"It was totally incised and eroding more and more, and so the water would come rushing down here and erode it more every time," Clements said.
That erosion brought sediment downstream. Excess sediment is harmful to water quality, as it clouds the water, preventing the growth of underwater grass, according to the Chesapeake Bay Program. Those underwater grasses are nurseries for juvenile fish and crabs.
Now, working with Biohabitats, Inc., which designed the project, and Meadeville Land Service, which is building the project, the bed has been raised and reconnected with the flood plain, allowing the water to spread out and slow down. The creek is wider, Clements said. Roughly 1 mile of the creek's headwaters will be restored.
"Since they've spread it out and raised the bottom level, hopefully that will slow the water down and at least give it space to spread out, rather than incising the creek," Clements said.
Work on the headwaters restoration will wrap up this fall, followed by plantings. The ultimate goal, Clements said, is to improve water quality.
The completed project may bring even more wildlife into the area. The project, primarily funded by a $2.8 million grant from the Maryland Department of Natural Resources' Chesapeake and Atlantic Coastal Bay Trust Fund, will restore fish habitat and help beavers build along the waterway, Doug Streaker of Biohabitats, Inc. said Thursday.
At the base of the project, where the stormwater runoff the feeding the creek meets its tidal waters, roughly 400 truckloads of reeds (phragmites) have been removed.
With the reeds gone, parts of the creek are once again visible from the Spa Creek Trail where it runs behind Wiley H. Bates Middle School.
The reeds had grown on sediment that was washed down from the incised channels of the headwaters, Streaker said.
To restore that tidal marsh area, workers also lowered the elevation to a mid-tide range, Streaker said, so the marsh will get inundated with water and then dry out as the tide changes. They'll plant native grasses there to keep the reeds at bay.
As populations grew, development expanded and the stormwater runoff eroded the banks of the headwaters, sending the sediment downstream, Biohabitats said on its website. Step pools have been added to the headwaters of the creek, slowing the flow of runoff to decrease erosion.
The bed of the creek has also been raised, allowing it to reconnect with the floodplain — this will allow the incoming stormwater to rehydrate non-tidal wetlands in the area, according to Biohabitats.
The creek was deep, with fast-moving water that eroded banks and sent sediment and nutrients downstream— the restoration will make it shallower, with slower-moving water, Streaker said.
The restoration has also eliminated a fish blockage, allowing fish to swim upstream to spawn. There was a portion where the creek dropped several feet, Streaker said — they elevated that, eliminating the blockage, and also constructed riffles on the bottom using rocks to provide variation in the creek bed, creating a diverse habitat for fish.
There's an open wetland area along the creek above Spa Road. The channel that runs through the area, like other parts of the creek, was eroded, Streaker said.