Carroll Branch Stream Restoration Section I at the Burchell Property

– FEATURED PROJECT –

Overview

Installation of best management practices (BMPs) on Roseda Farm to improve the farm’s environment and water quality, reduce erosion, runoff, and manure from getting into streams. This project showcases how Ecotone creates innovative and sustainable restoration solutions by utilizing comprehensive partnerships to ensure we are doing right by the environment, the client/partner, and the landowner.

Project Description

When Ed Burchell, owner of Baltimore County’s Roseda Farm was approached with the opportunity to improve the water quality in the stream on his farm and reduce erosion and runoff, he was pleasantly surprised that the project would come at no cost to him. Through funding by the Maryland Department of Natural Resources’ Atlantic and Coastal Bays Trust Fund, installation of Best Management Practices (BMPs) on Roseda Farm in Baltimore County added 4,829 linear feet of stream restoration and 9.14 acres riparian buffer, one of Ecotone’s largest projects of 2021.

Not only was the BMP work of a large scale, but Roseda farm is also Maryland’s largest beef producer, which meant that we needed to complete our work without disrupting the daily operations of the farm. After working with the farmers to learn the pattern of their daily operations, we phased the project by stream segment, completing stream and riparian buffer installation, stabilized panel crossing, and exclusion fencing in one segment before moving to the next to allow the work of Roseda farm to continue while we were on-site. Exclusion fencing keeps cattle from trampling stream beds and depositing manure in the stream itself, but means that the cattle need to be provided an alternative water source. We installed four gravity-fed watering troughs to keep the cattle watered in each pasture, and this work was funded by both the Maryland Agricultural Water Quality Cost Share and the Natural Resources Conservation Service Environmental Quality Incentives Program grants. In the end, the strong relationships between Ecotone and BCSCD and between BCSCD and Roseda Farm, (BCSCD’s Cooperator of the Year in 1999) resulted in a smooth transition in daily operations with minimal disruptions.

Highlights

  • Innovative and sustainable restoration solutions by utilizing comprehensive partnerships
  • Improved local water quality
  • 4,829 linear feet of stream restoration
  • 9.14 acres of riparian buffer
  • Stabilized panel crossing
  • 12,650 linear feet of exclusion fencing

– PROJECT PHOTOS –

– PROJECT DETAILS –

LOCATION
Baltimore County

CLIENT
Baltimore County Soil Conservation District (BCSCD)

WATERSHED
Loch Raven Reservoir Watershed

SERVICES USED
Design/Build, Earth Flora Strategies,
Form & Function, Terra Firma

– PROJECT VIDEOS –

Drone Footage with Project Notes
Project and Partnership Video Created by The Maryland Department of Agriculture

“It definitely improves the transportation of the cattle from one pasture to the other and it’s clearly going to improve erosion… farmers who are sensitive to the environment will see what the land looked like prior to the project and what it looks like now and quite honestly, I can’t imagine any downside of wanting to improve their streams…”

-Ed Burchell, owner of Roseda Farm, Maryland’s largest beef producer