Introduction

Worcester County Park site (Herring Creek Nature Park) is a 5 acre (4 acre forested, 1 acre emergent) wetland site created from a fallow field.  It is located in the Coastal Area - Isle of Wight Bay (02-13-01-03) watershed of Worcester County.               

Construction

This site was constructed between summer 1995 and spring 1996 by the Maryland Department of the Environment and Worcester Soil Conservation District.  Additional plantings were added in 1998 and 1999.

Status

In 2007, MDE conducted intensive site monitoring which included installing IRIS tubes, evaluating the soil, monitoring hydrology multiple times during the spring growing season, and scoring the site.  The three wetland indicators were met: the installed iris tubes and hydrology observations demonstrated that there was sufficient soil reduction to satisfy the wetland hydrology requirement, the soils were hydric, and the site was dominated by hydrophytic vegetation.  However, large portions of this site are dominated by the invasive plant species Phragmites and there is more open water than desired.  For these reasons, when MDE scored this site using the newly developed Mitigation Site Scoring Method, the site received the low score of 65/100.  With this being said, the site still provides some valuable wetland functions including a high amount of water quality improvement, recreation, education, aesthetic value, and a smaller amount of wildlife habitat.  The University of Maryland (CRABBS) group also studied this site.  

Evaluating IRIS tubes

Herring Creek Wetland Mitigation - 2007