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|  This photo won an honorable mention in the American Forests' 2009 Tree Hugger photo contest www.imatreehugger.org/index.html). In the photo, members of the Mattawoman Watershed Society pose beneath a venerable Overcup Oak that anchors the bank of Mattawoman Creek. Also known as the Swamp Post Oak, this elegant specimen measures 13 feet in circumference. Mother nature overruled hugging from this angle, as the tree supports thick vines of Poison Ivy, a native with berries important to birds.
This oak epitomizes the plight of forests threatened by sprawl development throughout the Chesapeake Bay watershed. The tree’s locale is threatened by a proposed highway, an unneeded and growth-inducing extension of the Charles County’s Cross County Connector. At the same time, Mattawoman Creek is documented as Maryland’s most productive tributary to the Chesapeake Bay by fisheries biologists. The health of Mattawoman is due in large part to a watershed that is still mostly blanketed in forest, the best land use for aquatic life. Unfortunately, the creek is listed by American Rivers as the fourth most endangered river in the nation because the highway would not only destroy streams and many acres of important wetlands, but would open vast tracts of forest to new urbanization.
The Mattawoman Watershed Society is joined by over two dozen local, state, regional, and national organizations fighting to save the creek. These groups believe that the impacts of the Cross County Connector extension, including its growth-inducing impacts, justify denying the wetland permits pending before the Maryland Department of the Environment and the Army Corps of Engineers. In place of the highway, these groups promote 21st century Smart Growth alternatives that would replace sprawl-inducing highways with transit-oriented development, a viable approach since Charles County’s existing urban core is ideally located on a rail line that could connect to Washington D.C.’s metro system. (see
Commissioners discuss long-awaited light rail plans and the Trouble Ahead report available here.) http://216.235.203.128/Document.Doc?id=324
The oak’s Latin name, Quercus lyrata, reflects its lyre-shaped leaves, the rustling of which is indeed music to all who experience this soaring ambassador of the Chesapeake's forest. Success in saving Mattawoman Creek would return the favor, and be music to this old oak! | |
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