Broadneck's Water Saver of the Month: Kathy Bauer

What better month than April to begin our monthly feature on local Broadneck homes that have added beauty to their efforts to help save our waterways?

Our area's local Watershed Steward, Brad Knopf, will be sharing what local residents are doing to go greener in an aesthetically pleasing way, hopefully encouraging others to make similar efforts. 

Here is Knopf's choice for April:

Kathy Bauer's residence at 806 Chestnut Tree in Cape St. Claire is fronted by a drainage ditch, typical of the area. The big difference is the way the Bauers have improved and beautified the ditch with lovely landscaping of ground cover plants and mulch, which helps to slow down, spread out and soak in the passing waters.

What's more, they have actually excavated to a degree and added stones to the bottom of the structure, allowing the water to soak in much like a French drain. This helps keep any oil, fertilizer, loose soil, animal waste nutrients and other pollutants from making it downstream to the River.

Many nearby ditches are actually paved, which is like a super highway for the pollutant laden water to hurry down to the Bay.

What a beautiful difference the Bauers handiwork makes! Thanks, Kathy!

Editor's Note:  Brad Knopf is our area's official Watershed Steward for the county. He has lived in Cape St. Claire since 1984 with his wife Marsha and together they have raised three children. Knopf is a Watershed Steward for the Magothy River, having attended the Watershed Stewards Academy sponsored by the county at Arlington Echo. Knopf and several others from the Magothy River Association and Cape St. Claire run an Oyster nursery, featured in January on Broadneck Patch.

He is also the Maryland Grows Oysters coordinator for the south shore of the Magothy, in which many of our neighbors grow oysters in cages hung from their piers. Lastly, you may have seen his monthly cartoon in the Cape St. Claire Improvement Association's monthly "Caper" newsletter called "WaterSavers Tip of the Month."