Parkers Creek and Governors Run Preservation History

Parkers Creek and Governors Run Preservation History:
Timeline and 2010 status
PRESERVATION TIMELINE

1937 Scientists Cliffs Association (SCA), founded by G. Flippo Gravatt and first property owners as a ‘civic association’, is incorporated, with Articles of Incorporation including a stated goal of “preservation of wild areas”.
1967 Jewell Glass bequests 5.13 (8?) acre Laurel Grove to The Nature Conservancy—the first piece of land to be preserved in Parkers Creek watershed.

1969 G. Flippo Gravatt, developer of Scientists Cliffs, writes letter to Calvert County government, expressing concern about effluent from proposed Prince Frederick wastewater treatment plant impacting Parkers Creek and thence by longshore currents Scientists Cliffs.

1973 Developer’s widow Anne Gravatt, in partnership with SCA, successfully opposes a planned large camping (425 sites) and trailer park (250 units) in Parkers Creek watershed.

1975 William Gay DVM conceives the idea of a nature park along Parkers Creek mainstem, proposes it to the Maryland chapter of The Nature Conservancy. TNC then discusses/explores/negotiates this intermittently with main downstream landowners Louis Goldstein and Page Jett, but no progress is made for two decades.

1977 Maryland enacts program enabling farmland owners to sell conservation easements.

1978 Calvert County BOCC adopts Agricultural Preservation Program (first of its kind among US counties), enabling preservation of farm and forestland by sale of Transferable Development Rights (TDRs). ACLT’s preservation efforts in Parkers-Governors Run watersheds later facilitated by this program.

1980 Johns Hopkins PhD student Norman Froomer publishes results of sediment coring in Parkers Creek saltmarsh and swamp.

1984-5 Scientists Cliffs Association purchases from the developer’s widow (Anne Gravatt) and sister (Margaret Miles) 150 acres of open space within and bordering the community. This forested land, ca. 30 acres of which is in the Governors Run watershed, is declared permanent community open space in 1990.

1986 American Chestnut Land Trust (ACLT), a charitable nonprofit, is incorporated to purchase from the estate of Anne Gravatt-- and manage largely for wildlife and the public-- the remaining 436 acres of undeveloped Gravatt-Miles property. About 100 acres of this property is in the Governors Run watershed, and 336 acres in the adjoining Parkers Creek watershed.

1987 (and earlier in 80s) Parkers Creek considered a prime candidate for NOAA “Estuarine Reserve” system, but key landowners decline.

1990 ACLT reinvests funds from TDR (Transferable Development Right) sale by purchasing the 80 acre “Russell Tract”, first land to be preserved along the Parkers Creek tidal mainstem (2000 ft frontage). This helps trigger the second ‘sea change’ in local land preservation goals—from preserving the Gravatt-Miles property to protecting the Parkers Creek-Governors Run watersheds. At about this same time, The Nature Conservancy independently evolves in thinking from saving local rare ecosystems (e.g., the Battle Creek baldcypress and Hellen Creek Canadian hemlock stands) to larger systems such as watersheds.

1991 Using TDR income from its protected properties, ACLT purchases 81-acre Kenwood tract. Governors Run Development Corporation (GRDC) 81 acres, enrolled as an Ag Preservation District already in 1984, remains the largest remaining unprotected forested parcel in the GR watershed.

1991 Geology magazine publishes article demonstrating that Parkers Creek was pirated and inverted by the Chesapeake Bay in the last several hundred thousand years. Before that, a stream with headwaters later destroyed by cliff erosion began in uplands in what is today the Chesapeake Bay, flowed west along the same course as present Parkers Creek, and thence continued via Battle Creek into the Patuxent.

1994 ACLT purchases and preserves 137-acre Kenneth Michael tract, which Michael had already platted out as the approved but unrecorded 30-lot ‘Parkers Creek Knolls’ subdivision. This parcel, later renamed ‘Double Oak Farm’ lies some distance from previously preserved ACLT property, and is the first preserved land north of the Parkers Creek mainstem. TNC and DNR take notice, redoubling efforts to negotiate purchase of the large Jett (Warrior’s Rest) and Goldstein properties.

1995 TNC purchases 116 acre Ward property in middle PC watershed, adjoining ACLT’s Double Oak Farm; TNC then negotiates and turns over to DNR the purchase option on 230-acre Warrior’s Rest property on lower tidal Parkers Creek and cliffs from heirs of Dr. Page Jett.

1996 Parkers Creek Watershed Management Plan is produced as a local, state, and federal partnership with a goal to “preserve as much of this watershed, especially its wetlands, outside of the town center as possible”.
1996-98 TNC purchases three tracts totaling 519 acres in northern PC watershed from the Turner-Somervell family.

1997 Archeologist Matthew Reeves (followed by Molly Stephens, 1999) conducts archeological resource surveys of Parkers Creek and Governors Run watersheds.

1997 Maryland adopts Rural Legacy Program, providing funds for purchase of conservation easements on farm and forestland. Several key private parcels preserved in Parkers Creek watershed by this mechanism.

1998-99 TNC purchases 757 acres of Parkers Creek wetlands, forests, fields, beach and cliffs from estate of Louis Goldstein. This and other TNC acquisitions are then resold to MD DNR, with ACLT as designated lands manager.

1998 ACLT-led water quality sampling program begins on PC mainstem—initially every two weeks at mouth of creek, at head of tides, and at Waste Water Treatment Plant. Later and ongoing PC WQ sampling stations changed to head of tides, near Trikas property, and near MD 765.

1999 USGS-NRL scientists hire French research vessel Marion Dufresne to recover sediment cores in Chesapeake Bay east of Parkers Creek. One core recovers sediment from the valley of ice-age Parkers Creek, a valley later buried by mud after sea levels rose. Geophysical subbottom profiles map the buried Parkers Creek channel out to its former (prior to 5000 BCE) confluence with the Susquehanna.

1999 ACLT bird watcher Leslie Starr conducts summer bird census on preserved property; repeated in 2006.

1999 Constatine (40 acres) and Vlissides (50 acres) properties purchased by TNC/DNR.

2001 Calvert Farmland Trust preserves (by TDR sale and resale to conservation buyer) 31-acre Somervell property in Port Republic, near headwaters of Parkers Creek and adjacent to proposed (2010) industrial-scale PEPCO ‘converter station’.

2002 199-acre Axley farm, 25 acre Dorsey property, and 33 acre Margaret Young properties preserved by sale of Rural Legacy Easements, to be monitored by ACLT.

2004-2007 ACLT acquires 104 additional acres in PC watershed, including two donated parcels.

2007 Calvert County compiles land use and nutrient loading data on Parkers Creek watershed and identifies it as one of the first five of twenty-two subwatesheds to achieve Calvert County water quality objectives.

2010 Chesapeake Biological Laboratory scientists Dr. Lora Harris and, independently Dr. Kelly Kilbourne initiate research studies in Parkers Creek.

TAKEAWAY : Preservation of the Parkers Creek and Governors Run Watersheds for people and wildlife has a long history, dating back 35 years, and is a work still in progress. Several Maryland agencies, the Calvert County government, and private organizations, led locally by the American Chestnut Land Trust, with the help of more than 1000 private citizens, have contributed time, effort, and money in a remarkable long-term public-private partnership.

CURRENT STATUS
The following land use and preservation status breakdown is based on the ACLT-provided Parkers Creek watershed (7321 acre) and Governors Run (779 acre) areas, and on the 7944 acre Parkers Creek watershed acreage as defined in a 2007 Calvert County spread sheet report on subwatershed land use and nutrient loadings. The two acreage estimates probably differ largely by County inclusion of a strip of cliff-front land (here estimated to equal the 623 acre difference) which technically drains directly into the Chesapeake, not into Parkers Creek. Because the Parkers Creek land preservation effort has always included this cliff-front strip of land, we use the County figure (7944 acres) for the “Parkers Creek
Watershed” to derive the following statistics. NB—the cited acreages are estimates, and the precision of the figures is not to be taken as representing accuracy. Moreover, land use changes over time.

As of 2010, 4060 acres have been preserved to date in the two watersheds (3880- 49 % of total PC watershed and 180- 23.1 % of total Governors Run watershed). Of the 4064 unprotected acres in the PC watershed, 1523 acres (19 %) have been developed to date (residential, commercial, industrial, etc). The developed areas are concentrated (756 acres, about half the total) in the western, particularly northwestern part of the watershed, which includes the southern part of the Prince Frederick town center and adjacent lands, together accounting for 1829 acres (23 % of the PC watershed). This part of the watershed (defined in Calvert County 2007 ‘Sub-watershed 0976’ report) is thus already 41 % developed. The other ca. 50% of the developed area (767 acres) occupies and central and eastern parts of the watershed (77% of the total), and is still only 13 % developed.

Subtraction of the developed 1523 acres from the total unprotected acreage (4064 acres) leaves 2541 acres (of which 1468 acres are in the less developed and so far 63 % preserved central and eastern part of the watershed) still available for potential preservation. The 92 acre PHI-MAPP parcel is part of those 1468 acres.

Overall, the Parkers Creek watershed (protected and unprotected lands) is still 76% forested (61% Forest Interior Dwelling species habitat). The undeveloped parts of the Parkers Creek and Governors Run watersheds include the ca. 4060 total so far protected acreage 46 % of combined watershed (protected acreage ca. 908 owned by ACLT, 1780 owned by DNR, and 1372 privately/publicly owned: (1155 protected by deed restrictions or easements, and 217 acres community open space). Of the ACLT-owned lands, 19 acres (2 %) are maintained as open fields, as are 28 acres (1.6 %) of the DNR-owned land. The much larger total PC watershed cropland area (594 acres) is nonetheless only a modest fraction (7 %) of the watershed. (ACLT, with staff grown to three, manages its own and the DNR properties, and monitors easements on most of the other preserved private lands).

Most of the remaining 2541 acres of undeveloped but still unprotected land lies at or near the headwaters and drainage divides, is visible from major highways, and is underlain by the “Upland Deposits”. The latter is a complex, sandy-gravelly, stream-deposited geological formation which supports or could again support a type of forest once dominated by the American chestnut, distinct from the types of forest mainly preserved in the downstream, lower elevation parts of the watersheds. Most land in Calvert County underlain by “Upland Deposits” has already been developed for subdivisions, shopping centers, highways, schools, etc. Of the total protected lands, a relatively higher percent of the privately owned land, lies in the Upland Deposits and remains cleared for agriculture and farming-related structures.

The bottom line is that as of 2010, 60 % (3880 acres) of the total 6421 acres undeveloped land in the PC watershed has been preserved (public and private), while 2541 acres (40 %--concentrated in the uplands and stream headwaters, and much of it visible to the public from highways) still remains undeveloped and potentially available for future preservation. However, due to high acreage cost and surrounding development, much of this acreage—particularly west of MD 2/4 and in the Prince Frederick Town Center-- will not realistically be preservable.
By contrast, the 92 acres already purchased or under contract to PHI-MAPP in Port Republic is particularly valuable for preservation because it occupies the headwaters of Parkers Creek’s longest tributary, and is in fact also the headwaters of Parkers Creek. It adjoins permanently preserved land and is in the Upland Deposit terrain once dominated by the American chestnut. The tract is in a particularly scenic rural area—clearly visible from MD 2/4 and MD 765-- with a traditional field-and-forest landscape including 100-200 year old buildings. As of 2010 there is still no DNR-ACLT public preserved land along or visible from MD 2/4 or MD 765.