This blog was writ­ten by Julie Napoli­tano, intern with The Office of Envi­ron­men­tal Sus­tain­abil­ity and stu­dent at UMD study­ing Envi­ron­men­tal Science-Natural Resource Man­age­ment. Thank you Julie!

In the mood to enjoy some of the beau­ti­ful weather we had last week, I decided to take my son for a walk around Font Hill wet­land park near our home. This is one of my favorite places to walk, although I had not been there in over a year.  It is smaller and less crowded than Cen­ten­nial Lake and offers more oppor­tu­ni­ties to see wildlife such as tur­tles and song­birds.  As we passed through the marshy area towards the main pond, I noticed some­thing dif­fer­ent. There were islands of plants float­ing in the pond. I thought to myself, are these float­ing wet­lands? Turns out they are! So what exactly are float­ing wetlands?

These float­ing wet­lands are con­structed using native, peren­nial aquatic plants sus­pended in float­ing rafts and they mimic the same basic func­tion as nat­ural wet­lands.  Nat­ural wet­lands, such as those found through­out the Chesa­peake Bay, are known for their abil­ity to improve water qual­ity. This water qual­ity improve­ment is a result of the wet­land plants pro­cess­ing excess nutri­ents, inter­cept­ing other pol­lu­tants, trap­ping sed­i­ment and reduc­ing sus­pended solids in the water.  In the case of float­ing wet­lands, the plants’ roots are always exposed to the water. This con­tin­ued expo­sure enables them to con­stantly improve the things that degrade water quality.

Upon fur­ther research, I learned that these float­ing wet­lands have also been installed in another loca­tion in Howard County—Sewell’s Orchard. Both Font Hill and Sewell’s Orchard are wet­land areas that func­tion as storm water man­age­ment ponds as well as recre­ational fish­ing areas. These fea­tures make them ideal loca­tions for water qual­ity improve­ment. The water in these ponds emp­ties into streams which then join the Patux­ent River and even­tu­ally reach the Chesa­peake Bay. In addi­tion, the water qual­ity in these ponds directly impacts the wildlife that lives there.   The veg­e­ta­tion also pro­vides an aes­thetic qual­ity while pro­vid­ing food and cover for fish, insects, frogs, tur­tles, water­fowl and songbirds.

So, if you have vis­ited either of these loca­tions and found your­self won­der­ing what was float­ing in the water, now you know! These float­ing wet­lands were installed by Howard County Depart­ment of Recre­ation & Parks from a grant they recently received from the Chesa­peake and Atlantic Coastal Bay 2010 Trust Fund through the Mary­land Depart­ment of Nat­ural Resources.

Press Release for the Instal­la­tion of Float­ing Wet­lands: http://www.co.ho.md.us/News/News_20100614.htm

Back­ground on Font Hill Wet­lands Park: http://www.co.ho.md.us/RAP/RAPDocs/FontHillPark.pdf

Explore Font Hill Park: http://www.howardcountymd.gov/rap/rap_FontHillPark.htm

Explore Sewell’s Orchard Park: http://www.howardcountymd.gov/rap/rap_SewellsOrchardPark.htm