To Mow or Not to MOW?
That Is the Question
Commentary by Joe Reynolds
If recent newspaper reports are correct, it seems OPA General Manager Dave Ferguson has adopted a truly democratic approach to OPA policy in regard to mowing of drainage ditches in the Pines -- take a vote of people living adjacent to the ditches.
Like many things in the Pines, this latest debate over mowing or not mowing ditches is the result of almost instant reaction to any complaints seeing light in the local media, not proactive attention to long term problems.
In this case the mowing issue was brought to media attention by the Manklin Creek Group. If the group's name doesn't ring a bell, they are primarily the folks living along the upper, non-bulkheaded end of Manklin Creek who want the area dredged so they have better boat access. Rebuffed on initial plans to dredge a channel up the creek with side channels going off to each property, the group shifted gears and decided to play the environmental card as a means to achieve their goal.
One cannot blame these folks for wanting better boating access, but they are no longer upfront about it and have resorted to making all sorts of questionable statements in an effort to attract public funding that would provide them with better boating access in the name of environmental improvements.
For example, the group is worried about people or animals becoming stuck in the deep mud. Their initial proposal to dig boat access channels would not have solved that problem, nor will their current proposal to remove about two feet of mud from the entire upper area. However, removing two feet of mud would indeed solve their boat access problems -- the real goal in all of this. If tidal marsh mud is a severe public safety issue, Worcester County may be one of the most dangerous places to live in the United States.
The Manklin Creek Group's latest efforts at gaining public attention with arguments about ditch mowing is arguably more self-aggrandizing than the mud danger one. One basis of their don't-mow argument is that OPA doesn't pick up the clippings and those clippings eventually make their way into Manklin Creek and contribute to the siltation problem. Perhaps the state should consider wiping out all aquatic vegetation in the coastal bays and the Chesapeake to eliminate this environmental scourge of rotting plant life.
Looking beyond the selfish interests of the Manklin Creek Group, the idea of not mowing drainage ditches may have some merit in other regards. OPA should look at this issue and formulate policy for all of Ocean Pines based on the best recommendations of experts in the field of drainage. Drainage is an issue across all of Ocean Pines, an issue that, like the weather, is often talked about but something we can do very little about. We all bought homes in a near pool-table flat area surrounded by tidal marsh.
Manklin Creek is a beautiful body of water. The entire creek has been adversely impacted by siltation. OPA lawn mowing isn't the problem. Much of the sediment came as a result of silt entering the creek during Boise Cascade development operations 35 years ago, and from silt running off other Manklin Creek watershed areas outside Ocean Pines. Development of Pennington Commons, not mowing, may be the primary contributor to siltation today, yet the recent media attention garnered by the group doesn't even mention this.
Manklin Creek resident Joe Schanno would like to see an effort to involve the federal government in a restoration of the entire creek as a model of what can be done with similar small bodies of tidal waters along the coast. Manklin Creek would probably be ideal for such a model project. It is relatively small and the major sources of siltation can be controlled at this point in time.
Manklin Creek could be a near pristine area of Worcester County, but it would take the combined efforts of everyone in Ocean Pines, OPA, Worcester County, the State of Maryland, and the federal government. A grand undertaking, but one worthy of the effort. Skimming two-feet of muck off the top of one very small area is not a grand environmental effort; it is simply an effort by a small group to obtain better boat access to their properties.
Uploaded: 7/8/2005
