Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge

Food supply in the refuge is farther enhanced by maintaining moist-soil units, impoundment areas that can be flooded and drained to stimulate natural plant growth and to control seasonal water levels suitable for waterfowl and shore and wading birds.

The two large impoundments along Wildlife Drive have just been replaced to eliminate a problem that perplexed Carowan and limited the area usable by birds—the sloping bottoms made most of the water too deep for foraging. Fixing the problem meant rebuilding the area into four new impoundments, which is exactly what Carowan did, but not before first getting a 50/50 cost sharing from Ducks Unlimited, a frequent contributor to refuges nationwide for wetland projects. To make the job affordable, Carowan used refuge workers and equipment, doing for $200,000 what he says would have cost $2 million under a construction contract with outside forces. He likes to tell people that the massive project required moving an amount of dirt that would fill dump trucks lined up "back to nose" from the refuge to the [Chesapeake] Bay Bridge, a distance of almost 50 miles.

Now 34 new watergates permit the flexibility of directing water where it is wanted and of controlling depths to within a tenth of a foot. In the first year, the impoundments attracted thousands of greater yellow legs, "tons" of glossy ibis, and the first sighting of a ruff.

Wells and pumps installed later this year with partner dollars from Waterfowl USA will allow flooding earlier than year-end rainfalls permit, ensuring water for fall migrants despite the necessary drawdowns during the summer that stimulate the moist-soil vegetation. While water manipulation on the scale of the impoundments is doable, manipulation at a much larger scale is proving both daunting and worrisome. Daunting because Carowan is bucking regulatory hurdles and worrisome because rising sea levels are destroying increasingly scarce marshland.

Salt-water levels are rising twice as fast as elsewhere because of the land subsidence thought to be due to the flattening of the mantle left by the Ice Age, a phenomenon being hastened by the groundwater extraction of land development.

Carowan reasons that the public road through the refuge would serve to dike much of the marsh from the sea level rise if the single opening at the Little Blackwater River were equipped with a water-level control structure to replace the present free-flowing condition—another project he is confident would attract partnership dollars. The several regulatory agencies that would be involved, however, are reluctant. They want to know what the biological effects would be in advance. That could take ten years worth of data collection while marsh losses are allowed to continue, said Carowan.

The severity of the problem is enough for him to continue to argue for immediate installation of control structures and the continual monitoring of effects after rather than before his remedy is tried. But he is used to regulatory processes. Before constructing the new impoundments, it took him years to convince regulators that converting cropland to wetland was okay.

Concerns about marsh loss and its possible relation to overpopulation of Canada geese have even led to questioning the practice of prescribed burning of the marsh, first started as a way to promote plant succession and diversity when the refuge was established. Now thought to be possibly more harmful than beneficial, burning is being looked at by a panel of outside experts who have been asked by the refuge to make recommendations on future strategies for managing the precarious marshes. The refuge farming and prescribed burning programs were the grounds used for denying the wilderness status that was under consideration for most parts of the refuge in 1974.

The fifty percent increase in refuge size overseen by Carowan since 1989 has brought multiple results. The acquisition of valuable wetlands was made mostly through the use of private funds from the Mellon Fund, Chesapeake Bay Foundation, Conservation Fund, and The Nature Conservancy. The refuge ended up owning a hunting-club lodge, which is located south of the refuge at land's end on Fishing Bay. The building was turned over to the Chesapeake Bay Foundation and, after a multi-million dollar renovation, has become a flagship education center with coordinative ties to the refuge.

A 480-acre area retained by the Conservation Fund is being used as a demonstration forest for timber-harvest practices to favor the survival of the endangered Delmarva fox squirrel. Because of the tree cutting involved, this project would be difficult to undertake on refuge land. The research is funded in part by Chesapeake Forest Products, and results will be shared with private land owners to augment the habitat protection provided by the refuge.

The acquisition and protection of 125-acre Barren Island in the Chesapeake Bay became the bizarre result of the largest fine ever levied for a wetland violation. The court agreed to give to the refuge $1 million of a $2-million fine that it had imposed on a large Maryland landholder whose manager failed to obtain the necessary permits before disturbing wetland.

In another unusual partnership with the Corps of Engineers, its dredge spoils are being used to stem severe erosion of the island. Huge flexible tubes filled with spoils have been placed on the island's edge, and additional spoils are pumped in behind the tubes to recreate wetlands attractive to shore birds—a good example of an ecosystem approach says Carowan.

Work has started on an environmental impact study to establish the Nanticoke Division of Blackwater NWR, a 17,500-acre expansion that Carowan says contains exceptional wetlands along the Nanticoke River east of the refuge. He is pleased that some land owners are already expressing their willingness to sell, but acquisitions must await completion of the ongoing planning process and funding approvals. The Conservation Fund has agreed to serve as the intermediary purchaser.