For National Public Lands Day*, Friends of Glen Providence Park will again plant native trees and shrubs in the glen, this time on the Mountain Laurel Trail. This is our 11th annual NPLD project, working to improve wildlife habitat, reduce erosion, and beautify the park! 

Native Tree & Shrub Planting on the Mountain Laurel Trail!

Saturday, October 7
Rain date Sunday, October 8
9:00am-12:00 noon
Glen Providence Park – Main entrance
State Street

Our planting day is one of our most popular and fun events, and we are a part of the largest nationwide volunteer effort for public lands! We are incredibly grateful to Delaware County Parks & Recreation for providing funds for this project, and to the Delaware County Conservation District for the use of its Conservation Planting Trailer and supplies.

To help us plan our time effectively, and to plan for refreshments, we ask that you RSVP for this event – please let us know the number of volunteers in your party.

Volunteering details:

We will update this description as we identify other relevant details for volunteers, and we will email registered volunteers with more details and logistics.

Estimated time: 9:00am-12:00pm
Lunch and drinks will be provided for registered volunteers.

Activities will include:

• digging holes for the trees and shrubs
• planting trees and shrubs
• installing deer protection around trees and shrubs
• watering as needed

More logistics:

• We will provide the equipment, including shovels, spades, rakes, and wheelbarrows – but if you have favorite tools, feel free to bring them! If you do bring your own tools, please label them with your name.
• Bring work gloves if you have them.

Rain plan:
Our rain date is Sunday, October is 8 at 9:00 am. If the weather is not clear, we will post here and on our facebook wall by 8:45 am Saturday advising whether we will use the rain date.

Thank you, we hope to see you on National Public Lands Day!

Enjoy a gallery of past NPLD days in the park!

*National Public Lands Day is held this year on September 23rd, but we are celebrating two weeks later.

You have likely noticed the seemingly whimsical stacks of rocks along the stream in Glen Providence Park. People have also been moving rocks in the stream to dam and redirect sections, and presumably to make it easier to cross on foot. We believe these activities are well-intentioned, but moving rocks in and around the stream has unintended negative consequences. 

First, it is harmful to wildlife

To quote Ben Lorson, of the PA Fish and Boat Commission’s Habitat Division, “A stream’s bottom — the substrate — has its own micro-habitats. The substrate provides the base of the aquatic food chain — from algae to macro-invertebrates all the way up to game fish. The surfaces of the rocks and the cracks and crevices between them are very important as habitat…”  

And from ausableriver.org: “Salamanders and crayfish also make their homes under rocks, and rock moving can destroy their homes, and even lead to direct mortality of these creatures. Every single rock is potentially a home to the larval stages of aquatic insects, including dragonflies, damselflies, mayflies, stoneflies, and caddisflies, and many others. They cling to rocks and capture drifting food particles. By moving and stacking rocks, the insects that are attached to or living on the rocks can be desiccated and burned by the sun.”

It is also causing erosion

Much of the rock-moving that has occurred has directed water outwards towards the streambanks, where it is worsening the already severe erosion. Large trees have been undercut by the stream and fallen. Over the years, our Friday morning Conservation Crew has worked to remove log jams in the stream — this is important to direct water away from the streambanks. Constructing dams, redirections, and crossings in the stream has the opposite, negative effect — it directs water to the sides, towards the already-severely-eroded streambanks. 

The County is looking at long-term solutions for the pond and stream to address the ongoing erosion and other issues, but it will take several years before large-scale solutions can be implemented. Until then, it is especially important that the water flow towards the center of the stream and away from the streambanks to minimize the already severe erosion.

We discourage any moving of rocks in or around the stream, without first consulting with Delaware County Parks & Recreation and/or the Delaware County Conservation District. 

At yesterday’s Delaware County Council meeting, a contract was approved for emergency repair of the streambank at the base of the sledding hill in Glen Providence Park, and of the hillside above it. This area has been suffering from erosion for years, which was worsened in August 2011 by Hurricane Irene. That erosion prompted our first streamside buffer plantings in April 2012, in an effort to reduce further streambank deterioration.

Since then we have had more record torrential rain, with July 2013 second in all-time rainfall only to August 2011, and heavy precipitation this winter (in the form of snow!). This spring, more of the streambank started collapsing, and when we visited the site with Brian Vadino from the County Conservation District on May 2, he was alarmed at the degree to which the streambank had deteriorated. This led to a visit with the County Engineer this week, and the emergency measure.

I spoke with County Parks & Recreation Director Marc Manfre and Brian Vadino for more information about the repairs. For the design, the County is taking aesthetics and habitat restoration into consideration. They will first remove (and preserve) our plantings, then reinforce the streambank with dry stacked stone – the most attractive option for this highly used area. They will re-plant the trees and shrubs when they are done. They will both repair the eroded gulley uphill from the stream (at the base of the sledding hill), and create a berm to direct the water to the sides of the hill, to prevent future erosion.

Weather permitting, all of this will start as soon as permits are in place, as soon as Monday, June 9.

There will be more planning needed to more permanently address erosion along the pond and stream, as we previously wrote about in Upcoming Changes: Pond & Wetlands. Management of natural lands is a huge task, and Glen Providence Park is just 33 acres of over 600 acres that Delaware County Parks and Recreation manages!

We are incredibly grateful to Parks and Recreation and the Conservation District for their quick response and thoughtful planning to remediate the erosion, and to County Council for approving this emergency measure.

Rocks helping to minimize stream erosion under bridge near the pond

The Pond:

The pond is man-made, created in 1936 after the park was established.  But this pond is not a healthy ecosystem. And there are worsening erosion problems, on the stretch of land between the pond and Broomall’s Run, which threaten the pond’s existence.

County Parks & Recreation and the County Conservation District are assessing the erosion around the pond and stream, and ways to make the pond and stream both healthy and sustainable.  This includes the possibility of  converting the pond (all or in part) to wetlands.

Downstream dam wall & wetlands: this area will be filled with earthfill for the new dam

Wetlands:

There are .16 acres of wetlands at the base of the dam which are anticipated to be destroyed by the 3rd Street Dam project.  This is part of the 1.1 acres of park that will be destroyed or impacted by the construction. Per state regulation, .16 acres of wetlands will need to be created or remediated elsewhere.  One possible remediation location is around the pond in Glen Providence Park, in the area around the island.

The dam designer Schnabel Engineering is assessing this possibility, and will sketch a proposed approach.  Schnabel will meet with Media Borough and the County to get approval, then submit their plan to the PA Department of Environmental Protection and the US Army Corps of Engineers for final approval.

Delaware County Open Space Plan:

Glen Providence Park is one of six parks in the Delaware County Open Space, Recreation, and Greenway Plan.  County Planning will be evaluating the future use of the park, and there will be public hearings about the Open Space Plan early this winter. This could be an opportunity to discuss the future of the pond.

Tying it together:

On October 13, the Friends of Glen Providence Park met at the park with County Parks, the Conservation District, County Planning and Schnabel Engineering.  This was a brainstorming session to see how the wetland swapping could dovetail with erosion control projects, and also with the County’s Open Space Plan, to holistically address the park’s ecosystem and sustainability.  This included the possible redesigning of the pond and stream area.

We were impressed with the thoughtfulness of all parties, which included a wetland specialist, a watershed specialist, a native plant specialist and an environmental planner.  We also had a fortuitous encounter with a Penncrest High School science teacher who has been testing the water in the park for 15 years, and he had some observations about the pond’s water flow and biodiversity.

What next?

It is our understanding that the next step is for Schnabel to propose a wetland mitigation plan to the Borough.

What is the timing? 

Work may begin on the 3rd Street Dam as early as spring 2013, and the pond mitigation work would ideally begin before then.

What about the pond?

We understand the intention is to preserve the pond in some form, and that there would be a public meeting before any drastic changes to the pond were undertaken.  Something needs to be done to make the pond and adjacent stream healthy and sustainable, and we hope that thoughtful planning and community input can lead to an optimal solution.

We will keep you posted on developments with the wetland mitigation, the pond, and the County Open Space Plan!