Coastal Resilience and Stream Restoration at Eagle Harbor

An historically, waterfront community enhances resilience by restoring a degraded stream, thus reducing flooding with the community, and improving the water quality being delivered to the Patuxent River.

Incorporated in the late 1920s, the historically black community of Eagle Harbor is located on the shores of the Patuxent River, a major tributary to the Chesapeake Bay. Faced with issues of ongoing erosion and increasingly intense and frequent flooding, the Town of Eagle Harbor launched the Eagle Harbor Resiliency Project. The project called for the restoration of Coleman Creek, a tributary to the Patuxent that had become eroded and degraded by stormwater from surrounding development

With funding from the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, the Town turned to Biohabitats for help in designing and building the restoration of 1,400 linear feet of Coleman Creek. The project was than expanded by GreenVest LLC to delivery sediment TMDL credits to Prince Georges.

After conducting comprehensive ecological assessments of the creek, Biohabitats developed designs the restoration components. The stream restoration design, which Biohabitats crafted in collaboration with the Town and construction subcontractor Meadville Land Service, involved the use of wood harvested on-site within the headwaters to both stabilize and enhance the ecology of the system while also slowing down and storing storm flows. Improvements within the community include bank stabilization to protect private property, creation of wetlands and roadway culvert improvements to lessen flooding,

TAGS

• Design
• Design-Build