Nanticoke Summer | 2018 currents CONSERVING THE NATUR AL, CULTURAL, AND RECREATIONAL RESOURCES OF THE NANTICOKE RI V E R W ATERSHED 10-year Report Card Atlantic Sturgeon Designer Ditches Along with Creekwatchers, This 70-million year old species The Nanticoke Watershed we released the Ten Year relies on Chesapeake Bay Alliance is hosting two Nanticoke River Report tributaries as a spawning site. Designer Ditch workshops. Card at the Annual Wade- Find out more about this Learn how you could In. Check out the fun! ancient fish! receive Free Plants! See page 4-5. See pages 8-9. See page 6-7. Recycled Cardboard Boat Regatta Grab your paddles and duct tape, the Recycled Cardboard Boat Regatta is coming to Blades Marina for another year of colorful cardboard, competition and camaraderie! The event kicks off at 11am on August 4. Don’t miss your chance to take home a trophy! Learn more on page 2. Regatta — Blades, DE What: Recycled Cardboard Boat Regatta Where: Blades Marina When: Saturday, August 4 Rain Date: August 5 Time: 11AM-2PM Recycled Cardboard Boat The Reclaim Our River partnership invites groups, families, and individuals to rustle up some Regatta cardboard and build a boat for the 2018 Recycled Cardboard Boat Regatta. Registration begins at 11AM, judging at 12PM and races at 12:30PM. Several awards will be given, including the Titanic Award, which is given to the most dramatic sinking. We’ll also be tracking time and will crown winners in Individual, Family, Youth, Teens, and Organizations or Businesses categories. Registration costs $20 before July 28 and $30 after. Register via the Facebook events page (https:// www.facebook.com/events/226771858053787/) or EventBrite (https://www.eventbrite.com/e/5th- annual-recycled-cardboard-boat-regatta-blades-tickets-47302366652) or contact Vicki Prettyman at the Town of Blades office, (302)629-7366. For more information, visit http://delawarewatersheds.org/ Creekwatchers Creekwatchers Update The 2018 Creekwatchers season is now well underway, but it’s not too late to join the team. We’re currently looking for new Creekwatchers to adopt a site at Federalsburg Marina and another on nontidal Deep Creek. Please contact Volunteer and Outreach Coordinator Beth Wasden for more information. We’ve seen a mixture of weather conditions in the spring and early summer, with a now almost- forgotten dry period in late April and early May that’s since given way to excessive rainfall and two separate localized flooding events. Although you may be focused on the mosquito armies that have arrived due to all of the standing water, we’ve seen very elevated amounts in phosphorus following these events throughout the Nanticoke River region (with a few exceptions) and in the Fishing Bay headwaters sites that we monitor. Phosphorus contributes to algal blooms, which in turn lead to a number of poor water quality results, such as low- or no-oxygen areas in the water (dead zones), fish kills, and poor water clarity. We also just released the Ten Year Nanticoke River Report Card. See the Wade In recap (p.4-5) for more about it and to find out where you can get it! Wade — In 2018 Wade-In The 2018 Wade In offered a full day of free programming and activities to celebrate the tenth full season of the Nanticoke Creekwatchers program and the release of the Ten Year Nanticoke River Report Card, which examines trends and issues throughout the first ten years of the program. In spite of poor weather forecasts, the first rumble of thunder waited until we’d finished wading into Trap Pond. We measured a 17” “sneaker index” depth in 2018, an increase from 16” in 2017. The sneaker index follows former MD Senator Bernie Fowler’s informal method of measuring how deep sunlight can penetrate the water column, which is an important indicator of water quality health. “We measured a 17-inch ‘sneaker index’ depth in 2018, an increase from 16 inches in 2017.” Along with water clarity (measured with a Secchi disk and not sneakers), the Nanticoke Creekwatchers program measures a suite of parameters that we use in our annual report card: dissolved oxygen, total nitrogen, total phosphorus, and chlorophyll a. Each site receives a score, and sites within each region are averaged in order to determine that region’s grade. The River grade encompasses two regions (Upper Nanticoke and Lower Nanticoke) and the Creeks grade reflects four regions (Delaware Headwaters, Broad Creek, Marshyhope Creek, and Lower Creeks). We also collect data at Fishing Bay Headwaters sites, which is its own watershed and not included in either the River or Creeks grades. Along with trends and longer-term observations, the Ten Year Report Card also revealed results from 2017, which showed broad Ten Year Report Card improvement over 2016. The River and Creeks both received B- grades, up from C+s in 2016. The biggest gains were in two Creeks regions; Marshyhope Creek improved from a C+ to a B and Lower Creeks jumped from a C to a B-. Check out the full report card at nanticokeriver.org/ tyrc/. The map above shows average grades and trends from ten years of data collection. The maps to the left show ten- year averages for phosphorus and nitrogen. These two nutrients are key pollutants that threaten the health of our waterways and can lead to algal blooms and other issues. Find out more about these pollutants and others in the Ten-Year Report Card at nanticokeriver.org/tyrc/. Thank you! Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control Franklin P. and Arthur W. Perdue Foundation Trap Pond State Park Dr. Dennis Bartow (Center for the Inland Bays) Lower Eastern Shore Beekeepers Sussex County Master Gardeners Spade & Trowel Garden Club Wade In Committee Members (Richard Ball, Galen Brosius, Christina Darby, Sandi Dew, and Mary Lynn Huberty) MD Department of Natural Resources’ Scales & Tales Program Lisa Kuder, UMD Ph.D. candidate in Entomology Howard Vanderslice, Nan Zamorski, and all Nanticoke Creekwatchers not mentioned previously. Designer Ditches Designer Ditches What is a Designer Ditch? Designer ditches are the typical ditches that you’ll find around Delmarva, just enhanced to reduce erosion and trap pollutants that can flow into the Bay. These ditches have been improved with beautiful native plants that not only trap excess rainwater and nutrients, but also beatify your yard and provide habitat for important pollinators. Why Are Designer Ditches Important? Historically, ditches have served the purpose of quickly moving floodwaters away from our properties and roadways. Ever notice when it rains how local waterways sometimes look like chocolate milk? When a ditch has been sprayed with an herbicide or scalped with a weed whacker, there are no plants to keep the soil in place. The banks erode and the loose soil is carried into local waterways, like the Nanticoke River, and then into the Chesapeake Bay. For fish, soil in the water is similar to smoke in the air for humans. The dirty water also smothers Reduce pollution important Bay grasses and oyster beds. In Promote biodiversity addition to reducing erosion, the plants in the ditch will absorb excess nitrogen and Replenish ground water phosphorus, key pollutants, before Beautify your yard they get carried into the Bay. Provide habitat Native Plants: Native plants are suggested for use in designer ditches because they have evolved for thousands of years to survive on Delmarva. Because they are adapted to survive in this region, these plants require less maintenance once they establish themselves and provide excellent habitat for native critters, like the monarch butterfly, that have also evolved on this peninsula. Some native plants also provide critical early-spring food for pollinators, which are vital to this region’s family farms. Once established, the roots of native plants will penetrate much deeper into the soil than the typical turf grass used to line ditches. Deeper roots mean that these plants can trap and hold more floodwater, which carries nitrogen and phosphorus off of the land and into the bay. By trapping excess water, these native plants help replenish drinking water supplies while reducing the chance of devastating algal blooms that can occur when waterways hold too many nutrients. Learn About Designer Ditches with the NWA. The Nanticoke Watershed Alliance is hosting several designer ditch workshops where you can learn about how your yard could help save the Bay. Click here to get signed up! The Atlantic Sturgeon — An Endangered Species rom the darkened waters of Nanticoke River emerges a strange-looking, toothless fish with string-like barbels hanging from the bottom of its long snout. Swimming Fvery close to the bottom, the sturgeon is aided in finding its prey (worms, tiny crustaceans, small clams or snails, aquatic insects and detritus) using its barbels. When a meal is located, it sucks up the creature with its snout, along with bottom sand, gravel, or mud. The unwanted materials are then expelled through its gills and the food is directed to its gut. Sturgeons have occupied oceans, brackish, and fresh waters for some 200 million years, sharing the planet, at one time, with dinosaurs. Worldwide, there are some 26 known species, with eight native to our nation’s waters. Historically, the Atlantic sturgeon ranged from Labrador to Florida. From Maine to the Saint Johns River, Florida, 32 rivers have been confirmed as habitat for the fish “with spawning Credit: USFWS Image. occurring in at least 20 of them .” Similar to the Atlantic salmon, striped bass, alewife, and blueback herring, the Atlantic sturgeon is anadromous; it spawns in fresh water and lives as an adult in ocean water. On the coastal mid-Atlantic, the sturgeon spawns in April to June.