Cow Pen Creek to Get Fall Makeover Saturday

Written and submitted by Christine Potts, Assistant Project Manager, Clear Creeks: Our Water, Our Heritage, Our Pride
Gunpowder Valley Conservancy

Doug Tomecek has been a clear creeks crusader since the day a leisurely stroll spawned a restoration commitment.  

"One day, I was walking along Cow Pen [Creek]," Tomecek said, "and I noticed about 20 barrels floating in the water, all the way up the creek.  I was concerned they might be chemical barrels, and the more I walked, the more debris I saw."

Tomecek had been picking up trash in Hawthorne’s two waterfront parks with a couple of friends since 2003.  But it was that walk in 2006 that led the 43-year resident of Hawthorne and Director of Communications and Community Development for the Hawthorne Civic Association to formalize and expand operations.  He began by involving more residents and securing a corporate sponsorship with Lockheed Martin/Armstrong and Associates.

"That first year I got about 55 people together," he said.  

Since fishing out the initial barrels—which turned out to be old, rusty and empty—that first year, volunteers have collected enough trash and shoreline debris to fill successions of Dumpsters.  The annual spring clean-up of Cow Pen Creek and related waterfront parks and shoreline now has many institutional partners and draws upwards of 100 volunteers. 

"We live here in Middle River," Tomecek said, "where people boat, fish, swim, and so we really need to be taking care of the water around us."       

This week, Tomecek and other devoted volunteers will be showing that care, by holding the first fall clean-up of Cow Pen Creek in partnership with Clear Creeks: Our Water, Our Heritage, Our Pride, a two-year project that helps answer a community desire for improved water quality in the creeks and rivers of the Middle River and Tidal Gunpowder watersheds.

With grant funding from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, Chesapeake Bay Trust, Baltimore County Department of Environmental Protection and Sustainability, and the Gunpowder Valley Conservancy, Clear Creeks seeks to encourage community creek adoption, clean up, and monitoring of 10 creek segments on 2.5 miles of waterways in the project's watersheds. 

Clear Creeks Project Manager Peggy Perry said, "After seeing his outstanding leadership and successful spring clean-ups year after year, I asked Doug to adopt Cow Pen Creek, to become involved in our Clear Creeks Project, and to clean it for our ‘Better Waterways’ fall clean up on November 16."

"Better Waterways" fall clean-ups of local creeks and streams occur annually throughout the Gunpowder Valley watershed with the support of grant funding, this year by Recreation Equipment Incorporated. 

"I wanted [Tomecek’s] efforts to be an example, a motivation for residents to also adopt and clean their local creeks," Perry said.  "He said he was happy to do it.” 

This week’s Cow Pen’s clean-up will follow what Tomecek calls a "a two prong attack." 

Fourth- and fifth-grade National Honor Society students at Hawthorne Elementary conducted an after-school, partial clean-up of the bike trail and tree line that runs behind their school.  Then, on Saturday morning, two crews of assorted volunteers—residents, Boy Scouts and Lockheed Martin employees--will clean the full quarter mile stretch of shoreline from tree line to water’s edge.

Over the past decade of clean-ups, Tomecek has noticed improvement both in terms of diminished extraction of large debris and increased community monitoring.

"I think we have finally gotten rid of all the big stuff," he said. “People are becoming more aware and watching to see who dumps what."

To learn more about how you can become involved in Clear Creeks adoptions and waterway clean ups, visit the project website at www.clearcreeks.org and/or contact Christine Potts at gvcchris@aol.com.