Bar-T Mountainside
– FEATURED PROJECT –
Overview
Bar-T Mountainside is privately owned and is operated as an outdoors year-round camp and afterschool programming site focused on environmental education. High stream banks that were eroding and a stream detached from its floodplain hindered the stream’s ability to filter out nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorous.
Project Description
The landowner is passionate about the environment and operates a self-sustainable property with wind-powered electricity, composting toilets and stormwater management. Through a unique partnership with the landowner, The Center for Watershed Protection, Department of Natural Resources, and Frederick County, Ecotone was able to undergo over 4,000 feet of stream restoration and reconnect the stream to the floodplain while engaging with the camp’s kids to teach best ecological practices. The landowner now showcases the project to the environmental education community how an eroded, entrenched stream channel disconnected to its floodplain was transformed into an ecological Narnia with multi-threaded streams and wetlands that was turned back into the functional swamp that it once was.
Highlights
- Onsite materials such as wood, gravel, and tree branches were repurposed
- Wetland vegetation was utilized to hold stream banks together instead of hauling in rocks
- Opportunity for kids to explore and find aquatic insects and salamanders
– PROJECT PHOTOS –
– PROJECT DETAILS –
LOCATION
Frederick County
CLIENT
Maryland DNR & Frederick County
WATERSHED
North Branch Bennett Creek
SERVICES USED
Design/Build, Earth Flora Strategies,
Form & Function, Terra Firma
– RELATED PROJECTS –
EAST BRANCH WINTER’S RUN
View Project
“Ecotone has been the Catoctin and Frederick Soil Conservation Districts’ ecological restoration partner since 2014. We have utilized Ecotone’s expertise in restoration design, construction, repair, and planting, and have been impressed with their knowledgeable and professional staff throughout each project phase. Their staff is receptive to requests from our cooperator/landowners on the inclusion or exclusion of specific species in the planting plans and minor design modifications to assist the landowners in the continued maintenance of the projects with no effect on the overall project results. Because of Ecotone’s diverse abilities in ecological restoration, the Catoctin and Frederick Soil Conservation Districts are able to work with Ecotone to complete various environmental projects, which makes reaching nutrient and sediment reduction goals both simpler and more efficient.”
-Denny Remsburg, District Manager, Catoctin and Frederick Soil Conservation Districts
