Nanticokecurrents Winter | 2018 CONSERVING THE NATUR AL, CULTURAL, AND RECREATIONAL RESOURCES OF THE NANTICOKE RI V E R W ATERSHED River Plants Choosing the Right Tree Oyster Gardening Learn more about the Being eco-friendly around the Learn how some proud unique ecosystems that holidays isn’t always easy. oyster parents are helping exist within the wetlands of We’ve got some tree picking to clean up the Nanticoke the lower Nanticoke. tips to get you started! River and Chesapeake Bay. See page 8 See page 12 See page 2. We’ve finally got all our ducks in a row! We’ve got a plan. After interviewing our stakeholders, we’ve created a prioritized strategic plan that will help guide our growth over the next several years. Learn more on page 17. Oyster Gardening Oyster Gardening Returns to the Nanticoke This autumn, oyster spat (baby oysters on shell) settled into the waters of the lower Nanticoke, thanks to the volunteer efforts of ten residents in the Tyaskin-Bivalve- Nanticoke area and the Oyster Recovery Partnership (ORP). The spat are provided by Horn Point Laboratory. While we normally wouldn’t suggest putting babies in cages, oyster spat will do just fine in their comfy enclosures, hanging a few inches above the river’s bottom this winter. Although oysters can safely freeze in the water, they are sensitive to freezing air temperatures and can die if exposed too long. As the weather warms, the volunteers will tend to the oysters and make observations. In late spring, the ORP will collect the oysters for placement in the Nanticoke sanctuary. Oysters play a major role in the history in the Chesapeake region, including the notorious Oyster Wars. Oysters grown in farms (aquaculture) support a number of businesses in the Chesapeake, and of course, some wild oysters are still harvested in the Nanticoke River and in other Bay waterways. In addition to supporting livelihoods and satisfying appetites, oysters serve as nutrient-gulping superweapons, each capable of filtering up to 50 gallons per day! With the Nanticoke’s high nitrogen levels and moderate phosphorus levels in the lower Nanticoke, oysters can play a role in improving water quality by feasting on these nutrients. In addition, volunteers are able to care for these young oysters and learn more about them and other critters in the Nanticoke. Want to be a proud oyster parent next year and live in an area that supports oysters (lower Nanticoke only)? Contact Beth Wasden for more information. Creekwatchers Concludes Eleventh Season From Bridgeville to Nanticoke, from Federalsburg to (almost) Georgetown, the Nanticoke Creekwatchers program covers a wide geographic range and aims to collect a comprehensive suite of data regarding the health of our local waterways. Nanticoke Creekwatchers Our amazing 36 citizen scientists, private landowners, drop-off site owners, partner labs, technical and financial supporters, and staff members are all required to make this program happen each year, and we’re grateful for all of their support! Volunteers served around 1,100 hours throughout the season, which ran from March through early November. These volunteers collected up to three water samples (nutrients, bacteria, and chlorophyll a), measured dissolved oxygen, salinity (tidal) or conductivity (nontidal), water temperature, total water depth, and water clarity directly in waterways, and made observations about their sites. Creekwatchers collect data on several waterways and on sections of the Nanticoke River that are not otherwise monitored on a regular basis (or any basis!), which allows us to better understand the health of the entire Nanticoke River region and its creeks. The data also helps us develop targeted programs. We’re currently working with the data that our Creekwatchers collected and will be uploading to both the Chesapeake Monitoring Cooperative (https://cmc.vims.edu/) and to Water Reporter (https://www.waterreporter.org/) in the next few months. The CMC service will feed into the Chesapeake Bay Program database, and as always, we’ll share with the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control (DNREC) and to the Maryland Department of the Environment. The 2018 Nanticoke River Report Card will be released in June. Thanks to 2018 program partners Chesapeake Monitoring Cooperative, DNREC, Envirocorp Labs Inc., Franklin P. and Arthur W. Perdue Foundation, and University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science Integration and Application Network. If you’d like to join the 2019 Nanticoke Creekwatchers team, please contact Beth Wasden. EnvironmentalNanticoke Creekwatchers Education Program Concludes Eleventh Season Our education department has been busy this fall. We hosted field trips, gave classroom lessons, held a workshop, hosted an art contest, helped coordinate tree plantings, and helped young artists find a home for their recycled sculptures. The Nanticoke Watershed Alliance hosted field trips at Trap Pond State Park and The Ward Museum for all the seventh grade students in Wicomico County. Kids explored topics in water quality, ecology, and human impacts on the environment. Our staff also visited classrooms to give lessons to the seventh graders about how they can help protect their watershed. On November 7 and 10, the NWA hosted an educators’ workshop that connected participants with local wildlife. Read more about how we brought together students and teachers through our Aquatic Wild workshop and our “Water You Doing” drawing contest on page 7. We helped fund a tree planting at the Jefferson School that gave over 70 students the chance to plant more than 200 trees. Some of these same students later created sculptures out of recycled garbage! You can check out this art exhibit at the Laurel Public Library until February when it will be moved to the Nanticoke River Arts Council’s gallery in Seaford. Environmental Education “Humans produce about 200 billion pounds of plastic each year; about 10% of that ends up in the ocean. Though some of it remains intact, most breaks into ever-smaller pieces, many less than 1/100th of an inch long. In the most pollut- ed areas, trawl seines (nets) have found six times as much plastic as plankton. Many of the particles are swallowed by aquatic creatures, especially filter feeders. As a result, plastics are showing up in the bodies of animals through- out the food chain--including some of the fish we eat. Scientists have even found plastic in table salt derived from sea salt! ‘Cleaning up what is out there is really not feasible, and would likely cause as much harm as good,’ says Kara Law, oceanographer with the Sea Island Association. ‘So what's left is hoping that nature breaks this plastic down over hundreds of years or millennia. Ultimately, we need to prevent adding to what is out there.’” Bill Nelson, The Jefferson School Educators’ Workshop The Nanticoke Watershed Alliance hosted a successful educators’ workshop this fall. The workshop was a free, two-day event that provided informal and formal educators with the resources they needed to get their students outside and discovering. Participants received certification to teach the Aquatic Wild curriculum, part of Project Wild’s array of nature-based, experiential learning. The workshop started on November 7 at Seaford High School with a short presentation by NWA’s Education Coordinator, Evan Deckers. A “critter encounter” program followed that featured reptiles and insects that can be found in our watershed. Ranger Bob Kreiter from Salisbury Zoo helped instructors engage with a large black rat snake, a diamondback terrapin, a fishing spider, and many other cool creepy- crawlies you can find in your own backyard! On November 10, educators gathered at Trap Pond’s Baldcypress Nature Center for the second session—professional development. Participants started the day with a rather chilly boat ride into the cypress swamp around the pond. The latter part of the day provided guidance for educators who received an Aquatic Wild curriculum guide after the workshop came to a close. Claire Mickletz of Bellevue State Park presented the history of the Project Wild, how to use the guide, and gave participants a chance to present a lesson from the new curriculum to get familiar with the content. This workshop and the art contest on the following page were both funded, in part, through a grant from the Environmental Protection Agency under a Chesapeake Bay Signatory Implementation Grant provided by the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control. Art Contest The “Water You Doing” art contest has come to an end and nine students have been chosen as winners. Grand prize winners will get to see their art turned into street art in the spring! The NWA is placing large stickers, made from the students’ art, near storm drains at Laurel Middle School, Laurel Public Library, and Gallery 107 (Nanticoke River Arts Council). Congratulations to our winners: Elementary: Lucas Wise - Honorable Mention Kingston O’Neil - Second Place Cameron Conolley Davidt - Grand Prize Emily Jewell - People’s Choice Middle School: Elise Connolly - Honorable Mention Marleigh Curran - Second Place Summer Knupp and Parker Smethurst - Grand Prize Allie Jimmerson - People’s Choice High School No Entries When it rains, litter, motor oil, pet waste, excess fertilizers, and other pollutants get washed down storm drains and dumped into local waterways. Storm drains do not filter out any of these pollutants, so what goes into the storm drain will be dumped into the nearest river. Our actions on land can have big impacts on the health of nearby bodies of water. The contest encouraged students to think about how they can positively impact their local waterways and show this in their art. The street stickers remind us that our storm drains flow right into local streams and rivers and carry away anything left on the street or poured down them.