IRVINE NATURE CENTER Irvine Nature Center Stream & Wetland Restoration Design-Build Owings Mills, Maryland An educational nature center lives its mission to protect nature by restoring stability, function, and habitat to more than 1,500 feet of degraded stream and adjacent wetlands. ditched to support agricultural wet habitat areas, restore ripar- practices. Those alterations, ian wetland hydrology, reduce along with more recent land sediment and nutrient loading, use changes on adjacent and and reestablish a mosaic of native nearby properties, had caused emergent, forested, and scrub ocated on a 210-acre site the streams and wetlands to shrub wetlands. The project re- L featuring forests, mead- become degraded. stored 1,550 linear feet of stream ows, wetlands, and headwater and restored and enhanced tributaries of the Jones Falls, With funding from the wetlands adjacent to the stream. a highly regarded headwater Chesapeake and Atlantic Revegetation involved the plant- trout stream in Baltimore Coastal Bays Trust Fund Capital ing of more than 2,100 trees and County, Irvine Nature Center Improvement Grant and a shrubs, and seeding with native offers experiential environ- partnership with the Maryland dry and wet meadow herba- mental education programs Association of Soil Conservation ceous seed mixes. The project for children and adults of Districts (MASCD), Resource is regarded by the MASCD as a the greater Baltimore area. Environmental Solutions, model for municipalities seeking With a mission that includes Biohabitats, and Irvine Nature nutrient and sediment credits. inspiring people to explore, Center teamed up to implement respect, and protect nature, stream and wetland restora- SERVICES Irvine recognized the need to tion. The design approach was Inventory & Assessments protect and improve some of to restore the degraded stream Design the nature in its own backyard. sections, divert stormfl ow to ad- Permitting Several sections of tributaries jacent fi eld areas where it would Construction Procurement on the site had long ago been infi ltrate and create localized Construction Management Physiographic Province Piedmont Bioregion Chesapeake/Delaware Bays 800.220.0919 Watershed www.biohabitats.com Jones Falls.