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Clean up Spa Creek

From the headwaters to the Severn River

Educate the Public

About the link between human lifestyles and the health of the watershed

Fund Projects

To Reduce erosion, stormwater runoff, and pollution

Spa Creek Conservancy - Home

08

Annapolis Creeks Wade-In

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2019 Wade-In June 9 . Truxtun Park Wade-In 2019

Celebrating Chesapeake Bay Awareness Week with the Annapolis Creeks Wade-In on Sunday, June 9th.

How far can we wade into each one of the Annapolis Creeks and still see our feet?  The Wade-Ins were very simple. Walk into the creek. Measure how deep the water is once you can't see your feet any more and then we’ll record the depth. That's it.

Wade-ins for each creek were staggered throughout the afternoon so that people could participate in multiple wade-ins if they wanted or just do one creek. The wade-in levels at each creek are reported on SpaCreek.net and via social media.

Special thanks to our helpers at Truxtun Park, Nora, Rachel and Maya, pictured wading into Spa Creek.

 Wade-In Results 2019 are shown below. The day was overcast, around 75 degrees F most of the afternoon, and there had been no significant rainfall within the last 48 hours.  

 Wade-In 2019   Date/Time   Weather   Depth 
 Back Creek  6/9 4pm   Cloudy, 75 F   1.1 meter 
 College Creek  6/9 2:03pm  Cloudy, 74 F  1 meter
 Spa Creek  6/9 2:45pm  Cloudy, 75 F  .5 meters
 Weems Creek  6/9 5pm  Cloudy, 68 F  .75 meters 

 

Wade-Ins are scheduled for June 9th

College Creek at 2 p.m. Location tbd

Spa Creek at 3 p.m. Truxtun Park Boat Ramp

Back Creek at 4 p.m. Capital SUP, 7314 Edgewood Rd

Weems Creek at 5 p.m. Admiral Heights - Heineman Park on Dewey Drive

 

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13

Update - Fuel Oil Spill in Spa Creek

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fuelspillspa may19 smSpa Creek has been plagued with a fuel oil spill for over a year now. A group of concerned Spa Creek neighbors met with a group of State, County, City and School representatives on Friday, May 10th to see what, if any progress was being made on the spill. 

Chris Ralston, Program Manager, Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE) Oil Control Program provided the group with the following information.

  • The Anne Arundel County Public Schools (AACPS) contractor has probed and knows mostly where the oil is in the soil, though MDE wants the them to do a little more of that in other places.
  • The source is on AACPS grounds
  • The current submitted, but not yet approved, mediation plan is an accepted technique to slowly pump oil-contaminated into a vacuum truck from strategically placed 4" well pipes
  • MDE plans to come back and additionally ask for work to find and repair faults in the storm drain system
  • Between sealing the pipe and removing the oil they would expect to see a drop in the effluent at the pipe mouth (leaking into Spa Creek) but there is not currently, nor are there plans for future quantitative monitoring
  • MDE is short staffed and backlogged but there were indications that screaming and writing the governor, etc. can get us bumped up on the queue.

A tour was taken of the area surrounding the school where fuel oil has saturated the ground, and into the boiler room beneath the school. There does not seem to be any urgency to get this problem resolved and Spa Creek neighbors are going to have to be proactive to get results.

 

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11

First Day Hike on Spa Creek

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Headwaters Hike Spa CreekJoin volunteers from Spa Creek Conservancy as we celebrate 2019 and hike to the headwaters of Spa Creek. You’ll walk through restored areas of the creek and see beaver dams, a wooded marsh, skunk cabbage, bald cypress trees all signs of a creek on the mend.

Dress appropriately for the weather with shoes you don’t mind getting muddy. Parts of the hike will go through the marsh and through thick brush. Not appropriate for young children. Total hike is about 2 hours long.

Meet in the parking lot at the track behind Bates Middle School at Weems Whalen Field, 935 Spa Road, Annapolis. We’ll leave at 1pm.

 

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