Local Scout Spearheads Underwater Grasses Project

Alexanna Page would like to be able to go canoeing with her friends in the summertime on water that is blue, not “chocolate brown.” The Broadneck High School sophomore lives in Divinity Cove on the shores of beleaguered Mill Creek.

“The water’s often really gross. You can’t go swimming for two days after it rains. At the moment the water is like chocolate brown,” she said, due to recent rains.

Page, 15, decided to harness the power of underwater grasses to help restore the health of the waterway, and she’s pulled together a team of 25 volunteers to help her. She plans to use “Project McGrow” to earn her Girl Scout Gold Award.

On Friday, a steady stream of volunteers who signed up to grow wild celery from seeds in their homes stopped by the community barn in Ulmstead Estates to pick up their growing kits and learn how to set up and monitor them. The young plants will be planted in June on a series of shallow underwater terraces as part of the Mill Creek Restoration Project.

The other members of Girl Scout Troop 57, based at , are playing a supporting role in the project, including: Nicole Juers, Caitlin Martinez, and Erin Kemp. Students at and Magothy River middle schools and Broadneck High School are also growing grasses in their classrooms for planting in Mill Creek.

Sub-aquatic vegetation like wild celery and eelgrass, commonly referred to as SAV, serve as a valuable food source for waterfowl, provide habitat for fish and shellfish, and add oxygen to the water. They also absorb excess nutrients and trap and hold sediments that make the water cloudy.

In the annual State of the Magothy report, released last month [February] by the Magothy River Association, the river that borders the Broadneck peninsula to the north earned an overall health score of 22 percent, for a grade of D-minus. Mill and Dividing creeks, tributaries that have been plagued by sewage spills in recent years, scored at the bottom among the 16 sites surveyed for dissolved oxygen and water clarity.

Furthermore, scientists revealed that underwater grasses in the Magothy fell from more than 300 acres in 2005 to only two acres in 2010.

The wild celery that volunteers will grow is native to the Chesapeake Bay and can tolerate murky water and high levels of nutrients.

Volunteer growers agreed to supply their own sand and topsoil for the project. The rest of the materials -- two lamps, a filter, power cord, aquarium heater and thermometer -- were loaned by the Magothy River Association from their “Grasses for the Masses” program. Anne Arundel Community College supplied the seeds.

Volunteers were instructed to plant the tiny white seeds, floating in a baggie of green bay “slime,” in equal parts of sand and soil and submerge them in a tub of 75-degree water. Two lamps provide just enough light for growing.

“Don’t put it by a window or you’ll get extra algae in it,” Page told attendees.

The seeds should germinate in 10 to 14 days and will continue to grow in the tubs set up in basements or garages for two months. Besides the instruction sheet, volunteers were given a data table to record the height of the grasses as they grow.

As she loaded her supplies into her car, Kelly Kalinowski, who moved to the area a year ago from Columbia, Md., said she was looking forward to doing her part to help with the creek’s restoration.

“I want to get involved,” said Kalinowski, who enjoys boating, fishing and crabbing on local waterways. “I figured this was a good way to get started.”