Back River

Most of the artwork that will be displayed Sunday on the grounds of a restored 18th-century mansion on Back River began as debris retrieved from that beleaguered waterway. Students from Maryland Institute College of Art and several Baltimore County schools gave a second life to detritus that volunteers have pulled from the river. The blend of recycling and creativity produced some truly abstract results that will be auctioned at the first Trash Art show at Ballestone-Stansbury House in Essex.

Baltimore County leaders pledged to work together to make Back River trash-free by 2020, signing a "trash treaty" on Tuesday at the watershed. County Executive Kevin Kamenetz joined council members, state lawmakers and leaders of the Back River Restoration Committee in announcing plans to implement regional strategies aimed at reducing litter. "We have not used every tool at our disposal for the environment," Kamenetz said. The county installed a trash boom at the site last April.

All of Baltimore's uncollected trash — from the bottles tossed in storm drains to the litter dropped carelessly on the streets — seems to wash into Back River. At least, that's the way it looks to residents along the eastern Baltimore County waterway. A trash boom installed a year ago was filled Thursday with bottles, tires, balls, logs, even a small appliance. Crews will remove all that debris to prevent it from flowing downstream into the Chesapeake Bay. But the task is never-ending, especially after a heavy rain.

Jack Mowll, a retired transportation consultant who was a conservation advocate in the Back River Neck area of eastern Baltimore County, died of pneumonia Jan. 14 at ManorCare Rossville. He was 95 and had lived in Essex and downtown Baltimore. He was born in Cleveland and graduated from Lee Jackson High School in Matthews, Va. He moved to Baltimore when his father sought work here during the Depression. In 1937, the family bought a home on Sue Creek, where Mr. Mowll lived for many years.

The Patapsco & Back Rivers Railroad has never enjoyed the undying veneration and saturated scrutiny by the rail fan community in word and picture, for a variety of reasons. It never had on its tracks the speeding limiteds pulled by powerful locomotives with exotic-sounding names that caught the traveling public's imagination, nor did it ever serve steaming tureens of Terrapin a la Maryland or aged prime Kansas beef in plush dining cars. In fact, when one considers all the railroads that have served Baltimore and environs through the years — the Baltimore & Ohio, Pennsylvania, Western Maryland Railway, the Maryland & Pennsylvania and the Canton Railroad, and now CSX and Norfolk Southern — the least known is the Patapsco & Back Rivers Railroad.

After a yearlong, mostly volunteer restoration effort, Back River in eastern Baltimore County is rid of more than 170 tons of debris, 2,000 tires and just last week, eight huge conduit pipes from a construction site. The river, long considered one of Maryland's most degraded waterways, is showing signs of life. Volunteers are finding crayfish, turtles and even a few crabs. "People are actually stopping and seeing how much work we have done," said Brian Schilpp, a county teacher who coordinates the cleanup.

You can talk all you want about cleaning up the environment, but sometimes you just have to get your hands dirty. That's the lesson a muck-spattered Ben Boor says he's picked up from his summer job clearing debris from Back River, one of Maryland's most degraded waterways. And some think it could be a lesson on how to tackle the Chesapeake Bay, too. As the sun blazed overhead Wednesday morning, the 21-year-old from Bel Air and three other area college students waded across the mudflats downriver from Interstate 695, reaching into the shallow water to wrest tires, a plastic garbage can and a waterlogged foam cushion from the murky ooze.

There's new life in Back River — though not quite what folks had been hoping for. The eastern Baltimore County waterway, long degraded by sewage and development, has been humming the past few summers with hordes of midges, gnat-like insects that swarm over the water and along the shoreline. They don't bite, though they look like mosquitoes. But their mating swarms are bedeviling waterfront residents, boaters and marina operators because the bugs are drawn to lights and light-colored objects.

Back River Neck Road has been shut down in both directions at Old Eastern Avenue in Essex while Baltimore public works crews repair a water main break, according to a DPW spokesman. The break in the 12-inch main is affecting seven businesses, three homes, a senior apartment complex and three hydrants, according to spokesman Kurt Kocher. Bank River Neck Road is closed between Old Eastern Avenue and Homberg Avenue. Temporary repairs were not likely to be completed before the evening rush, Kocher said.