NOAA Restoration Day: Photo Gallery |
The following page includes images from the 2007 NOAA Restoration Day season, beginning with the NOAA Bay Grass Growing Workshop on March 13, 2007. Photos have been added from March until the 2007 NOAA Restoration Day event on June 12, 2007.
View the Photo Gallery Archive for past photos from 2002 - 2006 which documents the entire history of this project.
2007 Photos
NOAA Restoration Day Activities -- Maryland Event: June 12, 2007
The fourth annual NOAA Restoration Day event was held at the Jug Bay Component of theChesapeake Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve in Maryland in Upper Marlboro. More than 150 NOAA volunteers planted underwater grasses grown in 22 tanks in NOAA offices, transplanted wild rice, performed fish seining and sampling, mapped and removed invasive plants, and completed digital elevation mapping.
Select links below to see photos from the various activities during the day (also see Maryland Agenda Details and the July 13, 2007 monitoring photos).
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Wild Rice Planting - Approximately forty total volunteers dug and transplanted about 1000 wild rice plants, Zizania aquatica, in six different areas.. They also put up some 400 feet of protective fencing to help establish the plants.
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Wood Duck Box Building - Sixty-two wood duck boxes were built by approximately twenty volunteers working with staff from the Maryland Wood Duck Initiative and Patuxent River Park. -
Marsh Transects / Flora & Fauna Surveys - Volunteers walk a transect in the marsh and randomly count flora and fauna to compare the marsh utilization in an area treated for Phragmites with an untreated area.
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Water Quality Testing - Eleven parameters were measured four separate times: depth , air temperature , water temperature , dissolved oxygen, pH, Chlorophyll , Nitrate , Phosphate, Salinity, Secchi Depth, and Turbidity.
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Fish Seining from the Mt. Calvert Shore - Twelve fish species were identified including: ShoreBanded Killifish, Golden Shiner, Mosquito Fish, Mummichog, Pumpkinseed Sunfish, Silverside, Satin-Fin Shiner, Spot-Tail Shiner, Swallow-Tail Shienr, Tessalated Darter, White Perch, and Yellow Perch.
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Fish Trawling via NOAA Boat and
Fish Seining via NOAA Boat - Two NOAA vessels were utilized for this activity, one had a 400' seine and the other a 20' otter trawl. More than 20 species and thousands of individual fish were collected, identified and measured with a very low mortality (<5%) during this exercise. - Underwater Grass Planting - Approximately fifteen people planted sixty-six trays of wild celery, Vallisneria Americana, grown in twenty-two NOAA offices since March.
Fish Sampling (near Railroad Pier) - A Fyke net was set at about 7:00 A.M. on June 12 2007 and it was pulled at about 11:00 A.M. by approximately fifteen volunteers. Volunteers helped pull the net, they removed fish and other animals from the net, they observed, identified and sorted the fish by species. Then the volunteers measured total body length of 43 fish of six species. No mortality was observed from this activity. Thanks also to Jug Bay Sanctuary volunteers Susan Matthews, Jeff Campbell and Natasha Hagemeyer for their help setting and pulling the net.
- Invasive Plant Mapping & Removal - A total of approximately 26 volunteers were involved with mapping the extent of Japanese stilt grass, Microstegium vimineum. Significant amounts of stilt grass were pulled -- seventeen bags full. On a visit two weeks later, most areas we worked on were relatively stilt grass free.
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GPS/Digital Elevation Mapping - Two groups of approximately six NOAA volunteers were lead in GPS activities by Bill Henning, Charlie Geoghegan, Galen Scott, Philippe Hensel, and special guest Ann Commagere from the University of New Orleans. Volunteers obtained accurate elevations on two Surface Elevation Tables and four transect lines used to study marsh vegetation using static GPS and RTK respectively. -
Planting Native Trees & Shrubs (Jackson Landing) - Approximately 30 volunteers planted a total of 439 native plants on the hillside sloping from the new environmental center leading to the wooded path at the Jackson Landing area. Trees: 3 Tulip Poplar, 8 Red Maple, 2 Red Oak, 10 Arrowood Viburnum, 10 Shadbush (Downy Serviceberry), 16 American Holly, 6 Flowering Dogwood.
Ground Cover: 96 Sensitive Fern, 288 Christmas Fern. 
Boardwalk Removal & Elevation - About ten volunteers worked with Jug Bay Wetland Sanctuary staff member Andrew Wood to raise the "Scrub shrub Boardwalk," where a length of it had sunk low into the marsh near the railroad bed trail. The volunteers successfully raised it and placed two new 4 X 4 inch posts into the mud. The volunteers also trimmed the boardwalk edges of vegetation. Another group of ten volunteers worked with Chris Swarth to remove about eighty feet of old, disrepaired boardwalk extending off the north side of the railroad bed. Volunteers used sledge hammers, crowbars, hammers and other tools to pull old posts from the mud and to remove about thirty feet of old planks. This was very muddy, hot and strenuous work. Originally we thought we might have to cut all the posts (since they might be too embedded to pull), but these guys adopted a "never say die" attitude and about 95% of the posts were pulled. Fantastic job and the marsh looks much better for this work.
- Underwater Grass Identification & Mapping via Canoes - Native underwater grasses found in the area include mostly hydrilla (Hv) and horned pondweed (Zp) in the shallows, 0.5 m deep or less at low tide, and coontail Cd at some sites. The main limiting factors for SAV here appeared to be poor water clarity (Secchi depth was 0.35-0.4 m with little recent rain) and current velocity (larger beds were found in areas away from the main current, usually very close to the emergent wetland plants, where there were also more extensive shallows caused by settling of sediments there). Hydrilla seems to be gradually taking over many of the SAV beds in the area, so the wild celery planted on June 12 will have to outgrow it to survive.
NOAA Restoration Day Activities -- Virginia Event: June 12, 2007
The second Virginia initiative, expanding upon Maryland's on-going event. Coordinated by the Virginia NOAA Chesapeake Bay office in partnership with the Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) and the US Fish and Wildlife, Harrison Lake National Fish Hatchery.
Other 2007 Site Visits to Jug Bay:
2007 Bay Grass Tanks in Silver Spring Offices:
- May 2007 - Status of NOAA Bay Grass Tanks (page 1, page 2)
- March 14, 2007 - NOS/Special Projects staff set up office Bay Grass Grow Tank
- March 13, 2007 - NOAA Underwater Bay Grass Growing Workshop
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