Mt. Pleasant Construction Zones

There are two construction zones at the Howard County Conservancy’s Mt. Pleasant location right now: the expansion of the Gudelsky Environmental Education Center and the restoration (by Howard County) of the Davis Branch. There are some vantage points that look the same as always – looking over the rock wall to the meadow,

The view toward the west from beside the community garden

And toward the Gudelsky Center.

Even though a lot of the construction on the Center is going on inside on the lower level, there is still evidence of activity – fencing and mud! It’s fairly contained compared to the stream restoration.

Earlier this week, I was with a group that hiked down to see the progress. There are big pieces of equipment to move dirt (and mud) – creating a new channel for the stream that will reconnect with its flood plain more easily and create some wetlands too. The bridge warped my last summer’s storm surge is being straightened so that it can be used to cross the new channel. Gray chunks of rock are being placed to create riffles and drop the run of the stream by about a foot. And everywhere there are hoses to pump the water around the work site; this has been a bigger job that originally planned since the rehabilitation of a pond upstream (and not part of this project) is happening simultaneously and releasing more water than expected to the stream. All the hoses and pumps, big machinery, rocks and temporary erosion control measures made me think of this as a ‘stream on life support’ during this reconstruction; hopefully the stream will come out in better condition than when everything started!