The conservation easement revokes a previous 2011 stipulation agreement which required replacement of both the deteriorated dam and two lane roadway, with a return of vehicular traffic.  

Under the previous stipulation, the private country club would have kept their lake, Media Borough would have maintained the roadway and the County would have kept the significantly larger dam free from vegetation. The dam reconstruction project would have required the permanent removal of over 70 mature trees and buried sensitive ecosystems and wetlands in the adjacent Glen Providence Park. It would also have returned heavy car traffic to the northern end of the park, including both the Kirk Lane and Third Street entrances.

Media Borough continues responsibility for managing the multi-million dollar project, largely paid for with Pennsylvania tax dollars. The required state permits for the project were delayed due to the anticipated harm to the park and the lack of an entity willing to be responsible owner for the proposed high hazard dam. 

Friends of Glen Providence Park looks forward to seeing the site development plans referenced in the Conservation Easement agreement, and we will share them with you when we can. We are asking for assurances that future construction and management of the area meets regulatory requirements, as well as best environmental practices. 

Friends of Glen Providence Park will continue to monitor the water quality of Broomall’s Run and advocate for protection of the area’s ecosystem. We will also advocate for continued community involvement in designing a new connection between Media Borough and Upper Providence Township.

Visit our “Nature” tab to explore the wildlife of the park, or check out all the species of birds and trees found so far in the park! Learn about the historical springs in the 1.1 acre! If you dare, read about the saga of Broomall’s Dam, abandoned since the 1990s but subject to years of litigation and dispute.

Media Borough is again seeking public input about the Broomall’s Dam/Third Street Project. If built, a new dam would have a devastating impact to the northern end of Glen Providence Park.

Recognizing the threat of this project to its county-owned park, Delaware County Council has declined to sign a PennDOT environmental document stating that the project would have “no adverse impact” to Glen Providence Park. In addition, neither the County, the Borough, nor Broomall’s Lake Country Club has agreed to sign as owner of the dam to get a PA DEP permit to build it. As a result, the project is on hold, and its outcome is uncertain.

Media Borough’s Open Space, Parks & Recreation Advisory Committee will be launching a public survey online, seeking input on priorities, facilities, programs, and budget allocation.

Two of the questions will be about Broomall’s Dam, which was partially removed by the PA DEP in 2017:

1. Whether there should be a new dam — or a bridge over a restored stream — at Third Street
2. What type of roadway should connect Media and Upper Providence

The questions are labeled under “Third Street Dam” in Section Three of the survey, “Programs & Facilities. ” The link to the survey will be going live the week of December 21 and will remain active through February: http://metroquestsurvey.com/xe5n5d The survey itself is space-restricted, and gives minimal information. As anyone who has been following this project knows, the legal case and underlying issues are complex.

Some important points:

• A new dam is not necessary for a roadway. A bridge could instead reconnect Media and Upper Providence, and would be drastically less damaging to Glen Providence Park than a dam. We believe there should be community input into whether that is a one-way, two-way, or pedestrian and bike roadway.

• While a new dam would again retain water, it would not fully restore Broomall’s Lake. The lake had filled with sediment since it was formed by Broomall’s Dam in 1883, diminishing from a depth of 30-40 feet to an estimated 8 feet. Expensive dredging would be needed to restore the lake. The past president of Broomall’s Lake Country Club stated at a public meeting that the Club would sue Media Borough to pay for that dredging after the dam is built.

• The new dam would, however, destroy the northern end of Glen Providence Park. According to a site visit with the engineer who designed the dam, earthfill to create the new, larger dam would bury the northern end of the park. The new dam would extend over 70′ farther downstream than the previous dam, filling in wetlands and natural springs, and encasing the waterfall and stream in concrete, including – and past – the masonry footer from one of the park’s original footbridges. The construction area would be larger than an acre, with more than 70 mature trees removed. For dam safety reasons, the massive new dam slope, and a 10’ perimeter past it, could not be replanted with anything but closely mowed grass. What is currently a serene, wooded entrance to the park would look like a highway exit berm.

• The new dam would be classified as a high hazard dam. Under legal definitions, this classification is due to the potential loss of life and property at the homes downstream of the park, in the event of a dam breach. This does not even take into consideration the danger to anyone using the park. With “100 year” weather events happening with increased frequency, we take this threat seriously.

Friends of Glen Providence Park organized in July 2011 in response to the threat to Glen Providence from the proposed dam, and we have continued to advocate to minimize the project’s damage to the park’s wetlands, wildlife, and plants. You can see photos of the section of the park that would be destroyed on our website in our 1.1 Acre Project.

To minimize destruction to the park, Friends of Glen Providence Park continues to support dam removal, stream restoration, and a local discussion of an environmentally-sensitive bridge between Media Borough and Upper Providence.

For more information, explore the Third Street Project overview and the many Dam/Bridge articles on our website.

It was a winter wonderland in Glen Providence Park last year! Pennsylvania Woolly bear caterpillars had “predicted” last fall that the 2013-2014 winter would be cold and wet – oh, how right they were. Philadelphia had its third snowiest winter on record (since 1872), making for abundant sledding and magical scenery for winter walks. In February, we found a large valentine written in the snow on the frozen pond!

The temperature went as low as 4 degrees, but we observed birds foraging even on our coldest excursions in the park, leaving us to marvel at the resilience of these creatures. The sightings of Snow Geese and Ring-billed Gull brought our Park Bird List to 105 species. We captured our first photograph of a Bald Eagle in the park, being chased by American Crows! The intriguing Skunk Cabbage once again melted its way through the frozen ground, the first plant to flower each year – in winter.

You can click on any photo below for a closer look, and scroll through them all. You can compare our 2013-2014 winter to other years in my photojournals for December 2011, January and February 2012, and winter 2012-2013.  

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Jack in the Pulpit, a.k.a. Devil’s Ear

Also known as Parson-in-the-Pulpit, Lord-and-Lady, Cuckoopint, Lady-in-a-Chaise, Aronskelk, Indian Turnip, Iroquois Breadroot, Memory Root, Bog Onion, American Arum, Pepper Turnip, Dragonroot, Wake Robin, Plant-of-Peace, Cobra Lily and Cooter-Wampee.

Quite a plant of contradictory names, but those names certainly give some clues about it. Some names describe its appearance, where the spadix seems to hover within the shelter of the spathe, like…a parson in an elevated pulpit? A lady in a chaise? Other names, such as Indian and Pepper Turnip, point to its possible edibility. There is contradictory information as to whether Native Americans did cook and eat the corms or roots of the plant. But names like Dragonroot and Devil’s Ear should warn you that it is not a good choice for casual foragers. Supposedly the name Memory Root was earned because if one ate it, one would remember never to do it again! Much of the plant is toxic and has oxalate crystals that burn the skin. And lips. And mouth. And everything. Yikes! Bog onion gives you a hint about where it grows. Now I have no idea why it’s called Cooter-Wampee. Anyone?

In the fall, look for the cluster of red berries on the female plants. Interestingly, the plants can change from male to female. A Lord and Lady both! Arisaema triphyllum is also in the Arum family, like skunk cabbage. Read more about the plant here.

Garlic Mustard

Still flowering! Now here’s a plant that is invasive, sounds uninviting but is a great plant to forage. Read more about how it got here and what to do with it at Eat The Weeds. Our invasive plant removal volunteers also pull it out every Friday, along with other troublesome invasives.

False Solomon’s Seal

In the Lily family. Distinguished from true Solomon’s Seal by the flowers: the true have small whitish-green flowers that dangle below the stem, where false has a raceme of small white flowers on the end of the stem. Hence the name, Maianthemum racemosum. (It’s sometimes called by another scientific name, Smilacina racemosa — so much for the scientific names being definitive!) Anyway, those flowers, after being pollinated by a variety of small bees, flies and beetles, become small berries. They ripen into red fruits that are consumed by many types of birds. The leaves are not particularly tasty, and thus the plant has avoided being overgrazed by deer and other herbivores. Native Americans had medicinal uses for the plant. More information is available at Penn State Extension and The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, both excellent online resources.

December 2020 update: We will be updating our website to enable our Flickr galleries to again display here. Until then, you can view our May 1.1 Acre photos on Flickr.

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Many problem invasive species such as Multiflora Rose (Rosa multiflora), Wineberry (Rubus phoenicolasius) and Japanese Barberry (Berberis thunbergii) are spiny brambles and are thus nearly impossible to be eaten by hungry deer. On the other hand, invasives such as Lesser Celandine and Garlic Mustard are edible by humans! But they flower and seed so readily that even a Borough-wide feast might not even knock out these plants.

March began the display of how different trees bud out. You’ll see a sampling of some of our native trees in bud as they reach for the skies. Also, I had never noticed American Hornbeam in the 1.1 Acre before. I’ve seen it in other areas of the park, but had no idea it was right there!

You can also visit the entire Friends of Glen Providence Park’s Flickr Gallery, where you can read informative descriptions with the photographs, and even view them as a full screen slide show!

December 2020 update: We will be updating our website to enable our Flickr galleries to again display here. Until then, you can view our March 1.1 Acre photos on Flickr.

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The goal is to record this area of the park throughout the year so it may be remembered once it is gone, and also to document areas of valuable native plants that might be transferred to other areas of the park. There are also possibilities to recover historic stone for use in park structures elsewhere.

The 1.1 acre area holds the historic Iron Spring (once a public drinking area), patches of native plants, valuable wetlands, some very old trees (which were tree mapped previously), as well as the remains of one of the historic foot bridges. Obviously it is home to numerous animals which we hope to document as well.

So, take a look at the photos below, shot by Stephanie Gaboriault, Amy Johnson, Marcia Tate and myself, Shannon Davidson. You’ll see from week to week we notice different things and we each have a different ‘eye.’ You can also visit Friends of Glen Providence Park’s Flickr Gallery with lots of other great shots. If you enjoy taking photos, we welcome your shots on the Flickr page as well!

February was a good month for noticing overwintered berries, the diversity of tree barks and fungi, structural elements and the little bits of green that were the Christmas ferns. Skunk cabbage buds were the earliest sign of spring. As spring emerges this month and in April, we hope to spot native ephemerals, bird and animal activity, and trees leafing out.

December 2020 update: We will be updating our website to enable our Flickr galleries to again display here. Until then, you can view our February 1.1 Acre photos on Flickr.

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It’s our 2013 project to document the plants and wildlife in Glen Providence Park!  We’ll continue our photojournal of the whole park, but this year we’ll focus our efforts on one acre of the park- the construction area for the 3rd Street Dam. 

We don’t know when construction will start to replace the dam, but it may be as early as 2014.  Whenever it starts, according to the project engineers, 1.11 acres will become a construction area, with approximately .64 acres buried with earthfill.  So, in order to appreciate the 1.1 acre while it lasts, we will document it over the next year!

The trees marked on Philly Tree Map are within the 1.1 acre construction area

The perimeter:

Last year, we used the dam construction diagrams from the project engineers at Larson Design Group and Schnabel Engineering to identify the perimeter of the construction area.  We then registered 76 trees within that area on Philly Tree Map– some of our favorite of the 18 tree species we found there were Umbrella Magnolia, American Sycamore, American Witch Hazel, Sassafras, American Hornbeam and Black Tupelo.  The resulting tree map shows the perimeter of the 1.1 acre construction area.
 

History:

1930’s or 40’s photo of footbridge near waterfall. Posted with permission of Media Historic Archives.

The acre has changed through the years, as you can see from early photographs.  There was once a rustic footbridge across Broomall’s Run, where the path led through a fernery at the base of Broomall’s Dam to a drinking spring on the Upper Providence side.  That spring is still there, but difficult to access- and it is right on the border of the construction area, at the base of an enormous Tuliptree.  We cleared part of the then-disused path leading to the spring at our second volunteer day in October 2011.  A footer from the footbridge is still there- but according to the engineers’ diagrams, the new dam will cover it.
 
 

Our project:

American Witch-hazel in the 1.1 acre- where it is abundant!

We’ve been documenting the plants and wildlife in the park through our photojournal, Birding Big Year and Tree Mapping.  Now we’d like to learn more about the 1.1 acre- four of us will visit the park through the year, and post our photographs and observations.  We hope to document what species are within that acre, and identify those valuable plant species that could be transplanted and saved prior to construction.

We’ll be focusing on the 1.1 acre, but it’s a great way to closely observe nature and follow the seasons in the park.  On our visit on a bitterly cold February morning, we observed the Skunk Cabbage already emerging.  And the frozen waterfall and Broomall’s Run have been lovely in the snow!

It’s a serene part of the park- we welcome you to visit it!  It’s an introduction to the 1.1 acre, and a long farewell.

– Amy, Marcia, Shannon & Stephanie
 
 
Here are a few photos so far showing the 1.1 acre- you can click on any one for a closer look.