The Island That Time Forgot

The breeze played on the water and the salt spray washed the faces of the small crew as we headed out into the Miles River. Captain Rich Scofield guided Volunteer out into the water as we began to discuss what we might find on the blob of green that awaited our arrival in the middle of the River. Mike Hardesty, Assistant Director of the Chesapeake Semester and Ben Ford, Special Projects Coordinator, began talking in earnest about what their students might learn from a trip over to Long Point Island. Ecology, history, land-use, and Tom Horton’s book “Bay Country” were all mentioned as they discussed the potential lesson plans that could be developed around this ancient island.

Entrance to Long Point Island.

We puttsed up to a small dock on the far shore and Rob Forloney from the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum hopped ashore to tie up. As he did, a man started slowly walking toward the dock. “Hi. You must be the group from Washington College” he said as he approached the boat. He introduced himself as Jimmy Rouse, the owner of Long Point Island. As we all hopped back in the boat and started out for the Island, Jimmy began to tell stories of growing up on that Island. “We spent summers out here. There were three huge black walnut trees that we sold for lumber…we used the money from those trees to build the bulkheads…My father and his brothers build the cabins themselves.” Jimmy told us that he remembers when the island was connected to the mainland. In fact his family supervised driving bulldozers across the narrow land bridge onto the island for agricultural purposes.

Finally we bumped up against the dock and hopped onto shore. In front of us was a beautiful wooden cabin nestled under a canopy of mature oaks and pines. I could just imagine Thoreau walking out of the front door and sauntering off through the trees. “We can have this fixed up,” Jimmy’s wife said as we walked through the front door of the cabin. Mike immediately started pacing around happy as a kid in a candy shop, or as an environmentalist in a cabin in the woods. I could hear snippets of excited mutterings concerning team building and campfires. As my eyes drifted from the windows to the trees I couldn’t help but wondering about the incredible stories a place like this would hold. Cutoff from the mainland for over a hundred years, farmed until the 1920’s and then logged in the 1970’s, some of these trees had seen it all. The entire history of western civilization locked away in the rings of the white oak that swayed silently in the summer breeze. They had seen farmers tear up the soil to put in irrigation ditches. They had seen loggers tear down huge black walnut trees leaving gaping wounds in the canopy. They had seen children racing through the woods, combing the beaches for arrowheads, and studying the birds as they hopped through the undergrowth. Now they were watching a new group move through. A group that would fill the air with campfire smoke, good whole-body laughs, and exclamations of wonder and discovery.

The CES crew explores the forest on Long Point Island.

“Would you like to walk the length of the island?” Jimmy asked. Between the cabin and the far beach we discussed the history of the land at length. We were immersed in a discussion about the evolution of agriculture in the Chesapeake Bay region when we were interrupted by a Velociraptor. Well, at least it sounded like a Velociraptor, but after a little bit of searching we discovered that there was a heron rookery on the island.  For the next few minutes we watched as adult herons went to and from the nest bringing food for their young. In the distance we could hear the plaintive chirping of Osprey and Eagles. Beneath our feet the spent bodies of horseshoe crabs reminded us of the passing of the seasons, and brought us back to the task at hand. It might’ve been then, maybe it was while we were looking for raspberry bushes in one of the tangles of underbrush, or it might’ve been when we were all sitting on the porch of one of the cabins talking about the challenges and changes of the Chesapeake. Regardless of when it happened, we didn’t notice it until we were all loaded back on the boat and we began thinking about getting home that Rob said, “I think my watch stopped!”

None of us could figure out why that might’ve happened at the time, but I think now that I know the answer. I don’t think anything went wrong; I think that the Chesapeake, for just a brief moment, managed to break through all of our planning and give us an invitation. The Chesapeake called us with herons, the circling Osprey, the bodies of horseshoe crabs, and the slow march of box turtles.  For those of us who were there and for the students who will arrive there in a few short weeks with the Chesapeake Semester, Long Point Island will always be a place to stand still. A place to let the Chesapeake lap the soles of your feet and the quiet oaks shelter you, beckoning your return to peace, quiet, and good earth. 

Ben's box turtle.

This article was written by Rachel Field, Program and Intern Coordinator for the Center for Environment & Society.

Pilgrim on Radcliffe Creek

Arial view of Radcliffe Creek

Despite the time that I have spent in Chestertown as a student of Washington College, it was not until about two months ago that I first heard of Radcliffe Creek. Even as an Environmental Studies major, this creek was something that I had not been introduced to in my two years in school. As I began to research the history of the creek and its watershed, I met with some members from the town who are currently planning the construction of three retention pools at the source of Radcliffe Creek. Radcliffe Creek begins to form very near to the LaMotte building and the Acme shopping center on Route 213. The mouth of the creek is roughly a quarter mile from the Boat House on South Cross Street and feeds directly into the Chester River. Radcliffe Creek was identified as an area of impaired water in the Middle Chester River Restoration Action Strategy (MD DNR 2002) and the purpose of these retention pools is to help improve the water and habitat quality of Radcliffe so that it may no longer be considered impaired. During my research it was discovered that there used to be an old dumpsite in an area just south of Cromwell Clark Road. Additionally, there was a coal/gas manufacturing plant located on 813 West High Street—an area that backs up directly to Radcliffe Creek—that operated from 1910 to 1946. After these discoveries, the idea of performing sediment sampling and trace metal testing in addition to nutrient and water quality testing became much more prevalent. The creek itself is primarily fed by ground water and storm water runoff and has very low salinity (the average salinity of the creek is a mere 0.2 ppt). The plant life within the creek consists mostly of phragmites but there are healthy strands of cattails amongst the phragmites in addition to some forest vegetation along some of the banks of the creek.

Osprey with dinner

The times that I have kayaked along the creek I have seen numerous Ospreys, Red-winged Black Birds, Great Blue Herons, two muskrats, a few turtles (I was not able to get close enough to determine the type of turtle), and some very small fish. The creek itself has high potential to become a fantastic area for wildlife, as it is already home to many different types of organisms. Since there had been no prior delineation of it, one of the first things that I began doing when I found out about Radcliffe Creek was delineate its watershed in order to get an idea of the land that contributes to its runoff. I also went out on the creek and measured various depths of Radcliffe so that a 3D bathymetric model of the creek can be produced at some point. Since there has been virtually no research conducted on Radcliffe Creek, there is a lot to catch up on and even more to pursue. My primary focus for the past two months has been to test the overall water quality of Radcliffe. I perform biweekly surveys of the creek and measure temperature, salinity, dissolved oxygen (both in mg/L and % saturation), Chlorophyll a and pH using a water quality sonde. I also take water samples from four different sites along the creek and use them to test for ammonia, nitrate, orthophosphate, total nitrogen and total phosphorus. The average amount of total nitrogen within the creek has been 2.5 mg/L and the average total phosphorus is 0.26 mg/L which produces a nitrogen (N) to phosphorus (P) ratio of about 10 to 1 rather than the16 to 1 that is typically needed for phytoplankton. (This means that for every atom of P used a phytoplankton cell needs 16 atoms of N – on average). It appears that N may be limiting phytoplankton growth, at least for the short period of time that I have been investigating the Radcliffe Creek water quality.

Students paddling on Radcliff Creek

My hope is that this research and data collection will be able to continue over the years so that a better understanding of the ecosystem quality of Radcliffe Creek emerges. Radcliffe has huge potential to become an even more wonderful and habitable creek than it is currently and my hope is that by raising awareness and learning more about the charming creek, Radcliffe will become one of the gems of Chestertown. I would like to thank all of the people who have helped me with this research—my fellow students Sarah Winters, Olivia Hughes and Rachel Stoddard and professors Christian Krahforst, Leslie Sherman and Karl Kehm. I would not have been able to do this without their fantastic efforts.

Drew Hobbs is an Environmental Studies major with minors in Computer Science and Chemistry. He will be starting his Junior year at Washington College in the fall.