Stream Restoration: Rebuilding Nature, Stopping Floods | Maryland Farm & Harvest

Nestled among the rolling hills of Harford and Baltimore Counties, the landscape at Willow Oaks Farm is a seamless blend of agriculture and nature. A creek called Yellow Branch flows through the farm, and--just like the soybeans nearby--it too has been carefully cultivated. Like many streams in Maryland, it was straightened decades ago to create more farmland. But after years of erosion and flooding, farmers and environmentalists are realising that returning streams to their natural shapes helps protect the landscape. With help from ecological restoration company Ecotone, we see what it takes to make a straight stream meander again, and we see how nature and the farm both benefit.
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Episode 803

[@jvcyt298]

I'm always glad to see people working with science and nature, rather than against it.

[@TheSighphiguy]

the "science" is only telling them that Nature had it correct in the first place.

[@dillonhillier]

Oh, so mother nature needs a favor? Well, maybe she should have thought of that when she was besetting us with droughts and floods and poison monkeys.

[@aryaprincess2479]

I am born in the 80s and grew in 90s and I remember small streams everywhere in villages. They are all shut now and the places we live look sterile. Those tiny rivers healed nature and brought life to the place with animals, birds and insects.

[@chasbodaniels1744]

This calls for a full 2 hour review of the project. Every aspect seems fascinating. Design, engineering, how to adapt farming and livestock usage to the new low path.

[@crazydragy4233]

Yes! I'm very pleasantly surprised to hear that work like that is being done. These little things do add up over time and are manageable and beneficial for all of us

[@rajaali8963]

Incredible job Really fantastic 👍

[@rajaali8963]

I always love that when I see this type of restoration projects to preserve mother nature❤️

[@TESLblog]

A great example of how we are being smarter now, then 70-80 years ago when our forefathers made those significant changes to our environment. It’s great to see that in the United States you are making a huge effort to undo some of those damages. I wish, we, here in Germany, would be as smart as well. We had a huge flooding in 2021 and are facing very much similar issues. Definitely an example to share here, too!

[@aliannarodriguez1581]

Don’t get too excited about this being a huge trend in the US. It’s an uphill battle with success measured in feet, not miles. Meanwhile land developers are converting vast swaths of wild land and agricultural land into impermeable concrete every single day. I’ve seen areas under development where water running off the bare soil turned ancient streams into orange slurries in which nothing could have survived.

[@AG-gy7qq]

Ahh yes, hopefully Germany can return to her former glory of the 1930’s.

[@tas5622]

@@AG-gy7qq Germany was great and powerful then, now it's just one of those countries being invaded by immigrants.

[@tas5622]

You guys smart and shall figure it out.

[@Shadowdreamcast]

We need more of this in the world. Thank you, god bless

[@bagermaster-club]

Small rivers can be cleaned from bottom sediments using a motor pump for dirty water and a suction nozzle Bagermaster. A mini dredger consisting of a motor pump and a suction nozzle allows you to deepen small rivers by removing sediment from sand and silt

[@davidgray3321]

In the U.K. they put in hill drains, big mistake , water rushes off the hill dumps sediment on spawning gravel and causes flooding, now they take them out, the answers is leave the old rivers and streams and land drainage well alone, unless they have been “improved”. Good job being done in the USA here.

[@md-crab7379]

Back in the 80, the owner had the state of md recommend planting trees along all the creeks and put up electric fences to keep the cows out of the water, now they lease the land and plant and spray the crops, what is worst manure or crop spray

[@davidstakston1950]

Why doesn't stream restoration projects start at the source of the rainwater runoff? Building small dams where the rainwater runoff comes off the farmer's fields allows the rainwater to soak into the groundwater. Contour farming also holds back the rainwater runoff to soak into the groundwater. A lot of endangered species nest and hibernate over winter in dirt streambanks, female bumblebees, Eastern Massasauga Rattlesnake, Blanchard's Cricket Frog, bank swallows nesting holes, kingfisher's nesting holes, etc.

[@brandencasey6761]

This would be a fun job!

[@StereoSpace]

Even better would be to plant native saplings along the banks. That will increase root binding of the soil, increase nutrient filtration, and cool the water, all of which will improve the natural habitat for stream life.

[@crazydragy4233]

Plus it could shield the crops when it's relevant

[@TheSighphiguy]

imagine spending loads of money and effort to change what mother nature gave you for free and then spending loads of money and effort to eventually change it back. when are people EVER going to learn that Mother Nature ALWAYS does it best.

[@micah_lee]

You make more money more quickly when you have more cropland. After that, it seens the newer land owners realized make more money more quickly when that cropland isn’t destroyed by increased flooding

[@doelbaughman1924]

Short vs long term perspective. And there are flaws in pretty much every economic system.

[@randibgood]

Here, Austell, Ga., we had historic floods in 2009. This was worse than any 100 year flood plain recorded. It was all directly caused by filling in a swampy wetland and building a railyard. Mother Nature does not like to be messed with. That low lying swampy area is now about 1/16 the size it was and hundreds of families paid for the inept planning with their homes and properties. Not to mention the damages done to commercial properties and the businesses. The city ended up demoing over 100 homes and I don't know how many the county had to deal with that were not inside the city. We live up on a little hill/rise, so we weren't effected, except being unable to get anywhere as the roads were impassable for almost a week.

[@crazydragy4233]

@@randibgood The human hubris of thinking we can do anything never fails to backfire

[@blessings5959]

Very informative

[@davidcupples7622]

Good work!

[@BoggWeasel]

Man working with nature as opposed to man "battling" nature seems to be a much better prospect all round.

[@Renagade5150]

Good stuff! Onwards and upwards!

[@masterspin7796]

Nice work...

[@thedude5599]

bring in a family of beavers and really watch this stream becaome amazing.

[@koffiewolf]

you will get the opposite effect from beavers in fact small lakes used for watermills contributed to the chance in Waterflow of creeks and rivers increasing sediment build up. beavers are fun but maybe more in place for a project where they demolish an old dam because you basically get the same situation ( a dam blocking water flow) and you can work with that instead of removing all the freaking sediment and just repeating the process but with a beaver dam.

[@micah_lee]

Over many years, the beavers dam will create a wetland habitat like what is made here. Plants will find it and colonize until it becomes a forested stream. It won’t do what happened when we broke our dams.

[@SuperRainbowpoop]

@@koffiewolf beavers create wetlands which is what they are doing here.

[@Nathouuuutheone]

Beavers would risk this flooding. They are amazing when you wanna create or maintain something bigger than a stream, but in this case it would likely cause more problems

[@Gibbons3457]

@@koffiewolf That's not how beaver dams work.

[@hoplitnet]

weird how they're like: "we're catching up with what mother nature use to do and it worked great before we started exploiting everything"

[@thatguychris5654]

I wonder if companies like this use, or even consider using, biochar in their banks. This would help filter and lock away any nutrient runoff while adding strength to the banks due to faster root formation and added soil life. Also, this would be an additional carbon sink that couples with the natural sink action of the wetlands.

[@lauramaskell1653]

Beavers are nature’s flood and drought control, reintroducing them to streams is an efficient way to bring back natural stream beds.

[@crazydragy4233]

I mean we also make damns haha xd

[@ShaibeeT]

Hi from Frederick MD !! How does one get into this business, what kind of education ? I LOVE this and would LOVE to be involved in doing this myself, or even to help in the very least.

[@md-crab7379]

Did they clean out the pond behind the house on jarrettsville pike? What about the stream across the jarrettsville pike in middle of the field? Are they still running the waterwheel at the dam that feed the pond below the barns?

[@Noble909]

The stream is cool and all, but monoculture is doing way more soil damage than anything else.

[@davidhuston495]

Shaking my head at all the beaver comments. Beavers help make wetlands and water storage which help slow water, but they do not reshape rivers like this. This work quickly reintroducing bends and removing 5ft embankments , etc.

[@crazydragy4233]

Honestly, beavers literally flood places. Unless you're planning on growing rice it's not a solution next to farm fields. Also we can make plenty of our own dams, hell where I'm from small rivers are dammed by farmers all the time for that small hydro power

[@Igor-xl4wz]

Now how to actually fix Baltimore City?

[@johnmcmillan7358]

If you must continue monoculture practices, at least do what is being done here. Leave ample space for the stream to wander and/or flood as it would under natural conditions. This space is also critical for birds, reptiles, insects (honey bees), amphibians and other animals that we need to share this planet with. I like the use of large pavers for equipment crossings rather than using culverts which are prone to clogging, etc and require maintenance. I wish all farmers were as smart as the folks at Willow Oaks Farm.

[@crazydragy4233]

I think you meant just bees there. I'm not even sure USA has native honey bees that are known or have any chance to compete for the name

[@barnabyvonrudal1]

Very inspiring! Does that stream flow all year round?

[@barnabyvonrudal1]

@@tas5622 that sentence sounds like a a mix of German and French and English 😜

[@nederlander66]

in the Netherlands we also use summer dike and winter dike system to store abundance of mass, this project is looking really good developed, I would ad ponds to create storage. although it is looking great, so maybe me being a twat

[@micah_lee]

Ponds are unfortunately part of the reason the landscape changed in the first place! We had thousands upon thousands of dams and erosion deposited tons of sediment into these ponds. When the dams were broken the stream created unnaturally high streambanks thru erosion. This was a part of the problem.

[@nederlander66]

@@micah_lee we have solutions for it in the NL { took us 1000 years}

[@nederlander66]

we call it boezems

[@harishrv]

Which slows down water energy by bringing the necessary resustence naturally.

[@neltonrd]

In Brazil, there are laws protecting the original bed, banks and forests around every creek or river in the country. Unfortunetly, only farmers respect those laws, while in urban areas, people just don't pay attention to that.

[@SuperRainbowpoop]

I bet you are completely wrong, farmers are the ones cutting down the rain forests to make room for cattle and crops for cattle, i highly doubt they are the ones respecting the river banks and definitely not the forests. You've got it so backwards its ridiculous

[@neltonrd]

Well, I don't know how much you really know about Brazil, but it seems that you really need to visit some Brazilian farms.

[@Maybe1Someday]

Glad to see a couple humans waking up

[@jimmiller5600]

Add beaver.

[@casuallyextremeoutdoors9644]

I built this stream!

[@harishrv]

Water must move like snake movement for better water retention and good soil management.

[@terenceconnors9627]

Nice start. When are you returning beavers to their native habitat?

[@billsmith5109]

Add a few beaver dam analogs. Beaver will probably find it on their own.

[@RichterBelmont2235]

They are psychics, gives them a place to dam and they'll come on their own. I'm not kidding.

[@billsmith5109]

@@RichterBelmont2235 The Devon Wildlife Trust gps tagged beaver on the River Otter. (A confusing name for a river to my American ear. Worse when you choose it as location to study U.K. beaver reintroduction.) The dispersing beaver went back and forth from headwaters to saltwater estuary. Of course these are short British rivers.

[@Hype7media]

Too late it's already been turned into a hat for some tasteless clown on the upper East side

[@RichterBelmont2235]

@@billsmith5109 Well that was confusing.

[@Joe90V]

It's good to see someone learning to live with their land properly, sharing rather than trying to order it. The US in particular though has a very long way to go before they start to recover from the damage inflicted by previous generations. It's a criminal shame they didn't learn from their First Nation people instead of trying to exterminate them.

[@GRIZZ357]

Awesome

[@jackycrazy8316]

Its not new sience ......100years ago a few people still new theese things because they learned that as kids so ......not new the austrian Viktor schauberger who worked alot with the mysteries of water talked about this alot .....here in Germany this is old knowledge too ......its been ignored too but its there

[@releventhurt]

Yall hiring?

[@jpharmon7343]

3:47 am i tripping or does he look green screened in

[@raybon7939]

As a guy who grew up in the 20 the century I can tell you the old timers would of told you to F off....in the best of circumstances So these are things that we can do today we couldn't do then,

[@devleigh]

That stream needs a 🦫! 🤓

[@Drskopf]

In couldn't agree more. They would have done s better job, but in sure they eradicated them a while back bc were considered a problem 🤦🤦

[@abelmaseko4040]

My farm is larger than this I struggle to afford to do this

[@wolley2012]

Farmers have been destroying streams like that a lot longer than 100 years. Keep the stupid horses and cows out of the stream does a lot.

[@micah_lee]

Big animals are meant to be in habitats though. Imagine deer and buffalo.

[@Gibbons3457]

@@micah_lee That kinda misses the point, it's not simple that horse and cows are bad it's how they are present that causes harm. Regulating their access to prevent bank erosion is essential. We see what happens even in the wild when animals damage rivers, elk in yellow stone were causing all kinds of damage until positive changes in the local ecosystem caused a change in their behavior.

[@randibgood]

After reading your statement, I find it quite humourous that you, of all people, would call horses and cows stupid. Ever heard a story about a pot and a kettle, except you're both.

[@samvodopianov9399]

Now add native trout

[@davidbeckenbaugh9598]

That was what was thinking. HOWEVER... it may be too early to plant them. Mature trees to shade the water and help keep the temperatures down are needed. I am sure that this is being watched for just such a foray. It will be a pleasure to see in the not so distant future.....

[@tas5622]

@@davidbeckenbaugh9598 german originally? baugh a variant of bach right?

[@davidbeckenbaugh9598]

@@tas5622 Mostly Welsh with a lot of Swedish thrown and some assorted other genealogical contributions (like German) thrown in. America is like a 'melting pot', right? I still have a few cultures that have not added themselves too my background, but Japanese, Chinese, and Ghana have come into the family, and looks like Spanish and Pacific Islander will soon arrive. Honestly, my family is so diverse, I have to wonder about things an awful lot. Those mail order genealogical tests keep coming up with 'We do not think you originated on Earth....". I can never remember if 'Beckenbaugh' translates to 'big valley with little river' or 'little valley with big river' but it is something like that.

[@tas5622]

@@davidbeckenbaugh9598 So beautiful, people of certain kinds have such wonderful, distinctive names. Please protect it from mongrels who have sinister desires. Ta S curious because neighbors surname is Harbaugh, and thought it German--at least Wikipedia says it may be so. Pakka yor.

[@snowman333-]

it was the same "experts" who taught them to straighten the canels to get more arible land, the same wisdom to plow straight up the slope

[@davidhuston495]

It's the same experts? I am sure the one today were not alive in the 40 and 50s.

[@bavondale]

Seems like you could just get some beavers to do all that

[@M3rVsT4H]

I've never met a beaver with an excavator ticket.. .

[@johnadams5245]

beavers taking hardworking american jobs, i say lets bomb them , dey took errrrrrr jooobbbss!!!!

[@crazydragy4233]

@@M3rVsT4H I like how everyone here thinks building a damn somehow magically will turn a channel back into a river.

[@frontier6937]

wrong - see the truth about stream restoration projects (Utube: "How a stream is restored in Gaitherburg").

[@MCMLXXXVICCXII]

That creek collecting all those heavy chemicals using on those corps and contribute into the reservoirs; yet they call it ''nature friendly'' approach. Try harder.

[@crazydragy4233]

That's literally every river in the world ever bro. Wat exactly is your complaint and what does an alternative look like?

[@acalisal]

God, get a beaver and call it a day. Stop trying to engineer your way out of a problem you created.

[@crazydragy4233]

Stupid logic. Beaver build damns, not river beds. Or would you wait for termites to break down your house before building a new one too? Undoing human damage and then letting take back from a neutral standpoint isn't bad

[@hughfranklin4002]

This is absolutely ridiculous, the yanks kill the animal that would do this naturally.

[@davidhuston495]

How do beavers fix 5' embankments.

[@crazydragy4233]

Yeah no, we do not have time to let nature undo human design lmao. Have you not had a geography class? do you know how slow natural meandering is to appear and move??

[@md-crab7379]

3021 Jarrettsville Pike and Hess Road