A focus of the South River Greenway project has been preserving the maximum amount of land in its natural state, but ensuring that those acres are the highest-quality habitat possible. To accomplish this, the Greenway partners have conducted the following habitat restoration projects.

Invasive Plant Removal

Two sites within the Greenway, both on publicly-owned land, have been run over with two kind of invasive plants, Chinese wisteria and wavyleaf basketgrass.

Chinese wisteria, a common plant found in residential landscaping, is quite invasive when left alone for long periods of time. The vine wraps around native shrubs and trees, blocking out light and in some cases physically pulling the trees down.  In the Greenway, wisteria was planted in the yard of a home site in the woods. The house is no longer standing, but the effect of the presence of wisteria still stands, 80 years later. Eight acres of forest have been completely overrun with the invasive vine. SRG partners have controlled the larger growths by cutting the vines and applying chemical treatments to the base, but volunteers are still needed in 2010 to pull the smaller plants by hand.  By using both these approaches, the SRG partners are confident this plot of mature forest can be left intact.

Wavyleaf basketgrass is a plant native to Southeast Asia and new to North America, currently only found in Maryland. Its highly invasive nature has the Department of Natural Resources on alert to keep it from continuing to spread to other natural areas in Maryland.  In the Greenway, an 11-acre site has been overrun by this plant, which covers the forest floor, choking out native plants growing under the forest canopy. No one is sure how the grass got there, but SRG partners have used both herbicide application and volunteer hand-pulling to attempt to control the invasion. More volunteer events are in the works.

Reforestation

In 2009, the South River Greenway partners (with funding from the Chesapeake Bay Trust and Maryland DNR) completed a 4-acre, 1400-tree reforestation project, with 140 volunteers pitching in to get the trees in the ground. Volunteers planted all native trees in 4 acres of cleared fields to expand the riparian buffer zone and improve water quality. The tree-planting site was on the headwaters of Bacon Ridge Branch.

BGE Right-of-Way

The South River Greenway contains approximately 4.5 miles of Baltimore Gas & Electric power lines, totaling about 400 acres of land, between Route 3 and Route 50 in Crofton. This area is a pilot project for integrated vegetation management (IVM). IVM combines the goals of managing for reliable transmission of electricity, and habitat needs of birds, pollinators, and other guilds of wildlife. Management of ROW’s especially using IVM methods, mimics natural disturbances (fire, floods, and beaver) that have been suppressed. IVM methods are less disturbing to wildlife then traditional ROW management techniques. Studies have shown that shrub/old field species of wildlife and sun loving plants can thrive in ROW’s with proper management.

This is one of three pilot project areas in Maryland that will help BGE make a decision about future ROW management that could potentially benefit plant and animal populations across thousands of acres of ROW. BGE’s decision on IVM expansion will be based on how effective IVM methods are to at facilitating reliable transmission of electricity, cost, and effect on wildlife and plant populations. The US Fish and Wildlife Service is coordinating surveys of birds, butterflies, bees, and plants, to provide BGE information that will help make future decisions about habitat management.

Traditional management of BGE ROW’s includes:

• Year round mowing to control woody vegetation
• Topping and felling trees with chainsaws
• Broadcast use of herbicides without regard to sensitive habitats

IVM management includes:

• Creating maps for management crews indicating locations where specific management techniques will be used
• Using low volume broadcast herbicide under much of the wire zone (area directly under the wires) to control woody vegetation
• Allowing shrub thickets to colonize certain steep slopes and wetlands within the wire zone. Within the shrub thickets, trees will be removed with a targeted use of herbicides.
• Allowing a linear shrub thicket to grow in the border zone (area between wire zone and forest edge). Trees will be removed with a targeted use of herbicides.

Benefits of IVM

• Reduced disturbance of bird nests and wildlife/mower interactions
• Development and management of a mosaic of grasslands and shrub habitat
• Control of non-native invasive woody and herbaceous plant species
• Management should favor the growth of wildflowers over grasses due to limited mowing which will benefit pollinators
• Reduced noise and air pollution from mowers
• Potentially lower cost than traditional management after initial work is completed
• A greener approach for BGE which often hears complaints about ROW management
• Rare plants/habitats can be better incorporated into management.

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