Stream

One of the first things the students learned in their project to clean and monitor a stream behind Westminster East Middle School was that the stream had no name.And their final accomplishment in the project has been to get the federal government to approve an official moniker for the small tributary of the West Branch of the Patapsco River.Two years have passed since the students undertook their project as part of the gifted and talented program in the seventh grade. They went on to the eighth grade, and then the ninth grade, most of them at Westminster High School.

About 300 to 400 gallons of oil spilled into Sucker Branch Stream off Rogers Avenue in Ellicott City yesterday after a heating boiler broke at the Rockland Art Center.Environmental cleanup crews say it will take two to three days to clean up the spill.There is no danger to residents' drinking water or to the surrounding wildlife, said David Williams, an emergency responder with the Maryland Department of the Environment.About 8: 30 p.m., residents reported seeing "an oily reddish film" floating on the water's surface, said Lt. Chris Cangemi, a fire spokesman.

Herring haven't spawned in Herring Run for at least 50 years, but yesterday volunteers from dozens of Baltimore County and Baltimore City community groups celebrated their efforts to clean up the stream and lure the fish back.Organizers wanted everyone who attended their "Spring Migration" walk-a-thon and festival at Herring Run Park to get a taste of the fish they were helping. They served free pickled herring and herring in sour cream."It's got a very distinct flavor," said Dan Boward of Lauraville.

In a field near a busy Cockeysville road, David L. Rosgen led a "class" of environmental officials to a gurgling stream snaking through snow-covered grass this week.The stream known as Goodwin Run represented 31 years of work to Mr. Rosgen, who devised techniques of breathing life into dead and ailing brooks, streams and rivers by restoring their natural meander. It also represented a $180,000 investment by the state.His field trip brought 40 local, state and federal environmentalists to several Baltimore County streams, including Goodwin Run, Thursday morning -- all braving blustery winds and near-freezing temperatures to study the effectiveness of restoration projects based on Mr. Rosgen's techniques.

A TRANSFORMATION is under way in a section of a tiny stream that receives water discharged from Hampstead Water Treatment Plant at the edge of the Robert's Field development.The water discharge area was a broad concrete slab as wide and straight as a roadbed. Since this tiny tributary falls within the Gunpowder watershed, it's included in an extensive program to safeguard the watershed.This bit of stream has been redesigned to return to a natural state by the end of this month. It's hoped that trout will be enticed to move upstream.

LOOK WITH HOPE along the eager stream that twists through the pastures of the DeFord farm in the clear sunlight of a fall afternoon and you can almost see the brown trout swimming by.It may take a few years, God and nature willing, for this mile-long winding stretch of Long Green Creek to recover its status as a natural fishery, lost over the years to agricultural runoff and erosion of cattle grazing.But the process is getting a lot of human help from efforts of Trout Unlimited and the Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay.Those two conservation groups will be training volunteers in replanting stream banks and buffer zones on the Hydes, Md., property this Saturday in what is hoped to become a model demonstration of riparian restoration on private lands.

Baltimore County firefighters fought yesterday to keep chemicals from flowing into a stream that feeds Loch Raven Reservoir as they began cleaning up debris from a four-alarm blaze that destroyed a Cockeysville warehouse.A few small fires still were burning amid the twisted metal and broken cinder blocks of the Martin Surfacing Inc. building at Alt and Cockeysville roads late yesterday morning as fire crews set about constructing dikes to contain the water runoff.Water used to douse the fire had mixed with rubber granules and polyurethane liquid stored in the warehouse and used by Martin Surfacing to build running tracks and gymnasium floors.

Reacting to a citation from state environmental officials, the Baltimore Zoo has stopped dumping tons of foul-smelling animal waste at a city-owned site near the Jones Falls, zoo officials said yesterday.The citation, issued last week by the state Department of the Environment, accuses the City's Recreation and Parks Department of improperly storing tons of zoo manure on the western bank of the Jones Falls. State inspectors did not see manure running into the stream, but they were concerned that runoff from the site would pollute the stream.

Walter Burlingham used to hear the croak of frogs during his walks around Wilde Lake. That noise has disappeared.He used to see snails in the lake, but now they're gone, too, he said."

Heartened by volunteer efforts to help restore Little Pipe Creek near Union Bridge, a group of Carroll residents is joining forces to protect the county's other 600 miles of streams. Called The Friends of Carroll County Streams, the group's plans include restoration projects and education. Organizers said the group also might play an advocacy role in environmental issues. The group will hold its first public meeting at 7 p.m. tomorrow at Bear Branch Nature Center near Westminster. A crew of 100 volunteers helped plant trees along Little Pipe Creek, part of a much larger effort to restore the quality of the streamand reconfigure it to its original meandering route.