Watershed visit.

As I drove through the watershed today,  on the way to an orchard, I was stuck by how much farm land had been converted to residential property and to the extent that the changes had been extended to.  This re-enforced to me the importance of addressing both nutrient and sediment sources from agricultural and develop lands within the water shed.  Current assessments indicated that agricultural sources are still the major source for nutrients in the watershed, but developed land is the fastest growing use, which if not done with an eye on water resources will result in high flow volumes of contaminated water during storm events.

Below are a couple photos from the C & O aqueduct across the mouth of the Monocacy, a pretty impressive structure. You can see in the upriver photo on top the sparse presence of submerged vegetation  and the silt laden bottom. On the plus side there is a nice snag on the bend in the upper left hand corner of the top photo, and lots of mature forests lining the river bed on either side. 

I have been building upon my presentation for the watershed, the most recent that now includes slides on stormwater treatment is located here .  There are still draft outline slides for future inputs.