News

Learning About Local Wildlife Even GreenVest’s legal team enjoys getting out in nature! Dana Cooper, Team GV’s General Counsel, recently chaperoned a trip to Masonville Cove (located in South Baltimore, near our MBRI projects) for her daughter’s Girl Scout Daisy Troop. Captain Trash Wheel Masonville Cove is the nation’s first Urban Wildlife Refuge Partnership, in the heart of South Baltimore, with over 251 bird species calling the refuge home. Apart from the nature center and waterfront public trails, visitors can also meet Captain Trash Wheel (a 40-foot-long trash clean-up machine) and spot Baltimore City’s first known pair of nesting bald…

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Brown Trout (Caught Elsewhere in the Gunpowder Falls) Last month, while planting at our Muddy Creek Stream Restoration Project, Ecosystem Restoration Specialist Danny Waskiewicz spotted a pair of spawning brown trout in the upper part of our restoration area in the mainstem of Gunpowder Falls.   While this might seem like a routine spotting as Maryland trout have fall spawns, discovering a redd (spawning bed) in this location is significant. Trout are particularly sensitive to environmental conditions, such as water quality and temperature. This means that a suitable breeding habitat for these selective fish is hard to come by. The…

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BARC Wetland Mitigation Project The GreenVest Team wanted to take a moment to “Give Thanks” to all who make our nature-based solutions a success. GreenVest employs a land-based approach: working with landowners to find the highest and best use of their land, considering their goals while achieving ecosystem and community resilience. Thank you to our landowners for partnering with us and making a significant contribution to sustainable environmental quality and resiliency efforts. Muddy Creek Stream Restoration Project GreenVest could not implement our resilience and restoration projects without the help and support of our many partners—non-profit, government, private, and everyone in…

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Our Little Patuxent River Mitigation Project in Howard County, Maryland, is an integrated stream restoration, wetland creation, riparian buffer enhancement, land conservation, and tree planting project all in one. In addition to multiple ecological benefits such as improved water quality and habitat enhancement, this initiative provides mitigation for unavoidable impacts to low resource value streams and wetlands related to safety improvements at Tipton Airport within the Little Patuxent Watershed. Little Patuxent River Mitigation Project Onsite materials were beneficially reused for construction, providing a nature-based approach while reducing the project’s carbon footprint. This fully integrated headwater stream and wetland restoration project…

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The third Saturday of every September is National Cleanup Day, held in conjunction with World Cleanup Day. More than 180 countries join forces to pick up trash throughout the month, encouraging partnership for a cleaner Earth. Jack Turner and Meg Wickless Clean Up the Ellen O. Moyer Nature Park On September 14, GreenVest Partner Council Fire hosted a cleanup activity at the Annapolis Maritime Museum campus. Along with staff from the Council, the Museum, and the Chesapeake Bay Trust, Project Development Manager Meg Wickless and Ecosystem Restoration Specialist Jack Turner participated in this volunteer outing. The pair helped remove invasive…

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This year, the National Stream Restoration Conference was held in GV’s backyard: Baltimore, MD. With several GV team members attending the conference, three presented on their restoration-based contributions and successes. Max Breslin’s Presentation Max Breslin, Project Manager, presented on watershed-scale restoration in an urban setting at our Tinkers Creek Stream Restoration project. He discussed some of the challenges we faced when implementing this project and examined the lessons learned from working on this large-scale urban stream restoration in the shadow of Washington, DC. Jack Turner’s Presentation Jack Turner, Ecosystem Restoration Specialist, presented about evolutionary applications for cutting-edge and emergent technologies…

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Stream Study For the second year in a row, GreenVest had the opportunity to train summer camp counselors at Elks Camp Barrett on ways to incorporate the stream restoration project and its ecosystem into their summer camp programs. Camp Barrett hosts a variety of yearly camp programs for children and adults through spring, summer, and fall. Elks Camp Barrett is home to GreenVest’s Bacon Ridge Branch Stream Restoration Project. The Bacon Ridge Branch Stream Restoration Project included the restoration of 17,970 linear feet of stream and associated riparian buffer, with construction completed in March 2020. The site is preserved under…

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Implementation of the Waynesboro Stream Restoration Project is well underway! This project is restoring 5,192 linear feet of streams and associated floodplains in Virginia’s Potomac River watershed. GreenVest, in partnership with Environmental Quality Resources (EQR) and Stantec, is completing this project for the benefit of the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT). Construction began in September 2022, and will be completed in July 2023. The project team identified this site in Waynesboro, Virginia, as a prime candidate for restoration. The pre-construction condition was characterized by open cattle pasture. Lack of trees in the riparian zone combined with direct cattle access to…

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BSU Field Trip Group As part of our ongoing partnerships with Bowie State University (BSU) and the Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay (Alliance), GreenVest hosted BSU students for a field trip to our Western Branch Mitigation Site (WBMS) in the Patuxent River watershed in Upper Marlboro, Maryland. Students got a first-hand look at an environmental restoration site while learning about various restoration practices and maintenance and monitoring protocols for this project. The Bowie State University campus is also located within the Patuxent River watershed, allowing students to connect their local ecological footprint to that of the greater Chesapeake Bay region.…

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BARC Stream and Wetland Restoration At GreenVest, we champion coupling nature-based solutions with cutting-edge science to restore functionality to impaired systems in vulnerable communities. By managing stormwater, mitigating flood risk and storm damage, and uplifting water and habitat quality, GreenVest improves resiliency within local ecosystems. Since many of our projects positively impact the Chesapeake Bay – whether restoring a stream tributary, improving stormwater management, or implementing another nature-based solution – it’s only fitting that we promote and highlight Chesapeake Bay Awareness Week. From June 3 to 11, Chesapeake Bay Awareness Week celebrates the “cultures, history, and natural beauty of the…

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