UMBC STUDENTS FOR ENVIRONMENTAL AWARENESS present …. Marsh Cleanup at Jug Bay

Who: Hosted by Students for Environmental Awareness- all students are welcome to attend

What: A very fun, very muddy marsh cleanup

When: April 10 from 8:30 am to around 4 pm

Where: meet at the Commons Loop to carpool to Jug Bay Wetlands Sanctuary 1361 Wrighton Road, Lothian, MD 20711

Why: for fun! And to learn more about and help care for our wetlands!

How: (Here’s the really important part!) email or call Mary Norell (MaryNorell2@gmail.com or 301-786-6694) by the Wednesday beforehand afternoon if you want to come!

Details for Saturday’s Clean Up

  • Now with extra mud1. Needless to say it has been a very wet spring. Things a a bit soggy and there are lots of puddles/vernal pools in the woods. Great news for amphibians. One of the trails from last year’s amphibian hike is now under knee deep water.  The largest vernal pool where we are doing research is certainly larger than a football field with a maximum depth of 95 cm which is incredible.
  • Special area for SEA to clean up J
  • Some hip boots and chest waders available.
  • Rain or shine.
  • Continued search and rescue mission for Harry (or Harriet) the hedgehog who was rescued and then lost in the marsh in April 2009.
    1 If you do not find enough mud during the clean up, we can solve that problem by following the route of the summer camp marsh walk, which, of course, is the muddiest area at Jug Bay.

What to take for the Clean Up

  • Clothing that will almost certainly get muddy.
  • Take your own waders if you have them or can borrow them. Alternate footwear if planning to use Jug Bay waders in case they are not available.
  • Heavy socks if you think the borrowed boots might be a bit large because large boots in deep mud is combination that does not work well (foot pulls out of boot, not boot out of mud). Hip boots/waders from Jug Bay tend to be mostly men’s medium sizes and larger with few small sizes.
  • Towel, complete change of clothing (and shoes?) for the ride home
  • Long pants (with belt if using hip boots), long sleeves (plants can be scratchy), hat, sun screen.
  • Lunch  that we may eat at the clean up site.
  • Water bottle
  • They will provide work gloves, but if you plan to get out in the deeper mud, rubber gloves work a lot better if (when) you lose your balance or need to put your hands on the mud surface to get un-stuck.
  • Rain jacket (If the weather is bad, or you plan to splash around or are klutzy) But more seriously, the clean up area is out in the marsh where there is no shelter and it could take awhile to get back if it starts raining while you are in the marsh.)  There are some rain jackets available at Jug Bay if needed. As some SEA members discovered last year, not all jackets advertised as water repellant are truly useful for being outside for several hours in the rain.

Email Dr. Campbell (jcampbel@umbc.edu) for questions about Jug Bay or SEA leaders for trip logistics.  www.jugbay.org describes the location.


DIRECTIONS TO JUG BAY

Jug Bay Wetlands Sanctuary (JBWS) is on the eastern side of the Patuxent River in Anne Arundel County. Do not confuse it with the Jug Bay portion of Patuxent River Park which is on the other side of the river in PG County.

To add to the complexity, the Glendening Nature Preserve (GNP) is property adjacent to and part of JBWS. The marsh clean up meets at the visitor center on the main JBWS property.  For the “overnight amphibian monitoring,” on Friday night meet at the Plummer House, a renovated historic house on the GNP property.  JBWS is located off Rt 4 east of the DC Beltway.  Depending upon traffic, there are two ways to get there:

Little Traffic (probably Saturday morning)

As long as there are no major traffic problems en route, the fastest way is to take 95 south to the inner loop of the DC Beltway to Ext 11A, Route 4 (east / south). Continue east/south on Rt 4 past Route 301 and follow the directions below.

From intersection of Rt 301 and Rt 4:

Go east/south on Rt. 4 for 3 miles (1.5 miles after crossing over the Patuxent River) to the “Plummer Lane” exit on right. Bear left at first intersection (right after the exit) to stay on Plummer.

To JBWS Visitor Center

Follow Plummer Lane past the Plummer House driveway for 1/2 mile to Wrighton Road. Turn right on Wrighton Rd. On Wrighton, you will pass another (labeled) Glendenning Nature Preserve entrance on the right (there is only a sign and a parking area so it would be easy to miss it.) You will also pass a “Pop’s Pleasure” sign on the left that is apparently the name of a farm or house.  Turn left onto the dirt road with the wooden Jug Bay Wetlands Sanctuary sign (it is a half mile from the Plummer Lane-Wrighton Road intersection). The road is between two fields (farm). Continue to the parking lot at the end of the road. Go to the building that looks like a visitor’s center, not the one that looks like (and is) a private house.

When leaving Jug Bay, you cannot directly go West on Rt 4 from Plummer Lane to head home. The solution is to turn left just before you get to Rt 4 (the same intersection where I told you to bear left when you were arriving, just past the Plummer House driveway on the way home) which will put you on a service road parallel to Rt 4. You will pass a few small stores on the left. You will also encounter a ramp to Rt 4 that also only goes East, so ignore it. Eventually the road comes to an overpass that will take you over Rt 4 and you then turn left onto Rt 4 West.  (There is also a gas station/convenience store at that corner.)  (FYI, on the way to Jug Bay, any of the exits from Rt 4 after the bridge lead to this service road, so if you get off Rt 4 too early by mistake, you can recover by following the service road it to Plummer Lane and turning right).

Alternative: Neither MapQuest or Google Maps give proper directions to the visitor center at 1361 Wrighton Road, Lothian, MD 2071, so I suspect that GPS navigation systems will not be correct either. If lost, you can call them at 410-741-9330