Each month, we will highlight innovative, bay-oriented local actions. If you have a project that you'd like to see highlighted, please contact Catherine Shanks.
Windy Hill on the Corsica RiverThis month’s featured restoration project was a private/public partnership between the Maryland Department of Natural Resources and a Queen Anne’s County homeowner, Matthew Miller and Elizabeth Wehrle. Located mid-river on the south shore of the Corsica River, the project demonstrates an innovative approach to shoreline stabilization. Traditional armoring techniques are designed to protect the shoreline from erosion with rock or bulkhead but do not provide any habitat for fish and animals that live or nest in shallow water, in marshes or on beaches. The approach used in this project harnesses the energies provided by wind and tides to create a soft but stable shoreline along with much needed beach habitat. The Windy Hill Living Shoreline Project consisted of replacing 1000 feet of failing bulkhead with three shoreline marshes and small mushroom shaped peninsulas known as tombolos, to function as breakwaters and create shallow lagoons. This allows wave energies from large storms and high tides to break out onto the landscape in a non-erosive manner. The largest wave energies in this area are delivered in the winter months from 4-miles north. Wave energy is now dispersed while sediment accumulates to build a new beach and form a tidal marsh. |
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Two step-pool channels were also constructed in the yard above to capture and treat polluted rainwater runoff. Through these channels, rainwater soaks into the ground and re-emerges through springhead seeps near the lagoons. This gives the polluted runoff a chance to be cooled and cleaned before it reaches the river. This type of approach re-creates the natural rain infiltration system that was there before humans changed the landscape.
Scientists from the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC) and the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Studies (UMCES) are studying many characteristics of this installation, from physical stability to biological integrity. From this study they can document the values of working with nature, or rather, having nature work for us.
“Shorelines are very dynamic in nature and as such require a dynamic solution to achieve true stability. The practice of armoring shorelines interrupts natural patterns of sediment transport and destroys valuable inter-tidal habitat. The Windy Hill Living Shoreline Project embraces this relationship, allowing wave energy to break onto the landscape in a non-erosive manner, provide a positive biofeedback loop and form the natural landscapes that we value.” – Keith Underwood of Underwood and Associates, Designer/Contractor
