Font Hill Tributary – A Suburban Community Restoration
Frank A Bubczyk, Jr.
Johnson, Mirmiram & Thompson, Inc. (JMT)
Hunt Valley, MD
Authors: Frank Bubczyk & Jeremy Koser, Johnson, Mirmiram & Thompson, Inc. (JMT)
The Font Hill Tributary Restoration restored 5,564 feet of degraded stream within a suburban Howard County community. The project was initiated by Howard County as part of its watershed restoration efforts to meet its NPDES permit conditions/TMDL goals, remove several properties from the flood zone and promote climate resiliency. The restoration design focused on the creation of an environmentally diverse and self-sustaining stream and riparian system which, reestablishes a natural valley bottom ecosystem, promotes improved biological and ecological functions, provides long-term protection to county infrastructure, and directly address current flooding concerns and reduce downstream peak discharges.
Restoration goals could only be achieved through the reestablishment of a lower and highly connected and functional floodplain which allows the stream to naturally adjust to minimize future streambank erosion. Other approaches would not have allowed for self-adjustment in the face of climate changes, nor meet flood reductions. The restoration focused on stability by reattaching the channel on the native basal quartz geology and the floodplain on the buried hydric soils found throughout the valley bottom and reestablished the former low-elevation floodplain and hydraulic connection necessary to maintain channel stability and improve ecological functions.
The restoration was accomplished largely through the removal of the overburden of nutrient-rich and highly erodible modern valley sediments associated with 17th to early 20th century impacts. In many cases, the overburden of legacy sediment usually becomes a prime location for the establishment of a primarily upland forest community. The high concentration of upland woody species is a clear indication of system impairment. The project completed in early 2020, was once a highly incised stream located entirely within a forest owned by the County which separated two community neighborhoods. Trees, a renewable resource and largely believed by many to provide stream stability and valued more than the aquatic resource had become a major source of stream instability and biological stagnation. For the project to be successful, approximately 13 acres of forest was removed. The removal of the forest, once highly contested by members of the community has become embraced for its aesthetics and biological diversity.
About Frank A Bubczyk, Jr.
Frank is Senior Associate and lead restoration designer at Johnson, Mirmiram & Thompson. Frank has more than 23 years of experience in stream and wetland design. He is also a project manager, currently managing projects in several southeastern states including Florida and Texas. He has extensive experience and knowledge in fluvial morphology, geomorphology, ecology and evolution, land conservation, regional planning, and environmental impact assessment. He has successfully designed and constructed numerous stream and floodplain restoration projects in the mid-Atlantic, in ultra-urban to rural landscapes. He attributes his success to the talented and hardworking people he has had the honor of working with, both past and present.
